Ists & Isms
Let me get something out of the way: I have no interest in joining a movement. I've no flag to wave. No -ism to convert you to. I’ve no true “ist” to incorporate to my name. I’m not a materialist, a dualist, a panpsychist, a reductionist, or any other moniker people might take solace in. I'm not judging that - I just don't have one.
But it would appear that many people often search for one for application as a personal epithet to describe themselves to others. Doesn’t matter if it’s physics, metaphysics, or some hybrid with a podcast and a dream - a label seems to satisfy our longing to belong to a tribe. It's a form of dualism for me, because clearly, labels are necessary when conducting research - and I certainly enjoy knowing where to look, and there are some isms I can associate with more than others. For example, I do enjoy readings on panpsychism. I'll just never *identify* or present myself as a panpsychist. (Terrible name anyways....makes me think of a pansexual tarot card reader).
I think a lot about consciousness. Not because I think I’ll solve it. Not because I think there’s a neat answer waiting somewhere to be found. I think about it because it resonates in and around me. Because something about the continuity of memory, loss, and awareness won’t let me look away. I think about it when I remember my grandfather dying shoveling snow. I think about it when my cat Willie died - and still sense the imprint of his presence in quiet places he used to sit. I think about it because I live in a world that pretends this mystery is a solved problem when it’s not even close. Billions of lives lived - and nobody is even close to any measurable answer to what consciousness is, or if it lives or dies when our bodies conk out. So - for scientists who live and breathe by the adage of 'listen to the science' - have to report that there is no evidence of existence after death, therefore, the conclusion is always a hard and cold "No".
For example - let me use esteemed astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson as an example. Once upon a time, I liked just about everything he spoke of (still do mostly). He brought science into living rooms. He made the cosmos sound like a liquid poem, not a cold machine spitting out ice. He remains our present day next Carl Sagan - who most know as a man of warmth and humility. But lately, I see a man who’s traded his open eyed curiosity for eye rolling arrogance. I watched him brush off a question from Piers Morgan: What existed before the Big Bang? And his answer, as always, was, “We don’t know.", which is fine - it's a true statement. However, almost always - this topic will segue into a discussion about existence after death and when pressed for his "answer" - it never changes...."No." He'll dance carefully with it, as a means of being respectful to the faithful, but it's always a stout and determined "Lights Out". Like, he knows.
Because the same man who says “we don’t know” about the origin of everything will also turn around and scoff at the idea that consciousness might extend beyond the brain. Consciousness, that subjective experience we all have - this bewildering, irreducible presence inside of us and narrates to us - might not be entirely physical. He laughs off any talk of an afterlife, soul, or postmortem awareness as fairy dust for weak minds. It can make a person who is searching the universe for a morsel of hope, feel like a door slam. If asked the same question, Dr. Carl Sagan - the Mr. Rogers of the Space Neighborhood would proffer a more warm, humble and curious response.
My problem with an answer being a hard no, goes against the same principles that are applied to universal unknowns in which evidence is stark or non-existent. If “we don’t know” is acceptable for the beginning of time, why isn’t it acceptable for what happens after death? Why is humility reserved for physics and dismissed in metaphysics?
I’ll tell you why: because modern science, for all its incredible genius, is infested with people who’d rather appear certain than admit mystery. They’ve fallen in love with how smart they sound. Quantum this, entanglement that. Pretty equations that may as well be incantations. They talk about expanding spacetime, dark energy, black hole entropy—but ask them about the fact that we experience, and they retreat. Or worse, they dismiss the question entirely. And I'm not talking about Dr. Tyson here - it's a lot of people. PHD's that are reddit trolls, arXiv lifers, tenured professors - etc. They say -
“We’re just brains.”
“It’s all just neurons.”
“Nothing happens when you die.”
“Lights out.”
And they say it with the smug certainty of someone reciting facts—but it’s not facts. It’s false faith. Faith that consciousness is an accident. Faith that death is a full stop. Faith that meaning is a side effect of chemical sparks in the flesh of our minds.
Let’s be honest: none of us know what any of “this” is. Consciousness is not just a puzzle—it’s the fact that there is a puzzle. The only reason we can even ask these questions is because we’re in here, looking out. That’s not trivial and is most certainly not a footnote. It’s the whole entire story. The greatest mystery, comedy, sci-fi story ever told, is each of our own stories.
