An Abstract Philosophical Tangent
 

Yesterday I happened upon a very abstract philosophical concept. I thought, “What would it be like to have no physical form, to be a disembodied mind floating about that could act only with telekinesis,” I found it funny that I had never thought of that before, since that is exactly the kind of bizarre concept I used to consider when I was a kid.

But just think about it. You would need no clothes, no house, no food, no water, no sleep, no grooming; hence, you also wouldn’t have to work to support yourself. Not having a body that can be killed, you also wouldn’t have to worry about your personal security, health, or safety. Sex and personal appearance would be meaningless to you. Power and money would not be particularly important either because you really would not need them to acquire anything. Really, our entire lives seem to be built around the survival and maintenance of our physical forms, which is kind of sad. What do we have left? What about possessions? Being a disembodied mind that can go anywhere and enjoy anything at any time, actually owning things wouldn’t mean much either unless you wanted to ensure the security of those things and deny them to other people.

I suppose you could just enjoy things like reading, writing, TV, movies, video games, music, art, conversation, travel, learning, and that sort of thing. But in that case, what practical purpose can those things serve so that we are made to enjoy them? Oh well, maybe I just get uppity about some really meaningless stuff…

Well, if we were to all be bodyless minds then we wouldnt be able to create these things now would we?

Well, assuming that we had telekinesis we could still make most things. I guess personal photography, modeling, and acting would be out of the question though.

You see, this is why most ghosts turn to scaring. They get really bored. But seriously, this argument really shows how much we value our possessions. But then, after you got over the initial shock, you would probably start to turn to the more abstract points of life, like art or knowledge.

no kidding.. talk about enough time to contemplate the meaning of the universe...

If you don't have a physical form, how're you detecting the physical world around you? o_O;

You could still value posessions as well, since with telekinesis you could manipulate and "own" things. Even decorate your invisible form with floating bits of shiny stuff, or animate a puppet.

No slapstick comedy!? Are you joking me? And just imagine a fight over something. The object would just be moving back and forth in midair. I'd like to see a soap opera like that.

Sounds like a rather un-fun existence to me. My whole reason behind wanting to live is that I LIKE all my physical vices. I greatly enjoy eating. Sex is fun. So is the feel of someone against you (in a romantic but non-sexual way). There are too many things that would just be totally gone without physical bodies... and art and literature would begin to become less interesting without physical things. All the great works of art refer to our physical bodies... and most to the struggle of man for this or that. Take 'The Damnation of Faust' for instance (because it's one of my favorites). This work could never exist in a world where people didn't have bodies, because Faust could learn everything, being immortal, would have no need for that young buxom girlie, and would already be immortal so he wouldn't need Mephistopheles to grant it to him. The same follows in any work of literature in which man (or woman) struggles against fate to achieve a goal. Having such a form and living in such a world would not only remove struggle, but eventually remove the memory of struggle.

I suppose I value my possessions... but the majority of possessions I value ARE art. Passion is what's important to me, and assuming you could still experience passion in this evolved form, I think it'd be quite interesting.

I dunno, it just seems to me that nearly all physical comedy would go away (like football in the groin!). Once the 'pulling the ethereal rabbit out of a hat' gets old, you've pretty much used everything up.