Resisting Existential Nihilism

What I have learned is that the human mind is not made to know even a speck of what our maker knows. It is supposed to be so uncomprehensible that we are just allowed a peek into His mind, if you believe this out of religion or other sources and I myself think that those secrets are meant to be given to certain people born with the abilities and talents to figure it out, like scientists and musicians too. I really don't know how this relates to what you guys are talking about, but this is just an undereducated guess of what you are saying since i didn't take psychics and such. i find these conversations very interesting although and would like to learn more biology and psychics too. i did take some philosophy and psych courses and even chemistry too years and years ago.

I should have clarified that statement. In the depths of depression I felt evil; that I did somethingt horrible to reach this state of darkness. My thoughts were mine alone, not to be shared because I had no explanations for my delusions, hallucinations, etc. Nor my depths of depression.

I should not have said self centered, but, maybe, so absorbed in self in a place that others can’t reach… a withdrawal into self to the exclusion of, well, everyone. Self-absorbed withdrawal? That was my experience. Nothing mattered except the great sorrow, the depths of self-hatred, the overwhelming sadness within. I’ve never been the rose-colored glasses type — always a skeptic. I think that my experience was common with other long-term depressives in the State hospital (3+ years) and I can only say that I was, because of the ‘disease,’ self-absorbed and too introspective, not caring about life or living. But not selfish. In the dark abyss, I was alone and more involved with the ego/I/self than with any others’ or anything. My 1+ years of mutism demonstrated the depth of my depression and how involved with self, wrapped up in shrouds, greater than any grief I’d experienced previously.

So, I think that I can say that my experience with depression was that I was centered on ego/I/self because I felt it necessary to hide within my self, in the dark, dank hole. But I didn’t stop practicing my innate altruism, I guess, because at almost two years in confinement my shrinks told me that I had been so very kind to others, even when I was not talking.

I can’t give reasons for my depression. I began taking antidepressants in 1986 (or 1985, or 1987 — I don’t recall!) and I’m close to being pharmaceutically resistant (except when I was in hospital and one of the shrinks gave me Nardil… I felt so good; but it was killing me, blood pressure in stroke range) to antidepressants. Because my depression fulfilled the MDD/psychotic/severe criteria yet my ‘episodes’ were persistent and that presented a conundrum: I did not meet the criteria of persistent depressive disorder (DSM5) and the longevity was bundled with my schizoaffective diagnosis.

Does this clarify my position?

Depression is meaningful. The more I think about this the more it sounds right. Before one considers that they are nihilistic one might check with their emotions. Sociopaths, for instance, are incapable of experiencing emotion, and thus, empathy. If depression drives one towards connecting with others - even if it is nonverbally - it is meaningful. It is an expression of the human condition. And it is not nihilistic. Yeah, so I rather am getting turned on by the idea of depression as a "this, and not that" pointing of the finger at the moon.

Everyone on this thread has heart/soulfulness.


So many beautiful pointing fingers...(Yes, you too, Amicus!)

I’m usually careful when speaking of souls because it can mean a spiritual ‘spirit’ to many and, as a strident atheist, I reject the idea of spiritualism.

I think that I’m comfortable with my emotions just now — I’m genuinely happy.



As a nihilist I’m not certain how to respond to your ‘depression has meaning’ idea. I don’t believe in any kind of meaning central to existence, so I suppose that my knee-jerk response would be, “no, I don’t believe that depression has any more meaning than a speck of sand.”

I can come across as unsympathetic to others’ plights, but I’m really a marshmallow, an ol’ softy. My rhetorical style can be infuriating to others, so dry and calm in argument I am, I am.

And yet, (warning— hyperbole ahead!) there is no one in the world so empathetic as myself!

Depression didn’t connect me with others — it forced me to flee from anything outside of my addled mind. I cannot adequately explain the darkness — the complete and consuming sense of terror and grief that I felt — the fear of others (afraid that they would cause even greater pain).

That fear resulted as mutism. That fear was overwhelming, one round of ECT followed by another and another, etc. I’ve no words (and words are my stock-in-trade) to express the shadowed existential existence of myself curled upon the floor crying. It’s not possible. Not at all.

When you write of the ‘human condition,’ I assume that you mean our innate ape-ishness, shared in common? I call the evolutionary process one individual and unique mutation after another. Everyone who breeds passes one evolutionary mutation to another mutation, and so it goes and goes. As Homo sapiens, we’ve been around for 200,000 years (I think?) but there’s no way that we can predict the next evolutionary species, 200,000 years from now. We may be killed off by a plague, a natural disaster, fire, famine, floods.

