Maybe we are extinguished when we die, or so radically changed that we are no longer recognizably us. I can’t say from personal experience or with certainty this is not the case. Atheism is not an inherently irrational position, merely DOGMATIC atheism. That is irrational, because it makes the simultaneous claims that it is scientific, and that it possesses an absolute and immutable Truth. This bespeaks an emotionally rooted and willful misunderstanding of science, which always makes merely provisional claims, always subject to added evidence and the conclusions to which that evidence leads.
Last night, as I continue to fly in the face of all the anxieties this world throws at me, it was robots. Robots and some deeply complex personal myth I’m still sort of sorting out.
Robots are coming. You can’t stop it. They may be good, bad, or most likely both. The Marines are already deploying remote controlled and also, I think, vaguely intelligent .50 caliber gun platforms. Little guns on wheels, with targeting computers.
The Buddha had sickness, old age, and death. We have robots/AI, also, and perhaps also the philosophical conundrum if you are still you if it proves possible to upload SOMETHING to an electronic world. If is worth it? If death is certain and final, maybe, I guess. It’s not an inherently illogical position.
In the end we are left with our beliefs. I think all of us would get on much better if we all always remembered the provisional nature of our guesses. We do “have” each other. We can see one another, hug one another, shoot one another, eat meals with one another. That much is as close to an established fact as any other that we have. This much we know, to the extent we can know anything.
And if you think about it, there is something solipsistic, or perhaps narcissistic–although I’m not quite sure that is the word–about anyone losing themselves in a computerized universe, in video games, artificial reality, recorded music, recorded drama (movies being to live productions what records are to live performances). One could sit in a man or woman cave, work remotely, and be surrounded by what amounts to relics, records, of human activity, which nonetheless FEEL present. But they aren’t. This is an important point.
I am tempted to say there are countless madnesses, which reminds me of the Sufis who counted many types of Idiot. I’ve been told by a number of women that I think too much. The sort of stuff you see here is not something most men or women really want to live in.
And it is true that I, too, am sitting in front of a computer. But I am interacting, I would say, with my Self. I am trying to learn what hidden caves and continents are hidden within me.
Last night, as one example, I dreamed of a hidden cave, with a hidden lake in it. This is, or was, walled off emotion, things hidden. For me, water is nearly always emotion.
The goal is emotional transparency, where you are hiding nothing. I am no longer hiding my fear of robots, which I have dedicated very little waking energy to. But it’s there. It’s definitely there. But you face, embrace, and create a place for fears. I think that is what you do. You can’t make it go away, if it is rational–as this one manifestly is–but perhaps create a place for it, and plant it like a little seedling, and give it sun and water. And it may never get any bigger, precisely because it doesn’t have to. You haven’t forgotten it. I haven’t forgotten it. It does not need to signal to me that there is a possible danger–I am giving it the attention it needs.
Maybe this is the best peace we can get: a thousand small anxieties, all kept within very manageable size, coupled with a sense of wonder at the light in this world, the colors, the odors, the positive feelings, and the awareness that only those who choose to be are truly alone. You can always be your own kind companion, and if you can manage that, you will always be welcome among others too.