Consciousness is imagination plus memory. We remember and we imagine what might. What might be. What might been.
What might we make when mem’ry fails to stir.
And might is strength.
So strength is possibility.
What might be.
We only suffer pain when we can see
what could happen next. Anguish, despair, dread—
the children of my imagination.
Where what might be bliss when we can wonder.
And when, she mighty, hit him with that chair
we cheer and clench our fists and watch her run.
Might
might not. She
might me.
She might me not.
How did you feel about “Chikhai Bardo?”
The intake form at the fertility clinic had the Lumon logo on it.
https://substack.com/@lauratiktinsharick, LTS points out that the rooms Gemma visits seem like scenarios for which people might choose to be severed. The dentist. A turbulent flight. A loveless marriage.
British philosopher Derek Parfit wrote a thought experiment something like this:
"You are in the hospital to have an extremely painful but completely safe Operation for which you can be given no anesthetic. In order to ease recovery, you know that the hospital will give you drugs that cause you to forget your Operation as soon as it is completed. You wake up, not remembering having gone to sleep, and ask the nurse if your Operation has been completed. She tells you that there were two patients for this Operation and she cannot remember which you are: either you already had your Operation and it was the longest such Operation ever performed, lasting ten hours, or else you are the other patient in which case your Operation is imminent, but will last only one hour." (Moller, Dan. "Parfit on Pains, Pleasures, and the Time of their Occurrence." Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020)
Which would you choose? Most of us would choose to have the pain behind us and the pleasure (if there is any) ahead.
This is what Lumon is up to. They are removing pain from the human experience.