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I never said I am sure one ends up in nothingness — I only said it seems the most logical conclusion. And the fact that we may end up as nothing gives me even more reason to live fully. As Stephen Hawking said: “This is the only life we get, so make sure to live it to the fullest.”
I am afraid that this is exactly how all other living things do while being guided by their preprogrammed instincts. They have no other choice but to play their given/programmed role(s) in life before returning back to nothingness.
When I was younger, the thought of death and nothingness did push me into an existential crisis. But I realized: if I can’t change it, why let it ruin every moment of life? Humans have always found ways to cope — through gods, spirits, duty, or purpose. My way was to acknowledge the truth of mortality without letting it paralyze me. That choice gave me freedom to ask questions, interact more meaningfully, and see life with curiosity instead of despair.
Me too, when I was around 17, my first important question which I had to find out its logical answer was about the death of my living body.
That’s where intelligence comes in. Questions like assessing different levels of intelligence — emotional, rational, or otherwise — matter because they help me adapt, connect, and understand people better. Intelligence is not just about “the end fruit,” but about the quality of our living moment to moment. As Neil deGrasse Tyson put it, “Every child is born a scientist.” Asking questions is a way of being human, whether or not there’s an afterlife.
For instance, the common weakness that all human babies are born with is 'ignorance'. The role of the human intelligence is to defeat that weakness as much as possible. The more a person trusts the power of his mind, the more he can get the logical answers he is looking for. So, one of my axioms is that the Will/Power behind my existence gave me a relative perfect mind. I mean, every time my mind has a really important question, he is given the power to find/discover its logical answer too. But, in general, a theist is made to believe that his mind is supposed not to be able to answer every question he may ask, no matter how important the question, related to his life, is.
P.S So no Kerim F— believing nothingness may be the end doesn’t make me glum or purposeless. It just means I create my purpose here and now, in this life.
After all you are not wrong. You simply choose to see yourself just another living being though whose living body/flesh is much more evolved than of all other sp,ecies.
On my side, I try, since I was young, to let my possible eternal dream (as I mentioned it on an early post) after my body will sleep for good (will be dead), be as peaceful and joyful as possible. Of course, this is not easy at all to do, because I have to oppose the natural robotic nature of my body whenever I had to face a hard situation. (I had too many since I was young... till these days). At least my actual dreams are nice. I wake up when only my body decides, for one reason or another, to return back to the time-space realm. So, I am not sure what a dream, said a nightmare, could be.
Even if the eternal dream will never happen, I used to feel fine for having the unusual power to oppose, at will, the robotic nature of my body, while almost all people I know have no choice but to follow their instincts of survival, superiority, selfishness and applying justice on others whenever they have the means to do.
Hi Zach, I am just curious how a person, who is sure that every human will end up to nothingness, sees any importance of one's level of intelligence.
For example, in this case, what could be 'the fruit' of being intelligent? I didn't say 'the end fruit' instead, because it leads to nothingness for the person in question.
So perhaps, I say perhaps, it is to serve the progress of 'The Nature' (in its trial and error). But this sounds familiar to me. Instead of serving 'The Nature' there are those who use their intelligence to know 'The God' they have to serve.
I did not say higher intelligence directly means better capability or ability, as they say talent without work is nothing, i just said does it makes a difference if two persons both doing intellectual work have a difference in their work due to a difference in say intelligence or intellectual ability.
If they have both exactly the same level of interest to do an intellectual work, the one who make it better and faster is a sign of being more intelligent. But even in this case, the result could be confusing if one made the work better and the other one made it much faster but not as good as the first one did.
On the other hand, when I meet someone, I usually suppose he is as intelligent as I am, but just his interests in life could be very different from mine which let us also have different sets of knowledge (and skills).
May I add a fact which is also related to intelligence?
Let us assume that A is more intelligent than B. Isn't it possible for B to know useful things that A has no idea of?
I mean, a more effective factor in one's life than his intelligence is 'necessity'. Not in vain we used hearing:
"Necessity is the mother of invention/innovation."
