Thoughts from Emily McKibbon
“It requires some folly and a bit of arrogance to assume that the world will end in my lifetime. However, the idea is seductive, evocative: lingering in my mind is the unshakeable belief that all that exists is what I experience, and that the world will cease to exist when I do. Like a newborn that has yet to learn about object permanence and the unseen world, I want to believe that my consciousness defines tangible and meaningful boundaries for the universe. And for me it does. I can’t transcend myself, and I can only experience the universe as I am: an incidental biological machine with limited cognitive capacities and an absolutely inconsequential timeshare of the universe.”
