Read a review of the book “SUM: Forty Tales from the Afterlives” in the Mercury News.
David Eagleman shows in his new book, “Sum,” very entertaining, too. The author, a neuroscientist with literary leanings, has set out a series of possibilities for the afterlife, described in 40 vignettes, each of which presents a different explanation of who God is and why he or she (or, in some cases, they) chose to create us and what might be planned for us on our demise.
Here is another section of the review that’s very interesting.
“There are three deaths,” Eagleman writes. “The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.”
In this scheme, when we die, we go to a cosmic waiting room where we mark time until our name is never again mentioned. The famous are trapped here, of course, for a very long time; they wish for obscurity, but it may take an eternity to arrive.
Pakora Korner 