Even the most intelligent person won't solve a problem that some others may do if he has no interest to solve it.
And an ordinary person may solve a problem that he really needs to do while his finding (useful to him in the least) is not known by anyone else.
When I join a forum, I try to remember always that I am just a guest in it.
A guest has no right at all other than what the host gives him.
After all, no one forces a person to be a guest in a house.
In this respect, I personally witnessed the worst case in forums.
A guest can be banned for just asking a question related to the topic and before any member had the chance to reply or complain, in one way or another.
I guess I have to give a real example of it.
When I joined one of the Christian forums, I noticed someone asking: "Is it enough to love God only for one to be saved?". So, I added another question (my first post in the forum):
"Let us see how a human can love God (as in the first commandment of Jesus)".
Unfortunately, I missed to also add my answer to it which is:
"True Love towards another is having unlimited trust in whatever he does."
But only a few minutes after I posted my question, I was banned for good. I was banned not from the forum only but also from contacting its administration.
Anyway, I never imagined that, in the English language, the word 'love' has to mean always something related to (something not to be heard by kids). Obviously, after this experience, I started to think 10 times more before I use the English word 'love' during a conversation with English people.
Sorry Jai, I didn't notice there were more posts (on page 2) after the new post of Zach.
So, this is my last post here.
Even now, we’re still learning how the universe came into being. But instead of asking “why everything came,” it’s more practical and meaningful to understand how it did.
Let us assume that someday we will know how life could be started from non-living elements only. It would be like having the ability to produce the most advanced robots, living robots (much like we are, since we are supposed to be driven by our preprogrammed instincts). Those future living robots (tiny or big ones) may be made to also survive more than humans do, in general. But at the end each living robot, like each living human, will return back to its raw state (like dead planets and stars do) ... to nothingness (relative to life, inert state).
I guess, in this view, one has to believe that nature (or whatever) ended up (after billions of years) to let him exist in a game, called life, which he has to play it, in one way or another, till it will be turned off (by a suicide or an out-of-control natural cause).
Nature doesn’t plan — what works, continues; what doesn’t, disappears. No intelligence needed.
Well, this could work on what we may call living things (as the tiny cells, plants, mammals and humans).
What about the non-living elements in our universe? Did each of them have also needed the process of trial and error to exist the form it is now?
One may say they existed all, the way they are now, when the Big Bang occurred.
Then, by a mere coincidence, many of them were able to help/assist/support in the survival of the various living things (also from the tiny cells to humans) during the process of the trial and error.
For instance, as far as I know, the image by which I see the 'WILL/Power beyond mine' is not like (actually, is not supposed to be like) of any 'God' known by the different theists around the world.
The key process seems to be ‘Trial and Error’ which can replace the ‘Will beyond mine’.
Thinking of this, I wonder how something could be scraped when it fails.
Doesn’t this process (of scraping) have to also follow the principal of 'trial and error' (perhaps after saving, in a way, the nature and the cause of failure to avoid repeating it) in order to ensure it is also done very well?
On the other hand, to me in the least, saying that something is this or that is always relative to something else.
For example, when my designed controller failed, it means it failed to achieve certain predefined goals.
What were/are the predefined goals while our universe is being formed by trial and error?
Did the nature also have a huge set of goals (saved somewhere) for all its elements, the inert and living ones, while they are formed so that it can detect the failed cases?
I do believe a person can become trapped in his faith, precisely because his belief reinforces itself and justifies its own existence.
My problem is that I, being a realistic rational person, cannot have faith (religious or else). I am simply trapped by how I perceive my own existence and the world around me.
I used to gain my living as an independent (private) designer/producer in electronics (by producing whatever the local market may need in every period of time). So, I knew that designing and building even a simple controller (hardware and firmware) cannot be done by chance/hazard. I mean if I mistyped even one number in a crucial part of my code, the entire system crashes. So, it is impossible for me to believe that, behind my rather very complex system (living body, including its mind), there is no sort of intelligence (actually higher intelligence). But knowing there is a higher Will/Power behind my existence (my will) has no practical value by itself. It just opened a door for me to discover more things about life, by asking and answering more questions.
