I’ve contemplated death Platonically, as an academic exercise. To study death otherwise would be a waste of time, as one could not publish their conclusions.
In my personal life, I’ve recently had an event that caused me to revisit my contemplations on the subject. This is a picture of my cousin, Brian Reed. Brian was an adventurous man who died tragically in a motorcycle accident just a day or so ago.
This blog post is dedicated to the memory of my comrade and cousin Brian. As such, it is also a venue to shamelessly garner sympathy for the loss of Brian from as broad an audience as possible.
Carl Sagan said that the purpose Humanity is to be a venue for the Cosmos to examine Its Self. Somewhere in my study of religion I came across an ancient Christian text that proclaims it is the nature of Humanity to seek God … I can’t seem to find this passage again, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that it was written. Though the two expressions use different verbiage and are from divergent camps on the subject, they say the same thing. In any event, using the criteria that Humans are intended to be vessels for experiences, Brian was an expert practitioner of Humanity.
This is what I came up with.
The human is comprised primarily of two distinct rudiments, matter and consciousness. Time, Space, nor Energy are directly discussed at this juncture, as they impact the subject matter to a much lesser degree. Matter is very easily discernable, to the extent that most of us come to believe that matter is all we are. On the other hand, consciousness is so ethereal that it is undelineateable scientifically … yet we experience physically through consciousness. Life is the state of consciousness and matter becoming a team.
There comes a point to all of us when the body sustains wear and damage to the extent that matter is no longer able to retain consciousness, and consciousness is no longer able to sustain matter. The team is forced to dissolve, and the constituents go their separate ways.
The fate of our matter after death is obvious. After death our physical being is recycled by nature … “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” The very atoms of which we are made then have the bragging rights to a most spectacular adventure.
The fate of our consciousness is far less obvious. The question of the disposition of our consciousness after death has been a subject of debate and speculation for thousands, and thousands of years. I don’t think anyone really knows, and I won’t even pretend that I have a definitive answer. However, it seems logical to me that if our matter is reasimilated back into the infinite store of matter contained in the Cosmos, it must be so with our consciousness. I believe that our consciousness is absorbed by the infinite consciousness of the Cosmos. I also believe that whatever ethereal construct of which our consciousness is made then has bragging rights to a most spectacular adventure.
Till next time, remember, you are yourself spectacular, and, if I had my druthers, I druther you didn’t run with scissors, nor ride motorcycles.