'Where do we go when we die?"

Every child, or the child in all of us, asks that at some point, with parents and philosophers saying this or that in reply: "We go to heaven," "We merge with the Absolute," and so on — or, to borrow the language of ancient and not-so-ancient Japanese nationalism, we "fall like cherry blossoms in spring" and are "reborn seven times into this world of men to continue destroying enemies of the Emperor."

Nothing we say about death, of course, passes scientific muster, however satisfying it may be on other fronts. Scientifically speaking, our knowledge of post-death is as close to absolute zero as anything pertaining to our lives and our universe can be 200,000-odd years after a select group of animals first distinguished themselves with certain traits to which today we affix the adjective "human."