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Monday, April 4, 2011

Musings on Existence and Memory

     Though I'm fairly certain this will not ever happen, at this time I am fairly comfortable with the concept of becoming nothing at some point after death. This thought came about when I began to think about the concept of eternity. This is no doubt based on the finite view of existence that I currently hold but I think that eternity is a very very long time and I can't comprehend being and doing anything for all time. To be honest it sounds very exhausting. The line of thinking was, after a given amount of time residing in glory and community my being just simply ceases to exist. I realize there is nothing biblical about this and I sure it won't happen and I'm sure that once my body and soul are renewed I won't think like I do now. But this sounds appealing to me right now. I will have seen God, I will have dwelt directly in his presence and I will have communed with fellow saints and having done all this what is left that can be so perfect? This departure into nothing wouldn't be met with him trepidation or despair or sadness, I picture it being much like laying back onto the most comfortable bed ever; I lay my head upon a pillow and with a fulfilled smile on my face i close my eyes and let out a short contented sigh and simply drift off to sleep and then cease to be. There is nothing to escape, no fear or pain to be rid of nothing hindering and no regrets. It is simply the slumber of the fulfilled and loved individual.
      This does however raise some issues. Would God be OK with this? Would this be permissible? Because to think of the reality of this hypothesis; I would become nothing, there would be no transfer of energy and mass. I would not become dust or merely decay into bones, I would just cease to be. It seems that this would mean that since God is entirely in control, we would have to uncreate me. He would have to remove his love from me. I don't know if he would do that or if he could. Then again, if the choice was mine and I were free to make it then he would not need to remove his love because the object of his love would cease to be. And so he would be removing but would have no other choice but to either redirect his love else where or what is more likely simply close off that 'valve' of love that once was directed toward me.
     This also begs the question, if I ceased to be would I also cease to be remembered? The reality is that I am not truly dead because death, as I currently understand it, implies the cessation of life and the soul's separation from the body. Which, in turn, implies the continued existence of the soul on a different plain. Thus non-existence is a vacuum. What once was is now no longer. So I could assume that the memories others would have of me would be similar in the way they remember me if I had died. I think its safe to say that previous existence is still previous existence regardless of form.
    Another interesting notion came to mind, can one actually cease to exist? Taking God out of the equation for an instant, if, for instance, I lived entirely alone my entire life and my mother and father both died fairly early on and never told anyone about me. Then, I suppose, one could cease to exist. But this is almost never the case; we all have an impact on someone else's memory whether it is positive or negative. This is a reality we cannot control. We will inevitably be remembered by someone and so, since this is a reality, the memory of me or who I was continues on after I have ceased to be. Then again is it really me that is remembered? What is more likely is that we all view everyone else through the filter of our mind. As such we inevitably misrepresent or project a version of the other in our memory. So this is to say, is what we are remembering actually the other person or a version of them of our own creation? Yet another question, is there anything wrong with that? Since we cannot ever really know someone, is it OK that the memories we have of them are not who they actually are? Does the idea that our minds interpret and filter who each other are based observable and sometimes intuitive data change how we think about each other?

1 comments:

Tom said...

In my opinion, all this is perfectly okay. I bet God likes it when a son uses his ability to imagine and wonder and process. There's something good about realizing we're finite, with imperfect perceptions and possibly faulty ideas, and to be content to be our growing, exploring selves.

In the same vein as your musings: what about animals? It seems like squirrels probably just cease to exists, right? Unless there's a squirrel heaven (/reincarnation) we don't know about. Maybe they each get rehashed in the new earth. But assuming that's not the case, God cares about these creatures, and yet seems to let them cease. And that seems okay to me.