This post is a bit of a dousey, so if your not in the mood for a long read, please just don’t skim over it, because I want people to understand fully what I am talking about. As far as I know this is a completley new realm of Philosophy itself, I get giddy and excited just thinking about all of the practical applications it could have in our lives.
I have been alive for 17 years, and during those years I have heard two dominant theories as to what life is, and how it began. These two ideas can be roughly seperated into two categories. Creationism, and non-creationism, or as I like to call it, natural-creationism. For this post, I will define creationism as any religion or belief system that belives that life was created by a greater being of some sort, or for lack of a better word, God. Non-Creationism / Natural creationism can be defined as any religion or beleif system that belives that life was either a random turn of events, IE: floating particals formed into a biological soup, etc. Or people who belive that life was created by some alternate form, such as “it was always here, and just had not evolved yet” or basically does not belive in any greater being, or god. So far as I know, these are the two overlying concepts that form most, if not all religions and beleif systems of todays society. There are also two overlying concepts which people think will happen after we die. The first usualy goes along with the Creationism point of view, and that is: that after death we will go to some other place, outside of the Universe, and outside of the pysical world, that our “souls”,“ghosts” or “spirits” will go to either a Heaven type of existence, or a Hell type of existence. The converse of that, and often times what the Non-Creationists belive, is that our souls, spirits, or ghosts will remain on earth, in some form or another, either as a ghost destined to haunt people forever, or maybe reincarnated into another life form, all the way to the belief that after life there is absolutly nothing. As far as I know these are the two main ideas of life after death.
My post is not so much concerned with what created us or did not create us, but is more concerned with what will happen after we pass on. And maybe if we can further understand what happens after we die, we will begain to look at the larger scale of things and see how we were created. Although, this is not only an idea of what happens after you die, but also an idea of what happens before we exist, or before we are born, while still in the womb.
All of the things in the known universe are made up of matter, in some form or another, or inbetween forms. Matter cannot be destroyed, as far as we know, and it cannot be created,as far as we know. All the stuff we started with here on Earth, is still around in one form or another, unless we jetesened it into space. There is only one exception to this rule, there is somthing that Humans have that is not made up of matter, and does not exist in any of our three dimensions, or cannnot be measured in them at least. And that exception is thought. Don’t confuse thought, with the chemical reactions in your brain, like the ones that tell you that you need to eat, or release endorphines when the opposite sex is near, etc. I am speaking strictly about the thoughts that we have that seem to be limitless in all aspects. It is my personal belief though, that our thought does have limits. Very real limits, there are things you cannot think of, there are also ways in which to arrive at conclusions, or destinations with thoght, that are so far, out of our grasp. And the reason they are out of our grasp, is becuase there are two differant types of thought, and humans have one of them. And as far as I know, it seems that most animals in our world, have the other.
The first, and easiest to understand form of thought, is the one Humans have. This is the kind of thought you have every day, the thought that is going through your head as you read these words. I will call this type of thinking, Linear Thought, or Representational Thought, both terms are equally as accurate in how we think. Linear Thought is a thought or idea that has representation behind it. All the thinking you do has this, even when you don’t realize your doing it. When you have a thought or idea, it is represented in your mind with either an image, a word, or a feeling, a combination of two, or somtimes all three. This is because we have learned to think using the language we were raised with. We get image based thought becuase when somthing happens to us, or sombody else, we store the accompaning image with it, so that next time when you think of that thing again, that picture pops up into your head. Feeling thought is where you think about say, somthing scary to you, and your heartbeat increases, or you get the sensation of being cold, or the hairs on your neck raise up. For example, if you try to hink about what the topic title is for this post, your mind will go through a series of systematic steps and ideas, thinking of words, and details about the content of the post, until you think of it. This happens all so quickly that you probobly won’t even realize it. Also, given the same situation, in your head you might see yourself 5 or 10 minutes ago, clicking on the link to this post, and you will see the words on the picture in your mind, and you will remember. Hopefully this paints a picture of how humans think and how our thought process works.
