The Four Unfathonable Truths

I am here to tell you there are four unfathomable truths. They are unfathomable because they are the antecedent to everything that we human beings are. They attack our very souls, and make us send money to places where we wouldn’t usually. They are behind every war, religion, drug addiction and murder. They are the things no one ever talks about, until it happens to us or someone near us.

1 – You are going to die. So will everyone you know. Every person who has ever existed has this in common – they have died. If they are still alive, they will die. Preventing some miracle medicine, every person you knew, have known, and know, will, or has died. We all will die. Everything going on in your life will suddenly stop, with you no longer present. Death is permanent. You are nothing after death. There is no more ‘YOU.’ There is no more ‘HE or SHE.’ There are memories of you, or them. But our brains play funny tricks. The older we get, the more memories get fuzzy, and soon someone who was beloved, is forgotten – no matter how many loved them. Your children, if you end up having any, will die. Hopefully, after you do – but there are no guarantees. Some children die early, some die in their teenage years, and some in their adulthood, and some when they get too old. But they will die, and so will you.

2 – Everything you build will go away eventually. Every invention, every policy, every ounce of labor and production will either die, or be eroded by the sands of time. Our planet has a very active atmosphere, and so even the greatest wonder will eventually fall to dust. Even digital information, will degrade. Or at least the medium will. You can continue copying the information, but in the long run – all medium die. And if you are gone, there runs the chance that ‘we’ will eventually be gone. In fact, think of it: if the human race happens to survive several billion years on this planet, they will eventually perish, along with everything on or in Earth. Pyramids of Giza, The Eiffel Tower, The Statue of Liberty, everything will become carbon when the Sun collapses into itself and sucks in most of the planets.

3 – There is no afterlife. This is a tough one for some, but I ask for someone to prove to me there is one. Think about human biology. No autopsy has ever discovered something called the ‘soul.’ Why? Because there isn’t one. The ‘shining light’ folks who are dying usually see is a brain function. The chemicals fall into place to make your death painless. At least natural selection found one way to treat us nice for a bit. Eventually you go into a dream state and the last 1 minute of your life is lived out while the brain shuts down. After that, nothing. You won’t be around in any way. Hard to conceive? Welcome to the club. With movies and television telling us you never die, even if you did (See: “Conquerer” with John Wayne. Everyone in that movie died. They filmed it on a nuclear weapon test site. Oops.) That movie is played often on TV. It’s as if they are all alive, entertaining us for that moment. They aren’t. And you won’t be either, eventually.

4 – The only reason you are reading this, and not dying instantly in a gym sock is because you were lucky. The sperm and egg that made you were a one in a million chance. Billions of versions and sub-versions of you lost that battle, and ended up in the sewer system of your biological parents’ water system. You lived to tell the tale, or rather half of you did. The other half was the pre-determined DNA of the egg. DNA and RNA strings started reproducing, and eventually you were created in theory only. If anything bad happened to that ‘theoretical example’ there would be no you. The fact that you stand here and read my stupid article is because your sequence matched up in the end, and thousands of other possible combinations didn’t happen.

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just layout.

i didn't check to see if you threw some paragraphs in there.

the universe if infinite. Everything else can be changed even if we don't yet know how. Who's to say in the future we won't figure out a way to cheat death. Or evolve into a high creature that is undieing? If you build something grand enough it will never fade from memory, I.E. The pyramids or the Great wall of China.

It's our only hope

It's one thing to say that you doubt there's an afterlife...but how, exactly, do you prove it?

And it's not as if people can't believe that there's something out there after death and STILL work for a better world for the living.
Millions of people do both every day. Maybe billions.

And to bring down the decaying old system we live under, we need to get those who believe in a "next world" to join us in fighting to change THIS one.

Show me the data that is "you" being transported elsewhere

Consider that roughly 400 years of scientific study was devoted to finding the soul, and the brain was the closest we found.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You can't say there is or isn't, using the tools you have.

Give that evidence however much weight it deserves, but it is nonetheless evidence.

The fact that no one has proved that there is an afterlife in no way proves there isn't one. This is called the argument from ignorance.

On edit: more on the argument from ignorance, and why it doesn't prove anything:

http://www.hkgerisoc.org/Journal/v10200007/JHKGS0007p094.pdf

:shrug:

My own theory is, if we ALL took Pascal's Wager(that is, to live your life as if their COULD be a heaven, whether or not your sure there is), that would lead to a revolutionary change in this world.

Antectodal stories are the closest that it comes

if this is "nice", I shudder to think what mean would feel like.

But a very unique, sensitive and interesting one, for all that.

Of course, you probably meant "Unfathomable" as in "Difficult or impossible to understand. Incomprehensible".

Which of course, none of your 4 are.

# 1 is a given. I first realized and contemplated my own mortality when I was about 4 years old. It was when the only Grandmother I knew passed away. Death is completely "fathomable".

