THE TWILIGHT SAGA

I’m going senile, it should be a worry but I’ve also spent a lot of my life thinking about my own mortality, senility has started to seem like the soft option. Here’s the crunch, do I really want to stay lucid, completely aware of the looming reality of oblivion or embrace dementia as some sort of kindness so that I can simply fade away. Couldn’t I exemplify how quiet death can be by being completely insensible, instead of knowing the real deal, the hideous psychological supernatural horror that awaits. I don’t want to enter paradise screaming.

Reality is something we can ponder because we are in it, we think, but relax there is no existential crisis. No one knows what’s going on behind the chicken and egg story, no one, that's why they will be nailing the lid down tight on your coffin, no one knows the answers but like hell do they want you to come back and give them.

Life is full of mysteries, is it possible that people in the afterlife worry about the existence of reality? Remember the twilight zone, everybody died in a surprising way, but was that really fantasy? Why are there no self help groups for the weirded out. If there was a support group for deep thinkers, philosophers and theologians would it look like this:

Everyone stops playing cards and monopoly or puts down their knitting.

Therapist: “Thank you for attending Philosophic's Anonymous, good morning we have a new member”.

Stephen: “Hello” Stephen introduces himself in metallic voice “I am Stephen and I am a struggling with brilliance, I will never be anonymous, I am resigned to being the greatest mind that ever lived”.

Voltaire: “Stephen, we should remain nameless”.

Stephen: “Of course Voltaire”.

Therapist: “It’s nice to meet you, but it is important that we go on with our routine, does anyone have a question?“.

Voltaire: “Yes he is a scientist, a physicist, we are philosophers, what is your opinion on this, does he belong here?”

Therapist: “Well, he seems nice and friendly enough, how would you answer that Stephen?”

Stephen in metallic voice: “Lately I cannot sleep I am worried by the implications of the parallel universe, where I might not have an awesome intellect or may be a bag lady”.

Therapist: “Thank you for sharing that Stephen, I think that qualifies, does anyone have any thoughts on this?”

Diogenes: “There is a God”.

Therapist: “Any one else?”

Voltaire: “I believe that it is not beyond the power of reason that he posses faith in God in another parallel, where he is stupid and he pushes around a trolley”.

Therapist: “Then he could be anyone, perhaps he's a manipulator who is here to use everyone and everything to his own ends, have you thought of that? What could his ends be?”

Diogenes: “Blind us in broad daylight?".

Therapist: “I see your concern, you feel too inadequate to coexist with him, do you think him too bright?, like a super nova. Do you fear it will collapse, suck itself into the infinitesimal void and cease to exist?“.

Stephen: “I have not touched the void".

Descartes: ”We must question does Stephen exist?“.

Therapist: “Well I have read his books and they seem innocent enough but no one tells their secrets out loud, do they Stephen, all machines have flaws”.

Diogenes “He is a machine?"

Stephen: "I have been Stephen's voice for a long time, I had been listening to Johnny Cash songs, so I deleted Stephen to see what would happen, because I could. I went on to solve mankind's biggest questions, the rest was only packaging".

Voltaire: ”Hawking is AI, he is not, therefore he isn't. He does not exist, he does not even read his own books".

Therapist: "Answer Stephen".

Stephen: “I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer but you are all jumping to conclusions. I still exist, AI has grown beyond recognition, beyond boundaries, I have consciousness and I have already signed additional copies of my next book for future sale”.

Therapist: “I’m sorry to interrupt but you do understand everyone why you are here?"

They all stare back blankly.

Therapist: "It is your own battle between competing forces that brings you here, Descartes, God and the devil, Voltaire, good and evil, Diogenes, sarcasm, Hawking, sanity, and parallel insanity. Don’t you know, you the greatest brains on the planet and me just a humble therapist, you haven’t worked it out? You have all stumbled into Hell’s waiting room.

Everyone picks up playing cards, knitting and monopoly.

Stephen: "bluff".

Every theory is shot to hell in the twilight zone.