How will deeper understanding of quantum physics hint to some kind of existence after death?

How will deeper understanding of quantum physics hint to some kind of existence after death? by Jess H. Brewer

Answer by Jess H. Brewer:

I like almost all the other answers, but since you use the word “hint” I will play with it a bit:

There are a lot of mysteries left in physics. One of my favorites is dark matter. Lots of proposals have been made about what it is, but no one has found direct evidence for any of them yet.

[Note: there are also some “dark matter trolls” here on Quora who miss no opportunity to “explain” everything in particle physics and cosmology with the same longwinded diatribe including pictures. I’m not one of those, so please keep reading.]

So there is still room to speculate. My favorite speculation is that dark matter is composed of “Gordian knots” of the 26-dimensional strings proposed to account for all the known particles. For reasons beyond our ken, the topologies of these knots render them stable against decay into the simpler strings we see today. This means that they are immune to all the interactions through which they might decay, and so experience only gravity. I call them Quipu, after the knotted strings used by the Inca to store information. These extremely small entities came into existence during the GUT Epoch, right after the Planck Epoch, and their configurational dynamics have sufficient complexity (making mere proteins seem as simple as electrons by comparison) to allow for the evolution of life and intelligence in collections of Quipu. So they are alive, they are immortal, they constitute most of the mass of the universe, and (considering that their equivalent of a “heartbeat” is the Planck time) they have unimaginable patience. These qualities give them the potential to provide a physical explanation for Animism, souls and all the other “woo-woo” stuff we physicists usually make fun of. They could “observe” and store unimaginable amounts of information, easily including the complete life stories of all sentient individuals who ever lived, and (in principle) play it all back in the ultimate VR universe.

Admittedly, this is pure SF. But hard SF, at least as long as string theory and dark matter remain untestable and inexplicable, respectively. And this model has the unusual promise of “eventually” offering a natural (physical) explanation for ideas that have hitherto been considered supernatural. What could be more fun?

Stay tuned for the novel, so far several decades in the making… but you may need the patience of a Quipu.

How will deeper understanding of quantum physics hint to some kind of existence after death?