The Halting Problem
Poem by Rocco Valentini
Artwork Sourced From Pinterest. Artist: Roger Dean.
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. 01000100 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101101 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. 01000100 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101101 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? 01000100 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101101 Death may be the moment The mind dreams itself Into eternity. 01000100 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101101 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. 01000100 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101101 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? 01000100 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101101 Could we become necronauts— Explorers of death— Who experience a subjective eternity In a solipsistic, Dalí-esque world Where melting clocks cannot measure time? 01000100 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101101 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.