The white whale weighs on my mind.

"We all have our little ideas about what life is. If we don’t have those ideas, we don’t go on living."

The weak die. The strong die also.

Entropy is constantly grinding each of us to nothingness, but it grinds down some of us so much sooner than others, whether it is that we begin with so much less energy, or that entropy grinds us down at such a higher rate, or some sum of these.

Our great unanswered mystery of philosophy, medicine, neuroscience, psychology: how is it that an immaterial thing—consciousness—can act upon, and be acted upon by, a material universe? How can the immaterial and the material causally interact?

One resolution: the perceived material universe is immaterial, for it exists only within the immaterial consciousness. For example: I am a Boltzmann brain, and all of my perceived reality is in fact imagined by me and therefore immaterial; my consciousness can interact with this perceived reality unparadoxically because there is no interaction between the immaterial and the material: my immaterial consciousness is interacting only with itself. The true material reality of the Boltzmann brain that gives rise to my consciousness is unperceived—and perhaps unperceivable—by my consciousness.

The Internet might already be conscious, in a way that we cannot conceive. It might not be able to comprehend, relate to, or communicate with us, just as I cannot comprehend, relate to, or communicate with the neurons of my brain.

Imagine the Internet believing itself to exist in a material universe, but that universe in fact existing only immaterially within the Internet. This is analogous to me as a Boltzmann brain believing myself to exist in a material universe, but that universe in fact existing only immaterially within my consciousness.

Death is not evil, it is not malignant; it is indifferent.

“Honor will not change our fate. Nothing will change our fate.”

“She’s allergic to garlic.”

“That bloodsucking, nightwalking bitch!”

“I will be dead, and you will hear about it, and you will think, ‘It was a tragedy that he ever lived.’”

"Ha ha. You ask me whether a story actually happened? I tell you, I am not certain and cannot be certain whether any event has ever occurred. You ask me whether I invented a story? I tell you, I have a suspicion that I am inventing everything, including you, but of the validity of this suspicion I am not certain, and--and this is the important part--I cannot be certain."

“We be in Hell, and he be the Devil.”

“If we be in Hell, then those be demons,” and he gestured at the hundreds of winking glowering eyes in the crimson dark surrounding them. Then nodding at the sleeping form of Baatar, “And he be the angel conducting us through them.”

no fear of death, no hope for immortality

“And it doesn’t happen. Nothing happens. Life doesn’t happen.”

“Black is the color of space; black is the absence of light.”

“Writing things down is civilization. It is how the living receive ideas from each other and from the dead; it is how the living pass on ideas to each other and to the unborn.”

"Where are you going with your life? Here, do you see this? This is my life. ...If I am alive in twenty-nineteen, this is what I will be doing. It does not matter who else is alive at that time. It does not matter if I am the only one alive at that time. It does not matter if I am limbless, sightless, whatever. This is what I will be doing."

"...This is a chart of thoughts."

"These are thoughts that need to be thought out."

"What is this column of numbers?"

"The mythical birth of some hippie in a desert is not the beginning of time for me. This system begins time from the date of my first recorded thought, which corresponds to nineteen-eighty-eight in this Christian system."

"...This goes on for a hundred years. Do you think you're going to live to a hundred and thirty?"

"If I am alive in twenty-one-oh-eight, this is what I will be doing. I don't know if I will be alive in twenty-one-oh-eight, and I don't know if I'll be alive in twenty-oh-nine, but if I am, this is what I will be doing."

"...You think so differently from other people."

"I think. I wonder whether other people think."

"You are such an asshole."

"I plainly am not and cannot be certain whether other people think."

"Because you are a solipsist."

"Because I am the Solipsist. Logic concludes that there is only one for certain."

She was crying again.

“I’ve just never had any use for people. And people get angry when you don’t have any use for them.”