{"id":12327,"date":"2015-01-03T09:55:31","date_gmt":"2015-01-03T17:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/?p=12327"},"modified":"2015-01-03T09:55:31","modified_gmt":"2015-01-03T17:55:31","slug":"life-is-the-flame-of-a-candle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/03\/life-is-the-flame-of-a-candle\/","title":{"rendered":"Life Is the Flame of a Candle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Emperor<\/a> Last October I was privileged to be awarded the Emperor Has No Clothes award<\/a> from the Freedom From Religion Foundation<\/a>. The physical trophy consists of the dashing statuette here on the right, presumably the titular Emperor. It’s made by the same company that makes the Academy Award trophies. (Whenever I run into Meryl Streep, she’s just won’t shut up about how her Oscars are produced by the same company that does the Emperor’s New Clothes award.)<\/p>\n

Part of the award-winning is the presentation of a short speech, and I wasn’t sure what to talk about. There are only so many things I have to say, but it’s boring to talk about the same stuff over and over again. More importantly, I have no real interest in giving religion-bashing talks; I care a lot more about doing the hard and constructive work of exploring the consequences of naturalism. <\/p>\n

So I decided on a cheerful topic: Death and Physics. I talked about modern science gives us very good reasons to believe (not a proof, never a proof<\/a>) that there is no such thing as an afterlife. Life is a process, not a substance, and it’s a process that begins, proceeds along for a while, and comes to an end. Certainly something I’ve said before, e.g. in my article on Physics and the Immortality<\/a> of the Soul, and in the recent Afterlife Debate<\/a>, but I added a bit more here about entropy, complexity, and what we mean by the word “life.”<\/p>\n

If you’re in a reflective mood, here it is. I begin at around 3:50. One of the points I tried to make is that the finitude of life has its upside. Every moment is precious, and what we should value is what is around us right now — because that’s all there is. It’s a scary but exhilarating view of the world.<\/p>\n

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Sean Carroll: Has Science Refuted Religion<\/div><\/div>
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