Daniel Thor: A Place for My Weird Theories on Life

I can't drink anymore. The thrill is gone.

 

I like both theories. Anything's possible. Has anyone pondered their purpose in life? I'm in my late 60s. Never been sure if I have one but some people definitely do. Their lives aren't forgotten. They made a difference. I never had kids. No one to remember me much. Oh well it's ok. It's ok. It's ok. I might be the one to cure tinnitus? Hahaha.

 

I saw my Dad's soul leave his body. How else could I possibly have walked away from him?

 

No purpose, just trying to survive this shithole.

 

I can’t imagine ever having kids now that I have severe reactive tinnitus and have had severe unmaskable tinnitus for almost 3 years now. I wanted to have kids but with these debilitating health issues I’m fine with never having kids. I want to be healthy and in the right place financially and not be debilitated by some horrific ailment before I ever have kids. I’m 26.

 

Wild Strawberries, 1957.

 

I pondered about life while really high on mushrooms, and all I got, pink music came out of the radio.

 

I'm sorry to cause grief, but from the absolute highest perspective I could not care less. I will be too dead to care. Being sorry just makes me want to get it over with sooner... so that I don’t have to be sorry about it anymore.

If I’m to quit this world, I quit all that it entails. All morals are out the window. They do not apply to me anymore. That’s just what severe chronic illness does to you. It doesn't kill your body, it sickens your body and kills your soul. It robs you off your human life. Don’t expect human kindness from me if I can no longer be human. I am only what life has made me. I can only be as good to life as life is to me.

 

I’m a little concerned with this @Kenilworth person. They haven’t posted or logged in for a while. And judging by their last 10 posts, it sounds like they were getting ready to pull the plug... I hope they’re okay...

 

Another great reason for suicide.

 

So I have a very serious question for you. Are you, being the author of this thread, seriously considering taking your own life, or is this a plea for acknowledgement?

If it's about suicide, you ain't going to go there. I think this whole thread is a disguise for attention.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Elmer

 

@Elmer B Fuddled, you’re right, but not entirely. The last 8 months or so I’ve been collecting data of all things death and suicide, every little single thing I can find on it, philosophical perspectives, spiritual insights, quotes from movies, books, both serious and humorous, just as a way for me to come to terms with what seems to be my inevitable fate. (I have a lot more I could post btw).

Writing about it, and posting about it, helps me come to terms with it. Having people giving me attention and acknowledging me for what I’m doing here helps too. This is no doubt a plea for acknowledgement and a cry for attention, because what I am right here is pretty much all I have left. I don’t disguise it. I’m not afraid of being an attention-seeker. It should be obvious that that’s what it is, but that’s not all that it is, or at least not what it is intended to be. It helps me come to terms with my fate, so I figure it will help others too, who are in the same boat as me.

Should I not post these things? I made this thread specifically so that I could. I know from some of the people who have posted it in this thread that it has. Many even contribute to the thread, which is great. As a suicidal person, I want to go out with the best perspective possible. And I believe you will find that here. I’m not vouching for anyone to go kill themselves. They can if they want, and if they’ve come to the point in their lives where there really is no other option (which absolutely realistically could be the case); then they will. I’m not gonna stop them. What I can do is just help them come to terms with it, the way I’m helping myself here coming to terms with it.

 

Yes you got it right. After you die - nothing - for all eternity. When you are asleep and not dreaming - totally oblivious. That is what death will be like - just dreamless sleep and never waking up.

There is no YOU. YOU is just a necessary illusion manifested in the brain for the purpose of protecting life and reproducing. It is what we call consciousness - like a computer program - and like a computer program - when you cut the power - the program shuts down.

And anyway - think - without your body and all your memories and being in bodily form with the people you love - do you really think that living for zillions of years is going to be of any interest? Life on earth can be boring enough and yet we have all these amazing possibilities. Think what eternity in the clouds would be like - DULL!

