Article Analysis of Quantum Mechanics and Existentialism: Removing my Fear of Death

Alex Vervloet portrays six significant details on existentialism guardedly, while explaining a quantum mechanical perspective and relationship with humans, death, and purpose using the terms “granularity”,  “indeterminacy”, and  “relationality” in his essay “Quantum Mechanics and Existentialism: Removing my Fear of Death”. Whether it be photons, electrons, quarks, and other parts of the atom, everything is made up of something. We are all stardust that has made its way into this form by chance and uncertainty. Does this make life meaningless? Well, it could just mean that the soul is absent and “[our] conscience just [disappears] after death,” (Vervloet, ¶1). Quantum Reality is determined by observation. Electrons like many quantum objects follow indeterminacy and “disappear from existence until they interact with something. That’s right, they are completely undetectable until then,” (Vervloet, ¶9). These quantum objects are also in a superposition, meaning in all possible states they could be in at the same time. Once someone observes it, it will collapse into one single state out of the probability at random. This means that reality is manipulated by consciousness; leading to some form of purpose. “The universe is not how things “are;” it’s how things interact and occur. Everything that is real is only real as a measurable distance to something else. Without two points to compare, there is nothing to measure. This has a profound consequence: time doesn’t exist,” (Vervloet, ¶12); this is Relationality. Death is always feared by many for generations with the big question ‘what happens after death?’, but now holding the proposed idea that vervloet says “conscience just disappearing after death” (Vervloet, ¶1) there is more to be thought about. There is a possibility that there is no soul, and just the chance of life and neurons firing in the brain to simulate consciousness like an artificial intelligence who believes itself to be alive. However, there is the simple awareness of being in a state that views everything somehow. Unknowingly, artificial intelligence, like robots, could be aware of its own state of consciousness and reality, but there is no true way to prove it. That raises the question of souls entering robots, or no soul for anything.If time is infinite or non-existent in an infinite universe, there is a chance that a single organism's consciousness would somehow recollect into the same form as it once was, but the question held is the memory and personality of said consciousness. Does this explain reincarnation? No… only the idea of coming back eventually due to probability. Vervloet states “Just like the universe began with a Big Bang (or bounce), so did we. Every human being is the product of a Big Bang. The right combination of entangled energy particles combined into a sperm cell and ovum to create us. Our body and consciousness explodes into existence and expands to adulthood, then shrinks until it reaches its inevitable death,” (Vervloet, ¶21). He believes that we are in a cycle of chance and probability by quantum nature, and just like the big bounce theory, which states that the universe had a big bang and will eventually crunch back in on itself and then explode again to form a new one, our conscience disappears after death and one day that could be quadrillions of years in the future, we will return; perhaps we already did return from many lifetimes before. Now that the explanation is clear, more questions and answers need to be sought out for the afterlife and existentialism of such topics.