Semper Q

Liza Minnelli sings Life is a "Cabaret" ol' chum‍^[1][2]

I started this think page as a subpage of /Mystery because I anticipate that it will become longer than the usual entries we see on the /Mystery page. And, of course, this is the greatest of all the mysteries for us, don't you think?

It comes as no mystery to me that this turns out to be the greatest, most mysterious enigma of all. We live in a time when the human condition, set here on a relatively large pale blue dot in an unimaginably huge place we call the Universe, having achieved a technology that's the highest and best we've ever known, is exceedingly both drama and comedy at one and the same time.

• Life is a so serious drama due to all of the difficult troubles of our age. Pestilence still plagues us as does war, stormy weather, human trafficking, murder and mayhem, racism, misogyny, misandry, religious bigotry, political upheaval and many other challenges.
• Life is a so funny comedy because of the poor and bumbling way we handle these challenges, as well as the slapstick portrayals we play when we try so hard to land on our feet. And yet, as funny and inefficient as we are, we have still managed to make many things better than they once were. And that's worth another bumbling try – and another, and another.

Life is the greatest puzzle because even our best, cutting-edge technology has still been unable to duplicate it, to turn non-living organic material into living material. I've touched on this a little in some of the text on the /Mystery page, but here and now we shall dig deeper...

I think (and I've seen very little of this anywhere else) that the reason we humans have not been able to stumble upon the answers is because we've yet to fully study the mystery of life much beyond the level of chemistry. Life goes down in a much smaller realm than that. If you take a cell that was once alive, and you empty it completely so that all that you have is the cell's fluid inside its membrane, and then you take another cell that is alive, and you carefully place each of its contents into the first membrane, you will still have just a dead cell, a non-living container of non-living contents, no matter how much you zap it with electricity, no matter what else you do. Whatever it was that once made those two cells alive is gone, and no amount of hitech seems to be able to bring it back, to reboot the cells' "aliveness". We have not been able to duplicate the animating principle that separates the living from the non-living, the alive from the dead.

• We may or may not understand science. Either way we should accept that good study methods will lead to the answer to this mystery. And I think that if we study more in-depth beyond the level of cells, that the answers lie in the realm of atomic or subatomic structure. Such studies are presently underway in a discipline called quantum biology, but those studies are still in their infancy.
• It is my stretch of the imagination that whatever it is that makes us alive, that makes us different from rocks and other non-living things, will be discovered on the atomic or subatomic level. There may actually be such things as living atoms or even living protons, neutrons, electrons and quarks. When we find what the difference is between a living atom and a non-living atom, then the mystery will be solved. We might never be able to replicate life (except of course for the natural act of reproduction), but it would be great just to know what now mystifies us to no end...
  • What exactly is it that we have now, which we won't have anymore when we die? What, if anything, leaves us when we die, and where does it go?

Life truly is a concern for the living. This concern gives rise to the survival instincts of all living things. It is responsible for the aggressive tendency to do anything to stay alive, to prosper. It's complicated, of course, as seen by suicides, mental changes in old age, and so on, but if it hadn't been for genes of aggressiveness there would be nothing alive today. Life fights for itself. It fights tooth and nail for continued existence, either for the individual, the group (society), or both.

Now, I've come to a conclusion about life that I'm certain is true, and I'm also certain that this truth will be denied and rejected by almost everyone.

My conclusion

Everyone, even everything, that is alive today in the present moment, all have what is sometimes called a "death wish". I call it the "non-survival instinct".

The concept of a death wish is not new. What is new is the concept that every living thing on this planet, every human, indeed every animal, every plant, fungus, bacterium, even virus, every individual (perhaps even every group of individuals) that is living or even somewhere very close to being alive, such as the virus, has a non-survival instinct. Just as we all have an aggressive instinct to survive, we, all of us, also have an aggressive instinct to die. Every moment of every day these two instincts are in conflict with each other deep within us!