 

People may not be lying - though sometimes they do - but they could be mistaken - the experience seems real - but may not map to anything supernatural. I have hallucinated - I know what it's like to see things which really are not there (no drugs - this was extreme sleep deprivation). Pictures flying off the wall - lights unscrewing - as you say - there is no explanation. And when you admit there is no explanation - you are not justified in inventing one. Did these things happen? I sometimes remember things I thought happened - then realise I am remembering a dream. There are plausible naturalistic explanations. But in any case - these things may be some kind of evidence for the people who witnessed them - but no evidence for anyone else.

How do ghosts prove God's existence? There could be an afterlife and ghosts - but no God - right? My mum saw my uncle Jim at the foot of her bed the night he died. His ghost maybe? Or perhaps my mum - learning of uncle Jim's death the next day - in the shock - found a connection with him through this story. She wouldn't lie either - do I believe in ghosts? No. My best friend sent me a video showing the soul floating up after someone died - a YouTube video. He now believes in the soul. I saw the video. I don't believe in the soul. Nobody wants to die - understandable - very annoying this death thing - perhaps they will solve it one day. In the meantime - let's just live the one life we know we have - and whatever happens when we die happens - we already won the lottery just being born and living. That is enough for me.

 

The only purpose of life - from what I can understand - is to make the most of the limited time you have. We all make a unique difference even if we do not have children and even if nobody remembers us and we don't do anything remarkable in life or have any special talents.

 

You don’t actually know that. Let’s be real here. You have no way of knowing it. And science is never going to figure it out. You have to go actually go there to know. The truth is for the dead only. The rest of us can only guess.

My guess is there’ll be a rebirth, but not of you and me, but of the universe, for it to experience itself through some new form. It might even be something other than human. Could be an alien. Could be a giraffe. This idea is what makes me going tbh, because if the universe is just here to experience itself through an infinite number of these forms, then this form that I am should be experienced also. This doesn’t mean I can’t kill myself though, because in the end that is also just an experience, - an experience as valid as any other, but if that’s all that life is, and all that life is for, then whatever I am experiencing right now (a horrible shitty life) maybe isn’t so bad after all. It’s just experience. And in the eyes of the universe; it’s as worthy of an experience as any other.

 

I may not know it with certainty - but I have a very high confidence level in my belief that this is the case. I have some facts on my side. We have no examples of consciousness existing independent of brains. Our bodies rot when we die and our brains where our memories sit obviously go to nothing. There is good reason to suppose that this existence we have is the only existence we will ever have once our hearts stop beating.

Of course we can all speculate that the universe will be re-born etc. Perhaps it will crunch in on itself and there will be a new big bang. And it may be that the next version of the universe will have no life in it at all - or - no humans. But the only thing that matters for you - is whether you will exist again in any other universe in any other form with anything which remains of what you are now - and I see no good reason to suppose that even may be the case. Which is why when I say the lights go out forever - I think I am quite well justified to claim it.

Yes your experiences are all the same to the universe - since the universe - as far as I can tell - is not conscious even though there are conscious life forms in it. Which is why some very good people live shitty experiences and others - undeserving criminals etc - live quite healthy happy riotous lives. Christianity solves this by punishing the wicked - so does karma and re-incarnation theories - the evil come back as toads or whatever - but I have no reason to believe any of that is true either.

 

Do we have examples of consciousness existing in our brains?

Sure, when we get hit on the head and fall “unconscious” the consciousness goes. The same when we die. It is not a proof that consciousness is in our brain. Science has yet to figure out where consciousness is. They can’t find it in the brain. I think there is a reason for that.

Looking for consciousness in the brain is like looking Inside a radio for the announcer. -Nassim Haramein

What will remain of what I am now is the universe itself.

