Have you noticed sometimes people who believe in an afterlife believe in it for the same reasons others don’t? And that reason is: what you do in this life is important and meaningful. I’ve heard atheists argue that if we lived forever in some afterlife, then why would today matter? We’d have an infinite amount of time to make up for it! But if you’re time alive is finite, then it’s infinitely more important. But to me, the opposite seems true: if we’re all going to completely stop existing one day, why would anything matter? “Well, you want to have a good effect on the next generation,” some atheists might say. But if that generation is just going to die and become nothing as well, what does that matter? On the other hand, if you live forever, all the consequences of everything you’ve ever done stay with you forever; you can’t undo the past with eternity. If you don’t live forever, then there ultimately are no consequences.
But who really lives as if nothing matters? Only people with psychological problems, as far as I can tell. Those who don’t believe in an afterlife still believe their actions matter (I think). I suppose the goal then becomes to be as happy as you can now, and the future really doesn’t matter, unless of course what you’re doing now would prevent you from being happy in the future. But the goal is all about pleasure and while I’m alive to feel it. How much pleasure and pain you felt throughout your life ultimately doesn’t matter in the end, but it matters now, because you’re experiencing pleasure or pain now.
But if that’s the case, there’s still no rational reason to go about caring for others, unless of course it gives you pleasure. But if it doesn’t, why should it matter?
And what if two people’s pleasures conflict with each other? I guess one just has to suffer? After all, it’s only temporary. It won’t matter eventually.
Then there’s the reincarnation belief . . . we live again, but we forget everything (or mostly everything) from our previous lives. Isn’t that just the same as never having lived? But then . . . what about those people who get brain damage and really do forget much of their lives? Is it really like never having lived?
What if there’s a criminal who sneaks into a rich man’s home, destroys his belongings, and kills him. Then, as he’s trying to sneak out, he slips on a marble staircase, hits his head, and forgets the past decade of his life, which was when his life of crime began. Without such memories, is he the same person? When the police come and arrest him, should he still be held accountable for his crimes? Even though now the man who will be sitting in prison is a confused man who can’t even remember what happened? What if he wasn’t held accountable, then one day the memories came back? Would he have to be accountable then?
Or what if he could never get his memories back? What would happen to the man he used to be? Surely there can’t be an afterlife for that man. He just vanished completely. What was the point of all the pleasure and pain, of all the hard choices, of all the decisions within those ten years if memory of them just vanished? Just that he now has to live with the consequences? But is he really living with his own consequences, or is he living with another man’s consequences, becausing having his memories erased makes him a completely new person?
Of course, science fiction stories have brought up these issues many times, but not many (none that I’ve read) come to any hard certain conclusions. (Really no new thoughts here.)
So why do your decisions matter now? Because you want pleasure now (and while you’re alive), or because we’re going to live forever? And does that decision matter?
I googled around and found some people who hadn’t sold any tracks there, or some that had sold only a few, so I don’t expect to make much money with it, if any. Especially since my music is very melodic and thematic, I think that makes it a bit harder to use as background music; it might be considered a distraction.
What I admit I don’t like is hearing about around this season is other people’s vacations; it makes me want to retire.
last week, and posted some quotes on my 
I’m now reading 
by Jennifer Michael Hecht. I read somewhere (maybe on the author’s website?) that the author originally wanted to call the book “A History of Atheism” or something. That’s basically what it is, the history of the questioning of religion, or doubting it. That said, it’s not a book of “why atheism is correct” or “why religion is correct” … it doesn’t really seem to make any religious judgments itself, it’s more a “history of religious philosophy” book. For someone like me who doesn’t know much about history, or religious history for that matter, it’s very educational.
One could cheat, and go in circles. “Why are you the boss?” “Because I tell people what to do!” “Why?” “Because I’m the boss!” Of course, such circular logic is considered a logical fallacy. But real logic isn’t always much more helpful, even though it seems to make more sense to the mind. But if logic isn’t circular, is it linear? A line that goes on forever? That’s just as useless as a circle! In fact, just about every shape logic could be in is useless. (Well, depending on what you’re using it for.) The whole cause and effect, one thing from another, dominoes of logic . . . ultimately I think it’s a flawed way of looking at the universe, of trying to discover truth. But right now I have no earthly (or heavenly or hellish) idea of what it could be replaced with.
