Maniple Denzel
In the past few years, the idea of the afterlife in my mind has oscillated between varied opinions from the common religious dictates of Heaven(s) for the worthy, righteous do-gooders or Hell(s) for the malevolent, immoral, evil-doers and the more obscure thoughts of abstract limbo conjured up by philosophers, religious, spiritual leaders and even authors who base where you go after you die on either the Deities you worshipped or the culture you were born into.
For instance, the idea of reincarnation, the mechanics of which vary from region to region with some hinging it on right actions leading to rebirth as a human and wrong leading to rebirth as a “lesser” being like a frog or an ant. Which, when you think long and hard about is quite arrogant and egotistic especially when you think that Humanity is the most perfect form of life on this plane of existence, but I digress.
In my search and fascination with the varied schools of thought about the afterlife, I found several ideas of Hell, the place of punishment, torment, and damnation, and all seemed pretty horrible. From the unending fires of Gehenna to the icy shadowy places of Hel. Then the concepts of Heaven and their variations from vast lands of beauty with rivers of milk and honey to the weird golden lands with a virgin bride awaiting each man that was worthy. To be fair a lot of these places not only appealed to the earthly senses of men, and they also had several “problematic” themes which for the keen-eyed would eventually become obvious. It also became apparent that these rewards weren’t promised by benevolent deities but rather by highly imaginative guys who were probably on a creative high after trying out some mushrooms.
The more pragmatic opinions lay between the total annihilation of one’s consciousness after physical death and the nothingness of non-existence that we all were in before birth. Which, one could argue that the two options aren’t very different.
Needless to say, this is simply the tip of the iceberg when it comes to theories and affirmations about the afterlife and how it works, so I also decided to throw my hat into the ring, and no this wasn’t influenced by chemicals I had ingested prior. This was more my own mind cooking up something based on a lot of my other abstract and baseless beliefs on what an intriguing afterlife would look like. Anyway, here goes…
What if when we died, our consciousness travelled in a tunnel outside of space and time to an eternal and higher consciousness. An amalgamation of every form of consciousness in existence in the universe, from the praying mantis to the wealthy emperor who existed 200 years from the time of your birth. But since this exists outside the confines of time, this hive mind also bears the beings of the future, species that have yet to exist. What if it also carries those not found on earth assuming extra-terrestrial life exists.
In this hive mind, one is plugged to the collective experience of everyone and everything, living in their lives as though you were them. Seeing life from their point of view with every sensory detail at every point in their existence at your disposal.
Imagine that from this reality, regardless of what you did in life whether you were a saint or the bane of existence for every soul you met, you end up here to feed the collective and become a part of it, learning and growing its understanding of itself. And the concepts of good and evil are simply relative and a concept only we humans perceive and construct to keep from destroying ourselves.
In this existence, because your body is no longer in use, the concepts of physical pain and pleasure are only simple experiences but have no lasting effects, an example could be being able to feel for a moment the pain of a stabbing, but it would not kill you. Or, the taste of ice cream but not with the lasting effect of it in your mouth. Kinda like watching a movie and being able to experience what the characters are experiencing but the point isn’t the single event but rather helping you understand what is influencing your avatar to take the decisions it is taking in the larger story. In essence, you would still maintain your third-person point of view.
Whether these experiences would change you is something I haven’t yet given much thought to, but hopefully, when I tackle it I will share that here with you too because if these experiences change you in any way, one could ask how many lives would you live before you are no longer you? Since ideally, the events of our lives shape us whether we know it, like it, or want it.
So yea, now say this in an alternate reality were the actual case, the implications of such a discovery of the destination of the dead to the living would radically change their way of life and the collective life philosophy of beings in existence. In this reality, nothing would truly have meaning and if anything did, it would be solely a personal choice. And of course, there are several deeper questions one would have to ask themself. An example being; “Is this all just some big experiential experiment?” And so I wonder, if this were truly the case, what questions would you ask? And do you think there would be choices you would make that in your current state of belief you wouldn’t even consider? Feel free to share…
MANIPLE DENZEL EVERD
So after learning about it, you’d spend the rest of your life trying to act like it doesn’t exist? Would you go as far as to come up with a more comforting idea?
The “Hive Mind” seems to be an intriguing existential idea. To answer the last question, I would simply continue life as before but with the newfound knowledge that nothing I do really matters, and if that is the case then I may wish to have never found out about this knowledge.