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A Naturalistic AfterlifeAnnie and Noel’s Mark on the Universe

A Naturalistic Afterlife: Annie and Noel’s Mark on the Universe [But the question remains: is this prospect any more emotionally satisfying than immortality in a block universe? Sad stories from the lives of two giants of evolutionary theory begin to point us toward an answer. Both Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley lost young children: respectively, Annie Darwin at age ten, and Noel Huxley, who was not quite four. Unlike countless children of common folk who died in similar circumstances, we can pick out Annie and Noel from the haze of the past, simply because their fathers are famous. Still, all children have roles as presences in a family, and so Annie and Noel and every child who has ever lived resonate with us today via their nonconscious communal selves as reinforcements of unconditional filial love—the basis for the family unit and society’s well being, and for the continuity of human evolution.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Naturalistic AfterlifeAnnie and Noel’s Mark on the Universe

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Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Copyright
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
ISBN
978-3-319-57977-1
Pages
123 –140
DOI
10.1007/978-3-319-57978-8_7
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[But the question remains: is this prospect any more emotionally satisfying than immortality in a block universe? Sad stories from the lives of two giants of evolutionary theory begin to point us toward an answer. Both Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley lost young children: respectively, Annie Darwin at age ten, and Noel Huxley, who was not quite four. Unlike countless children of common folk who died in similar circumstances, we can pick out Annie and Noel from the haze of the past, simply because their fathers are famous. Still, all children have roles as presences in a family, and so Annie and Noel and every child who has ever lived resonate with us today via their nonconscious communal selves as reinforcements of unconditional filial love—the basis for the family unit and society’s well being, and for the continuity of human evolution.]

Published: Aug 2, 2017

Keywords: Charles Darwin; Thomas Huxley; Death; Cultural evolution

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