by Cyrus Kirkpatrick
Cyrus Kirkpatrick was nineteen years old when he posted this essay to alt.consciousness.near-death-exp in February 2004, his first post to the group. He wrote under the name Epoch II. He had studied near-death research for years and found it absurd that society maintained a taboo on the subject of death when it concerned "absolutely everybody."
The essay proposes four models — Nonexistence, Quantum Immortality, Quantum Rebirth, and Quantum Order — and argues methodically through each. The first three, he contends, all eventually require the fourth. Quantum Order holds that life-force is not dependent on the physical universe, that consciousness is the foundational property of all things, and that NDE phenomena (light, beings, total recall, knowledge of the dead rather than the living) constitute the only available evidence for post-mortem existence — and that all of it points in one direction.
Kirkpatrick went on to write extensively about NDE philosophy. But this first essay already contains the architecture: patient taxonomy, logical elimination, epistemic humility about what can be known, and the final move — even if all evidence is set aside, life is too short not to act as if it matters.
Hi. I'm Cyrus, I've never posted on this newsgroup before, but I am quite interested in life after death, and I think it's silly that society has such a taboo placed on this subject when it involves absolutely everybody.
1. Nonexistence, probably the most widely held "belief" especially by those who claim to be rationalists. However, this is mathematically improbable. And is more often held as an assumption through the brain = existence train of thought. Just because death is a morbid topic and we're unsure of any answers doesn't mean we should leave all thinking at the doorstep.
2. Quantum Immortality. Imagine for a moment there are infinite universes for infinite probabilities. There are infinite other "you"s for every possible path you would take in life. And an infinite other mirror universes just like our own.
So if you died. You would immediately become unaware of the reality in which "you" no longer existed. Instead, you would "jump" to an alternate world where you were still aware of yourself. The way it would work is that if you shot yourself in the head, by some miracle it would never actually kill you. Because you'd never be aware of the reality where you died.
This theory isn't without its holes, some think this natural phenomenon would not allow you to escape death forever. Because eventually there would be no other probable direction you could go except for termination, for instance if your body were evaporated in an explosion.
However, you can theorize you would eventually start hopping to dimensions where the laws of physics no longer apply. But this just turns things even more abstract.
3. Quantum Rebirth. I'm sure this topic has been brought up in theoretical physics but it was actually something I theorized some years ago and I still haven't seen anyone else talk about it. It's similar to quantum immortality but it can work without the multiverse theory.
Imagine you died and as a result "you" ceased to exist. Eventually, whatever cosmic accident or act of randomness made you aware of yourself would be repeated... Even if it takes trillions of years through the end of the universe and the repetition of the big bang — the point in space time that represents "you" would someday become aware of itself again, most likely in the shape of a biological life-form with a brain.
Of course, you would be absolutely unaware of the cosmically enormous period of nonexistence. Death would instead feel like an immediate rebirth as some other living organism.
4. Quantum Order. This is the theory that all life-force is dictated under conscious order instead of randomness. And instead of life being localized around the physical universe it can exist alternatively in other dimensions. It is also the source of many other theories, including the idea that life-force is actually a form of energy, and all matter is made of energy, therefore life is the fundamental property of all things.
Quantum Order also implies the value of "personal" and seemingly irrelevant emotions, including compassion, imagination, and love. What we do in our day to day life and our relationship to each other is far more significant than supernovas and colliding galaxies. That the interaction between individual units of consciousness is the most important thing that we are currently aware of.
How this would affect you is that dying would actually just be a conscious shift to another dimensional wavelength where life-force is less dependent on physiology. From your vantage point it would appear as a sort of duality between yourself and your physical body as you phase into a different dimension with a new set of physics.
From this point, the possibilities are seemingly endless. Not only would you still exist and still be aware of yourself. Entropy would be gone and you'd be able to communicate freely with other life-forms in a very similar way to how we do it right now between each other on Earth. Only we'd have full orderly control over our environment, what we want, what we want to create, and where we want to go. However, this theory is extremely abstract and has no evidence to support it... Right?
Not so fast.
Let's look over each possibility again and try to figure out the most likely scenario.
- Nonexistence: You would only be nonexistent for so long until quantum rebirth takes effect. Therefore, this has to be invalid.
- Quantum Immortality: If the multiverse theory is correct then this would save your life until you'd be faced with no other possibility but termination. While it might mean we will all live long and healthy lives, it doesn't explain what happens after death.
- Quantum Rebirth: In my opinion the most likely scenario if you reject the Quantum Order theory. But it's absolutely impossible to know for sure because there is no way it could ever be tested or understood outside the realm of theory.
- Quantum Order: A seemingly far-fetched idea which can only be supported by the fact there are heaping truckloads of evidence pointing in this direction.
What evidence? Well, if life-force is not dependent on the physical universe, then this alternate dimension would be somehow "near" our own. So, wouldn't we be getting contacted from this place? Surprisingly the answer is yes and we are.
The near death experience is obviously the most direct evidence pointing toward this Quantum Order theory. I've read all the opposing hypotheses toward the NDE and while some are convincing they do not hold weight.
There is also much more — mostly anecdotal — evidence to support Quantum Order. From the amazing mediumship of Helen Duncan and Leonore Piper to millions of stories of post-death contact ranging in dozens of different topics. While it might be easy for some people to upturn their noses at all this phenomena. What else do we have? It's the only evidence available for what happens post-death and it's pointing in one direction. Logic dictates we should embrace this information and put further studies into it.
Logic aside, if all these things are but figments of our overactive and hallucinatory minds. At least a universal order implies that every small act of kindness we perform is far more valuable than we realize, and that possibilities in life are absolutely endless. So even if we disregard every piece of evidence and every tale of cosmic reawakening brought back from the near dead, at least belief in this would do only good things for our society. And since life is short, why not live it happily?
Colophon
Written by Cyrus Kirkpatrick, posting as Epoch II. Posted to alt.consciousness.near-death-exp on February 12, 2004. Kirkpatrick described this as his first post to the group; he was at the time a young researcher who had studied near-death experience literature for years. He would go on to post several additional essays to the group on NDE philosophy and the limits of human language in describing post-mortem consciousness.
Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: <[email protected]>.
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