The Essence of Me

Ever since I've embraced atheism I've been having trouble with one aspect above all others. It is the aspect of the absolute end.

The problem is born out of fear and it is, as one friend correctly summed up, one of the major reason many people embrace religion. They don't want to have to deal with the idea that once we die there is nothing more. When you've got a heaven, or a hell, when you've got nirvana, or rebirth, or a host of other places for us to go, at least you keep going. Oblivion is, in many ways, far more frightening than any concept of eternal damnation.

Dawkins deals with this problem very easily. When he's asked if he doesn't worry about oblivion at the end he answers with something like this before I was born there was also oblivion and that didn't bother me then and doesn't bother me now, so why should the oblivion at the end bother me?

Now, that's a nice little word play, but there is one little difference between the time before I was born and the time after I died, namely my existence came in between, giving me time to think about the non-existence that is just down the path.

Now that I exist, I I'd rather not like to cease existing. It's probably just my instinctual drive for survival, but nonetheless, it is a very real feeling (fear?) in my breast.

Of course, just because something is unpleasant doesn't mean its less true and I will not embrace religion out of fear (Though I'm sure many people do it for exactly that reason, I think that we should never embrace anything out of fear, especially not something as fundamental as the ultimate answer).

Since I've had that fear, though, I've been thinking a great deal (in a philosophical way) about continuing my existence, either through my works, so that people will remember me; or by extending my life, so that I can remember myself; or through copying myself, so that anther version of me can remember me.

My thoughts about the first two are relatively straight forward, so I won't discuss them here, but the third way has raised some interesting points in my mind about self identity. Would a copy of me, on a main frame for example, be me? If you insist that there is no soul, then there would be no actual difference between me and it, besides the fact that one is physical and one is virtual (something that also shouldn't make a difference, considering we should be able to reprogram all the physical laws into a virtual environment).

Yet, am I it? If I die after I've been copied my own awareness will still end, right? Even if that awareness in the mainframe acts and thinks like me in all ways, is it actually me? If you deny the soul, am I then only my thoughts and my memories, or is there something more? Something that has to be transfered, somehow?

to be continued...