Implications of Afterlife
Suppose there really is such a thing as a soul that "goes on" after one's physical body dies. Let's think about the implications.
The soul must, ipso facto, be immaterial in the usual sense. There are many imaginable mechanisms for propagating our consciousness and memories beyond the brain, but none have been demonstrated yet, so by Arthur C. Clarke's criterion any such technology is indistinguishable from magic. Let us then offer no argument to the belief that this is a supernatural phenomenon. It doesn't matter.
Notwithstanding reports of ghosts and messages from the Other Side, it seems prudent to assume that the soul has great difficulty interacting with the physical world we inhabit before we die. Moreover, it seems necessary that each of us has a soul before we die as well as afterwards, and so we must assume that direct soul-to-soul communication is equally rare and difficult, else we would still be getting a steady stream of advice from our deceased parents, grandparents and so on. So, as a first approximation, we should imagine our soul to be pretty isolated upon our death.
I don't much like scenarios in which all souls are subsumed into the Mind of God or other arrangements that suppress the individual integrity of each soul, since I really, really like my individual integrity, even if it is an illusion. So where does this leave the newly liberated soul?
Nowhere, that's where.
As in, "Whoa! Where did everything go?" Nowhere. As in, you have no environment any more other than what you can create out of your own imagination. If your imagination is limited, well, tough luck. If your imagination is twisted and depraved, welcome to Hell. If your imagination is all sugar and spice and everything nice, welcome to your grandmother's Heaven. If, however, your imagination has been refined to be multifaceted, creative, balanced, inquisitive and able to learn from experiences even if they are derived from your own creations, well, what does that make you?
God, that's what.
So this life is a school for Deities, and those who flunk the exam are in for a long, long Detention in the Hell of their own making. Is that fair, or what?
In the spirit of Perturbation Theory, let's now reexamine the assumption of perfect isolation. Suppose you want to reconnect with your soulmate in the afterlife? If there is a sort of second-order effect that makes this possible through a shared Creation, wouldn't you want to work really hard to make sure the universe you create has as much as possible in common with the one your beloved creates? Would this not be a plausible motive for collaboration with all the souls you care about? And would it not be a lot easier if you all got together and made up a sort of "Creation for Dummies" manual consisting of the "laws of physics" and logic? See "You are God. Me too!". Of course, if you never really liked anyone much, you could have it your way. (See Hell.)
One last question: is this really our "first life"?
I have to confess that this is not my original idea. I saw it first in a science fiction short story many, many years ago. I wish I could remember the title or the author, so I could send a thank you note.