It is clear that we are just exchanging ideas on how we perceive life. Me too, I try to follow your way of thinking by presenting what I have understood from you so far.
For example, if I understood you well, it seems that the END of a living human has only one possibility in your logical reasoning. He will return, sooner or later, back to nothingness (as if he didn't exist in the first place).
This reminds me my first question, when I was around 17, which I had to find out its logical answer:
"What could be the end purpose that I have to exist temporarily in the time-space realm?"
I think we likely have different answers to such a question.
It seems that the key word in your analyses is ‘the mind’ (one’s mind).
You cleverly simplified/explained all things in one’s life by relating them all to the power of his mind, assumed to be versatile.
Therefore, the various differences in how humans live are due to their different minds they got at birth.
And every human, with his mind, will return back to nothingness at death.
The good news is that, in general, every human sees himself right in what he used to believe and do.
What I know is that almost all persons I knew in my environment see me a weird person every time I oppose my instincts of survival, superiority, selfishness or applying justice, while I have the means (the power) not to do it.
It seems that what lets me choose to live this way cannot be physical, unless I was born with a different/opposite set of instincts that all humans are supposed to have.
To my big surprise, one man only, in the human history, agrees clearly with me on how I live and do. So, after all, I am not unique in this respect.
From this, I deduced other things related to my life and death, but they are also not of the physical world.
Well, that may be specific to you. For me, dreams have always felt more like reflections of what I’ve lived — or distortions of them, as if I were walking through parallel versions of my own life.
This is exactly how I see my dreams.
To me, they seem less like messages from beyond and more like the work of the mind itself.
They don't have to be messages from beyond. They are, as you said, reflections of the essence of what one's has lived, and what he is ready to do.
Naturally, I wondered why the WILL beyond mine has allowed me (or my brain, if you like) to let me feel that I, once a while, exist in a realm which is different from the time-space one. I am afraid that my answer is based on my logical reasoning (not of anyone else).
Among our preprogrammed instructions (instincts), humans see that one of their duties is to apply justice and/or ask for justice (for others and self). This is why people, anywhere on earth, talk about justice and judgment, a heavenly/worldly judgment in case of theists or a worldly judgment only in case of atheists.
One of my axioms (which cannot be proven directly) is that the WILL beyond mine is just (taken from the ideal case among humans). A relation is said just if both sides can judge each other. It is also just if none of the two sides is allowed to judge the other. But when one side only (a powerful one) has the right to judge another side (a weak one), the relation is obviously unjust.
Naturally, the WILL beyond mine knows that I have no means at all to judge 'It', no matter what 'It' does (or may do) to me or else. So, to be just, 'It' had to find a way by which 'It' doesn't need to judge me too. The solution is to let a human judge himself in another realm, a dream-like one. This lets everyone happy.
But this truth doesn't prevent most people around the world, if not all, accept (always based on their preprogrammed instincts) that it is natural for the most powerful sides only (natural or supernatural) to have the right to judge others (based on a certain set of rules) for they know what they do much better than the weak sides do.
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There is nothing wrong in what you say. I simply started my view with the fact (relative to my perception) that I am forced to exist and re-exist (after each wake up) in the time-space realm. Actually, my past ancestors (starting from the first living cells, billions years ago) were all forced to exist too. Also, during the deep sleep of my body, I have no control at all about when and how to exist in a dream.
This implies that, based on my logic, there is a WILL beyond mine that forced/forces me to exist in both realms. To me, this is a fact though it may not be so for many people who have their own different views/stories.
“But in the end, we both live — here, now — and that is the realm where our choices still matter.”
And I decided that my choices should help me make my existence in my dreams pleasant and joyful, as possible (I can’t achieve this by following my instincts only which are supposed to please and protect my physical body instead and as long as possible). And I will lose nothing (after the return of my body to nothingness) in case the WILL beyond mine will not let me exist in a dream-like realm (without my body).
For instance, I see my body much like a button, made (designed) to switch on and off my existence in dreams (while it is alive). Removing an on-off button doesn't imply removing the system behind it.