I must reject meaning in depression. Based upon my experiences if for no other reason. Some people find beauty in patterns; I find the randomness beautiful.



Sigh.

Did you see the NatGeo article that I wrote of? The end of plate tectonics? No more mountains, no more continental drifts? Beautiful. So very beautiful.

Well, I wasn't going to wade in, originally, but I'm glad to see my friend Amicus back in the thick of it, even if we disagree about the how. There's certainly no disagreeing about the what waiting for each of us at the end of the road. lol

First of all, let me explain something. I'm going to try to make it as explicit as possible since my drive to pursue mathematical symmetry and perfection is being mistaken for "new age mysticism" and metaphysics.

I'm not arguing from a metaphysical standpoint. Period.

There, that should deflate those arguments. The entire reason I look for mathematical symmetry is because mathematics doesn't care about our wants or needs. It doesn't care if we don't like the answers. It's either right or wrong. This is an important touchstone for me to keep me grounded in reality no matter how ragingly psychotic my delusions may become, if indeed delusions is what they are. Mathematics is the sword by which I cut through the ******** of my own bias, knowing fully well I may be wrong, and being okay with that.

This is because, as I've said before, mathematics is pure. It's eternal. Mathematics gives us a set of physical laws that are not only quantifiable, but testable. Any "discovery" I make in the course of my journey through inner space should be testable by others using the same mathematics as I did.

As for the binary nature of the universe, somehow, that's getting misconstrued as new age. I don't get it. I'm talking about very real fundamental forces of nature that give shape to all of reality, and which are provable and testable. Those forces exert influence on how we perceive reality because they have a very real effect on particles at the quantum level.

The way I perceive it is that yes, we live in a spectrum reality where there are always varying shades of color, and those variations--the fact that any variation exists--is caused by the fact that we exist between two poles, positive and negative, black and white. It's like...imagine for instance that our universe is a string. The length of the string is the entire age of the universe, from beginning to end. That string is in turn tied to two pencils, Pencil A (which we'll called Positive) and Pencil B (which we'll call negative). Those pencils represent the fundamental forces of nature and pull that string of reality taut. Thus, they frame the spectrum of reality, giving it shape.

Do you deny there's a positive and negative pole? A north and south pole of magnets? Why do magnets have only two poles and not three? There is an underlying reason for everything, even if it's a reason that is mundane and non-spiritual. Let me say that again, there is a fundamental, physical reason for the physical laws of the universe being what they are.

Consciousness intersects with this because we are self-aware. Yes, life may be extraordinarily commonplace and mundane--the fermi paradox comes to mind--which means extinction level events are probably fairly common, too. My guess is that most alien life hasn't contacted us because it probably wiped itself out, just as we seem wont to do. Mathematically, ELEs are being found to be more and more common.

Now, as to the science behind consciousness, whether you choose to accept it or not, there have been very real experiments done, and mathematics worked out, on how cognition occurs. I hold the same idea that the physicist, David Bohm, does, in that the brain is a sort of organic holographic storage unit. I've written about this else where and have given links in this thread, but suffice it to say, it makes logical sense when you consider that all of reality itself is holographic in nature, as well as fractal.

And lastly (and this is purely conjectural on my part), IF there is a Creator, why would He not encode clues as to the true nature of the universe in the ciphering of mathematics, which is the language of the forces of nature? Even if there isn't, I can't help but feel that there's something more that we're not seeing that exists just beyond our perception, and if that's true, the ONLY way we will find out is through mathematical proof. That is why mathematics is so important to me.

I would feel it is hypocritical of God, if He exists, to create something so mind-blowingly complex as the laws of nature, and then hide outside of that reality, leaving no clues to His existence. Those clues lay in the unexplained phenomenon that scientists cannot reconcile with our current understanding (though mathematicians are hard at work on them). Maybe the answer will be there is no God and it's all meaningless, as my friend Amicus believes. Or maybe the answer will be something we cannot even conceive of because our consciousness is limited to the system of the universe (system being used in the mathematical sense). We are stuck in this universe and perhaps the only way to perceive the whole of it is to do the impossible: step outside of it. A sort of can't see the forest from the trees scenario.

But the way I find myself fighting off existential nihilism is in the journey for answers, no matter what those answers are. It has nothing to do with metaphysics and everything to do with ultimate truth. Mathematical harmony achieved with physical theory. Yes, it may be a razor's edge to walk between the answers I want and the answers I'll get, but which scientist can say otherwise about their own theories? Mathematics, for me, will rule out bias, and if God exists, He will speak in terms of mathematical symmetry and perfection.