The second form of thought, is nearly impossible to give perfect definiton to. This is not because its somthing we cannot imagine, if you were to think of it yourself, like I have, its actually semi-easy to understand even if you cannot think in this manner, neither can I, its just difficult to put words to somthing that statkes its identity, to being indescribable. This type of thought is called non-linear though, or non-representational thought, becuase there is not any term in that can give it an affirmative definition. The only way to define this thing, is by taking Linear thought, and taking away the linear things about it, leaving us with thought that is non-linear. Non-linear thought, is easily defined as thought with no representation whatsoever. This means that, unlike linear thought, words do not exist in its realm, and images may exist, but server a differant purpose, and “viewed” differantly in this form of thought. For instance, when you see a juicy hamburger, your brain says “mmm juicy hamburger” and you begian to salivate, and endorphines are released making you feel “good” about eating that hamburger. When an animal sees a juicy hamburger, there brain has no words to describe it, so their brain cannot say “mmm juicy hamburger” but the same salivation occurs, and endorphines are released. The reasons that led me to belive that animals are indeed this way, is becuase many animals, such as lions, will actually eat themselves to death. They will eat and eat, becuase their instincts tell them that food is needed for their survival, so they just keep eating, and even when they are full, they will still eat until they just die. Horses are able to run themselves to death, the reason that a horse runs, is becuase its being kicked in the sides, or slapped on the behind, they are actually running in fear of the human rider on top of them, at first anyway. But we humans have a funny way of playing with the minds of other creatures, and that is preciesly why domestic dogs somtimes don’t eat all their food. It is no longer needed for their survival, they will have it all the time. Horses learn that the thing hitting them is the same thing that feeds them, and they begain to “trust” us in a way, though with hard enough whipping you can still make a horse run until its heart eventually just stops beating. The reason a Human will not sit and eat and eat and eat (in one sitting) until they die, is because we think linearly, we eat a lot, a lot, and a lot more, and we throw up. The feeling is unpleasent, and you don’t do it again. And that is why its common to teach children with punishment, becuase they will realize that the feeling is unpleasent when they do somthing, so they decide not to do it, we Humans have the unique ability to learn, which is both our curse, and our belssing, more on that later. But how do I get you understand what its like to think without representation or representative images, well its a little difficult to do (think about it, trying to represent the concept of non-representation, with words? Its pretty hard) The only instance I can think of, where Humans are capable of non-linear thought, is during our dreams. When you are dreaming, are you ever able to wrap your mind around somthing indeffinetly? Are you able to even look at a tree in your dreams and form the words “That is a tree.” Do you even think words as simply as that? Ever wonder why its so hard to remember dreams when you awaken from them? I can tell you why, its becuase your brain is trying to represent the thoughts and images that you dreamt, with words and pictures, somthing that dreams have neither of. That is why when you wake up, when your eyes are closed, and your mind is still nearly 100% focused on that dream, you can see it almost as clear as if you were still in it, but the second you try to apply those words to those things you saw, is the same second they disppear. Also, what events inside a dream cause you to wake up? Isn’t it awlays when things were about to get really bad, or about to get real good. Or the second when real words come out of your mouth, how often is it that during a dream you actually converse with sombody? Words are often lost, and “feel” as though your talking, but when do audible noises come out of your mouth during your dream. Also, have you noticed that when you try to explain a dream to sombody, that you are often at a loss for words at what took place other then generalizations like “Oh we were at a lake” or somthing like that. And then in the next “frame” of the dream in your mind as your explaining it takes place in an entirely place? Its happens all the time where your dreaming and your somwhere, doing somthing, and all the sudden somthing else completely differant will be happening, but it “makes sense” in the dream world, but the second you open your mouth to explain it to sombody you realize how scattered, unorganized, and odd your dream really was. Yes, I realize I’ve just been asking open ended questions, but theres somthing these questions all have in common, and that all our dreams have in common. The same dreams that every single person on eath has in common, and that is, that there is absolutly no sensory preception in dreams, or as I like to say, non-linear thought. Think to yourself in any dream you have ever had, or maybe the one you have after falling asleep eading this post, and try to honestly remember somthing you touched, tasted, smelled, saw, or heard. Many people claim to remember what they saw in a dream, but can you remember any details about what you saw? What did the beautiful girls face look like, or how big were her breats. What did giant scorpians stinger feel like when it got ya, and how did the disgusting thing smell. So if we can all come to agreement on these things, about our dreams, and about what I mentioend about animals (Which is a fact, animals will indeed eat themselves to death, and horses will run their herats out, at least according to the discovery channel). Then we can move onto what this actually means for life after death. And, how things start to get pretty weird, and very very cool.
