Assignment Five – “Brute Neighbors“

We are just carbon based moving organisms and our souls are just chemical reactions. This may sound negative, but this is my conclusion whenever I think about it objectively. I’d love it to be different, and I often act as if it was different, but when I really think about it, this is always my conclusion.

Of course there are numerous factors which influence the development of our character, we generate memories and fondnesses depending on how we were raised and what we experienced. We even develop a self-consciousness—an ability to think about ourselves and even about the fact that ourselves are thinking. Of course do I have a personality, I can experience mine as well as those of others. There are people I like and people I don’t like, there are even people I love or hate. I can think about that; I can be conscious of me thinking about that. Why would self-reflection be any different than other forms of thinking. Maybe animals have thoughts about what they are doing, too, and we just don’t notice. Maybe what we think what are our thoughts, are just instinctive processes that manifest as the thoughts we articulate in our mind.

I believe—and I’d love it to be different—there won’t be anything after I died. I will just end. And my thoughts as well. And I wont even be around to recognize it. If there is nothing after me, why would there be anything before me? Is what we call my soul or personality predestined by a higher pool of directions and this is what we call instinct?

If we were acting according to any form of instinct, wouldn’t we have some general tropes in common? Well, people want to live. Not true. Some people also kill themselves. Are they exceptions from the rule? Or are they just the proof, that there is no rule?

Maybe being ticklish is instinctive. No, whait, I know people who aren’t ticklish. Closing your eyes if something gets thrown at you. Blind people won’t. Do they need to protect their eyes less then the seeing? As a seeing person you can overcome this reflex by training. Is that overcoming your instinct?

I am sure even among animals, there are exceptions for almost everything. For me, exceptions don’t proof the rule. There is no use in rules, if you allow exceptions.

Nobody is completely similar to another person, there are as many varieties as there are people on earth. Why do ants seam to act in this collective consciousnes pattern? Maybe they are more similar than we are. Maybe we just don’t recognize them being different to each other. To them, we probably all look the same as well—a giant pink meatsack that is bending over to look at me. Who hastn’t done that at least once? You? You, too? Everybody? Interesting, maybe we are not that different after all...