| Azuren said: [...] As an agnostic, I find this depressing. Not that I disagree with you- there's more scientific evidence of this than not- I'm just depressed that it will simply end there.
I'd like to think that there are aspects of consciousness that we can't measure yet- I suppose whatever you would call a soul. Every religion has it, and it's hard to believe that isn't one. Of course, this is faith without proof. But I feel and hope there is something beyond our bodies, like maybe we just shed them and our ethereal selves can travel the cosmos, uninhibited by the laws of time and space.
Which would be totally badass. But I dunno. |
Oh boy, this is probably gonna be a long one and I hope my english is good enough. But I'll try. =D
Ok, first off, I don't have anything to back up what I'm about to say. But I don't think there needs to be something like an eternal soul. What exactly would that be worth when you lose all your memory with death? You wouldn't know who you were before anyway, so what's the point? It wouldn't make a big difference if there is some holy parasite out of dark matter floating around, waiting for his or her next victim or a soul just disappearing. Whatever happens, without a body, you won't be aware of it. It's really just basic physics. Even if there were eternal souls aware of their surroundings and everything, then why did life begin in the first place? The way I see it, life's whole purpose is to create individuals who are aware of themselves, who can act themselves and in the best case think about themselves and the world. But with eternal sould, such a state is already a given. Better yet, such eternal beings wouldn't need constant supply with energy in form of food, water and air. It would really be a step backwards to put your eternal soul into a human being! It just doesn't make sense to me.
However, that's no reason for me to become depresses, because I have a different approach when it comes to eternity. In the end, and this is only my humble opinion, the concept of death is absolutely genius if you ask me. It is the one and only way to combine an infinite universe with finite lifetimes. Think about it, one day, you're dead and that's it, right? Ok, but from everything we know, it pretty much looks like the universe is infinite. Even if it isn't there might be another universe after this. Physics tell us that there can't be simply nothing. Even in a perfect vaccum, there are still some things happening. But that's a topic for itself. However, given infinity, even events with the smallest imaginable probability are bound to happen over and over and over again. And this very fact means you and I are going to be reborn - over and over and over again. Mathematics also back me up on this one. After all, I have proof that this very event I'm talking about happened at least once before. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. So if it happened before, it will happen again in an infinite universe. There's no avoiding it.
What I really like about that thought is that I won't know anything about it when I pop into existence once again. It will feel like the first time all over again. I mean it's really the best way possible to deal with infinity. Another great thing about this concept is that there is not even a waiting time involved. You won't experience anything like a time between your existences. It could take billions of years or even more, without a brain you simply won't notice. From your point of view, it all happens in an instant. Of course you won't remember it and stuff, but still.
If we scrap the thought that we need eternal souls and instead adopt the thought that our very beings are nothing more but a very specific form of information - that's when we get really immortal. Eternal souls can get destoyed by gods or something or they could fall into a black hole. As long as there is ANYTHING physically involved, it can get damaged. But you cannot destroy information. Even if it gets lost, it can always be built anew. Like the information about the wheel. When the earth gets destroyed and takes humanity with it, the information about the wheel is seemingly destroyed. But still nothing is keeping another civilization from inventing it once again. The same would be true for our very beings if it's nothing more than information. The moment it gets destroyed, it can appear once again somewhere in this universe. A nice side effect is that in form of information, our beings are also able to travel through time and also potentially faster than light - because your next being doesn't need a causal connection to your life here on earth.
Yeah, that's pretty much how I think all of this works. But it's just speculation and I'm probably wrong. =D
Official member of VGC's Nintendo family, approved by the one and only RolStoppable. I feel honored.
