Do we live on after death? Our bodies do with an increase in genetic activity for about 2 days, despite consciousness being gone. Despite the lights going out in consciousness and the overall bodily functionality being terminated, the inner micro-world at the level of genes still has an increase (not decrease) in activity and with more "life" going on.

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Self-Digestion Activity "Life"

Our cells no longer receive oxygen and acidity increases as toxic by-products accumulate with no way to get rid of them. This process is called autolysis (self-digestion). Eventually the cell breaks down. Blood cells drop down with gravity, and the color from skin fades away. Body temperature falls, and rigor mortis sets in. The microbes and bacteria that our immune system kept at bay now spread throughout our organs, digesting us from within.

All of this is an activity that can be perceived as "life", but that's not the real story hear. Not death processes, but talking active movement to stimulate bodily processes that we think are dead and no longer working.

Genetic Activity "Life"

The mRNA of mice and zebrafish at the time of death, and intervals after death, was studied. After death there isn't a gradual winding down of gene activity that use mRNA to talk to cells. Instead, thousands of genes are still active and hundreds of genes "wake up" after death, and peak in activity after 24 hours. mRNA activity lasted up to 96 hours after death.

In humans, previous studies have demonstrated parallels. Genes involved in heart muscles and wound healing are active 12 hours after the death of those involved in multiple traumas and heart attacks. It's possible the genes are activated from inflammation as part of the healing process. It's also possible the less active genes "come to life" when the other ones die.

Credit: jon crel/flikr, CC BY 2.0

Tracking this activity can help in more ways than simply acting as a fun fact. Measuring mRNA of a death victim, with a handy portable scanner, would allow the pinpointing of someone's death within hours, if not minutes, rather than days. This can help for solving crimes as we often see detectives on TV getting the time of death to find the perpetrator.

Credit: Wonderlane/wikimedia, CC BY 2.0

Rebirth

The totality of who we are is indeed dead at death, consciousness fades away from presence. Part of us remains as our bodies. The bio-nature physical part of ourselves persists in some activity as the last bits of energy are consumed, before succumbing to the end. Now the biological movement is finished, and decomposition takes charge to return our individuated bodies back to mother earth and the universe that our bodies came from.

After the self-contained biological creation ceases to self-sustain it's functionality, it's defenses from nature are down. The ability to withstand the entropic pressure is removed, and we begin our descent into decay.

Credit: László Mednyánszky/wikimedia, public domain

Signals of readiness for decay and decomposition are picked up by many aspects of nature. Oxygen, insects and micro organisms all work to break down the individuated construct back into smaller and smaller parts for return to the universal whole of the "mother's womb" in nature.

Far from being dead, our bodies are now filled with other forms of life.

Our bodies break down and disperse into existence like whispers in the wind. Our bodies are made up of atoms we own during our life. When we die, ownership returns to the universal mother from whence we all came. Forms of matter are consumed and broken down, often into energy, eventually being reorganized, arranged and coordinated into a new form of matter. The entropic chaos of destruction transforms into the syntropic ordering of new creations.

Credit: James Jordan, CC BY-ND 2.0

It's Not Simply "All Energy", Things Matter

Cycles exist within nature. Recognizing these cycles doesn't mean denying meaning, purpose and values in life, such as truth vs. falsity, right vs. wrong, and good vs. evil. Some people attempt to engage in hyper-reductionist false equivocation fallacies to relegate everything as simply "energy". They appeal to the second law of thermodynamics and twist things around in oversimplified false understanding. As if nothing matters morally because everything is just energy.

They act as if, and even tell you, that nothing is "destroyed", nothing "dies", everything is just "cycles of life" and energy, so there is no good or evil, right or wrong, moral or immoral. Just experience everything, all experiences are valid, have fun, enjoy the ride, etc. This is one of the lowest base forms of consciousnesses to have, where learned helplessness, ignorance and inaction to deal with the falsity, immorality, and wrong in reality is adopted, in order to excuse and justify a focus on the self and the pleasure trap in life.

Death and life comes for everything. Don't fear death as a threat. Don't seek to escape it and run away into transhumanism. Don't delude yourself into thinking death is a "disease" to overcome. Know it's a law in the universe. All individual existent beings become, and eventually also unbecome. Maximize your time in life, and find substantive meaning, purpose and value in learning about and living moral truth. This is what the ancient teachings about death and an afterlife were originally about.

Time comes for us all.

pixabay, CC0 Creative Commons

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References:
http://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-genes-caught-sparking-to-life-2-days-after-death
http://www.fsijournal.org/article/S0379-0738(13)00378-2/abstract
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2094644-hundreds-of-genes-seen-sparking-to-life-two-days-after-death/
https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2015/may/05/life-after-death
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autolysis_(biology)

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Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.

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