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I've just heard from senior sources that planet Earth will self-combust in exactly a year from now and all of life

will be destroyed. Sorry to bring you that rather gloomy news. The question is, can

philosophy bites now be bothered to post this podcast? Samuel Sheffler of New York University is here to help us reach an answer.

Samuel Sheffler, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Thanks very much for inviting me. The topic we're going to talk about is the

afterlife. Now I know you don't actually believe in their religious style of afterlife

where people go to heaven and carry on living forever.

What do you mean by the afterlife?

Well I use the term afterlife in a somewhat unconventional or even misleading sense in this discussion.

The afterlife I'm concerned with is not the personal afterlife where one hopes, perhaps,

or believes that one will continue to live in some form after one's death.

I'm concerned with the question of what it means to us to think about the survival of other

people after we ourselves have died.

So most of us normally take it for granted

that other people will live on after we have died.

And I refer to that as the afterlife.

Right, so most of us, as you say, don't imagine that the whole world ceases to exist

when we lose consciousness finally.

...