This piece of flash fiction was inspired by my wondering, What happens to a man whose entire life has been devoted to the proposition that physical reality is the only reality -- what happens when he finds that his body is dead but that his consciousness lives on? Eventually he will realize that "his entire life was devoted to a delusion," but first he will deny reality with every trick of his creative intellect. He will concoct scenarios consistent with his materialist world-view to account for the fact that he's looking down upon his own dead body.
Fascinating - revealing - possibly useful context for others:
"Dennett died of interstitial lung disease at Maine Medical Center on April 19, 2024, at the age of 82". [Wikipedia]
May DCD rest in peace...
Maybe someone triggered pending draft emails to be sent on opening a laptop that were "pending" in his inbox... Either way at the end he still confidently explains that all experience to be natural, explainable phenomena; no proof of consciousness existing independently ... questions for all...
Were you in contact with Dennet? I can believe that Dennet's not believing that he could meet/talk to his dead father would wake him into a lucid dream. Yet, how he can seem to think that his experiencing the realness of the lucid dream puts him somehow in a stronger position to declare it an illusion is odd to me.
One confusing detail, Dennett's father seemingly died in 1947 (see "When he was five, his father was killed in an unexplained plane crash while on a mission in Ethiopia." from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/daniel-dennetts-science-of-the-soul). It's possible that in the email, he was referring to a father figure/adoptive father, or he was out of it towards the end and go the date wrong. This slightly inclines me to think some troll got access to his email, which is disappointing. Not sure though.
An atheist criticism that 3 of the world's major world religions are built on an animal control paradigm of reward and punishment is valid. However as a scientist, I am a careful observer, particularly because my observations are a matter of life and death when working in the ER. I have observed occurrences in my life both at work and outside of work that defy probability. The consciousness after material death is real, and the biggest illusion is actually the reverse of Mr. Dennett's email.
The actual illusion is that material existence is the reality.
Plato spoke of this concept in Plato's cave. If you take his lesson on 3 dimensions being projected into 2 dimensional shadows, and extrapolate it further - i.e. what dimension can be projected into becoming 3 dimensional "matter", you get this:
This piece of flash fiction was inspired by my wondering, What happens to a man whose entire life has been devoted to the proposition that physical reality is the only reality -- what happens when he finds that his body is dead but that his consciousness lives on? Eventually he will realize that "his entire life was devoted to a delusion," but first he will deny reality with every trick of his creative intellect. He will concoct scenarios consistent with his materialist world-view to account for the fact that he's looking down upon his own dead body.
Has anyone read, When Prophesy Fails ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails
Fascinating - revealing - possibly useful context for others:
"Dennett died of interstitial lung disease at Maine Medical Center on April 19, 2024, at the age of 82". [Wikipedia]
May DCD rest in peace...
Maybe someone triggered pending draft emails to be sent on opening a laptop that were "pending" in his inbox... Either way at the end he still confidently explains that all experience to be natural, explainable phenomena; no proof of consciousness existing independently ... questions for all...
Were you in contact with Dennet? I can believe that Dennet's not believing that he could meet/talk to his dead father would wake him into a lucid dream. Yet, how he can seem to think that his experiencing the realness of the lucid dream puts him somehow in a stronger position to declare it an illusion is odd to me.
One confusing detail, Dennett's father seemingly died in 1947 (see "When he was five, his father was killed in an unexplained plane crash while on a mission in Ethiopia." from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/daniel-dennetts-science-of-the-soul). It's possible that in the email, he was referring to a father figure/adoptive father, or he was out of it towards the end and go the date wrong. This slightly inclines me to think some troll got access to his email, which is disappointing. Not sure though.
I have "considered the possibility that my entire life has been devoted to a delusion", and it seems to be an inescapable fact, at that.
You have conveyed to me in the comments section of your last post, that this post today was intended to be wry, paradoxical humor...
Good enough. Carry-on!
Schrodinger's-John-Day
An atheist criticism that 3 of the world's major world religions are built on an animal control paradigm of reward and punishment is valid. However as a scientist, I am a careful observer, particularly because my observations are a matter of life and death when working in the ER. I have observed occurrences in my life both at work and outside of work that defy probability. The consciousness after material death is real, and the biggest illusion is actually the reverse of Mr. Dennett's email.
The actual illusion is that material existence is the reality.
Plato spoke of this concept in Plato's cave. If you take his lesson on 3 dimensions being projected into 2 dimensional shadows, and extrapolate it further - i.e. what dimension can be projected into becoming 3 dimensional "matter", you get this:
https://danielnagase.substack.com/p/time-travel-a-fun-sci-fi-thought