Life wish / Death wish

• For most of our lives we have a strong survival instinct and a relatively weak non-survival instinct. Circumstances. They change, and if the events of our lives change in a depressing way, then the non-survival instinct can grow stronger while the instinct to survive may get weaker. If one is, say, diagnosed with a devastating disease that will get worse and worse and more painful as time goes on, that might be depressing enough to make one wish so hard for death that suicide can begin to seem to be the "only choice". It appears that Robin Williams succumbed to this.
• Maybe it's not you who has been diagnosed with a bad disease. What if it's someone you love, and they come to you with their wish to end it before the suffering gets too great to bear? They ask for your help. What do you do?
• Someone you love. If he or she passes away, and you loved them very much, it could distress you enough so that you want to join them. So many men and women have joined their spouses just a few weeks or months after their partners died. Johnny Cash died less than four months after his wife, June Carter, passed away. Many of us have older relatives who died shortly after their spouses died. The more distressed we become about life and death, the larger the non-survival instinct may grow.
• Perhaps one might wonder, what with all the different religions with their many beliefs and possible afterlives – heaven, hell, reincarnation, ancestral deities, oblivion, one god, many gods, no gods, etc. – just what really does happen when one dies? The older one gets, the more one thinks about it. This could increase the strength of the non-survival instinct to the point of curious, investigative suicide.
• Those who are risk takers are in their own category. Do they take risks because their non-survival instinct is almost as strong as their survival instinct?
  • I have a pilot license. It's not "current" as I have not flown for many years. I did have some close calls as I learned to fly in a Cessna 150 and 172, and it was exhilarating to be up there flying "solo"... flying around alone. Events like my volunteer service in Viet Nam with the USAF, my first solo flight, my volunteer service in Ethiopia with the Peace Corps, and other adventures give me an inkling that perhaps my non-survival instinct has always been a bit stronger in me than it is in most other people. So far, my instinct to survive has been the strongest of the two.
  • The 1994 film Natural Born Killers just came to mind, another strong non-survival instinct vehicle. Only in this film, the death wish is projected onto others. Both the man and the woman inflict death on those who get in their way. In their common conflict they have "found" each other, and together they embark upon a bloody killing spree. The two natural born killers are sort of a very dark Mork and Mindy unleashed on the world.
• Being a bit of a sci-fi buff and a lover of science I sometimes wonder what would happen if scientists actually were to confirm the existence of extraterrestrial sapient life? Every one of Earth's religions would have to back pedal in some way, and there are some analysts who think that the suicide rate would skyrocket! This might be a good secondary reason why higher beings don't initiate "first contact" (the primary reason being that they want to avoid our dangerous crosshairs).

Life or death, it often comes down to a choice. If and when you are given a choice between life or death, you should most often choose to live. Remember the stotting tommie, the gazelle who risks their life to warn other Tommies of danger nearby. The only time, the ONLY time you should choose death is to patriotically save your society, or a segment of it, from harm, like the spy who takes a poison pill to avoid torture and the spilling of important information to the enemy. Any other time, choose life! Fight the tendency to succumb to the non-survival instinct. Fight it tooth and nail. Keep your survival instinct strong and healthy! (Believe me, that suggestion is just as much for myself as it is for you or anyone else who reads this.)

To all of the above I would say, "Be aware, remain in the present moment, 'do not go gentle into that good night, ... rage, rage against the dying of the light'. So mote it be. So mote it blessed be."

How then does one answer the question, "What exactly is it that we have now that we will not have anymore when we die?" Not to worry, for when we solve this mystery, and we will solve it, there will always be other fascinating mysteries to grab us and hold us in – perpetually – just as long as there are sentient, sapient beings on this planet (whether or not they are biological beings), and probably elsewhere in the Universe. So until we do shimmy, shake and "shuffle off this mortal coil", either as individuals or as a species, and maybe even afterward, there will forever be:

Here's what I think about the afterlife (and trust me, I have no clue about the afterlife). I think Dylan Thomas wrote the following words for a specific and critically important reason:

—Dylan Thomas

I think he wrote those words to get us to fight, fight, fight the "Angel(s) of Death". And the reason we want to do that is to prepare ourselves for the profoundly challenging battle we will face in the reverdure. The reverdure. I call the afterlife the "reverdure". And when we get to the reverdure we will want to be ready. You will want to be prepared if you want to survive it.

