Writing this, I feel like it could come across as the most ridiculous thing I have ever said, but I have given it loads of thought. So... if you read it and think, "Stephen is just being ridiculous," rather, firstly try to have an open mind, and secondly, try to pin point exactly what you didn't understand, then let me know, so that I can explain it to you 😉...
Seriously though... would love to hear your thoughts.
The probability that I would be alive right now, at this arbitrary point in time, could be about one in 172,500,000. That is my estimated life span (80) / the age of the universe (13.8 billion years).
Of course I am alive right now... so these are the possibilities that I can think of:
1. Being alive right now is a ridiculously unlikely occurrence.
2. I'm wrong.
3. This isn't the first time I've been alive.
4. During the time that I'm not alive, time doesn't exist to me, so I appear to myself to always be alive.
#1 and #2 are both ridiculous, which leaves possibilities #3 and #4, and I think the truth could be #3 with a dash of #4.
The fact that I have been born, and may at some point have not have existed prior to my latest birth, gives me a probability based on a sample size of 1. That is usually very bad statistics, but it's all that I have to calculate the probability that I will be born again. The ridiculous improbability of 1 in 172,500,000, also means that a small sample size may be okay. In 100% of all samples (1 sample), I was born. This estimate leads me to believe it is likely that there is a 100% chance that I will be born again. It also means that, since in 100% of all the samples (1 sample), I am alive, that I am normally alive, or always alive.
The next logical question is, "What are the criteria for a life form being me?"
Of course, I can't think of any realistic criteria, and thinking about the question, if two life forms meet the criteria for being me, and their lifetimes overlap, then I can be two different life forms at the same time.
Seeing as the simplest answer is more likely to be correct than a convoluted one, I believe that, actually, there are no criteria. Since I can be multiple life forms simultaneously, I am all life forms.
This is by no means an arrogant claim. Because it works both ways... not only am I everyone, but everyone is everyone - I / we am / are simply, life.
I know, it's a ridiculous idea, but this is most likely true, because I can't come up with a better (more likely to be true) theory about my existence.
You may wonder how you can be multiple life forms at the same time, and yet feel like you are just one. I think of life as being two-dimensional (the time dimension and the life forms / neurons dimension)... not only are you the same person as the person you will be, but you are other people as well. Not only do you not feel like you are your future self, but you don't feel like you are anyone else.
There's another weird inference, based on a sample size of 1. The sample is that I am human. There are about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 insects, according to this site. If therefore, I randomly found myself to be either an insect or human, the chance of me being human is about 1 in a billion. Since humans are smarter than other animals, and I don't find myself being an insect, even though it is ridiculously unlikely that I would find myself as a human, it seems that the more likely the more intelligent a being is, the more likely I am to find myself being that.
Lastly, I like this theory. It makes morality so simple and natural. Don't do things for others because of a law, or because you're threatened by an angry deity; do things for others, because they're you.
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