Topic: . - page 2. (Read 5257 times)

Agreed. Hypnosis takes away conscious thought. Before I'd accept any scientific conclusion of hypnosis, it would have to be shown to me that the results of hypnosis are not influenced by external factors.

Arguably the most important spiritual figure in history, Jesus of Nazareth, did support reincarnation, but in the context of a) being born again in the spiritual realm which gives enhanced spiritual abilities and b) being given a new immortal body at the last day, which would exist in a 'new heaven' and a 'new earth'.

Reincarnation in the context of returning in physical form to the same physical plane was not supported by Jesus. Jesus did support the assertion that there is a great impassable gulf that separates the place of the living and the dead.

Yes, it's exactly my point but in more modern, concrete terms.

yup, this is also a strong point for the simulation argument. The player has to enter the simulation at some point, and you'd design it in a way that he can't explain how the hell he got there. ("Where do we come from, where do we go?")

What I was getting at in my previous posts is that the real "you" exists outside of physical reality.  It is very incoherent to assume that very uniform process of biological development would produce this singularity.

I'll take one more shot at it from a bit different angle:
Let's look at the moment in time 2 hours before your birth.
At this point the Universe has only been producing *not-yous* and the Earth is populated completely by *not-yous*. Now what is it in the physical/biological process that warrants that in 2 hours *you* will be produced for the first time? Why doesn't the Universe just continue producing *not-yous* as it always has done. Can you imagine the body you call yours will be born in 2 hours and it will be just another *not-you* with its own consciousness and life path.

So it's not the body that makes you *you*, it's something completely different and it doesn't need to survive the death because it existed before you were born. Does this makes sense?

This seems comically self-contradictory to me. If there is amnesia, then there is no continuity of consciousness. Amnesia is, pretty much by definition, a break in the continuity of consciousness. And saying "you" remember something after your death would require first establishing what was this "you" that survived your death, which seems incoherent.

If you believe the case studies of various hypnotherapists, there is a continuity of consciousness. It's just there is amnesia when you are born and you only remember your entire timeline of consciousness after death. Supposedly there are lifeforms that can remember certain parts of their previous lives.

Okay, but so what? My molecules survive my death, and some of those molecules may wind up in later organisms just as some of my molecules were previously part of some earlier organisms. So maybe there is some kind of "layer" survives my death just as the molecules that compose me do. Since all the evidence suggests that it has no significant effects on anything whatsoever, who cares? I don't make a big deal about which molecules in my finger were one parts of Thomas Edison's nose. Since there's no continuity of conscious memory (or anything else significant), it's not more "me" than a rat that shared a few of my molecules.

The theory is that there is a layer under your primal self that is pure subconscious thought. I believe this is quantified through hypnotherapy and analysis of human thought. (Parts of the brain light up according to certain activities).

Ergo, if your brain were to function without a supposed "soul", your human mind would function as a purely primal, emotional and survival-driven animal. Opposed to this is the spiritual, imaginative and other creative opponents that make the "soul".

Anyways, I know nothing in the end. I would commit suicide just to get an answer but that would be fruitless after I reincarnate with amnesia once again.

I have never understood what it is that is being claimed. Frankly, it seems incoherent to me. What is that is supposedly being reincarnated? In what sense are these other beings supposed to be "me"?

Most of the explanations speak of a "soul" or "spirit" that is reincarnated. To the extent I can understand what this means (which, frankly, is hardly at all), it seems clearly impossible since we know that the brain is the physical implementation of identity and the brain is destroyed during death. It's like arguing that you can burn a rug and somehow the pattern can continue in another rug. (The idea of a pattern without a rug seems incomprehensible. A thought without any brain to think it contradicts everything we know about how the brain works.)

Yes, there were certainly people and animals that lived before me and people and animals that will live after me. But if there is some sense in which some of them can "also be me", I don't even understand what sense that is.

There might be some technical means to "copy" consciousness into a storage device and implement it in another physical container. So it's possible that before my death I could be "recorded" in some way and continue to exist through some other physical implementation. But if those people don't have my memories and don't extend my same consciousness, then they are not me.

In the spiritual path, you will find that the experience is the reason you are here. It's why you reincarnate. My body is not necessarily "mine". I don't own it. I guess you could consider it a loaner to get a specific experience in this particular lifetime.