I’m not saying I know the answers. I most definitely do not. If I did, my little archive of hypothesis' that we call a website, would be looking much different and Piers Morgan would be asking ME questions. I’m saying the arrogance of pretending there are answers when there aren’t is worse than admitting we’re in the dark.
So no, I’m not joining any -ism. I don’t need a label. I don’t need to be an -ist. I just need to be honest.
And right now, honesty means saying this: the most important questions we face about consciousness—where it comes from, what it means, what happens to it when we die—are still wide open. And if someone tells you otherwise, they’re not a scientist. They’re either an atheist or a priest with a roman collared lab coat.
I am not against labels and ists and isms. I greatly admire a few out there. Christof Koch, Philip Goff. Many others. They blend their genius well. And despite my sarcasm, I understand the role that the chosen ones have…including Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson. He’s got a brand to protect. If he admits some kind of faith in anything beyond the evidence not known, his brand crumbles - he's out of the club. I also get that there is an order to keep in academia - members must keep the human paradox of academic arrogance untouched. If you tell him that you have faith in an “afterlife”, he’ll counter with some cosmological wonder. Commanding upwards of $50,000 for speaking engagements, I *kinda* get why his brand is important. To him. But me? I get nothing for nothing - but I'm here, paying weebly for their crappy web hosting and sharing my own chase.
Anyhow, that’s the crux. The expansion of the universe is conceptually interesting, sure. But it has no bearing on my felt experience. I would still experience whether I ever looked at the night sky or not. It doesn’t comfort anyone’s loss, answer our wonder, or explain why I still see echoes of my cat Willie in places he once was. No one needs to know about the intergalactic medium to understand that something is happening inside you that’s bigger than equations. Or maybe smaller—but deeper.
The universe is huge. Great. But consciousness is intimate, local, real-time, and it’s all we’ll ever have access to. Our lives are not lived on the edge of a quasar or in the swirl of a galactic filament—they’re lived in a kitchen, at a gravesite, on a commute, even you reading my blatherings - even if one's intent is to troll. It's firmly parked inside the mystery of our own presence. And if that’s not worth focusing on, then what is?
But it would appear that many people often search for one for application as a personal epithet to describe themselves to others. Doesn’t matter if it’s physics, metaphysics, or some hybrid with a podcast and a dream - a label seems to satisfy our longing to belong to a tribe. It's a form of dualism for me, because clearly, labels are necessary when conducting research - and I certainly enjoy knowing where to look, and there are some isms I can associate with more than others. For example, I do enjoy readings on panpsychism. I'll just never *identify* or present myself as a panpsychist. (Terrible name anyways....makes me think of a pansexual tarot card reader).
I think a lot about consciousness. Not because I think I’ll solve it. Not because I think there’s a neat answer waiting somewhere to be found. I think about it because it resonates in and around me. Because something about the continuity of memory, loss, and awareness won’t let me look away. I think about it when I remember my grandfather dying shoveling snow. I think about it when my cat Willie died - and still sense the imprint of his presence in quiet places he used to sit. I think about it because I live in a world that pretends this mystery is a solved problem when it’s not even close. Billions of lives lived - and nobody is even close to any measurable answer to what consciousness is, or if it lives or dies when our bodies conk out. So - for scientists who live and breathe by the adage of 'listen to the science' - have to report that there is no evidence of existence after death, therefore, the conclusion is always a hard and cold "No".
For example - let me use esteemed astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson as an example. Once upon a time, I liked just about everything he spoke of (still do mostly). He brought science into living rooms. He made the cosmos sound like a liquid poem, not a cold machine spitting out ice. He remains our present day next Carl Sagan - who most know as a man of warmth and humility. But lately, I see a man who’s traded his open eyed curiosity for eye rolling arrogance. I watched him brush off a question from Piers Morgan: What existed before the Big Bang? And his answer, as always, was, “We don’t know.", which is fine - it's a true statement. However, almost always - this topic will segue into a discussion about existence after death and when pressed for his "answer" - it never changes...."No." He'll dance carefully with it, as a means of being respectful to the faithful, but it's always a stout and determined "Lights Out". Like, he knows.