Michael,

A few very quick notes on #105.

I think that I was the first to use the term “new age.” I apologize — wrong side of the bed that day in all likelihood.

If you’re familiar with manual compasses, and the least bit of orienteering, you know that any good compass used with any two-dimensional map, requires adjustment to provide for magnetic declination. And I guess that’s what I believe lacking in explaining the polarity of the Universe as strictly binary. Just as we need to adjust our old compasses to get from north to south, I think that there’s likely a “Universal Fudge Factor” that requires an unknown, possibly unknowable, adjustment.

It’s the very lack of precise polarity that I find intriguing. And have since my Scouting days. Yes, the adjustment is simple but that doesn’t cloud the fact that it’s necessary. One would never come close to a final destination (call it TOE) without that adjustment. We could never have gone to the moon without the repeated adjustments of the craft’s gyroscopes. Daily, we read of political polls within margins of “error” or “adjusted for” one demographic or another. The Earth spins on a tilted axis. Planets in our Solar Sytem race (or crawl) around the Sun in what looks to be, visually, crazy orbits that only make sense when adjusted for mass, gravity, specific planetary orbits and axis and a host of other variables that, even now, lack certain specificity.

It’s because of alterations, adjustments and variables that I find randomness so very beautiful! If all planets were symmetrical, orbiting a predictable Sun, then I would cede the point of a binary existence (um, actually, I wouldn’t exist!). We’re only smart enough to predict, gazing into clear crystal balls and with all of the accuracy of a wily seer. If we’re certain of anything it’s the uncertainty of our predictions. We have no way of knowing if any of our maths laws and theories hold true at the outer edges of the Universe — does Einstein trump Newton there?

We don’t know.

I think that, for all our knowledge (as I’ve said previously), we cannot be so species-vain to believe that we’ve reached the point of certain knowledge. I don’t believe that we’ll ever reach that point.

I believe that we’ll always need to account for the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics and physics (observer effect). I’m sure that you have a better understanding of these principles than me!

I love uncertainty. I find it at the heart of humanity. I love eccentricity. I love eclectic and random genius. I love perfect marriages that end in divorce (which was my experience). As an existential nihilist and atheist, human foibles and unpredictability delight me. I would be so very bored in a binary Universe!

Out for dinner!

Amicus, you always surprise me in our common ground. I would be bored in a strictly binary universe. However, I think what I mean is that these poles exist outside of the universe in some unknown superstructure--call it the multiverse, if you will. Our universe allows for random chance through the effects of entropy on the system since the beginning of time, and the fractal nature of reality, in fact, demands infinite variation. So there will never be an exact same...anything...in terms of events.

However, I do believe in Bohm's theories, which predict a deterministic universe, but in such a complex and complicated way that humans couldn't build a computer to calculate it all because you'd have to account for every single particle since the beginning of time. Plus, with the existence of black holes, that information is lost for now, unless we can figure out how to read information that has fallen into a black hole through the resulting hawking radiation.

But I posit that the universe repeats, over and over--so we will have this same conversation, possibly, in a new variation in the next aeon (universe after this one dies--see Roger Penrose and the Conformal Cyclic Cosmology model). That's what is so amazing--we ride a cosmologic sine wave that repeats over and over in infinitely new variation, and since I believe in the strong anthropologic theory, the universe is in some sense compelled to eventually have conscious and sapient life emerge within it.

What scientists have discovered with these hawking radiation ghosts of black holes from previous universes (confirming the CCC model) is that there are possibly infinite universes, but only some of them are capable of harboring life at all. So chances are, since this is a working pattern for nature (because why would the universe form at all without life to observe it? There's your observer effect on the macroscopic, cosmologic scale--lol), the next incarnation (in true fractal form) will most likely be very similar, with only small variations.

And I promise to buy you a drink in the next aeon, my friend!

I understand the primary purpose of Psych Central as a forum of mutual support.

I didn't appreciate my last post being dissected and criticized, when clearly it was meant as a positive and supportive comment. As well, it expressed some of my own thoughts and beliefs in a non-preaching manner.


I certainly did not mean to offend anyone by the use of soulfulness. This word could just mean full of life and animation. One meaning of the word spiritual might mean spirited or animated.

Frankly, some comments on this thread are so depressing it is forcing me to no longer check in. It is one thing to disagree but quite another to disrespect the comments of another by dissecting them in order to "prove" them somehow ineffectual or infantile.


