More than anything what i'm about to write is going to come across as a random collection of thoughts, probably because it is. I tried my best to make it readable, but it still jumps around a bit without explaining enough of my views in certain areas. I suppose i'm just writing it to have it written and to perhaps get others thinking and help work it out with me. So, without further ado.
Your brain has the ability to process the sight, smell, taste, sound, and feel of just about everything around it. Our species, as complex social creatures has a whole lot to think about beyond these base senses. Your consciousness was created by your brain to help it make sense of these things. You have always been there, helping out your brain, although you could argue that you didn't truly develope until a few years in. This is likely due to the fact that it takes the brain a while to start remembering things that arn't necessarily important, and that lots of unimportant things are discarded with time. You cannot remember a time when you were not conscious and as such you have a very hard time imagining what it would be like for your conscious, you, to cease to exist.
This is why religions have become a repeated pattern in human history. The thought that one day you could simply turn off and cease to be is frightening. It's because it's an unknown, your conscious has no idea what it is to not exist. Religion offers an escape from the threat of death. The threat that one day you will simply be gone, just another hunk of matter. It says that you can live on, that your brain is not your creator, but an omnipitent being, a god. He created your concsiouness, your "soul" and he'll let you keep being you for eternity, so long as you follow a few rules. It's hard to know when humans first came upon the idea of a god, but it's likely around the time that all of our various input and social necessary social interactions led our brain to create a conscious. I imagine the first gods were created to help bring a purpose to our lives and to calm the inate fears of death, of non-existance. Somewhere along the line religion turned up, likely to try and keep order in an ever growing civilization.
I suppose what I'm really getting at is that we as chunks of thinking matter really should try and live our lives as best we can. Whether it be through death or a mind altering brain injury, one day you are going to shut off. But it's not really something to be sad about. I mean, do you think that you were sad that you didn't exist before you were born?
I realize that the way I wrote this may make little sense to those reading it. For me, it has become a new line of thought and I find it easier to understand myself if I write it down. I'm not asking anyone to believe what i'm saying, but to do the research and consider the possibilities before arguing with me about it. I'll expand on this eventually, cite references that i've used and go into more detail about things, if only to better organize it for myself. I know it sounds depressing, but the way I think is that not existing sounds like it would be terrible, but I won't exist to care about it.
