Reply #516: Go back and read the links a little futher for comprehension. [View All]

The null hypothesis need not be "set forth", as it is a consequence of any hypothesis someone makes up. For the hypothesis of "God", the null hypothesis is "no God." That's just how a hypothesis works in science and mathematics. So, for the hypothesis of "something in the way of an afterlife," the null hypothesis is "nothing in the way of an afterlife." I know it's difficult to understand when I say this, but it's not a hypothesis in the standard sense of the word, it's a null hypothesis. Further reading on the topic may help, I don't know.

A non-scientific hypothesis is conjecture.

The burden of proof rests squarely on the shoulders of those who would nullify the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis here, created entirely as a result of the hypothesis of "something", is "nothing." You, the supporter of the hypothesis, must meet the burden of proof in order to nullify the null hypothesis, or else you are engaging in a logical and argumentative fallacy.

Since the null hypothesis is not actually a hypothesis, but rather a negation required for control, maybe it would help if you referred to it as the anti-hypothesis. "Something" is the hypothesis, making "nothing" the anti-hypothesis. The links above show quite definitively that shifting the burden of proof to Hawking, when he is simply restating the anti-hypothesis, is a fallacy.

So that answers your final paragraph. "Nothing exists after you die" is not a positive assertion, but the "null hypothesis", or an anti-hypothesis, and as such it requires no proof.