As I am fighting an often deep depression caused by dire life circumstances I guess I just don't have the stamina (presently) for intellectual partying.


Maybe nihilism is "right" thinking for some but for me it is anti-life and arrogant and ultimately shows a lack of gratitude, and reciprocity. It is a dead end and finally, it truly makes a person unattractive. My final opinion. Seeking a more benign and uplifting venue. Good luck in your quest, Michael.

I did not mean to offend you. I see no reason why you should lecture me. I don't share your values or beliefs. I hope you are not suffering much and have the proper medical attention to keep you comfortable. Best wishes.

Please do not waste your time replying to my last comments. I won't be returning to this thread. Best wishes to all in your journey. You are all very smart dudes and dudettes. I have enjoyed the greater portion of this thread. It has generated a lot of food for thought. Farewell. Dech

Look, this thread is about how each of us resists this despondent nihilism where you just want to give up, and what it takes for you to make it through the day. MyPaperHeart, I wasn't trying to one up you or push you away, I enjoyed our convo. The facepalm was because of the person who posted after you.

Dechan, feel free to come back anytime. Amicus, even though we might disagree, if that's what gets you through these existential crises, more power to you. Me, I'm searching, and simply sharing what I find through my own inner logic. It's like...something right at the tip of the tongue that I can't quite fathom, but I can feel the answer is there somewhere.

I don't want this thread devolving into gossip. My posts tend to be scientifically-based because that's my method of searching for meaning. Everyone searches in their own way. And it helps to know I'm not alone.

Now, everyone get out of their chest, have a gargleblaster, and relax. Let's open our minds and tune into the universe. No matter what it says.

DD...

...No, you didn’t offend me at all!

And I need to make a public apology to you if I appeared to be lecturing you! I like you — and Michael and everyone who’s participated in this thread!

I love the complexity of the different values and beliefs shared here. I’m mired in the muck and wallowing in diversity. Different experiences, different and unique thinking make us all so singularly human and I have to embrace and love the whole of humanity if I’m to fulfill my humanist beliefs.

I’m so very, very sorry that I offended you. That was never my intention. Never. Never.

Please reconsider leaving this discussion — I’m sure that I speak for all (and I’m the lone contributor here who embraces existential Nihilism) in saying that your contributions have been critical in provoking even greater thought put into our responses. I may disagree with you, but I love reading you. I know, I know, I know that, more often than not, I can come across as gruff but, as I said, I’m a marshmallow with an extraordinarily bizarre sense of humor that goes unappreciated (my folly!) most of the time. My fault.

(Yar. I am suffering — I blacked out again this morning and crashed my skull upon the linoleum flooring in my kitchen. I laugh at the 0-10 pain levels — can I have a 100, please? My body is shutting down and I can’t find a way to get the wheelchair prescribed quickly enough for my needs. I can’t find a method to navigate the complicated mess of pain relief without returning to a nursing home. If I were a dog, I’d have been put down by now. Yet with all of my complaints (and, lord knows, I hate complaining) I’m positively invigorated by the joy of dying! I’m actually, finally dying! I’ve had so many ‘3-6 month’ predictions, going back for 15-years!, that I scoffed at the ignorance of specialists... until, well, now. I can now, praise be!, feel the dying... and it’s beautiful. Amazing; such a cause for celebration! Don’t you see, within your beliefs and values, how, like St. Paul wrote, that I have fought the good fight and that I am winning the race and that I have, in my most twisted way, kept the faith? I genuinely believe that we’ve more in common in our values than not and this whole thing, this life, doesn’t mean that we must share the same beliefs to love one another? I’m babbling, I know; that’s what I do. I’m grateful for your warm wishes — I really am. I really am grateful.)

Please, please accept my sincere apology.

Thanks for your private message. It was well received. It sounds like you need some help. Like a patient advocate of some kind. It is not right that you are falling on the floor and hitting your head due to a lack of a wheelchair. You could call your local crisis hotline and see if they can help you. At the very least they would be another source of contact for you. They actually will try to help out in any circumstance. They have a lot of resources at their fingertips. No one wants you falling down, hitting your head, and getting a concussion, or worse!


As for St. Paul...anyone who writes that wives should be subservient to their husbands and treat them like they are a god... in all matters... is cracked, as far as I am concerned. I detest the writings of St. Paul. And the fact that this "teaching" was delivered from the pulpit two weeks ago was, for me, the last straw. With all that is going on, within the Catholic church, and with the #metoo movement, I cannot believe these misogynistic words of St. Paul are still being delivered as if sacred scripture. PA---LEEZ.


