Sum: Fragmentary visions of the afterlife

My spiritual development has gone from passive Christian to atheist and now I would like to call myself a Possibilian. The first transition was born out of a passion for science and the inability to simply put my faith in something that couldn’t be proven. The second transition was because of a book: David Eagleman’s Sum.

The problem I have with atheism is the arrogance with which it states that it is the solution; that there is nothing more to say on the matter.

In Sum, David Eagleman explains that without sufficient data one shouldn’t make a definitive decision about life after death and having read his book, which explores the myriad possibilities that await us in the afterlife in short, fragmentary descriptions and portrayals, any reader will be enamoured by some of the ideas he brings forth.

In my case, the day I received Sum (Christmas last year) I sent a friend the whole of the first story – taking seven texts and fifteen minutes. A little later I received a short and puzzled reply of “WTF was that?” But that was how I felt – how I feel – about this book. Everybody should read it.

David Eagleman’s background is perhaps not one you would expect from a man who has written a book about spirituality – he works at the Laboratory for Perception and Action and the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas, and is well known for his work on synaesthesia and neurolaw.

It seems incredible that a man so deeply entrenched in science is able to write so freely about the afterlife, a concept which many scientists might dismiss completely. However, perhaps this grounding in science allows Eagleman to entertain such flights of fancy whilst having them remain in the realm of possibility, explored as they are through the veneer of a liminal space between science and fiction which isn’t quite science fiction.

Forty different versions of what the afterlife could be might sound like a dull proposition, but Eagleman’s imagination is staggering.

Metamorphosis, for example, describes how there are three deaths; the first when the body ceases to function, the second when the body is put in the grave, and the third when your name is spoken for the last time.

As these three deaths are played out, you are sent to a lobby where you are joined by people from all over the world. Biscuits and tea are served. Small talk is had with the people around you, everybody aware that at any moment a caller may broadcast a friend’s name. In that moment, “your friend slumps, face like a shattered and re-glued plate, saddened even though the callers tell him kindly he’s off to a better place.”

Is it not possible that the afterlife is an epic quest whereupon every step taken is one that takes you closer to glimpsing your maker? He will then ask you the question, in a great booming voice, “ARE YOU BRAVE?”

“Yes,” you stammer back, and then the huge face, larger than the orbit of the moon, is pulled back to reveal a small withered old man, gout ridden and reliant on pills. He says to you, “It is not the brave who can handle the big face; it is the brave who can handle its absence.”

At this point there’s not much else you can do as a reader but lie back in your chair and think, “Shit…”

The depth is what strikes me. You can read one version of the afterlife and it’s an interesting thought; you read two, it starts to dawn in your mind that you’re reading something completely unusual; and after you’ve read forty fully realised notions of the afterlife, you can believe in the possibility of something after you die.

ollie.hunter@gmail.com