I DON’T KNOW. 🤷

There is so much that me, myself, and I do not know.

Me: “Since deceased people don’t make a regular habit out of coming back to life, who’s to say that there isn’t a wealth of knowledge and experience hidden behind the other side of death?”

Myself: “You’re talking about an afterlife. C’mon bro, you’ve learned in medical school that brain death is real death. The electrochemical signals that embody your consciousness literally cease to exist. You can’t even perceive that you’re dead at that point. It’s not even endless darkness or empty space. It’s just the absence of absence itself.”

I: “Uh, I don’t mean to interrupt this conversation we’re having inside TJ’s mind, but since nobody has technically come back from True Death™ , aren’t both of you equally wrong and right? Like, from a purely empirical perspective there isn’t any data that supports or refutes either of your arguments. I mean, at this point, no evidence is basically the same thing as infinite evidence for infinite possibilities. There could just as likely be an afterlife as there is abso-fucking-lutely nothing. So technically, the REAL correct answer is that there is an equal chance that one, none, or all of you are correct.”

Me: “Okay nerd, but I think your answer makes a little TOO much sense. Shouldn’t we ultimately settle on some conception of post-mortem existence (or non-existence) to live a life rooted in something more solid than AnYtHiNg iS PoSsIbLe? After all, what we choose to believe can radically alter the way we spend our lives!”

Myself: “That’s a good point, but since there’s a non-zero chance that nothing, not even this conversation, matters jack shit, why are we even having this conversation?”

I: “Because there is the exact same non-zero chance that everything, especially this conversation, matters the most. That’s literally my point.”

Me: “So, in conclusion, I was technically correct when I first said that there is a non-zero chance that one half of all learnable truths are only accessible after death.”

Myself: “Yeah, just as much as the word half is, in it of itself, an arbitrary term coined by humanity to try and fraction something potentially infinite (or non-existent) into concepts that our tiny little brains can digest.”

I: “Here’s another thought: what if scientific laws and principles are only laws and principles in our corner of the observable universe? Scientific facts, in essence, are observations that are so highly corroborated such that they are functionally irrefutable. But human observations themselves rely on our five senses which our species - in the grand scheme of the cosmos - arbitrarily evolved to have. So then what can we, with our limited perceptions, claim about the truths of an infinitely expanding universe? Like, what can a grain of sand possibly claim about the beach it rests on?”

Me: “Well, comprehension of existence is inescapably subjective. Everything that I am prevents me from seeing myself for everything that I am. Is anything objectively real in the way that we subjectively define real to be?”

Myself: “Fuck… it’s like… who are we to think that we have evolved enough to experience the universe when, in fact, the universe was what evolved enough to experience itself as you and me?”

I: “I guess consciousness is a strange prison walled on all sides with mystery. But we’ll probably spend our lives plastering over these questions with layers of what we want to have for dinner or who we want to fuck.

My, Myself, and I: “There is so much that we do not know.”