I am not sure how you can say your are following Christian beliefs and at the same time are a diehard nihilistist. These two are in direct opposition.


Well, carry on! Everyone is enjoying your discourses so really don't mind me. I am just concerned you are falling on your head is all.

[QUOTE=Michael2Wolves;6258311]Look, this thread is about how each of us resists this despondent nihilism where you just want to give up, and what it takes for you to make it through the day. MyPaperHeart, I wasn't trying to one up you or push you away, I enjoyed our convo. The facepalm was because of the person who posted after you.

Dechan, feel free to come back anytime. Amicus, even though we might disagree, if that's what gets you through these existential crises, more power to you. Me, I'm searching, and simply sharing what I find through my own inner logic. It's like...something right at the tip of the tongue that I can't quite fathom, but I can feel the answer is there somewhere.

I don't want this thread devolving into gossip. My posts tend to be scientifically-based because that's my method of searching for meaning. Everyone searches in their own way. And it helps to know I'm not alone.

Now, everyone get out of their chest, have a gargleblaster, and relax. Let's open our minds and tune into the universe. No matter what it says.

[/QUOTE

This thread gossipy? I don't see it. I did talk it out with Amicus privately and I don't think there is any problem although his dire physical condition is concerning.

I don't really have anything more to add to this thread. My participation and attention has clarified for me that although I might feel depressed I am not nihilisitc...and that has value for me.

I do feel that there is meaning in suffering (i.e. depression) and I am not alone in that. Viktor Frankl built an entire psychotherapeutic model on this belief.

Michael,

In re Psalm #111 (how very... fortuitous!):

That’s it, that’s it, that’s it!

Searching.

But first, a story. (Think it will be short? Ha!)

In my small diocese, we had a quarterly three-day retreat for high-school students. Most attendees were Catholic but everyone was welcome. Attendance was limited to one retreat only... except for one male and one female facilitator at each retreat and I was fortunate to be a facilitator at numerous retreats.

I was fortunate, too, that my favorite Jesuit, Father Matt, was the retreat’s moderator. Like most priests in our diocese, he was Irish and he spoke, softly, with a thick Irish lilt. He smoked, stereotypically, a sweet aromatic tobacco in a fine briar pipe. He was tall and thin and his visage was chiseled and he was a handsome man. And he was, well, a Jesuit; a stereotypical Jesuit.

These retreats were common in the United States. They were called by various names and ours were named Search.

Long before I attended my first retreat I asked Fr. Matt about the name. I’m not going to attempt to quote him but I’ll say that he answered, ‘well, it’s about faith, isn’t it?’ Faith was a never-ending quest, a journey without end, a continuous search.

I can be rash and conceited and imply that my life’s conclusions should be shared by all. That’s one of my many faults and I apologize if I’ve let that fault color my rhetoric in this thread.

But.

My biggest failure here was failing to express my belief that we are forever searching for answers, large and small, and that we should never fail to forge ahead in pursuing our own personal answers. For me, it’s been a wild ride — the very finest roller coaster ever. I never meant to imply that my conclusions were conclusive — only that they were insanely random and based upon the delightful folly of randomness that I find so beautiful within every person and thing and thought that I’ve encountered.

I’m grateful that you used the word. (Ugh. My bladder finally died last week and I’m not finding catheterization kind!) I must continue dying within the metaphysical, I can’t accept final and precise answers, I want to believe in multiverses where you and I are discussing these matters in Greek (Or English poets who grew up on Greek (I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek)).

And, lord almighty, I don’t want to hurt anyone again.

DD,

You make us all more thoughtful. Can’t that be reason enough (within the myriad of other reasons) to continue participating in this thread?

I don’t want to speak for Michael, but I believe that his use of ‘gossipy’ might be based upon a previous observance: that this thread has become ‘the talk of PC,’ as in ‘the talk of the town.’

Please don’t be concerned about my physical ailments! Celebrate, with me, this human process! Fight the good fight with me, alongside me! Prepare my laurel as I race towards the finish line! Known that, in my own way, I’ve kept the faith!

Allow me, in turn, to empathize with your depression, to cautiously explore your rejection of Nihilism and to give further thought to meaning in suffering.

I can happily say, for instance, that I’m finding so much joy in the love, friendship, laughter and kindness of others and that means so very much to me.