Like with the tracking of consciousness, there is no proof that you are your body either, because it’s relative. There is no universal law that says that you are your person. It’s a given, literally by society, that you are you, that this is your body, and that when it dies you die. But what If I don’t derive my sense of identity from myself, or my body, but of the universe? I have every right to do so, because without the universe I literally would not be. The only thing separating me from being the universe is that little voice inside my head telling me my name is Daniel Thor, I am 29 years old, I have severe tinnitus & hyperacusis and my life sucks; and me believing that that’s what I am. It holds no place in actual reality. We’ve just gotten so good at naming and defining stuff with our minds that we have come to hold it as an universal truth that everything is separate. In reality; nothing is separate. Without our words and definitions everything would be one. Everything would be “universe”.

Of course “Daniel Thor” doesn’t get to go another round. The universe respawning into existence in different being with a different experience and another sense of “I” that this being holds for the lifetime it gets to live; that is something that seems completely plausible to me, as the universe.

When you consider how random it was that “you” came into existence, is it really so hard to imagine that “you” can come again?

From the perspective of the universe you already exist as every living creature on earth. You have been cycling through the entire chain of being forever since the beginning of the universe and you will do so until the end.

I think the universe is consciousness itself. That’s why you can’t find it in the brain, because it’s everywhere. It’s everything. A non-sentient object is a part of consciousness. It literally would not exist without consciousness.

Just because the universe doesn’t have a moral code to abide by like us humans, doesn’t mean the universe is unconscious. Consciousness has nothing to do with morals. Just look at animals. War and murder and rape is just as good as anything else when you don’t look it from a moral point of view. The same holds true for a shitty life of tinnitus & hyperacusis. It’s as good as any other life when you don’t have your preassumption of what a good life is supposed to be.

That may sound harsh, and because of my moral code I feel weird saying it, but it’s the truth. Everything that happens in this place happens for the love of experience. The universe loves all of it. Imo we should too.

 

I used to try and feel one with the universe but never really got anywhere meaningful with that. People kept referring to me as Stuart - not Mr Cosmos. A shame as I did try to transcend.

If we are defining consciousness as our awareness of ourself and the world around us and all our emotions and memories. Yes we do. We have people who have been in accidents and had brain damage. They wake up and can remember nothing of their identity. There are also people who have two personalities residing in them - even to the extent that one is an atheist and one a theist. We have neuroscience and analysis of brain states when awake and when asleep - emotional states etc - it is all tied in with the brain. We have drugs which affect the brain - and which can help people with paranoid delusions, for example. There is plenty of evidence and since the brain is so amazingly complex and we have this evidence - there is every reason to suppose that when the brain dies - consciousness dies with it.

But anyway supposing that we don't know it is in the brain. Give me any example of a consciousness which exists independent of a physical body.

Of course, if consciousness is like the pilot in the machine - in other words - your consciousness is the thing that experiences memories, emotions, personality, pleasure, pain etc etc. I would need evidence that that is what consciousness is. I have laid out my definition which you can either accept or reject. The pilot theory just sounds to me like wishful thinking.

OK - so all your family and friends - you will never see them again. Well - good you accept that. But you are still holding onto the hope that your consciousness will somehow pop up in another version of the universe and allow you to experience another life. A universe is plausible - because we know at least one universe exists. But I do not understand how this fact - leads you to the plausibility of consciousness surviving the death of the body and waiting around for billions of years until the next incarnation of another universe makes a physical body available for your soul (for want of a better word).

Where are "I's" made? Or how are they made? Are they made? Or just occur naturally? Do they last forever? Are there a fixed number? You seem how many questions arise from positing some kind of new life after death? Why complicate matters?

You mean the universe is conscious? So if I take a rock - is that conscious? Is a rock conscious in the same way that we are?

But we are human beings and we seek what is good for us. There is no escaping that. If you are experiencing a shitty life though I can see why a) you are hoping for another better life in another healthy body and b) as a way of dealing with this shitty existence of illness, you rationalise that from a universal perspective no life is any worse or better than any other life.

Thanks for your detailed replies to my post. I appreciate it.

