What is the self exactly? Is it YOU? Is it the mind, or the mind is experiencing YOU?
Questions like these are what entertains me. What happens to the mind after you die? Will you just go poof as your biological brain can’t no longer sustain a conscious thought, or do your mind go somewhere to some incomprehensible dimension that we are unable to see and feel as of now. The first part is what atheists think and the second part is what theists think. I am more of a middle ground where I couldn’t find a good religion that fits with my personal principles yet I wanted to believe that the mind goes somewhere outside somewhere departed from its biological counterparts. But that wouldn’t really make sense does it? At least for the scientists.
We rely on science on things, because they are quite nice. Science is able to explain things that are rather unexplainable. There is also a human nature to understand. Somehow … Has it really been beneficial somehow for other animals that they seek meaning to make their lives fulfilled? Does your goldfish think what life is more about other than what’s provided in his fish tank? Does ants wonder how far he can travel had he kept moving south? Does a giraffe have an existential crisis? Does an elephant desire to know what happens to its brain after they die? Does a monkey desire to know what happens to his state of mind when he stops his desire to know and just live calmly and eat the banana and sleep.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs sets apart humans with any other animal, in which somehow it is relatively absurd to think that there is an emergent need for meaning and purpose in life. Something that other animals probably wouldn’t think about in their spare time, outside of their time spent on hunting and eating and sleeping. Well animals do sometimes cuddle and make love too, but have they ever wondered if the religion that they subscribed to is right or they should move on to a new religion that his brother kept telling about that lives on a different sub-saharan tribe?
How long have we been desiring meaning? Were the neanderthals concerned about the climate and not having enough food to sustain their tribe? Well at least we know that the Sumerians did, the oldest recorded civilization of homo sapiens. In return of the absurdity faced in life, as in the absurdity of the climate that could kill off their farm in one shot. Bring massive floods that ruin their house that they have built for years. Or another tribe that suddenly invades their peaceful small community. In which they respond “Oh why is life is so cruel to me, what have I ever done wrong to deserve this, surely there must be some kind of strong deity that is responsible for all of these shortcomings.” Then they believed there must be a God for everything. The God of the weather, Manuzi. The God of the sun, Malakbel. The God of plague and healing, Resheph. The God of crop fertility and grain, Baal Haamon. The God of war, Chesmosh. The God of the underworld, Haurun. And Elyon, the God most high. And Yahwe. These are some of the Gods of the Canaanite religion. Located in the modern regions of Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. They go around in recorded records spanning between 4500 BC and records of religion vanished in 1200 BC.
They have their own story of creation, just like any religion. Their story of creation goes something like this:
The entire world was once only Arapel (cloudy darkness) and Baad (wind). Baad then went on to produce Ruach, another type of wind, which instead of mingling with the darkness, blew it away to bring forth light. However, no field was yet formed, no marsh was to be seen. No gods were yet born, and everything was barren and desolate.
Ages passed, until finally the gods emerged. First came forth El, the great god El, the original creator god, the “Creator of Created things.” With the help of the great goddess Asherah, children born to El, sons and daughters, the divine assembly, the seventy sons and daughters of El. Among the children are Shamuma (Heaven), and Artzu (Earth). They are joined as one, like an egg. Heaven and earth are not yet separate. Other children included, Yamm (god of sea, and the chaotic waters of the primaeval deep) and Ba’al (mighty rider of the clouds, god of thunder and rain).
These gods are responsible for making the world habitable. Before them, the world was in a chaotic state, and uninhabitable. The entire earth is pictured as a barren wasteland, like a desert.
I am not here to ridicule their religion. We each have our own personal bias when it comes to religion. Similar to how we find it intriguing that scientists back in 1863 thought, and I quote the article from the Scientific American, “Experts doubt the Sun is actually burning coal.” Now knowing the information we had right now we would find it… Fucking hilarious. It implies that the majority of people before 1863 really believed that the sun was burning coal. Well, when you lived in 1863 and saw a ball of “thing” shine you throughout the day as if it looked like it’s burning and you looked around, what can something burn so flamey and shine so strongly? And then you see “Oh it’s probably burning coal…” After a while and the discovery of nuclear fission (had only scientists known the physics of nuclear fission, they wouldn’t think that the sun is made out of burning coal.) It’s justified to say that they were tripping balls.