Dechan, this thread has helped me lighten the load a bit. Thank you for sharing that journey with me, my dear, dear friend. I didn't mean gossip per se, just...emotionally tense. No matter what, we're all in this universe together, and I am glad for the way the Pattern has worked out so that we could meet and enjoy each others' company here.

I'm glad you and Amicus talked. This thread has been one of my favorites so far. Now, where's My Paper Heart gotten off to...?

Edit: The only comfort, Amicus, I can offer you is that the end won't last very long as you may not be conscious of it. So one moment, you're here, and the next, you're in the next universe, and hopefully, you and I are sharing a cup of coffee somewhere nice, like next to Caribbean Ocean...or pink champagne! lol

I appreciate your concern. I had a call from my insurance company this afternoon and I’ve been assigned an RN who will attempt to rapidly coordinate my most immediate needs. I’ll speak to her tomorrow afternoon, after my PCP appointment.

Oh, I agree with you about Paul! It’s that nasty Cultural Catholic in me that quotes his less pernicious writings! I no longer follow the mass readings. I tend to agree with some scholars who write that the Church is more a ‘Pauline’ (ha!) construct than Christ-centric. The ‘celibacy’ foisted upon priest comes straight from Paul’s wish that EVERYONE should follow his example; Christianity wouldn’t have had much of a lifespan if that wish had been followed.

I’ve written of my personal experiences with the Church elsewhere — no need to bring up my bitterness here.

No, I don’t mean to imply that I follow Christian beliefs, only that I grasp at the least tarnished metaphysical jewels. You’re quite right: There is no reconciliation between Christianity (however mere!) and Nihilism. And I am a diehard nihilist!

Okay, thanks for the comments on St. Paul. His message has always struck me as dangerous in that it cuts off what makes us human, and it seems to me that Christ never gave that message. I never heard of the word Pauline but my word, the Catholic Church is so f----- u- at this point. I was volunteering in the garden at my local church but stopped. I showed up at the service last week and the head priest shook my hand when greeting members in front of the church (suddenly he knew me! - after I had been going to Mass there for months - because I had been breaking my back all summer weeding the gardens there) and I blurted out, "Father, your garden is looking good...but has a lot of weeds sprouting..." and he didn't say anything. Did he think I was speaking about the church? I don't know. I am just angry. I was also angry because that day he didn't address the letter from the Pope, which I think should have been printed up and left in the back for the congregation members to pick up - as it was a letter from the Pope to all the members of the church. Silence does nothing. Well...as for your "searching for faith" --- that old Irish priest of yours had it right.

What a relief you have a nurse to see to your needs. It is as it should be. No, you should not be left unable to navigate around your own home, and yes, staying in your own home is important. I am still wondering if you have hospice care as they visit people in their own homes. They even (should have) chaplains and divinity interns who surely would learn a thing or two from visiting with you.

There was a Buddhist teaching that the head of my sangha (community) taught that I loved. He said, "A person is alive until they are not." It sounds crazy (well, he was known as the Crazy Wisdom guru) - but the thought was - that every second counts - as Michael said in another post - and every second and moment and hour counts for you...and I am happy you have found a lively amount of connection on this thread. No one should be treated like they are "half-dead" or "gone" -- while they are alive. I have been following the YouTube and Instagram accounts of a young UK man named Dan Thomas. He has incurable, terminal cancer. He is also wildly popular, a fighter, a real badass, a heart-throb to all the ladies (and some men, too!) and he is funny and witty. They keep extending his terminal diagnosis. He is certainly a case of a person who is very much alive. (His YouTube is called PeeWeeToms in case anyone wants to check him out.)

Thanks for your comments. I had no idea this thread was being talked about!

Michael2Wolves! MyPaperHeart!

I had no idea this thread was that popular either as I never come in through the front door (the forums side)--I use the side door through My Profile notifications. Then, I looked out the front door--wow. We do seem to have an inordinately high viewing rate compared to the other threads...lol

Just wanted to check in with this thought:

It seems that i have an inordinate amount of my theory of the nature of reality agreeing with the laws of physics the more I read up on wikipedia through topics such as the Kaluza-Klein theory and others.

Am I being paranoid? It's like, the more I learn, the more I have to keep going, and I keep seeing more and more connections, and here's the odd part: these theories are agreeing in such a way that all of them agree with each other.

So that begs the question, am I shaping reality by interaction with the medium of space-time's hyperplane of the present, or is reality reacting to my observation by creating new tangent probability trees?

Now, if I could only figure out how to express this in an equation to post on some physicis site, I'd be in the money.