Life is a compelation of senses, I’m not saying that the things we interact with don’t exist, I’m only saying that everything in life cooralates to one or more of our senses. Afterall, if you were to lose all your senses, what would you be? Assuming you were alive, think about how it would feel. Are you getting what I’m trying to say? After you die, when your body shuts down, your not really “dying” in the sense that we think of the word dying. I think what happens, is that your brain shuts down, thus, all your senses are then turned off. You are now unable to to process anything from the outside world, your brain has ceased to function. so your body goes cold, you cannot feel anything, taste anything, hear anything, see anything or smell anything. This is the scary part though, depending on if our brains control all of our bodies senses AND our thought, then there is no life after death, everything shuts down and its all over, we just turn off, and we are dead. But if you belive that thought is independent of the brain, and I belive it is then that is all life after death is, its going to be a dream. Though, there are some strange things that hapen when you die. Long story short, before people die their brain activity increases, and blood oxygen levels rise, and adrenaline is released in large ammounts, is this just a last ditch effort to survive? Or is it an activation of all the parts of the brain that we just did not use before. Maybe, our senses turn off, becuase when our bodies die (Being the effcient things that they are) the other parts of the brain turn on, but since the body knows that its brain is going to die, but your thoughts will linger, it activies those untapped zones in our brains, allowing our “minds” to learn everything there is to know, becuas eour thoughts will carry that information on. This activation of the brain would be like the bodys last effort to keep itself alive, to reproduce in some form, pass all of its knolege and thoughts onto the next phase of things. The only reason we cannot think in non-linear thought processes, is becuase we have things to represent our thoughts. But as the brain shuts down, and we lose those senses, we lose our languge, lose all of those images becuase our brain is dying, maybe all thats happening, is the mind giving up linear though, for non-linear thought, becuase the use of linear thought would be useless if you had no language or senses to represent it right? So what is life after death? Well, that depends on if you actually think you die or not, I belive that your brain just gives up the use of linear thought, and sends all that energy to those untapped regions, where the non-linear knolege is stored.
What is life after death? It is a dream, just like the dreams we have now, except you are fully in control. Going to go out and have sex with 1000’s of virgins? Think again, you’ve given up all senses. Your in a dream, where you possses all knolege, you literally turn into thought itself, reached perfect enlightenment.
Now the parts where this theory has practical applications, and the reason why I belive it.
The Bible speaks about humans having somthing called “old sin nature” or, corruption from birth, having sin before they have even commited one. Thus the need for each and every individual to accept god on his or her own, or maybe not accpet him, but not to openly reject him.
The Bibtle states that this sin stems from the Earthly desire to sin, what is the desire to sin, other then the desire to feed the senses?
You cann’t stand before god until you have been cleansed of all those sins.
What better way for it to all end, then for you to lose the ability to sin, fore you lost the ability to sense. Yet your “thoughts” remained, but hey, lets not get caught up in word choice. Maybe it was your “soul” that remained, right? One of the words that people used during the time of christ to describe sombody who had extrodinary knolege to describe them as “spiritual”.
Thats just for Christianity.
Humans receive what I mentioned earlier as “the gift and curse”, the ability to learn. This is our curse becuase the second we open our eyes, we expose ourselves to images, and language, and even before we are born, when our parents are talking to us in the womb, we may not understand it, but the foundation for linear thoght is being laid. When that child opens its eyes, the doctor says “its a boy!” or anything, at all, your child is picking up, and starting to remember that in that situation “its a boy!” was the right thing to say.
The gift to learn is somthing every creature on Earth, including ourselves is working towards each and every day, animals are constantly adapting, learning, and doing new things to make their lives easier and more efficient. Could it be that Humans evolved the way we did bceuase with vast ammounts of learning potential, comes the inability to defend ourselves. I mean, if we were were as dumb as say… an ape, how long do you think we would last? A big fragile, soft creature like us? With no fur? Please, we would die in a minute. But the ability to think linearly, is our defense mechanism. And when we pass on, we no longer need defense mechanisms, so we lose the ability to think in that way, we lose the ability to sense. And gain the ability to think so quickly, so efficiently, that we no longer need our bodies. It is the ultimate defense, how can anyone or anything bring harm to us, if there is no physical being to harm? How can you combat thought? We will transcend beyond our bodies, and turn into the ultimate creature. One as helpless as a baby, yet absolutly untouchable. After thinking about it, this theory speaks a lot for the Tao Te Ching. That is all I have for tonight, if you have anything you’de like to question me about, please do, thats the only way we can learn.
Please forgive spelling and grammar mistakes, I do the best I can, but I have to type my posts in Notepad.
Good Day!
-Harrison 