I recently saw a film, “Xchange” (Trimark Pictures, 2001), which explores this whole area in more detail. It depicts the breakdown of conventional mind-body unity and a kind of polymorphic shuffle, or what the film calls “floating” of consciousness from one body to the next, over periods of time. To occupy another person’s body itself becomes very sensuous. Indeed, in the film, a person who enjoys “floating” could become an avid hedonist, and uses a borrowed body (itself a big turn on) as a plaything. So, one parties in clubs and tries to experience as much “sex, drugs and rock n’ roll” as their borrowed body could tolerate. In general, the whole experience of mind-body transfer could involve great sensuousness, an important philosophical point which Ankur Agarwal also makes in his comment in this Sisyphus Forum.

At the present time, it is easier to lose oneself in television land or don VR goggles if one wants to experience the world through the senses of an animal or a human-nature sensibility. However, let’s not forget that literature, art and film and stage also take us, to the “realm the imagination” which assumes a kind of virtual existence in our conscious or unconscious minds. And didn’t Rod Serling use that phrase, years ago, in the opening lines of each Twilight Zone episode on television? The realm of the imagination is indeed, very powerful, yet much safer than virtual and robotic experience. But not as flashy, not as sexy or alluring, perhaps? Maybe the virtual and robotic experience will become a big new source of revenue for enterprising entrepreneurs…especially if the folks back on the planet can’t afford trips to a space station or space hotel?

Maybe humans will survive long enough to seed other planets, as has already happened here, whether through stardust alone or conscious intervention of non-terrestrial beings. Human beings seek to penetrate nature’s deepest secrets . We stand tall, erect bipeds, gazing at the sky, creating whole new realms for transforming ourselves and the physical world, even as we’ve despoiled the earth. Yet, we cannot but wonder, with Yeats’ words in mind, as this epoch unfolds, at what slow beast slouches toward Bethlehem to be born.

A Day Lilly opens and blooms,
Within the span of one full day,
Then fades into seeming emptiness,
As the next beautiful blossom appears.

One’s ego is like a slippery cocoon,
Which can be transcended by letting go,
Like a silk moth leaving its tomb,
To take flight towards a radiant light.

So you see, just to be oneself, fully, is enough…

Brad