Journal Entries
Do we exist?
Posted Aug 13, 2005
I'm talking aobut in the physical sense here. Are we here? Who are we? What are we?
Are we defined by our minds? Our personalities? That can't work. The mind in your head as you read this scentence is not the same one as was in your head a microsecond ago, because you have read these words, and your perception has been shifted; most likely to a very slight degree, but shifted nonetheless. Heck, there it goes again, and again, and again...
Basically, your mind is constantly dying and being replaced by a very similar one. As you take longer and longer time increments, the death and reincarnation of your mind gets more and more extreme.
So if we are our minds, then we do not exist.
What about our bodies, do they exist? Look at yourself now. Seven years ago, you had countless trillions of cells. Today, not one of them is alive. Similarly, the biochemical processed insode your cells mean that molecules are constanly changing, atoms are being ditched and being replaced by new ones. Your body is not the same as it was a millisecond ago, because one of yur cells has just converted a six-carbon sugar to two three-carbon pyruvates in order to provide energy. Elsewhere, electrons are being chuked along a long chain of chemicals two at a time, giving up all their lovely energy as they go.
So if we are our bodies, then we do not exist.
If we are our bodies and our minds, then we really do not exist.
Or perhaps by 'body,' you could refer to an arrangement of various chemicals in a certain general composition, or a bunch of non-specific cells that each have a specific DNA sequence. This option runs into problems when you consider identical twins, both of whom have identical DNA, but let's leave that for the time being. Chemicals ae matter. Matter is energy. Energy, when you get right down to it, is a ripple in the space-time continuum. These ripples are constantly changing, and no ripple ;asts forever.
So if we are defined by matter, we do not exist.
We might be defined by emotions, passions, etc. No, this is too ridiculous. emotions are fleeting and ever changin - your emotional state now is not the same as when you began to read this thing.
So if we are defined by emotions, then we do not exist.
How about processes? Perhaps we can define a human by a series of changes, both (for want of a better word) physical, mental, emotional, and biochemical. But what is a change? A change is by its very nature transient, and lasts for only a brief time.
So if we are defined by change, then we cannot possibly exist, since change necessitates destruction.
Maybe we are defined by our world lines. For those who don't know, imagine a graph with your travel through time represented on the Y axis and your travel through space represented on the X axis. As you lie in bed, your world line climbs vertically straight up relative to Earth. when you get out of bed and move around in a zombie-like state, the angle changes so that it leans ever-so-slightly towards the horizontal. If you then drive a car to work and there is not much traffic, it leans ever so slightly mor towards horizontal. At precisely 45 degrees, you are travelling at light speed.
Every subatomic particle necessarily has its own world line, so you are composed of countless zillions of these, and they are always changing. It gets even more complicated when you consider that Earth and Sol are both moving rapidly through space. The only way to get constant world lines is to travel at light speed, and that is impossible.
So if we are defined by world lines, then we do not exist.
So it would appear that we don't exist, though HP Lovecraft may shed some light on this situation. In Through the Gates of the Silver Key, the protagonist, Randolph Carter, encounters the entity Yog-Sothoth, who is boundless, eternal, and almost beyond human comprehension. To Yog-Sothoth, three dimensions are incredibly restrictive, all normal gods are totally petty, and Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep are mere children. Carter is a manifestation of Yog-Sothoth in one particular place and time, and there are others, both on Earth and on other planets, and even between galaxies, and the only difference is the angle at which you take a slice of the Universe.
Yog-Sothoth cannot change, since It is beyond change (as well as time, space, and various other things.) Thus Yog-sothoth may be defined; I suppose It could perhaps be Carter's soul. If Lovecraft is right, then maybe we are all four-diemnsional manifestations of eternal boundless beings, along with various others who are just different perspectives of the eternal whole. The problem here is that Yog-Sothoth cannot be properly grasped by our minds, but at least we have something concrete (for want of a better metaphor) to base our existence on.
On the other hand, disaster lurks if we are all manifestations of the same entity, or if Yog-Sothoth and the equivalent things that we are manifestations of are themselves onlt manifestations of a still greater entity, perhaps that which the Muslims call Allah, and the Hindus call Brahman. If that's the case, then we most certainly do not exist.
(And then of course, we must remember that Lovecraft was an atheist who wrote his stories for money.)
Damn. If I don't exist, then what happens next?
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Latest reply: Aug 13, 2005
My new name
Posted Jun 17, 2005
Hussassan is now called Apollyon. Much better, don't you think?
Discuss this Journal entry [6]
Latest reply: Jun 17, 2005
DIE FROG DIE!!!!!!one!!!!!
Posted Jun 6, 2005
http://hatethatfrog.desktopcreatures.com/index.asp?q=crazy+frog
Céad míle míle fáilte do Reefgirl for that link.
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Latest reply: Jun 6, 2005
Feeling Blue
Posted Jun 5, 2005
Yesterday I went to my local cinema to see HHGG, only when I got there, I discovered they were no longer showing it
. It's kind of put a damper on my whole weekend.
I could have seen Star Wars III, I guess, but after the gushing reviews of HHGG I had read on this and other sites, I just couldn't face anything else. My cinema cash was then spent on 
and 
ies, and I am now the only person on this entire site who has not seen the movie.
Discuss this Journal entry [10]
Latest reply: Jun 5, 2005
Ask Bush Questions
Posted Jun 3, 2005
http://www.fridgemagnet.org.uk/toys/bushconference
A bit of a laugh, at least.
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Jun 3, 2005
Apollyon - Grammar Fascist
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