The Question

From here where they've got a buttload of covers

The question is of course a, I was going to say superhero but he's not. Doesn't have super powers so lets go with sleuth/crimefighter. He was also briefly a black lantern but let's not get into that. I'm not referring to this suave investigator when I say the question. I've been plagued by it since I was eight. Nearly two decades of pondering and I haven't got an answer. Well I have a answer that makes sense but it's such a tragedy.

I think I've written about the question before. Most of these are just vastly reworded versions of previous posts. Now I've said that you just have to go back and read my entire back catalog, right? :-P A feat that would take even the most herculean of readers a few days, weeks, months? How fast would a herculean reader be? Hercules was strong but fast? I suppose explosive strength and speed go hand in hand. Anyways I'm quite a fast reader but I'm terrible at finishing books. I currently have six or seven books on the go. I dip into them and then forget about them. Oh here's where I wrote about the question before. Those life changing moments!

The question is of course what's next? Not what's next for me but for us all, ultimately. I heard it put rather bluntly and elegantly by my favourite mystic. The body is walking in one direction only...straight towards the grave. Physically the form you identify as me will die. As a child we all hold idea that the next step is heaven, well most of us do. I am a hindu but because I grew up a predominantly christian culture when I thought of afterlife, I thought of heaven. But now I don't know what to believe.

Nicked it from here. I think Satan got the short end of the stick. But that's a story for another day.

Leads me neatly to belief and knowledge. The difference between the two...proof? No proof like mathematical proof, am I right? Don't get too excited or worried, I'm not about to dive into some elaborate mathematics about life and death. But tell me this dear reader, do you believe you have two arms?

How many's that?

100% of you???

Now tell me do you believe you have two arms OR do you know you have two arms? Another bit of spiel I nicked from the mystic. You can say what you like about him but he sure can spin a yarn!

So my reason leads to believe that at the end of life there is nothing. The lights go out and they don't come back on again. It still scares me a little, the thought of eternity in the void. Well it wouldn't be in the void, just darkess, nothing... I am such a ray of sunshine in the depths of the British winter, no? But knowing it will all end could come as a comfort for some, the struggle of day to day life. But to others it's a tragedy that this fabulous ride has to ever come to an end. Makes me think that there is truth in the old adage that time flies when you are having fun. If you are miserable minutes feel like hours and days feel like entire eternities! Alternatively if you are joyful your life flies by in the blink of an eye! Slow and painful or fast and fabulous?

Knowing this won't last, provides some rather compelling motivation to make the most of it. At least that would be the most joyful way to live it out. I mean you're at this awesome party for x amount of time, should you live it up or should you mope in the corner cos it's cloudy/rainy/you don't have enough cash/a big enough car/ etc!? Life's too short to be annoyed with every fool, tool, dullard etc. Fume free as my esteemed associate Mark Taylor would say.

Anyone know what these lovely contraptions are?

They are of course fume cupboards, particularly useful when working with smelly/poisonous chemicals. I think they may serve as a welcome deterrent to fuming in general, stop it or you'll have to in the fume cupboard. Are we all savvy with the law of conservation of energy? Energy cannot be created or destroyed it can only be changed from one form to another. For example chemical energy can be converted into light, heat and sound. Burn a candle and the wax does exactly that. Heat doesn't really exist. Not sure if that's the best way of expressing that but heat is an expression of the kinetic energy something has.

It's from this law that the idea of reincarnation being practically true occurred to me. As is the way I am not the first person to arrive at this idea. One U.G. Kirshnamurti said as much on death. "When clinical death takes place the body breaks itself down into it's constituent elements and that provides the basis for the continuity of life." I'd have waffled forever trying to express that idea. UG was a genius! Everything that can be considered as a human being is of the body, even the mind is contained within. When death occurs the system loses all heat to the surroundings and is broken down at the cellular level. But if it is not sealed off then it is absorbed back into nature and will become "alive" once again.

Yep circle of life people. There's a lot to be learnt from a disney movie ;-). And how awesome is James Earl Jones' voice! So in that way the body is immortal. It just continues to shift from one form to another. But what of the personality? Whatever energy makes up the personality is recycled as well. So that really dies, by this line of reasoning. What is personality exactly? How do you define a personality? Characteristics and or qualities, put a bunch of those together and there's a personality. Is that really all we boil down to? Finding that a rather dull tbh.

Not checked up to see how accurate this is!

Anyone seen breaking bad? Or Full Metal Alchemist?In both there is a run down of the elements that make up the human body. The pic above shows that that's it. But as mentioned before that's not what makes up a human being. There's the bit between the ears, that dwells in the brain, that writes poetry, music and produces fabulous art. That bit is also physical format it in a particular way and you have me, fiddle with that a bit and there's you.

This is a line of reasoning that I find interesting. How many dimensions do we exist in? three right? Those are the physical dimensions. But you are probably aware of the fourth dimension, time. And we move through that as well. This video explains this much better. How many dimensions did you follow it up to? I got to seven before I felt rather confused and like my head was going to explode. Wonder what a twelfth level intellect can comprehend. So a fifth dimensional being would be able to perceive the entire lifespan of an object in an instant. Being able to move in higher dimensions opens up an interesting can of worms.

This can is labelled cause and effect. Cause precedes effect but not if you can move about in higher dimensions. Everything is apparent at once so the cause and the effect are happening at the same time. All rather confusing and makes me feel not so smart. I did briefly forget why I got into this at all! But I've remembered, yay! The cause would be be the body and the effect would be the personality.  There is a rather interesting article here:

http://apeaceful-warrior.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/a-book-titled-biocentrism-how-life-and.html

It goes into quantum physics and that's something I don't even pretend to understand. Inflationary theory, parallel worlds etc. sure I can appreciate the idea but the quantum world confuses me like nothing else.

I have not come to any conclusions as the only way to know is to go. Not quite ready to call it day so it may be a while before I step into the void. Much to do, see, hear, smell, feel and write before I kick the bucket. Reminds me of the black guy in Gladiator, "Not yet..."