[originally posted 1/13/2017]
I finished watching Black Mirror, it’s like a modern Twilight Zone. Each episode is a self contained story, futuristic societies and technologies–how capabilities that seem amazing undoubtedly have a dark side or negative application in the right situation. Some are purely entertaining, but others are quite thought provoking.
For example, there’s an episode where people can rate each other 0-5 on every social interaction and your rating is, in a sense, a currency or status. Like, businesses can choose to serve only those with a 4 or higher rating, or the quality of products/food tier based on your rating.
Another episode is about a lens that works as an implant on your eye and records everything you see. You can replay every second of your life anytime, anywhere. Any fantastic advancement has a downside.
The one episode that really stuck with me and can get my mind going thinking about was centered around a technology that can capture what would essentially be a person consciousness, and in death, can be loaded into a virtual reality where they can ultimately live out a second life. It didn’t get into many specifics about the limitations (or lack there of) of the environment or really any details at all about the ‘software’ as it was more focused on the development of a relationship between the characters in this VR, but there’s an obvious link to the concept of heaven and the idea of a known life after death vs an abstract intangible religious afterlife.
Heaven…no pain, no suffering, no death…a place where we will be constantly and eternally surrounded by everything and everyone that makes us happy. Does happiness, joy, and love exist in the complete absence of their negative counterparts?
Every depiction of the notion of heaven that I’ve encountered still maintains the idea of individuals. What I mean by that is, our culture envisions a heaven where I am still my own person, existing with my own feelings, my own personality, my own earthly history and experiences/memories that would amount to what an ideal atmosphere would be for me to achieve pure maximum bliss.
The absence of environmental stresses is the easy part, no worry, anxiety, that’s a pretty aspect to understand. What bothers me is how my ideal can exist if it involves what would not be ideal for someone else.
The other problem is, religion teaches us to accept suffering and sacrificing on earth, to live the life our god indicates will be rewarded. With all the self-help books out there, is it not enough to have guidance for how to survive, though hopefully more than just survive, this life, we have to hold on to a promise of an eternity of pleasure and perfection Not to mention, what we associate as happiness is a neurochemical, and is truly a worldly concept.
I’m not sure how I feel about heaven anymore…to me, it cannot be a place where you are surrounded by all your loved ones- I don’t think we can exist as separate entities and still share a heavenly sphere. It cannot be a dimension that is in any way dictated by the same natural laws and principles as Earth, or even the bodily hormones and chemicals that make up what we are and everything we know. It would have to be something so unimaginable that we, as humans, could never come close to understanding or even begin to illustrate. And if that’s the case, it’s no longer about love, or happiness, or bliss, it would be something well beyond.