# 2 is not necessarily correct at all. I recently heard a story on NPR where the speaker posited that every single tool ever made or invented by man is still currently being made and used by someone, somewhere. Effort and invention does not necessarily fade away. It is often improved upon to live another day.

# 3 is also not unfathomable. If one is of a scientific mindset, one must admit that all of consciousness is merely a product of electro-chemical activity in the brain. Shut down that and that's it. Lights out. The reason humans cling so desperately to the idea of an afterlife is because death can be incredibly sudden. One second someone you know and love is laughing and happy and the next second the life is draining from their eyes. I worked in a slaughterhouse when I was a teenager. I have watched the eyes of hundreds of cattle change as the life drained away. Humans in this regard are little different.

# 4 is again, completely understandable for anyone that paid even the slightest bit of attention in Jr. High Biology class.

I meant they were unfathomable in the sense that something might be logically true, but our emotions are tied to the result - and the manner of looking at it from an objective, unbiased view is impossible.

Perhaps a better word would have been "Undeniable" or maybe "Irrefutable".

I am completely confident that I have looked at the question of my own death and the likelihood of an afterlife absolutely objectively and rationally.

That is all

Kind of an awakeing, really

All that gone

are you stoned?


Got any more?

I like to think of it as a mind-expanding as opposed to alcohol which is mind-dulling.

I'm with ya there, man.

I'm with ya.

Nothing wrong with typing things how you see them, no matter the lens.

If one is of a scientific mindset, one must admit that all of consciousness is merely a product of electro-chemical activity in the brain.

Science does not address whether consciousness is simply electrochemical, or whether it is caused by the Great Pumpkin using electrochemical means. Science addresses the how. To say because science addresses only the how, so nothing exists beyond the how, is a fallacy.

"Science does not address whether consciousness is simply electrochemical, or whether it is caused by the Great Pumpkin using electrochemical means."

All of the functions of the human brain are a result of definable processes, none of which are a mystery. The "why" may be a mystery, but the "how" isn't. It is electricity and chemicals operating in well understood ways.

"To say because science addresses only the how, so nothing exists beyond the how, is a fallacy."

I did not mean to imply "nothing exists beyond the how", but the point is rather moot in my opinion.

If the switch is turned to the off position, there is no how or why to even worry about. When you're done, you're done.

As I said above, humans cling to the idea that there must be something else because life is so dramatic and full and death is so sudden and final. "That can't be all there is" is merely wishful thinking.

Having said all that, I honestly can not rule anything out, including the absurd idea that I might have to spend eternity listening to Jerry Falwell tell me how wrong I was. If that turns out to be the case, I'll petition to be sent to wherever Samuel Clemens, Einstein, Ghandi, Thomas Jefferson and all the dogs are.

Having said all that, I honestly can not rule anything out

The OP talks about how science proves there is no afterlife. It does not. This supposition was based on the idea that it hasn't been proven to exist, so it doesn't. By this reasoning evolution didn't happen until after 1859.

The "why" may be a mystery, but the "how" isn't.

This is what I said. I'm not at all debating the how, but the idea of an afterlife rests in the domain of the why. In the end, people can choose to believe or not. Science doesn't enter into it, anymore than belief should focus on whether to accept facts or not.

I did not mean to imply "nothing exists beyond the how", but the point is rather moot in my opinion.

The point I was addressing was really more the OP, however, you stated something to the effect that all consciousness was clearly due to electrochemical processes. To me, that does imply you're trying to say that nothing exists beyond the how. I'm saying that science doesn't answer questions like that, because it's not designed to do so.

So, I still have to disagree.

Maybe you are not, but I am living forever.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Don

I'll take idealism over nihilism any day.

1. Yep.

2. Not necessarily; some achievements DO last, and some transcend cultures, time and all sorts of limitations. Shakespeare made no attempt to preserve his unpublished works (half of his lifetime creations) yet two old business associates took it upon themselves to do so. To nihilistically minimize human effort is a dangerous pursuit, and a bit tiresome it its inherent fecklessness. The implications are VERY bad: efficacy isn't just a common delusion enforced to keep us enslaved, it's the hope and dream that brings out what's best about us. Yes, it's "cool" to be above it all, but it's nothing new or virtuous...

3. Big damned deal. Anyone who believes such twaddle should be given a wide berth, but the cringing terror of mortal limitations shouldn't be such a huge surprise: fundamentalists often cling to the last hopes of a new cure when terminal, gushing money for one more day of the pain; if they REALLY believed, they'd skip off merrily to that great reward.

4. Some of us were planned, and some of us have planned our offspring and our breeding with a biological as well as an emotional eye. Of the millions upon millions of misfires and mis-connections, between two people, the results will generally fall within a fairly expectable range. Focusing on the randomness further distresses the heart, and if one gives a thought for one's fellow humans, one should take it upon oneself to be at least somewhat cheery and supportive.

None of this is a huge surprise, and none of it should be particularly depressing after the adolescent realization hits.

So, what are you going to do tomorrow? :shrug: