Is there an afterlife?

"There is no conclusive evidence of life after death, but there is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know, so why fret about it?"
– Robert A. Heinlein

Here we are, appropriately concluding the series with a question that cannot be totally answered. There is no definite yes or no to this. The reality is that we don't know–at least for now. We've never had infallible scientific evidence of somebody coming back from the dead telling us exactly what occurs after life. Because of that, the evidence of nothing points us mostly to the fact that we just perish and that is that.

We don't know, and that's okay. The conclusion of the whole matter is that sometimes we don't have the answers, sometimes we can't figure it out, but that also shouldn't be the stopping point. We must remain curious; we must remain experimenters of those things we can wrangle into understanding. Just because we don't possess evidence that an afterlife exists, doesn't mean we never will.

This question of the afterlife rests firmly upon a more philosophical hinge and is also somewhat scientific. It isn't one of the more pressing questions to answer either because we're mostly figuring out ways to prolong life and avoid the unknown hereafter altogether.

But one day, we may answer it. One day, we might be able to stare into the workings of the brain once it has shutoff and see if there is an awareness beyond the mind once it dies.

However, as of right now, we have no proof, and with no proof we can only do one thing: hypothesize  as we've done for centuries––and we're damn good at it. Taking guesses and theorizing about the world around us helps us understand ourselves, our universe, and how to live a healthier, more meaningful life. It's what we do. We explore–not only the world visibly available to us, but the ideological, theoretical, invisible universe surrounding us every single moment.

Just because we don't know everything, doesn’t mean that we can't know everything. Stay curious.

"The soul takes nothing with her to the next world but her education and her culture. At the beginning of the journey to the next world, one's education and culture can either provide the greatest assistance, or else act as the greatest burden, to the person who has just died."
- Plato