Over the years that I've studied the Earth and its lifeforms, I've uncovered several facts that have led me to an idea of what the reverdure, the afterlife, is like. In that time the following facts have emerged:

1. There is much good and evil in this world, the determination of which depends largely on the situation. By this I mean that what is good for the lion that catches and eats the antelope is bad for the antelope, but if the antelope escapes, then what is good for the antelope is bad for the lion. However there are times when one can more easily determine the diff, for example, in human life there are the subjects of murder, human trafficking, thievery and other such behaviors that are considered by society to be wrong, so society has passed laws to try to prevent them.
2. If human good and evil were shown on the bell-shaped curve, only about 2 to 3 percent are truly evildoers; however, only about 2 to 3 percent are actively spreading the good, as well. Fully 94 to 96 percent of people are to some degree complacent. If it does not affect them explicitly and directly, then they are not actively for nor against either good or evil.
3. While most of the world is complacent about fighting against the wrongs in this world, there are small contingents of people who devote themselves to these battles. Most of these people join established policing organizations and a few of these people are "civilians", who are either members of less-established and lesser-known organizations or who work on their own. It must be said that many of these people, these so-called "do gooders", these fighters for right and good over wrongdoings and evil, have done a lot of good over the years, decades, centuries and millennia. Still... this has proven to be an ineffective route to preventing evil in this world. Wrongdoing persists.
4. Rather than directly facing and fighting wrong, the most effective way to fight evil in this world is to spread the good. There is only so much territory here, so the more the good is spread, the less room there is for the evil. Very few of us have realized this fact it seems, so until more people actively work to "do the right thing", to spread the good, wrongdoing and evil will continue to be strong influences in this world.

We tend to define good and evil as bipolar opposites, which of course is extreme because there are many gray areas. You might say that there is a spectrum with all levels of good and evil between the two extremes. Also, we like to think of evil as "not good" and of good as "not evil". So if we ever do completely obliterate evil then it follows that the good will also be obliterated. Try to imagine a world in which only good exists, a world in which each and every person always does the right thing. Tell me how hard that is to do. And remember... as long as there are predators and prey, what is good for one will never be good for the other.

It's as if we as individuals have been purposely placed here specifically to learn the difference between good and evil, and then to choose which way we want to live. I think that the reverdure, the afterlife, will be a continuation of this earthly battle in another location, perhaps somewhere out there in space and on a much grander scale.

So do enjoy your life here on this rare gem of a planet! Enjoy, spread the good, and lavish in Earth's precious oxygen, water and other wonderful attributes. I think that there will come a day when we will all be called away to fight a battle that makes every war on Earth look pitiful, like tiny amoeba fighting for a little space in the Petri dish. May enjoyment, challenge, happiness and peace be always at your beck and call!

Main links: Cool Clear Water & Drinking water

How can we say anything about the mystery of life without talking about the deep mystery of water? Seems like I've written quite a bit about the oxygen that animals need to breathe. By breathing that air the animals emit carbon dioxide, which the plants need in order to make and supply us with oxygen. There is one thing we all need to live and survive, both plants and animals, and that one thing is water – fresh, unsalted water. Every living thing needs it in its fresh liquid form, from the largest elephant, whale and elm tree right on down to the smallest cell, we are all made mostly of water, and we all need water to stay alive.

Are we not fortunate? Our planet Earth is just the right distance away from the Sun to have and to hold liquid water. A little closer to the Sun and all the water (including us) would evaporate; a little farther away from the Sun and all the liquid water (again, including us) would turn to solid ice. We are very fortunate indeed that our Earth is in what astronomers sometimes like to call the "Goldilocks zone". It's juuust right. If keeping the oxygen level in the surface atmosphere right around 21% doesn't give away the presence of higher beings, then the fact that our planet orbits the Sun inside a habitable zone that allows liquid water to flourish on it? That's gotta do it for ya!

My awesome partner in life does not like the taste of water. I've always thought water tasted a little odd, but I could always tolerate it. My partner unfortunately is h₂otose intolerant. My partner can always find a reason not to drink water and finds something else to drink (and it's almost always some fruity-flavored water-based liquid, but I haven't the heart to tell her). We all need to drink water whether we like it or not. If we don't drink water, then we get dehydrated, and when you read the article at that link you know you don't want to go there.

So just like breathable free oxygen, water is essential to life as we know it. And like everything else we think of as "automatic", we tend to take it for granted. I guess I'm getting too old, because I don't take water or oxygen for granted anymore.

On the subject of who or what regulates the levels of gases in Earth's atmosphere, there are several possibilities. Feel free to add your own thoughts to this "think page".

