Thursday, October 25, 2007
What Were They Thinking?!
(2)
You will never even hear the click of the trigger pull. The bullet will outrace all nerve impulses. Furthermore, the passage of the bullet will create a shock wave which will propagate throughout the brain in a millisecond, far outpacing the slower nerve impulses. This shock wave will destroy the entire brain instantly. Game over.
Hemingway had the right idea.
But death is a part of life, and you can drag it out with the aid of modern medicine. There are even Hospices - which are really dying hospitals - for those who want to experience their own deaths, which, from what I have gathered, can sometimes be glorious events.
I doubt the pop-culture interpretation of Near Death Experiences. I think that these memories are only dreams manufactured by brains which have had their nutrient supply unexpectedly reinstated. The brain knew beforehand that it was in jepoardy, and, upon being 'rescued' concocted a plausible scenerio. No doubt these incidents contributed to the religious notion of a 'next life.'
Which brings us to 'the afterlife.' There is no afterlife. Sorry.
But this raises a fascinating question: Am I actually Life Itself? Will my awareness never end? And is that a good idea? There are two possible answers: Yes. No. Buddhists say 'Yes.'
Algernon Charles Swinburn puts the 'no' option elegantly in his poem, The Garden of Proserpine:
----------
From too much love of living
From hope and fear set free
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives forever
That dead men rise up never
That even the weariest river
winds somewhere safe to sea
----------
Great poem. I learned it in a Catholic high school along with Chemistry. What were they thinking?!
You will never even hear the click of the trigger pull. The bullet will outrace all nerve impulses. Furthermore, the passage of the bullet will create a shock wave which will propagate throughout the brain in a millisecond, far outpacing the slower nerve impulses. This shock wave will destroy the entire brain instantly. Game over.
Hemingway had the right idea.
But death is a part of life, and you can drag it out with the aid of modern medicine. There are even Hospices - which are really dying hospitals - for those who want to experience their own deaths, which, from what I have gathered, can sometimes be glorious events.
I doubt the pop-culture interpretation of Near Death Experiences. I think that these memories are only dreams manufactured by brains which have had their nutrient supply unexpectedly reinstated. The brain knew beforehand that it was in jepoardy, and, upon being 'rescued' concocted a plausible scenerio. No doubt these incidents contributed to the religious notion of a 'next life.'
Which brings us to 'the afterlife.' There is no afterlife. Sorry.
But this raises a fascinating question: Am I actually Life Itself? Will my awareness never end? And is that a good idea? There are two possible answers: Yes. No. Buddhists say 'Yes.'
Algernon Charles Swinburn puts the 'no' option elegantly in his poem, The Garden of Proserpine:
----------
From too much love of living
From hope and fear set free
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives forever
That dead men rise up never
That even the weariest river
winds somewhere safe to sea
----------
Great poem. I learned it in a Catholic high school along with Chemistry. What were they thinking?!
