Wondering about this life – we can get out alive? A stark extreme is that our body stops functioning, brain included, and that is it. No senses to sense, thinking stops. Nothing. I recall that very response from an man I liked, respected, admired, Mr Dick Watts. Lunched with him most days 1966-67. He had been in WWII and seen death and told me the experience of picking up a dead man’s head. He was sure there was nothing there, nothing left. He concluded and remained firm that there is no life after death.

But there are lots of alternative opinions. Growing up in Kyogle with Methodist Christians, definitely a Heaven and Hell and no need to question details as a way of helping preference. There was little discussion of details – the clearest I recall is the story by Jesus of the rich man in Hell crying out for water from the poor man who had gone to Heaven, and being denied. That is in the story there was actual communication between the two places but it did no good to those in Hell. Now living in Asia there are all kinds of interpretation and some vivid detailed of particular kinds of hell customized to maximize backlash from sins on Earth. And in the heavenly life variations and grades of paradise based on merit on Earth, even numerical accounts of gross good deeds done.

On dozens of occasions I have initiated discussion by referring to the 1990 movie, Ghost, where the main character becomes a ghost after dying in a street robbery and is able to be party to his wife’s life after her husband died, all for the purpose of resolving the misdeed that led to his death. In short he has an afterlife for a period of time, able to see carryings on, in particular that of his work colleague and supposed best friend, who turns out to have contracted the street robbery and was only bent on personal gain and gratification after the main characters death. I found in discussion that all people I opened discussion knew the movie, and the split was half-half between those who summed up they did not believe in any life after death, and those who thought there was.

I have a dizzying scenario, partly prompted by the premise of that movie, and also variations of the scenario which I will try to describe: When you die, you revive your life, starting from birth where you have no recollection and also no options of choice. This time your life is exactly the same and you are an external witness to your physical 3D body doing what it did in the first life. And there is no option to change. Including where you face act stupid or bad. Of course the location and surroundings are “somewhere” and 100% realistic, but obviously not in the 3D coordinates where they happened on Earth. Now comes the onerous part. In watching your very human behavior, you are not alone. There is an audience. Here there are sub-possibilities: It could be a big crowd of all the people you would hope to earn respect from. It could be small group. Maybe just your spouse. Doesn’t matter because when your rerun is done, on an average 70 years they say, you start again. With different audience. If you had to do 70 year (or whatever) reruns with people one by one starting with those close to you and extending out to strangers, the total time to be taken would seem like infinity, but the meaning of that word is that after you had done 70 year reruns for every person on earth, individually, you would be no closer to infinity. Plenty of time left for earths inhabitants who did not live when you did, first before, and when done, those after. What this all implies that if you lived a fairly good life, you may well be relaxed most of a 70 year stretch, even proud with secret positive acts sometimes, and maybe a little squeamish and guilty sometimes. The corollary, if you were an evil conniving letch, would be a lot of hellish feelings revisited. I am not sure of the scenarios are even worthy of contemplating. Even if you lived an exemplary life and did heroic deeds that no one had known about, several reruns of 70 years showing loved ones would be enough. And for the worst people who had gone around torturing and causing pain, just watching in the reruns, even if washed to a pure soul, would not be a real hell. One thing this wondering exercise for me is reinforce the maths that infinity is a very long time, so I hope it is Heaven all the way.