Artwork Sourced From Pinterest. Artist: Thomas Easton
The Halting Problem
by Antonio Rocco S. (Rocco Valentini)
Human consciousness has a halting problem.
The halting problem asks
Whether it is possible to determine
If a program will eventually stop running
Or
If it will continue to run indefinitely.
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What happens to us when we die?
Death appears to be the “halt,”
Yet from a first-person perspective,
There may never be a moment
At which non-existence is experienced
By the subject.
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Consciousness isn’t aware
Of its own absence;
It’s only aware of itself.
Can we ever truly know if,
Or when,
The stream of subjective experience ends?
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Death may be the moment
The mind dreams itself
Into eternity.
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Consider the time dilation that occurs during sleep.
While dreaming, we sometimes perceive
Time as passing much more slowly
Than it does in the real world.
What feels like months of activity in a dream
Is in reality just a few minutes of REM sleep.
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Could it be that,
In our final dream;
As the brain deteriorates post-mortem;
We experience what seems like
Years, decades, centuries,
Or even millennia of a subjective afterlife?
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Could we become necronauts;
Explorers of death;
Who experience a subjective eternity
In a solipsistic,
Dalí-esque world
Where melting clocks cannot measure time?
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God does not punish or reward us in death,
Our egos do.
You are the judge, jury and executioner of your soul.
Footnote: 01000100 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101101 is binary code for Dream.