Same goes with religion, just because you have your own narratives of religion that you think are true and you see other religions such as the Caananites and you want to say that they are tripping balls. Because they are… Dead wrong. People warped their worldview based on the information provided to them from their own personal experiences and story that they believe. It undoubtedly shaped what they think is true, what they believe, and what they do, for example praying and to not steal things because that will make God of the underworld angry. Don’t forget to throw a child to the mountain pit because if you don’t, the God of fertility and crop will be angry(The Caananites don’t do this by the way, I just know some other religion that does this and wanted to put it here). And don’t forget to pray and say you are eternally grateful because if you don’t, it will make the God most high, angry.
The perception of the self and the worth of the self, the actions that determine the worth of the self is shaped by what the self believes.
It’s almost as if the self created some sort of fiction story from their mind and it’s encouraged by the environment they observed and other people and made it even more stronger fiction story and self-fulfilling prophecy (If we are disregarding the Canaanite story to be false) in which in turn the narratives shaped them as a person and dictate how they should spend the rest of their lives.
Isn’t that we all have been doing?
Create some fiction story. We believed it so much and it became a stronger fiction and self-fulfilling prophecy and made us able to experience the future right how we imagined it to be? Like the story from the Alchemist by Paul Coelho.
Undeniably, our story in our mind. Will really influences our thoughts, vibes, and decisions that we make.
The self makes itself.
As much as I am very philosophical, I am a very self conscious person. Maybe it was because of how I was raised, maybe it’s because of a series of personal experiences and biases that went through my childhood. Maybe Sigmund Freud was right, et cetera, et cetera.
All for real is that I couldn’t change the past that has warped the self that I am today and you probably won’t be able to do that as well. I tried my best to make something meaningful out of some unpleasurable instances. In which it brought this line of thought. I hope it will be helpful to understand myself better and so do you.
If the self makes itself then it really implies that you can be anything you want. You just need to believe in the right things and know what to do and really and I mean REALLY believe in that fiction story and let it drive the actions that you make.
I have seen this work by looking at other people and it quite possibly worked for me too.
The self make itself
The self made out of stardust from explosions of stars, given enough time and laws of physics, gravitates into something that we call the mind and the self. The self in return, thinks.
If we really were believe that there is a way for the mind to still be the mind even after the biological death then we must believe that there is somehow another law of physics (maybe, since electrons firing in the brain that creates emergent consciousness are also bound by the laws of physics that explains how the electron moves…) that allows conscious thought to sustain apart from biological necessities. Which implies that maybe there is a way that even our universe has a conscious mind in its own way that bootstraps itself into having consciousness using just particles of stardust. Maybe we will never understand it down to the science as much as we are unable to explain how consciousness came into being with science.
All I ever wanted was to know if it is possible to believe that the self and the mind to exists without getting bound by the rules of God that is very absolute and ruling to be able to say “That my friends that doesn’t believe in my God to go to hell in which includes the sad Jews that died on the holocaust. The sad people that died from war out of the sake of my religion trying to spread Islam. The sad christians that couldn’t move out from christianity out of fear of neglect and abandonment by their families and they really really love their family.” I just couldn’t give it all out on faith knowing such a cruel God exists and let these mere humans live and die of despair knowing that they will be forever anxious due to some social constraints of fear of leaving the religion that they came out with at their birth. That is just my personal belief, I am not trying to change or sell you anything. Religion is good, it helps us understand the absurd. But that same reasoning will also apply to sympathising with the Caananites, the Babylon, The Tao, The Jehovah Witnesses, and four thousands other religions. And I really sympathise with them knowing that we are born in the same absurd world.
My religion is really no better than them, I could be wrong and they could be wrong. It’s still sad knowing or believing in my religion that if I’m right then they must be wrong.
This whole religion thing has brought me intense existentialism and nihilism. It is what made me write these things.
Truth is I am really really sad knowing that my parents wouldn’t accept me for who I am. Just a critical thinker, too critical that he puts himself on a pedestal risking the stability of love from my parents.
The world is absurd and quite possibly, everyone feels the same way.
Or just take the “ignorance is bliss” pill and not to think about these at all.
Has it really been quite that simple?