When you finally reach an answer, all you succeed in doing is waking-up a new question.

Philosophical despair is a complicated problem... but should uncertainty, or its opposite, strict certainty, even lead to philosophical despair? And in the end, it seems much of my philosophical despairs boil down to some sort of non-acceptance and fear of ceasing to consciously exist; and I can't tell whether my indulging in the ideas that advocate I do NOT cease to consciously exist are simply my denying some sort of inalienable truth in search of some sort of comfort and permanent certainty, or if I am truly delving into the possibility that there is some sort of conscious existence after death. I'm starting to wonder if my inquisitive nature was worth the constant personal uplifts, overthrows, and inner emotional turmoil or not. If I cannot find pure certainty or pure uncertainty, how do I properly build a foundation of acceptance?

And the problem is manifold, as there are 'inalienable and unalterable truths' imposed on us by the scientific worldview which, in my mind, tend to degrade the experience of life and tear away all that made it so beautifully mysterious and enjoyable. Is there truly no such thing as the 'super' natural? Or is the resistance to the idea of the 'super' natural simply some overly regimented status-quo based scientific community resisting the possibility of intrinsic uncertainty in the universe due to their personal drives for a sense of certainty? And why is it that, despite my realization that science is simply the human observation of patterns in natural phenomena and the mass-labeling of anything and everything (eg. 'chemicals,' 'psychoanalysis,' 'biology,' 'psychology') for the sake of categorization, that I am still frightened by what I perceive to be 'degrading' scientific hypotheses that seem to suck what I suppose one could call the 'magic' out of life? And what does it mean to say I am strictly a 'physical' construct? And what does it mean when I feel the drive to believe that I am more? Is it not possible that being a 'physical construct' is simply yet another arrogant label as dictated by the scientific worldview and the scientific method? Isn't a 'method' nothing more than a direction of approach, as opposed to the direction of approach?

These are, quite literally, some of the questions that keep me up at night or, on occasion, make me prefer sleeping over being awake when I'm somewhat forced to suffer through them. It's rarely that I exclusively 'suffer' through them, however, as there are times when I am simply in a state of complete and willing ecstasy and awe at the above questions and questions of a similar nature, and other times when the awe remains, but the ecstasy is replaced by a feeling of despair and suffering which arises from my (at least seeming) inability to simply switch off the philosophical inquiries. At other times, however, the suffering and despair occasionally arises from my perceptions that I am obligated to take science at face-value when all I have learned about the world, and science especially, tell me that one of the last things I should be taking at face-value is science, the scientific method, or the scientific worldview (as even science itself begs to be challenged).

Due to the current state of affairs in my mind, there may very well be many posts of this nature on the way; so if you found this to be anything but boring, I encourage you to keep up-to-date with me and my blog.