 

@Stuart-T and @danielthor, interesting philosophical debate. Here are my thoughts. If you don’t believe in a god or creator, then you don’t believe in intelligent design. This notion presents a few ideas — that mankind (conscious) is infinitely smarter than all things unconscious, nature included, as it, too, has no sentience; that the universe itself is NOT an invention, as there is no inventor. It’s not intelligent because it can’t think; it’s a byproduct of chance. But think about it: isn’t the cosmos more profound than anything man-made? If there’s more beauty in the natural world (a drop of dew, speck of snow, or fragile iris), then who shall we accredit? Who should we applaud? Who should we thank for those 88 constellations blanketing the night sky? If nature’s talent exceeds that of our own, surpassing men and women as the top inventor, then who is more sagacious, intelligent, and mighty? Mankind or nature? If you say nature, answer this question: how can the universe — an unconscious realm — upstage humanity? From an atheistic point-of-view, the universe, despite all its glory, is labeled “unconscious.” However, it has consistently generated things that far exceed anything mankind has created (conscious entities). How can something that’s unconscious trump something that’s conscious? It would have to be smarter than us or directed by someone more intelligent, right? My argument is that it can’t upstage us unless that’s the case, meaning the universe is essentially conscious because it’s created by someone greater than ourselves — a Supreme Being.

Collectively, the inventions of humankind pale in comparison to the cosmos, even though people can think, conceptualize, and create — technology, man-made structures, medicinal achievements, and so forth; they’re all small compared to the cosmos. On an engineering scale, people have failed to create anything comparable to or more elegant than the jaw-dropping mechanics of the human body — DNA; epigenetic traits; growth; self-healing; the necessary organs, 5 senses (ears to hear, eyes to see, nose to smell, ability to taste and feel / touch; it’s all well-thought-out); intellect and the ability to think (consciousness). Human attempts to replicate synthetic consciousness via A.I. or the complexities of the human heart have been unsuccessful, yet nature has already done both a zillion times over with varying species. Perhaps, for the skeptics out there, I can argue that nature comes off as more intelligent or superior to us because there’s someone more intelligent and superior behind it, i.e., god.

 

OK usually but not always. There are some people who believe we were designed by aliens and dropped here on earth. There are also Christians - who accept the theory of evolution and big bang cosmology - but just think god started everything and let it go - knowing the mechanism of evolution would bring about by natural means the intended chosen beings in his universe.

No - this is a misconception. The universe is a not a bi-product of chance. There are physical laws which resulted in the universe which manifests before us. It was not like tossing a zillion nuts and bolts in the air and when they fall a car appears. As far as we know - biological entities can be conscious - but non biological matter is not.

There is perhaps some subjectivity in that question. I find Mozart and Shakespeare more profound.

It has not been demonstrated that there is a who to applaud. The universe may have come about by purely natural means. One can be in awe of something without attributing it to an agent. If people feel they need to thank someone for the universe and existence - go right ahead and praise and worship and invent any god you want for that purpose. Richard Dawkins has stated that it seems much more wondrous and awesome that the universe and life came about by purely natural means rather than a god snapping his fingers and I agree with him.

OK you are conflating two different things. Those that occur naturally - with those which are man made. So it makes no sense to compare them. The universe is actually relatively simple - compared with say - the Saturn V moon rocket. Organic life is more complex - but had hundreds of million years to evolve. But supposing there is an intelligent designer. I don't think the human being is a particularly intelligent design - the fact we can get tinnitus and myriad other illnesses should tell you that.

Again - you cannot compare the achievements of man with what occurs naturally so your argument is invalid. You are arguing that it takes a greater intelligence than man to design and manifest the natural world. Put this argument another way - since it seems to you that the natural world is so complex and impressive - you DO NOT suppose it could have occurred naturally - that there must be an agent behind it. But why rule out a universe which came about by purely natural forces? The science is nowhere near complete and there are many unanswered questions but the models we have - big bang cosmology - abiogenesis and theory of evolution - can account for a purely naturalistic universe. They also dispense with the biggest headache of all - answering - if god is the creator - where did god from?