Beyond the ego

A couple of noticeable citations by Max Planck:

All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.

Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it.

Let examine them, both as it were one:

1. a conscious and intelligent Mind - Not necessarily and in fact he did not explain but he used the verb "we MUST", which means also "we are NOT free to challenge this belief".
2. This Mind is the matrix of all matter - Not necessarily, again like above. In the same moment that every restrictions about believing or not in God is removed within the society, atheists/agnostic people quickly became the majority of the population and curiously the other result prevalently under-educated compared the first group. Which is not strange at all, if we consider that those who MUST believe are not incentivate to study in order to reach a higher level of knowledge. Why should I put some effort in something hard when I suppose to know everything that just matter?
3. Whence come I and whither go I? - As Cartesio stated centuries before, there is no evidence that everything else rather than myself-I exists. Moreover, that question is an OLD question in philosophy. Nothing better than a poorly posed question can raises so many different answers. This also means that Planck might not questioned himself about it. Just he MUST reports what others wish to listen and therefore parroting the most common question.
4. Science has no answer to it - Fortunately science does not even try to answer such ill-posed questions. Even the broader question - where humans came from and where humanity is going to" - it is quite controversy in terms of scientific debate and methodology. Even the day we reach the 99.9999% of confidence that we evolved from a kind of ape and all the life on this planet evolved from the initial chaos, would it be enough to answer that question? Obviously not. Because even if we raised from the bare chaos, it does not means necessarily that it will end in the bare chaos. In fact, there is a good chance that everything will end in a totally uniform state of universale blob. But it sounds as much inconceivable for a scientist as much for a believer.

However, who cares? That's the point. Is it not enough being here to give our time a reason to be? What's else is missing?

Curiously, the western philosophy just grazed this concept. Instead, the eastern philosophy focused on it. In brief, if the I is the problem then it is the solution, also. Which can be cast in different ways, like "the inner peace came from freeing ourselves from our own ego", ego Lat. I-myself. In another words, the myself-I is a mere supposition, possibly an illusion.

By the way, this is one another reason because LSD has been banned. Once people experimented a trip under LSD, they got acknowledged that the ego is just an illusion and we cannot exist separated from the rest of the universe.

Those people who reached this enlightenment never asked themselves anymore - where I came from and where I am going to - but they poses themselves another completely different question - how to get in touch/connection with everyone and everything else?

Which is - in bare words - another way to ask themselves how to lower as much as possible our own ego in such a way we can stay connected with the universe with a as lower as possible barrier.

Under this PoV the death, is just the collapse of the ultimate frontier of our own ego. At that point, we got in connection or we got lost, both forever.

In one way or another, the death ceases to be an issue. Those got lost, never existed, in fact. This appears quite obvious from the perspective of the infinite far away.

Billions time-years or light-years far from now-here, who got connected is still connected, those who is not never existed. Hence, the question - where I came from and where I am going to - loses every meaning and it seems just the whim of a child.

Just a hint - it is not need a "trip" to get aware that the ego is just an illusion but many people cannot do without a kind of help, not just a pill. Some people are not able to do it, anyway. Why? Fear of loosing themselves kills, forever.

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? 2024, Roberto A. Foglietta , licensed under Creative Common Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike v4.0 International Terms (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 ).