On an unphilosophical note, I had a weird dream a few nights ago. Near the end of it, a bunch of people gave me a bunch of presents, and it wasn’t my birthday or Christmas or anything. Being quite astounded at my good fortune, I thought “this must be a dream! I’m going to wake myself up!” and with some strange mysterious semi-lucid mental process, I awoke myself. It was like my uncontrollable subconscious willingly giving control back to the my real conscious self. It was a really strange strange experience.
I can’t really respond to Shaun because I’m not really sure what he’s saying. The post mainly made me want to go off on a tangent… what is YA fiction? Why is it needed? I think it’s a stupid idea in the first place!
That said, I still hated adolescence. But it wasn’t because of drugs or relationships. It was because of SCHOOL. School was a lot of hard work that I still believe was mostly absolutely meaningless. Society just thrusted upon us because that’s the tradition. It gave me a lot of unnecessary worry and stress, and took away a lot of time that I would have loved using in more useful ways. I was not and could not be in control of my life, and that’s what made me angry and moody and depressed. It had nothing to do with “coming of age” or dealing with drugs or relationships or a “changing brain” that people are now claiming teenagers have. It was just plain old not being in control.
. Not sure he’d necessarily agree with my opinions, but it was some more confirmation bias for me when I first came across it.
I’m finally working on some new music, which is of course really fun. Not sure what I’ll call the piece yet, but I’ll think of something. It’s about 3 minutes so far. I hope to put it on my album. The weather has been really hot here (in the 90s), and my parents don’t use the air conditioning enough in my opinion, and I have found it’s hard to compose when I feel too hot. Quite annoying. So I turn my desk fan on, but it’s noisy, so I can’t orchestrate things quite right unless I turn it off, and then I get too hot again. Isn’t that just terrible?! Also, I need new headphones. I have some nice Sennheiser wireless headphones, which are awesome for just about everything, except composing. The bass is too loud with them, and when your computer plays really loud or soft sounds, it automatically lowers or raises their volume. I think that’s great for movies and games; there’s nothing I hate worse than a loud noise suddenly piercing the ears (and most of the time you don’t even notice it). But it’s not good at all for orchestrating. It also almost sounds like they add a tiny small amount of reverb to everything, which is also annoying. Lastly, they’re wireless, so they’re never really completely noise free, which, again, is really only a problem when composing. So I need even better, more expensive headphones for composing. (The reason I love the wireless headphones so much though is that normally I always break headphones by messing up their wires. I roll the chair over them, yank them, twist them, tangle them… for most purposes, the wireless headphones are the best solution.)
Penn also expressed interest in having Kutner be the patient for every episode of the next season. “It would be a great story arc,” he said. “Having the same patient for every episode for an entire season would be really innovative, and I am prepared to take on the challenge.”
Of course beauty seems to be one of the first requirements for love. This can probably be illustrated best in the movies; ugly people are rarely cast as lovable main characters. It’s much easier for audiences to instantly sympathize with someone on the more attractive side. Even on TV channels for children like the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, characters are often seen being instantly interested in other characters only because of their looks. Isn’t that… extremely shallow? But it’s natural! It’s what the human mind is designed to do. But… certainly that’s not love, is it? That’s just physical attraction.
The next thing we are instantly attracted to is talent. Who has that wonderful voice? Who painted that beautiful portrait? Who can play that instrument so beautifully? Who can blah blah blah do whatever so well?
I don’t think this is often a conscious thing, so not many people will admit to it, or even know they’re feeling it. It’s something like a deep desire to see someone else succeed because there’s something about them you feel superior to. An ugly person is the simplest example. Quasimodo may be a good example, though I’ve only seen film versions of the story. In those versions, the audience is meant to love the hunchback merely because he is deformed and not a villian. “I’m ugly! Poor me! Love me because you feel sorry for me!” I think in fiction writing there can often be a fine line between wanting readers to understand and care about your main character’s plight, and wanting readers to just downright pity the characters.
Anyway, for my