Because the same man who says “we don’t know” about the origin of everything will also turn around and scoff at the idea that consciousness might extend beyond the brain. Consciousness, that subjective experience we all have - this bewildering, irreducible presence inside of us and narrates to us - might not be entirely physical. He laughs off any talk of an afterlife, soul, or postmortem awareness as fairy dust for weak minds. It can make a person who is searching the universe for a morsel of hope, feel like a door slam. If asked the same question, Dr. Carl Sagan - the Mr. Rogers of the Space Neighborhood would proffer a more warm, humble and curious response.
My problem with an answer being a hard no, goes against the same principles that are applied to universal unknowns in which evidence is stark or non-existent. If “we don’t know” is acceptable for the beginning of time, why isn’t it acceptable for what happens after death? Why is humility reserved for physics and dismissed in metaphysics?
I’ll tell you why: because modern science, for all its incredible genius, is infested with people who’d rather appear certain than admit mystery. They’ve fallen in love with how smart they sound. Quantum this, entanglement that. Pretty equations that may as well be incantations. They talk about expanding spacetime, dark energy, black hole entropy—but ask them about the fact that we experience, and they retreat. Or worse, they dismiss the question entirely. And I'm not talking about Dr. Tyson here - it's a lot of people. PHD's that are reddit trolls, arXiv lifers, tenured professors - etc. They say -
“We’re just brains.”
“It’s all just neurons.”
“Nothing happens when you die.”
“Lights out.”
And they say it with the smug certainty of someone reciting facts—but it’s not facts. It’s false faith. Faith that consciousness is an accident. Faith that death is a full stop. Faith that meaning is a side effect of chemical sparks in the flesh of our minds.
Let’s be honest: none of us know what any of “this” is. Consciousness is not just a puzzle—it’s the fact that there is a puzzle. The only reason we can even ask these questions is because we’re in here, looking out. That’s not trivial and is most certainly not a footnote. It’s the whole entire story. The greatest mystery, comedy, sci-fi story ever told, is each of our own stories.
I’m not saying I know the answers. I most definitely do not. If I did, my little archive of hypothesis' that we call a website, would be looking much different and Piers Morgan would be asking ME questions. I’m saying the arrogance of pretending there are answers when there aren’t is worse than admitting we’re in the dark.
So no, I’m not joining any -ism. I don’t need a label. I don’t need to be an -ist. I just need to be honest.
And right now, honesty means saying this: the most important questions we face about consciousness—where it comes from, what it means, what happens to it when we die—are still wide open. And if someone tells you otherwise, they’re not a scientist. They’re either an atheist or a priest with a roman collared lab coat.
I am not against labels and ists and isms. I greatly admire a few out there. Christof Koch, Philip Goff. Many others. They blend their genius well. And despite my sarcasm, I understand the role that the chosen ones have…including Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson. He’s got a brand to protect. If he admits some kind of faith in anything beyond the evidence not known, his brand crumbles - he's out of the club. I also get that there is an order to keep in academia - members must keep the human paradox of academic arrogance untouched. If you tell him that you have faith in an “afterlife”, he’ll counter with some cosmological wonder. Commanding upwards of $50,000 for speaking engagements, I *kinda* get why his brand is important. To him. But me? I get nothing for nothing - but I'm here, paying weebly for their crappy web hosting and sharing my own chase.
Anyhow, that’s the crux. The expansion of the universe is conceptually interesting, sure. But it has no bearing on my felt experience. I would still experience whether I ever looked at the night sky or not. It doesn’t comfort anyone’s loss, answer our wonder, or explain why I still see echoes of my cat Willie in places he once was. No one needs to know about the intergalactic medium to understand that something is happening inside you that’s bigger than equations. Or maybe smaller—but deeper.
The universe is huge. Great. But consciousness is intimate, local, real-time, and it’s all we’ll ever have access to. Our lives are not lived on the edge of a quasar or in the swirl of a galactic filament—they’re lived in a kitchen, at a gravesite, on a commute, even you reading my blatherings - even if one's intent is to troll. It's firmly parked inside the mystery of our own presence. And if that’s not worth focusing on, then what is?
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