Agnosticism

Philosophy | Laptop or TV?

Vernon Kerr

Oct 28, 2020 — 1 min read

Laptop or TV?

Our smart TV has myriad programs running—while it’s on. There are beautiful, dancing images on its face and music coming from its speakers. If I unplug it—it’s dead. Black. The programs are gone. Nothing is happening in the hardware.

My laptop also has hundreds of programs running and even YouTube videos running where I can talk back to them by leaving comments, and if I take the battery out—It’s also dead. The screen is black. Nothing is happeneing in the hardware. But — because I was connected to WiFi and that WiFi was connected to the “Cloud”— everything my laptop knew, everything it has done, still exists—not just for me, but for billions on Earth who are also attached to the Cloud.

Are humans like smart TVs or like Laptops?

Do our thoughts die when that last atom of Oxygen is burned by our brains? Or do those thoughts still live—because we’ve been connected to the Cloud of the Universe all our lives, streaming every thought, every emotion, every memory?

Those are the two choices. All philosophy, all theology, boil down to those two:

Smart TV
or Laptop.

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