The other goal of spirituality is to dissolve that dividing line that we use to say what is "me" and what is "not-me" or having a non-dual perception while being in duality.

Everything has a purpose.

No, I'm not talking about the experience that you go through in your life as you develop.
I'm talking about binary singularity, that is real *you*. I'll explain...

All the biological forms on this planet have this binary property - it's either *you* or *not-you*.
Do you agree? Among all the life forms you call only one particular body *you* and all other bodies are *not-you*. Now, that's a drastic difference!

It would be very illogical to suggest that this drastic difference, this binary singularity, comes from seemingly uniform and slow biological development process, which allows bodies to develop from the same chemical elements with some minor differences here and there. See where I'm going...?

EDIT:
So, in other words, what is it in the chemical makeup that makes only one body (out of the billions similar ones) your body?

It's far more "fun" to experience it.

I suspect you're right, the cultural differences probably are the main cause of our dispute. But I can tell you that in the US, eye contact and a smile make a huge difference in how you're perceived.

It's fun to speculate that there's more to life than being meat that's the product of random genetic mutations.

myrkul, exactly thats what I'm talking about, to step out of being a role. The conclusion to that, from my own point of view, is the ability to be the same person in a multitude of situations, hence the notion earlier in this thread of being as much yourself as you are at home with family.

I'm in Denmark / Scandinavia and there is not a lot of presence in a simple "thank you for doing business with you". In the UK, on the other hand, there is a lot more meaning and eye contact in the standard  greetings, so I suspect that we also are discussing this from a different cultural pretense. When I think of Germans there is even more formality and less personality in professional relations.

To take this detour back to the OP, my original point was that this "spirituality  world view" kind of secluded you from other people, only being concerned about your own ascension. I was then elaborating further that any interaction with other people defines how you view yourself and functions as a human being thus seeking  deeper meaning in in every relation makes a lot of sense to me.

A dream within a dream within a dream...

or, for tech-oriented left-brain people:

http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

Then the question is if your consciousness data will be reused and expanded in some way or not by the outside computer system or its operator. This operator may very well be your (higher) self, and you are the avatar.

Thank me later 

http://www.youtube.com/user/twcjr44/videos?view=0

Yes, that's all well and good, But I think the difference here is that I do not, and never have, "zone out" when in a conversation. I am always engaged in the conversation, whether that is a tech support call or a transaction with a check-out clerk at wal-mart. I am always "there." I've worked in both outbound sales and inbound support environments, and I always did better in the support role for just that reason.

All I am saying is that a sincere 'Thank you, John, you've done a great job helping me today," is just as effective at breaking a call-center rep or a secretary or whomever out of their work-trance. And it does so in such a way that will not get them reprimanded for letting a call go too long.

In other situations, perhaps extending the conversation is not so detrimental, but it can still get you or them in (at least minor social) trouble. Take the supermarket check-out clerk, for example. Sit there and talk with them for a few minutes, and you'll sart getting dirty looks from the people behind you in line. Take a little longer, and maybe the manager comes over to see what the hold-up is. Keep pressing it, and soon you're no longer allowed in that store again, and the clerk thinks you're a creep.

But a simple smile and thank you could have avoided all this. Make eye contact, smile, and thank them, wishing them a good day, and they feel valued, you have reassured yourself that you're not an asshole, and best of all, you haven't wasted anyone's time.

You don't have to go out of your way to convince yourself you don't treat people like machines. Just treat them like people, and the rest will follow naturally.

Myrkul, got your point, but I don't agree with you and I am somewhat puzzled that you can have such a view on the personal part of human interaction. The business call example is just an example - I'm talking about being there in conversations:

When I was 20 I worked in a boiler room - a call centre, I didn't care at all if the Ad's I was selling was of any use to the customers. As I got better at it, I experienced that my mind often wandered, and in a pure mechanical way, while thinking about groceries and what to do after work, I was able to make the sale as if I was a robot. It was a pure stimuli / response interaction. The customers says that, then I say this, when conversation goes in circles, go for the kill.

Now I demand of myself always be present when I talk to people, and when people are acting as robots to me, I always try to trick them out of it and they always appreciate being discovered as human beings.

too good to be true.

Also for me you jumped the shark this time