Funnily enough I'd recently come to the very same conclusion as the most probable way life works. Of course that was a previous "me"; I just inherited the memory.
Nah. I'm not my memories. I'm the thing that perceives the memories. That thing is clearly the same every time I wake up, since the lights are still on. At least, it seems more plausible that deep sleep is a state of consciousness, than that consciousness is annihilated then reborn with each sleep cycle.
What a lovely story....as a creative scholar activist and AI expert, it will only be through creative narrative that we can flip the models and minds of dysfunctional humans and machines...we're at a tipping point going from Ego-centric to Eco-centric mindsets....when humans can understand that we're interconnected energy - an intelligent, complex-adaptive organism...where love is the most powerful force in the universe...the energy of connection....requires learning to treasure pain and loss cycles rather than disconnecting and compartmentalizing such feelings. As the environmental crisis compounds, humans can learn to savor living in the present moments...and sleep provides the opportunity for our creative and sage energies to recharge so that we can imagine how to collaborate for shared humanity that evolves to embrace our differences and experiences.
How imaginative... for a too-frequently recycled trope of an old chestnut: "Their book 'To serve man' is not a treatise on their devotion to Humankind... It's a cookbook!!" (Cue crashing cymbals.) After having outgrown my childish fascination with wiz-bang gadgetry, I eventually grew tired of pseudo-anthropology disguised as "speculative fiction" as well. Not so much derivative as repetitive: Humanity was evil and loathsome, and its comeuppance would come at the hands of an "advanced intelligence", who curiously enough, reflected some of the more egregious qualities of the humans whom they were here to dispatch: Boundless hubris, for example. And thus, I gave up on "science fiction" altogether. Why insist, ad nauseam, on positing 'advanced beings' who turn out to be evil caricatures of ourselves?
The key to dealing with existential horror is to not deal with it.
We're always seconds away from non-existence! Death is inevitable, even if we prolong our lives as much as possible!
If seeing reality clearly entails accepting that we're in a perpetual state of inescapable unsafety leading to inevitable oblivion, the only practical option for a life containing anything more than constant terror is not to think about it.
True humanism is acknowledging the reality of our two brains - the lizard and the monkey; they both need tempering - "As to metal, so to man."; Life is the crucible.
Scraped from Martin O'Toole's comment posted on Medium:
Ten profound quotes from Carl Jung that will inspire introspection and incite transformation.
No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.
The world is changing, and I’m on the transition team. Awaken and shine your light for others to follow. The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.
The decisive question for man:: Is he related to something infinite or not?
Identity does not make consciousness possible; it is only separation, detachment, and agonizing confrontation through opposition that procure consciousness and insight.
We meet ourselves time and again in a thousand disguises on the path of life.
Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism.
I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.
The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.
"It’s why their newborn young scream and cry out before being put to sleep. They know they’re going to their end."
Great, now I feel even worse about putting my kids to bed.
Genuinely good horror story grist, I appreciate it.
Those utilitarians. You gotta watch out for em.
Funnily enough I'd recently come to the very same conclusion as the most probable way life works. Of course that was a previous "me"; I just inherited the memory.
Sleep is a smoking gun for consciousness. Clearly consciousness is dangerous. Too much will kill you.
Not one to read just before bed
Nah. I'm not my memories. I'm the thing that perceives the memories. That thing is clearly the same every time I wake up, since the lights are still on. At least, it seems more plausible that deep sleep is a state of consciousness, than that consciousness is annihilated then reborn with each sleep cycle.
Ignorance is both death and bliss. Q.E.D. death = bliss.
What a lovely story....as a creative scholar activist and AI expert, it will only be through creative narrative that we can flip the models and minds of dysfunctional humans and machines...we're at a tipping point going from Ego-centric to Eco-centric mindsets....when humans can understand that we're interconnected energy - an intelligent, complex-adaptive organism...where love is the most powerful force in the universe...the energy of connection....requires learning to treasure pain and loss cycles rather than disconnecting and compartmentalizing such feelings. As the environmental crisis compounds, humans can learn to savor living in the present moments...and sleep provides the opportunity for our creative and sage energies to recharge so that we can imagine how to collaborate for shared humanity that evolves to embrace our differences and experiences.
How imaginative... for a too-frequently recycled trope of an old chestnut: "Their book 'To serve man' is not a treatise on their devotion to Humankind... It's a cookbook!!" (Cue crashing cymbals.) After having outgrown my childish fascination with wiz-bang gadgetry, I eventually grew tired of pseudo-anthropology disguised as "speculative fiction" as well. Not so much derivative as repetitive: Humanity was evil and loathsome, and its comeuppance would come at the hands of an "advanced intelligence", who curiously enough, reflected some of the more egregious qualities of the humans whom they were here to dispatch: Boundless hubris, for example. And thus, I gave up on "science fiction" altogether. Why insist, ad nauseam, on positing 'advanced beings' who turn out to be evil caricatures of ourselves?
The key to dealing with existential horror is to not deal with it.
We're always seconds away from non-existence! Death is inevitable, even if we prolong our lives as much as possible!
If seeing reality clearly entails accepting that we're in a perpetual state of inescapable unsafety leading to inevitable oblivion, the only practical option for a life containing anything more than constant terror is not to think about it.
Huh. Well, I suppose there's a bar either end, and this found one. Here's the other. https://lexie.space/blogstuff/500-words-on-anything/2021/05/17/500-words-theyre-made-out-of-meat.html
And dreams are???
La petite mort
True humanism is acknowledging the reality of our two brains - the lizard and the monkey; they both need tempering - "As to metal, so to man."; Life is the crucible.
Scraped from Martin O'Toole's comment posted on Medium:
Ten profound quotes from Carl Jung that will inspire introspection and incite transformation.
No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.
The world is changing, and I’m on the transition team. Awaken and shine your light for others to follow. The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.
The decisive question for man:: Is he related to something infinite or not?
Identity does not make consciousness possible; it is only separation, detachment, and agonizing confrontation through opposition that procure consciousness and insight.
We meet ourselves time and again in a thousand disguises on the path of life.
Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism.
I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.
The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.
Does this qualify as the inverse of the concept that Tom Clark described here where we never die?
https://www.naturalism.org/philosophy/death/death-nothingness-and-subjectivity
Segue to the teleportation controversy and those who think personhood wouldn’t be retained.