Thoughts on Thinking

I recently read an article in 'Time' magazine that really got me thinking about thinking. The article was considering the possibility that some day neuroscience will be able to prove that consciousness is a function of the brain instead of the traditional belief that it is a funciton of the soul, thereby 'killing the soul' and disproving the idea of our soul passing into an afterlife. And some argue that by killing the soul we are killing morality. I found the article's counterarguments to this quite fascinating. The basis was the fact that we can never be sure that other people are conscious. If we are unsure that other feel pain as we do we create a moral out for doing things that hurt others. But if science can prove that consciousness is a function of the brain, then we can say that everyone who has a brain has consciousness making more difficult to do harm to others.

As far as the 'life-to-come' is concerned, perhaps we are better off if we think in terms of there being no afterlife. This may sound dreary, but actually this idea could serve as a platform to making our current life better. As Morrie said, 'When you learn how to die, you learn how to live.' If we really believe in an afterlife that will be far greater than what we have now, then what we have now is greatly degraded and who wants to live their life waiting to finish? But if all we have is the moment, then we should work to make the moment as enjoyable as possible. Perhaps consciousness is a gift from impending darkness and by wasting it we waste the joys that we think we will get when it is over. This may be cruely ironic enough to fit in the paradigm of life as it seems.