I don't buy the multiverse idea (and if I did, I wouldn't buy THIS idea that "your consciousness flees your body just before you die and inhabits one of 'your' bodies in another universe" -- what happens to the soul of THAT body, or are all the infinite number of bodies in the infinite number of universes just zombies until YOUR soul -- you being apparently the only "REAL" version of you -- jumps into some other schmuck's body? And as the centuries roll by, how is it that a copy of your body is still around to take over?).
There is ANOTHER quantum-based idea about mortality that some of us might be interested in, although I have trouble with it because it lacks any visible mechanism for memory retention -- certain types of brain damage can erase memories because memory is stored in the physical brain; if the immaterial soul had a way to store memories, that wouldn't be an issue.
The theory I'm discussing is best described by Kastrup and basically consists of these ideas:
Consciousness is primary; the physical is secondary. Quantum wave theory, which states that elementary particles, such as light and electrons, are nodes (or call it what you will) on the probability waves that carry the particles; see the Double-Slit experiment for details proving that particles are waves of probability -- which Kastrup sees as emanations of the universal consciousness -- until they are observed (which has a specialized meaning broader than the common one).
The physical brain is constantly, iteratively self-reflective and this causes a small amount of the universal consciousness to be captured and dissociated from the whole, much as in multiple personality disorder where one conscious personality is isolated from the others. The result is a person's soul, which does something the glob-of-matter-brain cannot do on its own: EXPERIENCE what happens in the brain and body and exert free will (possible due to quantum uncertainty and more).
After death, including after a temporary death (e.g., someone "brought back from the dead" via an EMT's revival efforts or whatever), the soul re-merges with the Universal Consciousness.
What I DON'T see is any method to take one's memories with the soul; without the physical brain, there isn't any mechanism for that in the theory (unless I've missed something).
Of course, that doesn't mean there ISN'T such a mechanism; this is, after all, just a theory and while it seems well supported in a number of ways I don't think of it as any more than a sketch. I like it, though.
Unless the idea that our brains are more like a radio, or television set, or something similar, is right - the actual you is your soul but that you exists outside of your physical body. Your physical body on the other hand is more like a drone, or sort of avatar, it only connects your soul to the material plane, and your personality here is affected by how much of the real you can come through, so if, say, your brain is damaged after that only parts do. Like, if there is something wrong with your television set the picture or the sound is no longer quite what is being transmitted. But all that goes the other way is permanently stored in your soul. So, if you lose your memory here that just mean that you no longer are getting everything through this way, but after your death you will have all of your memories, and everything that happened to you while you were functioning through your avatar body.
Which, I suppose, might fit the many worlds and many timelines idea and the ability to move from one to another in some way.
However, since our physical bodies will be worn out sooner or later, even if the kind of "jumping" from timeline to timeline was possible, sooner or later you will run out of timelines where you have a working avatar body because all of those got too old to function anymore.
Your physical body on the other hand is more like a drone, or sort of avatar, it only connects your soul to the material plane
That's very much like Kastrup's idea, although he seems to envision the soul as a small "captured" part of the universal consciousness, temporarily dissociated from the rest (thus our usual inability to access and be conscious of everyone else's thoughts and experiences, and of the Universal Consciousness itself).
Your idea that memory is stored in the soul -- in what I'm calling the Universal Consciousness but which might be (as some believe) just one of an infinite number of individual Soul entities -- certainly would allow for "life after death", although I've yet to see a believable mechanism for the storage of useful information in that scenario. Which doesn't mean there isn't one . . .
I don't buy the multiverse idea (and if I did, I wouldn't buy THIS idea that "your consciousness flees your body just before you die and inhabits one of 'your' bodies in another universe" -- what happens to the soul of THAT body, or are all the infinite number of bodies in the infinite number of universes just zombies until YOUR soul -- you being apparently the only "REAL" version of you -- jumps into some other schmuck's body? And as the centuries roll by, how is it that a copy of your body is still around to take over?).
There is ANOTHER quantum-based idea about mortality that some of us might be interested in, although I have trouble with it because it lacks any visible mechanism for memory retention -- certain types of brain damage can erase memories because memory is stored in the physical brain; if the immaterial soul had a way to store memories, that wouldn't be an issue.
The theory I'm discussing is best described by Kastrup and basically consists of these ideas:
Consciousness is primary; the physical is secondary. Quantum wave theory, which states that elementary particles, such as light and electrons, are nodes (or call it what you will) on the probability waves that carry the particles; see the Double-Slit experiment for details proving that particles are waves of probability -- which Kastrup sees as emanations of the universal consciousness -- until they are observed (which has a specialized meaning broader than the common one).
The physical brain is constantly, iteratively self-reflective and this causes a small amount of the universal consciousness to be captured and dissociated from the whole, much as in multiple personality disorder where one conscious personality is isolated from the others. The result is a person's soul, which does something the glob-of-matter-brain cannot do on its own: EXPERIENCE what happens in the brain and body and exert free will (possible due to quantum uncertainty and more).
After death, including after a temporary death (e.g., someone "brought back from the dead" via an EMT's revival efforts or whatever), the soul re-merges with the Universal Consciousness.
What I DON'T see is any method to take one's memories with the soul; without the physical brain, there isn't any mechanism for that in the theory (unless I've missed something).
Of course, that doesn't mean there ISN'T such a mechanism; this is, after all, just a theory and while it seems well supported in a number of ways I don't think of it as any more than a sketch. I like it, though.
Unless the idea that our brains are more like a radio, or television set, or something similar, is right - the actual you is your soul but that you exists outside of your physical body. Your physical body on the other hand is more like a drone, or sort of avatar, it only connects your soul to the material plane, and your personality here is affected by how much of the real you can come through, so if, say, your brain is damaged after that only parts do. Like, if there is something wrong with your television set the picture or the sound is no longer quite what is being transmitted. But all that goes the other way is permanently stored in your soul. So, if you lose your memory here that just mean that you no longer are getting everything through this way, but after your death you will have all of your memories, and everything that happened to you while you were functioning through your avatar body.
Which, I suppose, might fit the many worlds and many timelines idea and the ability to move from one to another in some way.
However, since our physical bodies will be worn out sooner or later, even if the kind of "jumping" from timeline to timeline was possible, sooner or later you will run out of timelines where you have a working avatar body because all of those got too old to function anymore.
That's very much like Kastrup's idea, although he seems to envision the soul as a small "captured" part of the universal consciousness, temporarily dissociated from the rest (thus our usual inability to access and be conscious of everyone else's thoughts and experiences, and of the Universal Consciousness itself).
Your idea that memory is stored in the soul -- in what I'm calling the Universal Consciousness but which might be (as some believe) just one of an infinite number of individual Soul entities -- certainly would allow for "life after death", although I've yet to see a believable mechanism for the storage of useful information in that scenario. Which doesn't mean there isn't one . . .