I have heard that John rejects dualism, and that his answer to the question of an afterlife is the idea that God will remember our bodies and eventually reconstruct them. But how can those reconstructions be considered the same people as us? They would be made out of different atoms and would be more like an identical twin with our memories than ourselves! Furthermore, if the soul is not an immaterial thing, are we truly the people when we where born? For instance a man who was born 50 years ago would have few of the atoms that he was born with, but we still consider him the same person that was born 50 years ago. How can we have a single continuous self if the soul is not immaterial?
John describes his view as “dual aspect monism” – we do not think that matter is the only thing that exists. The soul is something like a pattern of active information. Continuity as a person does not in this view depend on the continuity of atoms but of the pattern of active information. It’s a bit like how a violin sonata can remain the same when played on a different violin.
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