Witness

"However, many modern physicists and philosophers are abandoning the materialistic world view like rats fleeing a sinking ship and embracing the doctrine of panpsychism, which holds that all entities, from lowly electrons and neurons to ant colonies and supergalaxies are conscious. This of course finesses the problem of how consciousness arose in the universe. It didn't. It is consciousness all the way down (not turtles, as one confrontational ' little old lady' in Bertrand Russell's audience once asserted regarding the issue of what supported the Earth).

"Now I will answer your questions, my Fancy. Godling University is a place for prospective gods to study enough mathematics and physics to enable them to create their own universes if they have become bored with this one. The creation process takes somewhere between eight nanoseconds and five billion years, depending on your frame of reference and the type of universe you wish to create. These universes can be based on non-Euclidean geometries, fractal dimensions, deterministic laws of hyperphysics, triply-stochastic quantum laws, you name it. Or the universe may not be based on some form of physics at all. Maybe it is some kind of collective dream or mass hallucination. The underlying mega-mind of which we are a part may be sane or, much more likely, stark-raving mad. Living in such a universe would be chaotic to say the least, probably no more chaotic than working in the Trump White House, but chaotic nonetheless.

"But what point would there be of creating a universe if you never peeked inside it. In fact, quantum theory teaches us that universes must be observed in order to exist.

"That's what happened to the guy who got Cuisinarted in that phone booth over there. That poor blighter's name by the way was Jedidiah Stolzfus. He had just created or co-created a universe. The reason Jedidiah got atomized is that he was immediately injected into whatever universe he helped to create over at the Godling University Genesis Laboratory, home of the Suckin' Cephalopods."

"So what happens to him now?" John Shaftsman asked. "Does he sit around playing Pinochle with god for all eternity?"

"I'm afraid not, my Fancy. The world, or at least this world, doesn't work that way. Once you're vaporized, you're gone as a Person. There is no Star Trek beaming-in chamber in which Jedidiah will be reconstituted and then sent on his way like a tricorder-toting Captain Kirk on Star Trek.

"You see, my Fancy we are not the Persons we think we are. We are not our memories, emotions, sensations and personalities . We are not the collection of atoms that comprise our physical bodies. We couldn't be, as these elements are constantly changing, while we seem to persist through these changes, at least for a little while. We are the centers of pure consciousness through which our thoughts, memories, sensations, and emotions flow. We are not these mental events, but the center of consciousness through which these events flow.

"For instance, we could reconstruct more than one Captain Kirk. Would they both be the original Kirk?

"Our souls are not our personalities, but centers of pure consciousness.

"Also we know that our mental lives are intricately dependent on brain activity. It is difficult to see how our memories and personality elements could persist when the brain whose activity supports them no longer exists or has decayed beyond recognition."

"You see my Fancy, many physicists and philosophers today assert that all matter from a lowly quark to a galactic cluster is conscious. In his book, Reimagining the Soul, Doug Stokes has postulated that souls are centers of pure consciousness and that there may be a hierarchy of souls inhabiting a given human being. Stokes calls souls inhabiting elementary particles such as quarks and electrons microsouls."

"How could an electron have a soul? Shaftsman asked. " I'm trying to wrap my mind around this, but not having much luck."

"That's because you're still thinking of an electron as a simple object. It isn't. Any given electron is quantumly-entangled with large portions of the universe. Thus, in order for an electron to follow the laws of physics it must somehow sense and respond to such entanglements, and thus must be aware of such entanglements , which are nonlocal and likely quite complex. .

Stokes terms centers of consciousness inhabiting macrophysical entities such as human beings, red blood cells, and colons (which by the way are filled with taste receptors and thus likely have gustatory experiences) macrosouls. He calls centers of consciousness associated with supraorganismic entities such as ant colonies, the Internet combined with all its users, and such gods as may exist, as megasouls.

"As these centers of consciousness seem to persist while the collections of atoms that are our physical bodies and the fleeting elements of our personalities such as our emotions and thoughts seem to change on a minute-by-minute basis. Thus, we cannot be our personalities or physical bodies, but must centers of pure consciousness that persist though such changes.

"However, my Fancy If you expect to exist in an afterlife with your memories, thoughts and emotions intact, fuggedaboutit. When you are vaporized or your body decayed, your souls are scattered on the wind. In fact, such souls are likely to recycled on a moment-by-moment basis. One might find oneself in a dragonfly one minute and in a Saint Bernard the next, with no memory of one's brief and recent insectile incarnation . On this view you needn't worry about eternal damnation. Instead, seekers of truth should follow the lead of the sage Alfred E. Neuman , who profoundly asked in the pages of Mad Magazine: "What, me worry?"

"Okay, Delilah my muse , my head is spinning. Bring me back down with those magnificent red- tipped mega-hooters of yours. Speaking of which, where are they?"

"Right here, my love," Delilah said, shifting out of the octopus form favored by Cthulhus everywhere and everywhen and back into human form. She favored Shaftsman with a glimpse of her freckled scarlet globes, either one of which would be the envy of high-school geography classrooms across the country (and would likely rival National Geographic magazine for middle-schoolers' attention despite the bare-breasted Polynesian wahinis within its pages). She shook her boom-booms into pendulum motion, and Shaftsman felt his namesake rising. No, scratch that, it was not Mr. Winky that was rising, but his third right tentacle, which John Shaftsman was discovering was far more than just an arm, but was also his throbbing reproductive organ. Octopodes use this specialized arm, called a hectocotylus, to insert spermatophores (packets of sperm), into the female's mantle cavity for reproduction.

In her excitement, Delilah could no longer hold the human form of her disguise. She reverted to true cephalopod form. Octopuses have nine brains, one in the head and one in each tentacle. Without any bones or skull to shield these brains from the outside world, John's brains were completely exposed to the outside world. Delilah intertwined her tentacles around John. She sank the tips of her tentacles into pleasure centers of each of John's tentacle brains. The lovers rested their heads together, and complex patterns of lights began to run up and down their bodies, whispering endearments in a language that no human could ever comprehend. He shoved his hectocotylus hard under her mantle and poured his hot spermatophores into the very center of her being. As he pulled out, she squeezed his hectocotylus with her beak and tongue, an unthinkable act for many Cthulhu and the surest form of pure pleasure on this or any other world.. The two lovers became one being, one consciousness, as he flooded her mouth with hot spermatophores, ensuring that she would be his forever.

John looked around for a smoke, but sadly found he had no pockets.

Okay, it looked like this was about the most extreme pleasure he was going be able to extract from this world, Godling Lucifer Stolzfus thought in frustration. If he wanted to pass the orals for his master's degree at Godling University, he was going have to try a different set of physical laws, maybe two fractal dimensions rather than only one. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Delilah and John lay together with their tentacles intertwined, looking at the night sky, watching in sweet horror as the stars began to blink out one by one.