It's truly fascinating thinking about it. Before we experienced the life we are living, we weren't bored because we didn't have anything to do for billions of years. So death should be equally insignificant to us. We always yammer about what comes after life, not what came before it.
It drives me crazy thinking about how our consciousness is indeed the product of our brains, and that every human has consciousness produced by their brains, and that, theoretically, there will be an infinite amount of humans (really just theoretically).
I've always - incorrectly, and I am aware of this incorrectness, but I cannot manage to throw away this thought pattern - thought about how it is that we experience the very life we are experiencing, and not that of our neighbour, of our friend, of the starving African kid - what made that we were supposed to live the life we're living? What makes that I am the conscious entity in Belgium typing this message as we are speaking, and that I can be spared from the African starvation misery? Whereas another entity was meant to undergo that misery?
We are oriented in time and space, and what makes that the very person I am lives in the very time and space I am living in right now? I could've "had" the consciousness of a total different person, yet I am experiencing the life of this Belgian medical student. Why? What makes that the conscious entity that is experiencing this life was awarded this most advanced life form, instead of that of a dog, or a mouse? Would it simply not be compatible with those life forms?
It is so incredibly fascinating to think about this: when we die, for us, it stops. And we will not be aware of it having stopped, we will be aware of totally nothing. It is truly fascinating indeed to speculate on how that would feel to us - because no one alive could ever tell.
I'm not believing in any afterlife. I am aware of the finity of our existance but I cannot help but think that we will get to experience another life next.
This incorrect thought pattern of mine would be like there's a finite amount of consciousnesses, and when someone dies, the consciousness stock gets refilled and a newborn baby gets consciousness from that stock and you get to live another life without having any clue you've already lived one.
It's crazy to think that way, isn't it? Which must be why it's most probably false. The consciousness in my brain is inherent to my brain and everyone's consciousness is inherent to theirs. Which means that every consciousness is unique and there is an infinite amount of consciousnesses.
Yet, something inside of me refuses to believe that I (for what it's worth here, "I" is meaningless), my consciousness, will not be assigned to another brain when I die, forgetting about the live I'm living now.
Is it actually somewhat clear what I mean? Forgive me but we can only speculate and think of this from a rather philosophical point of view as we are speaking. Biology and medicine are not ready for answering the questions I gave. It is up until this day not possible to answer my questions from a pure scientifical point of view, imo.
Per conclusion, what makes it that our brain is able and allowed to experience, think of, and above all, question its inherent consciousness? I am a strong believer that indeed, everything we are is the product of our brain. But why would it allow itself to create a product which could endanger its own existance and credibility, why would it allof such a product leading to doubt itself? Why would it even allow us to consider its highest form of development? Why was its cortex ever developed so far that it could fall victim to its own thoughts?
It is thinking of these things that reminds me of Emerson Pugh, who said that "If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't."
Bull's eye, Pugh.
Unless ... Every brain has the same identical basal consciousness from the moment you could speak of consciousness (perhaps even before birth, considering that the self-consciousness thought to arise at approx. 1.5 years of age is a different form of consciousness) and the way that consciousness can think and express itself is totally dependent on neurogenesis and the way neurons interact with each other. What if there indeed is a certain basal consciousness present in me, you, and the starving African kid, an identical form of basal consciousness, molded to what it is today because of experiences throughout life and environmental factors? And what if I can think this way the African kid probably wouldn't because I know more on the subject, I refuse to allocate the source of our consciousness with a deity, and I allow certain brain regions to think on this matter in higher spheres, on a higher level of consciousness?
Surely enough if the African kid got lucky and it's mother won some rare lottery and got to move to Europe and live a better life, it could now probably think the same way I think and could also question why his "consciousness" was 'put in' the body of the lucky African kid and not in one of the millions of unlucky ones?
(Note that "the African kid" is of course a stereotypical metaphore and in no way implies racism; it's just an easy example)
Geez. Time to go to bed.