Saturday, August 01, 2009

Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives

by David Eagleman

What happens after we die? It's one of the most basic questions, and every human culture has come up with answers. Science has its own answer, which, to many of us, seems unsatisfying. Rather than worry about who's right, David Eagleman suggests we explore the idea of the afterlife even further. In Sum, he offers 40 of his own visions of possible afterlives, most of them mutually exclusive. Each is imaginative and thought-provoking, and seem no more more or less plausible than some of those afterlives proposed by philosophers and theologians throughout the ages. I found it beautiful.