Somebody's Child

Baby magpie at the park

I hate magpies. But many humans are worse

Are genies born from volcanoes?

Eyjafjallajokull above

How Read is Fiction?

Often, writing or reading is a better use of time than alternative activities. For example, in 4 or 5 hours of reading, you might be able to finish a very meaningful book that talks about many deep and interesting topics, which in turn enhance your existence and your understanding of real life, although it might temporarily take you out of it for just a few hours in the process. On the other hand, alternatively if you were to have spent those hours watching the news, cooking something you've cooked 100 times before, taking a walk around the neighbourhood, or even talking to someone you care about, but on a topic you've discussed 100 times before, you might not even remember these hours by next week, have not been affected by the activity and forget the memory altogether in a few years. So which is more real?

How to live forever

Let us ignore religion(afterlives) and science (the gradual raising of the average age of life, and discoveries of genes that affect our mortality). In a metaphorical, abstract, or philosophical sense, is it possible to live forever and in what ways?

Examples I can think of include, the immortality, idolization, granted by fame, through notable accomplishments, or through a book, artwork, or other created object that lives on after death. Love is often described as being “eternal”, and . We could ask how and why it is that we exist in the first place, and if we were to answer it is consciousness, that grants us life, then what does our consciousness come from, but from the words and concepts gained through society, and if that world in which we live, we can transmit or contribute to transmitting to others, who live their lives, awakened (if only a little more) by our awareness, and our consciousness transmits to them, do we pass on a little of our life to them, and do they keep it alive, even before we die and afterwards? In what way is our body alive in the first place and if we said that it is because we can feel our body, because we can move it and effect it, that we know that it is ours and that we live, could we also be able to say that, if through empathy we could feel the pleasure and pain of others, of individuals and communities and situations, and if we could move and effect these people and things, would they not also be part of our identity, part of “us”, and while we are alive far outside of the limits of our own skin in our life, wouldn’t this go on even after we dies?

Does human desire to live beyond the known natural lifespan result from an incomplete ability to understand the depth of life and its potential to fulfil all natural desires?

Language and meaning

If people had no names but only a single pronoun existed that meant me, you, we, he, she, they would our concept of ourselves and identity and self be radically different to how it currently is

Senses and Feelings

Humans have five senses, but some animals have others which we don't have such as sonar. We are able to feel things through either emotions or physical feelings. Physical feeling relies on our nerve endings, and emotions on our consciousness, as well as a combination of other things such as our cultural understanding and perception of things, affects by physical comfort and situation, psychological state and others. Is it possible that there are also other ways of feeling which we don't know about in the world? For example, might a rock or a table or a TV set feel something, through some source other than the nerve endings which they don't have or the consciousness they presumably don't have either. If another way of feeling exists which we don't know about, it could also have repercussions for the possibility of artificial intelligence.

Limits of our existence

The nervous system is the limit of our physical sensory perception however why is that assumed to be the range in which we each as individuals exist? For example, couldn’t we exist outside our bodies not during out-of-body experiences but also all the time