kl519 said:
That story sounds like one big hypothesis on human existence. I mean, what the hell is it based on?
ForEverAfter said:
It is based on near death experiences in which people have glimpsed the other side and come back to report about it.
It's also based off logical deduction, self-contradictory as that may sound.
Now, the notion of a single self experiencing every lifetime in the universe IN SEQUENCE is not something I take literally. Really it's a way to get you thinking about what 'you' are. Moment to moment you are dissolving into nothingness and reforming as something a little different, and you don't even notice it. This continuous experience of death and rebirth, of reincarnation, doesn't start just because the physical organism you call 'you' coalesced out of its constituent atoms, nor does it end when your psychological processes cease. That miniature universe you call your lifetime is part of a much, MUCH bigger whole. Always has been. You just don't see if because you're not built, or trained, to.
As someone said earlier in the thread, "God is you, but you are not God." If the entire universe is a brain, then your human life is like a single thought in that brain. The universe doesn't end just because that human life blinks out. And the brain doesn't cease to function just because a single thought within it vanishes. All of reality consists of these sorts of processes layered one on top of the other, to scales you and I cannot possibly comprehend as our tiny, transient, illusory primate selves. And ALL of it is alive.
When the materialist says you cease to exist when you die, he is correct, and that's no problem at all because 'you' don't really exist to begin with.
When the solipsist says nothing exists except her, she is correct in that the only real thing is this present moment. The FACT OF EXPERIENCE ITSELF is indestructible. Everything else can get fucked.
So relax, because 'death' as we know it is going to be merely another transition. There are no beginnings, no endings and no barriers except what we choose to define so we can try to understand the world with our tiny little brains.
willow11 said:
As a sidenote, I was stoned last night and thinking about the multiverse theory, and felt my brain wander down the exact same path as your post; in an infinite multiverse, 'you' would have existed as everything possible ever. I find it odd that we had such similar thoughts at a very similar time.
Since you bring it up, here's something I thought of the last time I was stoned.
*deeeep breath*
It starts with the supposition that nothing in the universe is ever wasted, and that mental constructs have some sort of substance that's as valid as, though very different from, physical constructs.
What is the point of an entire accumulated human lifetime, when it comes to the end and all the information gets erased?
And if your highest self is what's really experiencing - and creating - your human reality, and that data exists within its infinite mind, then where does it go when you're dead?
Perhaps when 'you' die, what happens is you sit back, process the WHOLE thing with your true, unbounded intelligence, and then you create another life for yourself to live based on what you've learned. Just because you can. And guess what? The illusion of that lifetime is going to absolutely perfect. Just like this one is. Because you wanted this lifetime too. No matter how miserable it seems, even down to the last torturous clusterfucking detail, your REAL self built it that way because for whatever reason, it WANTED the experience. And you have nothing to fear from the next life because it will be absolutely everything you, as you exist in this human form, could possibly ever TRULY want. And this procession of fluctuating lifetimes covers every possible damn thing that exists in the whole of space time reality dimensions and forms of beings we cannot possibly comprehend. At some point or another, you will want to be EVERY THING THAT EXISTS, and you will have your wish granted. And on this level, though you are unconscious to it at the present time (because you wish to be), every single moment of it is the most perfect and transcendent ecstasy imaginable.
But come on, right. How could all of this POSSIBLY fit together like that? How could my desire to eat a creature possibly match up with my desire to be eaten as that creature? How could every person I've ever slept with end up sleeping with me? How could every contradictory desire somehow...
balance out perfectly, with no loose ends and nothing missed? How could the chaos of this reality turn into something so beautiful and cohesive? The kind of intellect that could build such a thing would have to be preposterously powerful. How could it possibly -
I will say again that I was clearly STONED when this interpretation of life came to me. How else could I have been so optimistic. But I'll go on, because the next part was even more amazing.
See, the next thing that happened when I closed my eyes and tried to visualise this masterpiece that is you and me and everything... when I tried to see it from the outside, as though I was the thing making it happen...
I saw that parallel to it was another such masterwork of things weaving in and out like that. Another great mind building something called a reality. And that reality was COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from this one. Down to the most basic laws. Beside that one was another. And then another. Side by side in what's truly there beyond duality, in a chamber endlessly forging new types of hyperworlds, these 'beings' and these 'masterworks' stretched on. Each one could be observed and appreciated and enjoyed, the full spectrum of an entire universe like this one explored to every possible degree, in the cosmic equivalent of the blink of an eye. And each of these creator gods, these supremely intelligent entities? They were merest children, playing art and craft in a metadimensional kindergarten. Watched over by yet higher beings who radiated the brightest light, love and wisdom. And they were impressed with what their children had come up with, and overjoyed to see them develop and explore themselves so freely.
(This imagery is not meant to be taken literally. The human mind is incapable of grasping what's actually there. We can only speak in metaphors. That's all language is anyway.)
But don't forget that even in this dimension beyond all dimensions as we know them (and don't know them), even then it is still all just you.
So smile.
