2011.10.04
Sleep and its Relationship to The End
"But what is all this fear of and opposition to oblivion?
What is the matter with the soft darkness, the dreamless sleep?"
--James Thurber
 I read a very good book: Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained. |
 One of the things the work made me realize is that I'm not always as conscious as I think I am. |
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 My inner voice, literally the voice in my head that I used to identify as "me", is often silent-- |
 the systems that are always buzzing my head don't always marshal themselves up into a distinct speech pattern. |
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 In fact, I'm running on autopilot most of the time-- the pandemonium that makes up my mind isn't always- as a 'group', or at least on the level that makes itself known to itself as a whole- aware of what it's up to. |
 The book makes a very good case for a view of the mind as this series of competing/co-operating systems |
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 (and argues very strongly against the idea of some 'inner-self' where the self and thinking 'really' happens, serviced by all the outer processes of subconsciousness and perception), |
 sometimes using language as a framework, |
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 sometimes using other methods of imitating our sense-impressions to take advantage of our specialized perception systems. |
 My own introspection goes further, (though of course one of the points of the book is that we should take our own internal observations with a large grain of salt,) and says that I'm not always aware of what's going on. |
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 If I desire to, I can think metathoughts- thoughts about my thoughts- and metametathoughts, and metametametathoughts, and so on all the way up-- that's what consciousness is all about. |
 But I usually don't. |
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 And, like all you other mammals out there, I sleep. |
 Perchance to dream-- but only sometimes. |
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 Sometimes I'm "out like a light". Well, not completely-- I'm sure that some one could hook up some sensors to my head, and clearly see a fair amount of happy neurochemical humming and bopping, even when I'm in deepest of deep sleep. |
 But not to me-- I may not be dead to the world (as long as the world has sufficiently sensitive instruments) but I'm dead to myself. |
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 So what's the point? It's like Poe said: "Sleep... those little slices of death; O how I loathe them!" |
 He was expressing a frustration with having to spend so much of his life in a comatose state. |
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 And he has a point: sleep seems to make our finite lifespans even more finite. |
 And yet-- and yet, it's a safe way of practicing for what we all will finally come to. |
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 Yes, the idea of "death as sleep" is hardly new, but I hope by pointing out how it won't be a totally new experience, |
 how even when we're awake and about we aren't necessarily awake in the ways we find most important to our sense of selves,that I can make the lack of our selves in the universe less frightening-- |
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 especially given the fact that, by definition, we won't be there to be scared at that time. |
http://www.ij.org/about/4058 -- wow, fuck civil forfeiture abuse. that is a travesty. Averaging about 3 incidents a year? Damn.
Heh, love that the new iOS app is physical greeting cards. Reminds me of "Tim Cook: I'm Thinking Printers"
My favorite iOS 5 feature gets no mention: splittable screens for iPad, so you can thumb type while holding it...
The urge to be top dog is a bad urge. Inevitable tragedy. A sensible person seeks to be at peace, to read books, know the neighbors, take walks, enjoy his portion, live to be eighty, and wind up fat and happy although a little wistful when the first coronary walks up and slugs him in the chest.