Tag Archives: Death

The Religion War

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“The Internet (is) God’s central nervous system, connecting all the thinking humans, so that one good thought anywhere could be available everywhere. The head would know what the feet were feeling. It would be an upper consciousness, above what the human beings that composed it would understand.” (Pg.151)

“God is everything, all the matter and empty space that now exists, or ever will exist. He expresses his preference in the invisible workings of gravity, probability, and ideas. God is that which is unstoppable, permanent, all-powerful, and by its own standards perfect. God was in no hurry. He was reforming. He didn’t think in the way that humans do, as that is unnecessary for an entity whose preferences are identical to reality. Humans think in order to survive and entertain themselves. God has no need for a tool that is useful only to the frail and unsatisfied.” (Pg. 177)

“You’re a collection of molecules and those molecules are made of smaller bits, and those bits are made of even smaller bits. The smallest bits in the universe are all identical. You are made of the same stuff as the concrete in the floor and the fly on the window. Your basic matter cannot be created or destroyed. All that will survive of what you call you life is the sum of your actions. Some might call the unending ripple effect of those actions a soul, or a spirit.”

“Consciousness is a feedback loop. It has four parts: You imagine the impact of your actions, then you act, then you observe the actual result of your action, then you store that knowledge in your brain and begin again to imagine the next thing.” (pg 31)

Excerpts from The Religion War, by Scott Adams

Pick one memory

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Jonathon Delacour on the movie After Life.

“The premise of After Life is simple. Every Monday, people who have died walk through an open doorway suffused with pale light into what looks like a derelict boarding school. Each is issued with an ID number and assigned to a counselor who will assist them in preparing for the journey to the other side. Much of the film is taken up with these counseling sessions, which commence with an explanation of the rules:”

You’re going to stay here for a week. Everyone gets a private room. Please feel at home. But while you’re here there’s one thing you must do.

Out of the __ years of your life, we’d like to ask you to choose one memory, the one you remember and cherish most. There is a time limit. You have three days to decide.

After you choose your memory, our staff will recreate it on film as exactly as possible.
On Saturday we’ll show the films to everyone. The moment the memory comes back to you most vividly, you’ll go on to the other side, taking only that memory.

Via Halley’s Comment

Virtual Eternity-Part 2

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Jeff offers some enhancements to my Virtual Eternity idea:

“The website (posted 5 minutes after time of death) could have many features. You could post a general greeting (“Hi, it’s me Jeff, yes I know I’m dead, but I feel great, come on in!”). A seperate video post that sends condolences for your own death and the hardship it is causing family and friends (“Boss, I won’t be in today….I’m dead!) You could have a link to a video clip where you say all the things you always wanted to say (“I killed Rover! I did it, I admit it! It was an accident!”). … Dispense your dark secrets (“Honey, ever notice how the kids next door have my ears?”) … Speak openly to friends, read your own will, tell off-color jokes, read the kids a bedtime story, talk to grandkids you don’t have yet, summarize your life in your own words, and on and on.”

Virtually eternal

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Here’s what I’m thinking… I’m going to endow a trust to keep this website going after I’m not. I’ll record a brief video message that will be posted 5 minutes after I’m gone. We’ll have a little chat room where visitors can share their thoughts. Nobody will have to travel because there won’t be anyplace to go. (There you go, I’ve already got the title for my eulogy.) This is such a good idea it has to have been done. If you come across such a site, email me.

Death

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One of my first posts was a quote from Lawrence Block’s Everybody Dies:

“When you die, it is said you see your whole life. But you don’t see it minute by minute, like a speeded-up film. It’s like everything you ever did in all your days was a brushstroke, and now you see the whole painting all at once.”

Poet Billy Collins has a different view:

I wonder how it all got started, this business
about seeing your life flash before your eyes
while you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence,
could startle time into such compression, crushing
decades in the vice of your desperate, final seconds.
From The Art of Drowning