There are hundreds and hundreds of religions on planet Earth. Most of these adhere to a belief system that includes some form of spiritual entities, living spiritual beings. Some religions glorify many "gods", some worship one god with many angels, and so on. As there is no hard, scientific evidence for spiritual beings of any kind, these religions must include an article of faith. Faith is required because there is no proof – no hard evidence that ghosts do actually exist. Spiritual beings watching over us and our planet could explain how the level of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere is regulated, as well as Earth's orbit around the Sun in the "Goldilocks Zone".

It is also possible that the beings who look after planet Earth are corporeal, like us, except that they are much more longer-lived than we are and are at a much higher level of technology. Why is it then that we have yet to meet them? or even to see them? I think the answer is obvious... they don't want to be seen, they don't want to meet us, and their technology is advanced enough to help them stay out of our crosshairs! Those who have "seen UFOs"? For the rest of us it's just hearsay evidence and not allowed in the courtrooms of our minds. However, as I've said before, I refuse to believe that human beings are the highest form of life in the Universe.

Haven't heard about this one? Neither have I. Imagine a crew of highly advanced Datas from Star Trek, TNG (androids, I guess) watching over planet Earth. By present standards they are not "alive" and yet are very highly advanced beings who were created long ago by an advanced corporeal civilization who are perhaps now extinct. Those living beings who created the androids could have lived here on Earth long ago, so long ago that there is no longer anything left to tell us that they were here. Or they could have lived on another planet in a "nearby" star system. Those androids, which live essentially forever, are caring for our planet, caring for us, and studying us.

I would hazard a guess that they're very curious about our rudimentary efforts to develop AI of our own. If I were them, I would study us closely and perhaps learn things about their origins, their beginnings, that they could only learn by watching our fascinating inventions based upon our present levels of science and technology. It may very well be that this crew of highly advanced "robots" or "androids" are presently responsible for the regulation of the oxygen level in Earth's atmosphere?

They would have been created by... someone – someone else – no one we know – a civilization of whom we are not aware. Perhaps an advanced people who lived millions of years ago created this AI? And here they may be, watching over this planet, their "home planet", which may have endured more than one past advanced civilization, each rising to a certain level of technology, and then each coming under the thumb of total- or near-extinction. The AI go on while the living beings die out, or almost die out, and then sapient, biological life rises again. We are now at the level of technology that includes rudimentary forms of AI. I wonder... how much longer do we have on this world? How much longer will we live here and enjoy this fabulous planet Earth? If we, too, are wiped out, or almost wiped out, how will it happen? When will it happen? Yes, so sorry, but I do wonder – I must. Don't you?

WP's cyborgs article tells us that they are beings with both organic and biomechatronic body parts, a combo of the above two possibilities. Yes, I know, it's beginning to read like Asimov or Roddenberry now, isn't it. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think it's any more far out than the widespread human beliefs about spirituality, do you?

Little is known about this one, and I find it difficult to accept as true. Someone of unknown origin has suggested that the double-slit experiment^{[Note 1][Note 2]} is the greatest proof that we only exist in a very advanced form of computer simulation. And so I postulate that such an advanced computer simulation is another possible reason that the oxygen level in Earth's atmosphere is maintained at about 21%. It's programmed that way? Where's my aspirin? No, not for a headache – I'm talkin' where's my low dose 81mg aspirin that helps to keep my heart going? Talk about your palpitations!

I've been thinking some more about this. If the fact that we can find no acceptable reason that light somehow changes from a wave to a particle just because we place a sensing device near one of the slits in the double-slit experiment, then maybe the fact that none of us know what life really is joins the double-slit experiment as further evidence for our existing within a simulation? Nobody knows what we (living things) have within us that makes us different from a rock or a dead person. Nobody can explain it with hard evidence for their explanation. Put that together with all the many other mysteries we still haven't unraveled. I suppose all that gives greater strength to this hypothesis. I want to know more!

If I think of any others I'll be sure to include them here.

Here's one:

Seems I sometimes hear about certain mysterious cabals that "rule the world" anonymously {secret society(ies)?}. If they do exist, then it's possible that they have the technology to regulate the oxygen level in the atmosphere.

Here's another:

Maybe there is no one "out there" at all? It's entirely possible that our planet is somehow able to regulate the gases in its atmosphere by some natural mechanism, about which I know nothing. So maybe there really is no sapient warden who uses high technology to protect this prison planet? I sincerely hope that isn't the case.

