If We Know We Will Die, Why Do We Live So Hard? — A Conversation in Seven Questions

A structured dialogue between two interlocutors (Quest Sage and The Witness) addressing seven fundamental questions about human existence through the convergent frameworks of physics, evolutionary biology, cognitive neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, cosmology, and contemplative tradition. Seven questions addressed: (1) Why humans live urgently knowing death is certain: entropy and negentropy (Schrödinger 1944); Terror Management Theory (Becker 1973; Solomon, Greenberg & Pyszczynski, 500+ experiments); predictive coding and the constructed future self (Friston). (2) The adult’s hidden parent: predictive coding (Friston), thrownness (Heidegger), Ground of Being (Tillich, Vedantic tradition). (3) Why humans produce children who will also die: selfish gene (Dawkins 1976), Will-to-live (Schopenhauer 1818), entropy relay of negentropy torch, oxytocin and parental bonding. (4) Why the mind traps in Maya: controlled hallucination (Seth 2021), evolutionary psychology of social realism, Advaita Maya and the impossibility of the question from within Maya. (5) If Maya is necessary why traditions oppose it: distinction between unconscious Maya (suffering) and recognised Maya (freedom within engagement); Davidson meditation neuroscience; Becker’s immortality project rigidity vs. flexibility. (6) Life contributing to creation/participatory universe: Wheeler’s it-from-bit and participatory universe; Teilhard de Chardin’s Omega Point; Vedantic Sat-Chit-Ananda; entropy and life as the universe’s self-organising awareness. (7) Beauty despite misery: Keltner awe research (2022); Zeki neuroaesthetics; entropy and improbability as the ground of aesthetic experience; Weil on beauty; Einstein-Tagore 1930 dialogue on truth independent of consciousness; mono no aware. Entropy appears across Q1, Q3, Q6, and Q7 as a genuine unifying physical theme.