Why I am a Possibilian
29th March 2010
6:30 pm
Swedenborg Hall
Admission £5.00/£3.00 concessions
A celebrated writer and neurologist, David Eagleman will talk about ideas found in his critically acclaimed book exploring the possible multiple realities of life after death, Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives. Beyond the dogmatism of atheism and religious certainty lies a third option: 'Possibiliansim'. A Possibilian, David Eagleman proposes, is one who is interested in the awe of the cosmos, one who can be comfortable with vast ignorance, who can celebrate uncertainty. Possibilianism, at its root, is an appeal for intellectual humility. It is also at the heart of a scientific career. Science operates by holding multiple ideas in mind and working to see which one is supported by the data. Often one is not able to obtain conclusive data, and in those cases one must embrace the possibilities. You don't commit to a particular version of the story when there is no reason to privilege one over the others. Nor do you throw all the stories out.
David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at the Baylor College of Medicine, where he directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action and the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law. He is best known for his work on time perception, synesthesia, and neurolaw. ‘By night' he is an internationally bestselling fiction writer, published in 16 languages. His debut creative work, Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives was lauded as a work of remarkable imagination, capable of articulating the infinite and unknowable nature of life after death.
Stephen Fry has Twittered about it; Brian Eno has composed a score for it. David Eagleman is a cult phenomenon.
Extracts from Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives (Canongate Books 2009)
'When you arrive in the afterlife, you find Mary Woolstonecraft Shelley sits on a throne. She is cared for and protected by a covey of angels...'
'In the afterlife you receive a clear answer about our purpose on Earth: our mission is to collect data. We have been seeded on this planet as sophisticated mobile cameras...'
'In the afterlife you relive all your experiences, but this time with the events reshuffled in a new order: all the moments that share a quality are grouped together...'
'In the afterlife you are judged not against other people, but against yourself. Specifically, you are judged against what you could have been. So the afterworld is much like the present world, but it now includes all the yous that could have been ...'
'In the afterlife you meet God. To your surprise and delight, She is like no god that humans have conceived. She shared qualities with all religions' descriptions, but commands a deific grandeur that was captured in the net of none. She is the elephant described by blind men: all partial descriptions with no understanding of the whole...'
'There is no afterlife, but that doesn't mean we don't get to live a second time...'
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