Statement #3 - When we die, our essence or soul leaves our body - this divided the class like the 2nd statement, because some weren't sure whether or not we had a soul and wanted proof. Also, we discussed what was someone's essence? A memory held after the person was gone? His/her impact on others? Are we just renting our skin and bones while we're here (thanks, Switchfoot!)? Some classmates mentioned the impact of ghost-like experiences as well as religion that have helped them through this difficult question. Are we just worm food when we die or is there something more?
I'm choosing this one because of the Switchfoot reference (BTW Geoff, I'm now listening to Switchfoot. Thanks for showing me a new band). The bit about renting our bodies is a good place to start (for my mental ramblings. The ramblings I write here will be filtered, organized, and at least slightly refined):
"But I'm not sentimental
This skin and bones is a rental
And no one makes it out alive"
There was also a part later on that got my attention:
"This body's not my own
This world is not my own"
I don't know if we have a soul that we leave behind (or that leaves us behind) when we die. But I do know that current science shows us that we as we think of ourselves is most likely an interaction of electricity and chemicals in our neural tissue.
I don't think that sort of reaction will continue once we die (dying sorta causes our bodies to stop most chemical reactions), and as a result, I don't see how our mind could carry on after death (at least, not until we can make computers that can handle and process a human brain in real-time. But we're quite far from that. Last I heard, scientists have managed to simulate part of a rat brain, at like, a hundredth the speed found in nature).
But I also think it's possible there is something beyond neuro-electrical firings (science use to tell use the Earth was flat and was the center of the entire Universe. Those ideas were wrong, so why not this one about how thought works?).
There was an idea brought up in Sci-Fi, panpsychism, which raises the question: if our thoughts are just the result of chemical interaction, what's to say that everything (the air, rocks, planets, etc.) don't have stray chemical reactions that cause a basic, proto-thought (basic as in the same result of one or two brain cells triggering, not basic as in "I want food")?
I think that idea is ridiculous (mostly because it is saying that non-sentient things are, in a way thinking), but that implies that I think there is something more to thought than chemical reactions. But as I brought up in class yesterday, the reason people end up different is that, even with the same building blocks, the slight build differences, magnified across thousands of thousands of thousands of cells, add up, making all of us different.
So yeah, I really don't know where I stand on this idea. I think the idea that once someone dies, their spirit stays around, leaving raspy-voiced messages on tape cassettes is crap. But I don't think there is anything to say there can't be a spirit. BUT, I don't think there is anything to say there CAN be a spirit.
I think I'm going to take the easy (well, easier) way out, and go with agnosticism (screw religious debates. The word means "without knowledge"). We'll never know if we have souls; every conclusion on the issue is speculation. The only way to know is to die and see what's there (too bad relaying what you find is a little difficult once you're dead).
I'm also not sure if I want to have an essence once I die. If there isn't some kind of afterlife, I'd just be floating in space (or stuck on Earth) until whatever it is that made my soul died (God knows what would happen then...). That would suck. Eternity would be madness inducing. I'm not saying I want to die, but I don't want to live forever either.
I'm not sure I want to know the answer to this question! If we don't have souls, I'm faced with the knowledge that one of these days, my heart will stop, and play it's final beat (Geoff, I can reference songs too!). If we do have souls, and there is Heaven/Hell/Whatever, I wouldn't be able to not spend the rest of my life trying to avoid the worst option (in which case, I don't think I'd really be living). If we have souls, but there isn't an afterlife, then I have an entirety to look forward to, most of which couldn't be spent on anything but my thoughts (once my body dies, where goes my ability to interact with the physical world?). None of these options sound good. At least with some mystery to it, I can pretend I look forward to the answer...
Side note, 'Where I Belong' became my soundtrack as I wrote most of this.
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