Why is it people have such a strong need to believe the personality continues beyond death?
Musician Daevid Allen died Saturday, and immediately one of his fans posted about seeing a luminous cloud above London. When my sister died, we saw the brightest most distinct double rainbow I'd ever seen.
But it was misty out, the sun was shining, it was rainbow weather. I knew it was coincidence, even as it still makes me cry four years later.
When Harry Houdini died he promised his widow he would contact her, if he could, on his birthday. She tried every year for I think twenty years before giving up. There has never -- ever -- been contact of any kind from anyone who has ever died. So why does the belief persist?
If you say conservation of the soul, or personality, or something like that you have to ask where the personality was before birth. And that leads to some very hoary questions about the transmutation of souls.
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