In science (related to the physical world), we don't need to see things to know they exist.
For example, we still don't know how two masses detect the presence of each other; that is the exact process (the mechanism) by which they communicate and attract each other, even in vacuum. We just refer to it by gravity waves or gravity field.
We know the existence of this unknown process by logical reasoning.
On the other hand, if, in a test, a stimulated object gives sometimes, for a single input, two different, if not opposing, outputs, we can say that its structure is formed by two separated systems in case repeating the same test gives always the same outputs (otherwise, it could be a damaged object).
But if the stimulated object gives always, for the same input, the same one output, it is formed by one system only.
I applied this analysis/test on myself (the object under test). I noticed, since I was teen, that when someone hurts me, I live two possibilities:
If I hurt him back, I have two opposite feelings: proud for being brave and sad for seeing him hurt.
If I stop myself to revenge, I have also two opposite feelings: ashamed for being coward and a sort of joy for being strong to control my programmed body.
I don't know about other humans, I just know that there are two separate systems (or whatever their names might be) in my actual living structure. While I exist now with both of them, there is always the possibility that I may also exist with one of them only (likely with the non-physical one, since my physical system has to return back, sooner or later, to its raw state, to nothingness).
From the dream samples which I had (I am 75), I noticed that, in general, they reflect, in one way or another, the essence of how I treat and think of others.
It happened that, since I was teen, I chose not to be of the world; that is not to be a living robot guided solely by its preprogrammed instructions (like the instincts of survival, superiority, selfishness and applying justice on others, to name a few).
So, I used to live an unconditional love/care towards all others, good and evil. Yes, I don't judge anyone, the only one I may judge is me when I do something wrong because of ignorance.
Since I don't fear death, I used to love even my worst enemies (I even thank them for helping me proving to myself I am not a living robot whose preprogrammed duty is to defend itself by any available means).
Therefore, naturally, I feel well in every dream no matter whom I may see in it. I can't see sort of nightmare that many people claim to have once a while.
Many used to see me as a big loser. But every human, I included, will lose everything at death. At least, I lived in a way so that, in case I may exist in a dream-like eternal realm, I will enjoy it as I do now.
Besides my birth, I am forced to exist in the time-space realm every time my living body has to wake up from its deep sleep, as preprogrammed (by design).
It happens that, sometimes before the wake up of my living body, I am forced to also exist in a realm not bounded by time and space (usually called a dream). So, I lose my existence in a dream when I return back to the time-space realm.
If we see the deep sleep as a short sample of the state of death, a dream could be a short sample of the everlasting realm/dream (a dead body cannot wake up to end it).
Please don't worry, our created physical body (bounded by time and space) is programmed already to return, sooner or later, to its raw state, to nothingness (state before birth). But ...
Read the entire post again. If you still believe you are right, you are entitled to your opinion.
You are right.
It is clear that I am totally wrong based on what the representatives of the today's science say.
I see, thank you. I usually write it as ln(a).
I may be wrong, but this is how I expected the existence of what we may call 'black holes'.
As the atomic universe forms the various matters of our universe, I use to see our universe, in turn, forming matter of a much bigger universe.
If an atomic particle escapes from a matter in our universe, the possibility for it, in general, to return to that matter, from where it exited, is close to zero.
Similarly, if a particle (planet, star... even light and the like) escapes from our universe (forming a piece of matter in the higher universe), the possibility for it to return back is close to zero too.
In brief, a 'black hole' is an exit from our universe with no return; as the light in a room crossing one of its windows (one of its black holes).
lnb? lna?
I used to think that subatomic particles refer to the particles that form the matter of photons, neutron and electrons... etc.
Naturally, such subatomic particles (of the subatomic universe) cannot be detected in our days directly, only their effects in vacuum (a space having no atomic particles), as in gravity waves among matters of our universe.
For instance, while having fun (good time), time passes very fast.
We conclude that since people, in general, try their best to have good times, they are actually trying their best to pass their time between birth and death as fast as possible.
(On the other hand, time passes very slowly, while having pain.)