Life after death in Systemaism

A significant part of every religions’ teachings is dedicated to what happens to a man after his life ends. Some promise rebirth, some- some sort of spiritual reward, some even promise becoming a higher being- such as the guardian spirit in Shinto (Sugimoto, 1997). Many of those religions also state that the way one lives his life affects his life-after-death. Usually, a system of rewards and punishments is given by the clerics. One of the commonly known examples of the later is the Christianity, in which there are sins, for which one will go to a place of eternal punishment.
However, systemaism doesn’t take that as an axiom, since we don’t really know if there’s a continuation, and how our behavior affects that continuation.

First of all, the system rejects the possibility of Heaven, Valhalla or any other after-death earned arrangement. Since the basic function of the person is to live, then with death this function ends and its parameters are nullified, meaning that everything he’d done so far affects him no longer. This is not to nullify any significant discoveries that serve the man’s memory and are believed to grant him “immortality”. However, those achievements, good or bad, no longer affect the man in person and aren’t a factor in his function, if only because “good” and “bad” are purely subjective or consensus-based concepts. That is also not to say that the man as a function simply vanishes after his death. He ceases to function, his settings are reset, and might be used by another system, such as the rebirth, where the soul-function will gain new parameters and function differently, but will basically be the same soul.

Systemaists also find it difficult to accept that the object, a person, might be immortal, or at least approach the eternal function. One of the arguments against it is that life without death is an endless function, without any logical conclusion. As such the immortal is somewhat akin to a cancer tumor, the cells of which “conveniently forget” to “die” or an endless cycle in a program. Still, for the subsystem, this situation can be “acceptable”, like a benign tumor, not being directly damaging, but being far from the optimal solution. This doesn’t mean that the time of a function has to be limited, or even measured by some human standards. It also doesn’t mean that one has to forcefully end a function he subjectively deems over- the way we won’t fire a worker after his shift ended. After all, functioning is objective and measured by the system, and so might differ from the function people can comprehend.

Therefore, the function does end. And as it does, there’s no evaluation how “well” or “right” it worked, in order to set its’ further fate. The system simply uses the resource to its’ utmost, based on current assessment, with no bias from prior knowledge.

From all that said, one might assume that Systemaism rejects religion completely, including Heaven or Hell, since those two concepts often seen as related to eternity and long term evaluation. That assumption can’t be more wrong. The Systemaists agree that “Heaven”, as the optimal condition for the object, exists, but in order to attain it, one mustn’t die. In fact, the Systemaists strongly agree with the Breslaw teachings, which say that “afterlife is now”, meaning that Heaven and Hell do exist, and the man’s deeds do set his path to either, but the result of bliss or agony doesn’t come after years alive, but can be seen immediately (Rabby Nahman of Breslaw). Heaven and Hell are a matter of perspective and we create them by ourselves. By achieving our potential and interacting with other objects we can create a function where everything is to our liking, and as such we’re experiencing Heaven. On the other hand, by suppression our potential and conflicting with other objects, or failing to find our place in the system, people end up miserable, in our own private hell. Therefore, one doesn’t have to wait for parameters reset or act “good” for no reason other than “because then I’ll go to Heaven”. Afterlife is here and now, and the sytemaism suggest that we function in it as much as possible, at least until a clear proof of a religious life after death truly existing.


Reference:
Rabby Nahman of Breslav (unknown). Why does this world exist, if the purpose is the Next World?
Sugimoto, Yoshio (1997). An Introduction to Japanese Society. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press.