What will become of my individual self after I die?

I am reproducing here a text written in response to a question posed by Denis Guénoun, following my recent meeting in Paris with the Foyer de l’Âme community, a reformed parish of the Liberal United Protestant Church of France. Denis Guénoun was born in Oran (Algeria) in 1946 and brought up in an agnostic Jewish family; he is Professor Emeritus at Sorbonne University, Paris, holds a PhD in Philosophy and, more recently, another in Theology; he is a prolific writer, actor and theatre director (https://denisguenoun.org). His question concerns “the status of individual uniqueness, an issue that becomes particularly acute when facing death. You suggested that you do not want to be confined within the limits of your ‘little person’. Okay. But that does not suffice to dispel the torment of the ‘self’ within me”.

 

This is yet another of those fundamental questions to which I have no answer, neither a resounding ‘yes’ nor a clear ‘no’.

There came a time in my life when all the answers I thought I had –though always accompanied, of course, by fresh questions, all manner of doubts and no few concerns– ceased to hold water in their immediate, literal sense. They were human words and images, tailored to the marvellous yet radically limited cognitive capacity of that unique mammal known as Homo sapiens, in accordance with some deep-seated human needs (always so ambiguous), in a given language and culture, at a specific time and under specific social circumstances. The same is valid for the Greek concept of the immortality of the soul, just as it is valid for the firstly Zoroastrian and later Jewish category of the resurrection of the dead at the end of time, for the Christian “last things” (heaven, hell, purgatory) inspired in Persia, Israel and Greece, and for the ancient Hindu category of reincarnation.

What to make of all these concepts? They could be abandoned entirely, as they have become obsolete in a culture such as ours, characterised by rapidly advancing global scientific knowledge. Or simply forgotten. However, we could also continue to ask ourselves: Is it human to reduce knowledge to mere science which emerges through empirical observation, mathematical development and experimental verification, while relegating symbolic, poetic, ethical and political reasoning? Shouldn’t we continue to embrace all that cultural heritage as historical testimonies to a deep-seated yearning that still dwells within us, as sources of inspiration, as metaphors that direct our gaze towards the infinite reality of which we are a part?

In order to find a way through this confusion, I believe it is essential to keep asking:

1) What is meant by the “individual self”? Am I merely this ego that sets itself up in the centre of the world around it? Am I this consciousness that divides reality into subject and object, that objectifies everything it observes, feels and thinks, imagines and desires? Am I this dual self that perceives the other, even the infinite, as other with respect to me, or as other opposite me, or as the other self? Is not a different dimension of expanded consciousness possible? One that is un-defined/un-definite, unobjectifiable yet real, a consciousness of self as other of self, at the very depths of self, of the other as the deepest self, as a consciousness that transcends the self at the very depths of itself, a consciousness of the ‘I’ as the infinite ‘you’ and of the ‘you’ as the infinite ‘I’, beyond all duality and unity, beyond all dual otherness and all monadic unity? Are not all beings (minerals, plants, animals, humans…) both a ‘you’ and, at the same time, one within the whole, the whole within the whole, beyond the superficial form of each individual?

2) I also wonder: Due to the radical limitation of language (always dual) and the strength of tradition (overly subjectivist), have we not placed too much emphasis on the importance of the “enduring of the self”, the latter understood in a register that is too egoic? The orchid, the blue tit, the dog that accompanies us…  Do they not perhaps die in a more natural, less dramatic yet no less generous way, by leaving behind or giving everything so that life may endure in other living beings, and also in memory (healed by mourning wherever there is mourning)? Despite their faith –or perhaps because of their trust– in almighty God, creator of heaven and earth and all living beings, did not all the Jews die before the middle of the 2nd century BC?––and, consequently, the great prophets Hosea, Amos, Jeremiah, the three Isaiahs…– without the benefit of any kind of real life after death? Could we not, in the same way, die without attaching too much importance to the enduring of the individual self in its form or in its individual consciousness? (Aristotle referred to the “soul” as the “form of the body”, and in that respect this was echoed by Saint Thomas Aquinas).

3) Is not every death a gift of self, a surrendering of our entire physical (atoms, molecules…), psychological and social baggage, along with our entire “work” or our legacy (both bright and bleak) —a surrendering of self to familiar other, to social other, to ecological other, to cosmic other, to infinite other in which all is? Is it not matter –beyond any matter-spirit duality– the matrix or the potentiality of all the forms in which our senses perceive and our brain conceives or imagines all reality? That being said, if matter –the universal matrix– is neither created nor destroyed and can be said to be infinite and eternal, might one not say that all the “material” elements or “ingredients” that constitute us endure, persist, in an unending variety of other forms, within the infinity of what is?

4) So, I also wonder: Would death not be like a transformation of individual consciousness –its “passage” or “pascha”– towards the realisation of its true self within the infinite whole, in which the individual self will truly end up becoming what is?

5) Biological death obviously involves the breakdown of the organism, the dispersal of its constituent elements, but no fundamental “material” element (particles, atoms, molecules) is destroyed or disappears; rather, everything is “transformed”. And it follows, therefore, that the “form” or individual consciousness cannot endure once the “material” medium breaks down. If that were the case, I would not regard it as a big deal either for this “individual self” that I am (despite the grief that my death might cause those who love me), or for life in general, which will inherit the elements that constituted me at the moment of my death, nor for the infinite universe. And I do not believe that the existence of countless individuals whose lives have been unjustly unhappy, or who have been mistreated or murdered throughout history, can be cited as an argument in favour of the enduring of the individual self. History is certainly tragic and unjust for many human and non-human beings, and it serves as a powerful wake-up call to help bring about justice in this unjust world and might even lead us to wish for the existence of an afterlife where justice is done on behalf of all the victims. However, I do not regard this as a valid argument for asserting the “need” for an afterlife that would rectify the injustices suffered right here.

6) In any case, I cannot but leave the big question open: Would it be completely absurd, or at odds with current scientific understanding, for the current form, consciousness or individual self to endure within an expanded consciousness, or within a cosmic, infinite or “divine” consciousness? I am drawn towards this by the hypotheses that many physicists are currently putting forward regarding consciousness in general and individual consciousness in particular. Matter, like energy and potentiality (perhaps infinite and eternal), is also, we are told, “information”. Every form, every self, is an accumulation of ordered information. In principle, information about the self is irretrievable once it has been dispersed, just as information about a log is irretrievable once it has been burnt in a fire and all its atoms have been dispersed. However, I understand that not all scientists rule out the possibility of recovering the dispersed data in some way. The truth is that all our categories pertaining to space-time –here-there, past-present-future –are our own mental schemata. If I understand correctly, the existence of the quantum entanglement of particles takes place in space and in time. And, though it makes me dizzy, I wonder: Is it not possible to imagine the enduring not only of the particular information within universal information, but also, conversely, the enduring of universal information in every particular form?

7) So, by way of an open-ended conclusion, and even though I am not particularly concerned about the “final” fate of my individual self, I cannot help but keep asking myself: Will not the information that constitutes every individual self endure in the memory of the burning bush, in which everything burns and is not consumed?

José Arregi (www.josearregi.com)

Aizarna (Basque Country). 25 March, 2026.