Philosophical Interlude

I don't understand nonexistence. So I'm wary of any sly atheist who self-justifies his rejection of God by saying that when we die, we are no more. What does "no more" mean here? It is nonsensical. We know the negation of something in the world, because we observe its negation. I see a soap bubble, oop, and I see it no more. But the negation of something in the world is infinitely different than the negation of that which makes somethings (and negations) possible -- namely, ourselves, consciousness.

Unlike the negation of objects, which we've known since consciousness first sparked into the universe, we've never known or experienced a negation of subjectivity. You can't experience nonexperience. You can say that we've all been unconscious, and very clearly we all have. It happens every night (unless you're an insomniac or in college). But this use of unconsciousness is to conflate neurobiological existence with consciousness existence, and is therefore misleading. I do not ("I" does not) exist without consciousness; therefore in the realm of sleep, we do not exist, save in timeless snippets afforded by a dreamworld.

But if we haven't experienced unconsciousness, if we know the negating of objects but not the negation of consciousness, then does it make any sense to say that when we die, we shall be "no more"? No, it doesn't. We know this intuitively; we know that nonexistence makes absolutely no ontological sense when speaking of the subject, but through a few words tied together we've come to an elusive conclusion that we do.

I'll go further. We don't fear death because we're secret sinners who haven't plucked out the correct divinity-appeasing formula and made amends with our conscience. We fear death because death makes absolutely no sense, as it should; because nonexistence is an empty concept -- a concept the mind oscillates between thinking it understands and correcting this misunderstanding through a return to intuition, frustratingly, painfully.

Two cures: one, a stubborn rationalistic delusion that thinks nonexistence is intelligible because it confuses objective and subjective existence. Already covered, not that interesting, fallacious. Two, the belief in everlasting life. Unsubstantiated, scientifically irrational, philosophically possible.

Well then, where does that leave us? You can't fear an absurdity, can you?