I saw an advertisement today on a television show, concerning one of their upcoming shows. It was about what happens in the last 7 seconds before you die. It piqued my interest a little. What does happen? Of course, nobody knows.
Yet, I wonder. First off, I wonder why they chose seven seconds. Not five or eight, but seven. Seven, probably the most holy of numbers in religion. Don’t believe me….google it. I could copy and paste an entire page on the holiness of the number seven. I won’t.
In an existential way, I don’t wonder “what” happens during those last seconds, I wonder “how long” those last seconds last. I compare that thought to St. Thomas Aquinas’s conjecture about “how many angels could dance on the head of a pin”
Stephen King kind of touched on the subject too in his “Dark Tower” series of books. If you haven’t read them, it’s a difficult but worthwhile endeavor. All of existence hinges on a particular rose and what exists there…the nexus of time and space and size all play a big role. Go read it.
How big is an angel? How big or small could they be if they really exist, and if the creator wanted them to be a particular size?
How vast is space, how tiny are we? How big are we, and how tiny are amoebas?
How long is seven seconds, or even the last second of a person’s life? Could be elongated to last an extended period of time for the person who is dying? Could one second of our time, last long enough for a dying person for them to “review” their entire life before they breath their last breath?
Could one second last an eternity to them?
I might try to catch that episode of Dr. Oz just to see what they have to say. Of course, I have my own “weird” ideas….as you can see. But, who knows? Who can tell?
Writing for Sanity's Sake 