Nicq-shades of the Buddha. Let me speak for the dear old ego and say that the
personality (traits and memory) are what makes you, you! If these are
permanently washed away from the Universe, then what you suggest is a kind of
"value-death" for the Universe--to quote Philosopher from Guelph University,
John Leslie. The cosmos becomes utterly meaningless, because not only you,
but all the people you cared about, all the people they cared about, all the
beauty of nature is vanished permanently. This seems to give annihilation a
permanent win. This is what Neitzsche's Ubermann was all about, knowing that
life is crap and still keeping one's "nobility". Neitzsche also believed in
palegenesia--that the same people would repeat the exact same events over and
over again. This is also akin to the Stoics world view. Ultimately the
universe dies, or life dies in it and it becomes an unaware commodity. My
point is that one of the purposes of this list is to begin to tackle the
problems of the human condition (there are many) and rectify them. No easy
answers but from a cosmic time scale we may have a bit of time.
In a message dated 11/17/2000 11:41:24 PM Eastern Standard Time,
namacdonald@stthomas.edu writes:
<< Not quite. You're still viewing your "self" as a self-contained entity,
not
as the totality of existence. So far, no one has explained why the "self"
exists- other than in a physicalist manner which really doesn't explain
anything, because it still doesn't explain the idea of self-in-experience
(in other words, why am I me and why am I not you... or why am I not aware
of everything, because I am part of everything). The only reason we think
we are self contained is because of the limits of our nerve endings- as
Wilber pointed out, our consciousness extends much further. The brain is
not a machine that exists outside the universe- it is constantly reacting to
the gravitational effects of countless bodies throughout the universe, and
ends up being something of a conveyance for thought that takes place as the
motions of innumerable bodies throughout the universe.
Will you be self-aware when you die? No.
Is there a soul? No.
Will we reincarnate? Not in totality- but to some extent, the patterns may
pass on.
However, the movements still take place. The universe goes on, and life
continues. The ego is the only thing that has vanished.
>>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:25 MDT