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Sometimes I Wonder
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Sometimes I Wonder |
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fractal007 Senior Member
since 2000-06-01
Posts 1958 |
Sometimes I wonder what it might be like if all the world were one person. By that I mean if all the world could be brought down and condensed into one man or woman who could feel and think every thought ever thought. You might be surprised at how simple the thinking part would be. For example, consider philosophy. Most of philosophy is the study of the ideas of great men (and lately women too). None of those ideas are particularly original if you think hard about them. Plato's forms aren't really all that profound. Anyone looking at a cup could be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that that cup was a cup because it exemplified the definition of cupness. Of course, I could be simply speaking out of a culture that's had and enjoyed Plato for many generations and so is steeped in him. How about Descartes and solipsism? Most children have entertained that idea before reaching the age of eight. It's not at all difficult to come to a certain degree of doubt regarding a world whose existence can be inferred only from one's own sense experience. In order for someone to think every thought ever thought she would have to be very creative indeed. Of course, she would also need to establish some distance between herself and the ideas she entertained. After all, how can one be both a theist and an atheist? Yet it is quite easy for one to entertain both ideas as legitimate possibilities. The woman (I choose to suppose that a woman takes on the role of vessel of all humanity for the purpose of this story) might be a message in a bottle from the human race to whatever other society might choose to accept her. She could be placed into a starship and sent into the abyss in cryosleep. As the cover of her tube is placed down she might think her last thoughts now to be her last before she awakes - if at all she awakes. But no, she soon discovers that she is mistaken, for all the way she dreams. She dreams more the thoughts of humanity, experiences every ecstatic height of discovery, every sadness, every terror. And yet her mind is robust, cold as steel, aware of the reality of her situation. One might expect that a human confined in such a small place as a cryotube and subjected to every thought humans had ever had would surely go insane. Perhaps you think that were she told she would dream all the way across the countless years of space travel, passing every second watching the story of humanity unfold within her, she would protest "But I can't! I can't live like this! I need to rest, I need time for myself!" But no, she is wiser than that. She knows that she must survive. She knows that she must carry on the essence of her being, watching as the eras unfold before her, some remembered, whilst others -- entire millennia of awesome achievements -- forgotten by her forever. She is humanity and thus her sole purpose is to survive. I know that it is cold of me to say this, but please do remember the priceless cargo contained within her. Sometimes I wonder what my life might be like if I were aware that a woman as remarkable as the protagonist of this story were indeed sent off into space, carrying all of us inside of her. I would go outside every now and then, taking twenty or thirty minutes away from the grind of work, and walk about the building listening to music and thinking of all the dreams she had. I would go home at night and write her dreams in my journal, when I had time of course. I would devote myself to her cause. That is, I would survive. Any idiot can see that the result is true. |
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Philmont Member
since 2004-01-10
Posts 61 |
Yeh, you need to take a break for a while. Sometimes surviving is all life is about. Actually, it's just religious people that think it's about anything more than just surviving. |
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Spot Junior Member
since 2006-03-04
Posts 45CA, US |
"I would devote myself to her cause. That is, I would survive." Sometimes it helps to have something to devote one's self to. I really like this. Without humanity, there is no need to survive. Without the need to survive, there is no humanity. |
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