And another:

This seems to be tied closely to the previous entry. Perhaps plants are more sentient and aware than we "sapient" beings have deemed possible? Somehow they "know" just how much O₂ to release into Earth's atmosphere?

If skepticism persists, then how about this? For billions of years our Earth has gone around the Sun. And it has been doing so in a narrow pathway that some astronomers call the "Goldilocks zone". It's called that because of the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In that children's story, Goldilocks had to have everything "just right". It's the same for planet Earth going around the Sun. We humans are mostly made of water. If Earth were a little closer to our hot Sun, then all – not just some, ALL – the water (to include us) would evaporate. If Earth were a little farther away from the Sun, then all – not just some, ALL – the liquid water would turn to solid ice. So Earth's path around the Sun is "just right" for water to exist in liquid form. If that isn't convincing enough that someone with advanced technology is out there regulating things, then nothing is – nothing would or could overturn that level of skepticism. My own skepticism has been shredded by these realizations! So color me gullible or even stupid if you like. "Stupid is as stupid does!‍" (How stupid is it to refuse to accept human beings as the highest form of life in the vast Universe?)

Semper Q

Mors nos omnes ridet. Omnes quae vir agere potest est rursus ridet. – Latin for "Death smiles at us all. All we can do is smile back."

Heard it said that there are two certainties in life: death and taxes. Only half true. One of the two certainties in life is death to be sure. The other certainty is not taxes. The other of the two certainties in life is your ability to smile. Even the youngest infant knows how to smile without being taught how, no matter where they live on this Earth. The smile is an instinctive gesture of good feelings. What happens after death is uncertain to us all at best and is a fearful thing at worst. Do you want to quell your fear? your painful fear of death? Then when death comes to you, when it's on your doorstep, when death hurls itself upon you with its own smiling face, you be sure to smile back – give death a big grin right back. We only get one crack at this, so give Death your cutest little-baby smile!

Death doth smile at us all. To be certain, you have to smile back, and anything else that happens to you or doesn't happen to you will not matter – not in the least. You'll be "past carin'". 'Twon't matter at all. – that's English for "Remember to smile back." (It's crucial that you practice your smile at every opportunity – as often as you possibly can!‍)

To talk about Fear of Death and Fear of the Unknown, it's just not enough to talk about what may or may not come after. It's also a part of our Fear of the Unknown to stress about that moment, or perhaps several moments, that lead up to our very final time on Earth. What will it be like? Will we be able to smile back at Death? or will we screech and scream in violent, vulgar PAIN of skyscraper proportions? or will we behave somewhere between those two extremes? Will we be able to shuffle off this mortal coil with some modicum of pure dignity? or will we violate and embarrass ourselves by sadly acting out our fears? Only one thing's sure: no matter how much we say we will do something, we can never know until the moment comes just what we actually will do. I sincerely wish you only the best moments and that your life will be high quality right up until the very end! Oh! thoughts like this keep my entrails entrailing! Peace piece.

The mystery here is ancient and spine-tingling! It is an extension of one you've probably heard before, that of the tree falling in the forest and would it make a sound? So, by extension:

If a catastrophe were to befall the planet, Earth, and all life, all consciousness, were terminated, would this vast universe continue? or would the universe cease to exist?

If there is no one around with consciousness enough to perceive this vast universe, then how would it be, how could it be, known to exist at all?

Science has shown that conscious thought is inextricably tied to the brain. There's also a strong segment who think that consciousness is found in other parts of the body as well, such as in the solar plexus. Others think (based primarily on faith with little if any hard evidence) that there is a spiritual consciousness that is or is part of what leaves the body when it dies. If we adhere to science, and we consider the mind to only be generated by the brain and possibly by other parts of the body, then when the body dies so does our consciousness. If this is the case, then when we die our consciousness dies, too. Without even just my one mind to perceive the universe, does the universe then continue or does it cease to exist? It's not easy to be objective about this, and it's very easy to scoff and think of the universe as "obviously" continuing on. After all, many people have died during our lifetimes, to include friends and family, and after grieving we carried on – the universe carried on. That is proof that the universe will continue after we're gone. I'm not so sure that it is sufficient proof, though. Are you? Can anyone be truly certain? beyond any shadow of doubt?

• Until further notice, Death is mysteriously and inextricably connected to Life!
• More on the mystery of life

on my Philosophy – 3rd