I think the answer to this is that we are not the same person from one moment to the next anyway. I remember the last 50 years of my life quite clearly. But I can't say that I really experienced them. I can only say that I am currently experiencing the memory of them. Perhaps someone else was experiencing them a moment ago.
Indeed. The existence of a continuous self is nothing more than an interesting trick of the mind. Buddhists have been saying this for thousands of years. With close enough observation of the mind this trick can be caught red handed.
Does the mind stitch together experiences to form a consciousness? Like yes we are different from each second to the next, but is there something consistently YOU present while the body and cells change around it?@@lobovutare
@@tylergardiner341 there is definitely harmony, convergence coherence in our universe, but to actually say what that is, who we are, requires a great deal of abstraction to the point that when we think of ourselves we are discarding 99% of the info that makes us us. The 1% get us by, but shouldn't fool us into thinking we know anything substantial.
I arrived at this notion while having an existential crisis on mortality, which now sustains my existential crisis. Any thoughts on how to rectify the feeling of dread from realizing that I may only truly exist in a single moment?
Sometimes the analogy of a candle 🕯️ lighting another candle 🕯️ is used to consider this idea. Is it the same flame or different? The standing wave like process that we call being, is like that too. Moment by moment we are metabolizing and catabolizing cells. The physical substance of our bodies is completely refreshed every 10 years or so. We go through about 8 different bodies in one lifetime! So this is what it is like when we are dying and being reborn already. If it happens in one lifetime, why not between lifetimes also?
🐟 09. REINCARNATION (OR NOT): Just as there is NOTHING about an individual person (neither any particle of matter, nor any mental object whatsoever) which remains intact from conception till death, there is NOTHING about the individual person (that is, the “ego”, as defined in the following chapter) which transfers to another body after death, except, perhaps, habitual tendencies in the form of indelible mental impressions (“vāsanā”, in Sanskrit). For example, in my present incarnation, I have a strong affinity for the culture of Bhārata (India), a highly-advanced intellectual capacity, a very slim body, and an attraction to a frugivorous diet. That suggests there was an Indian spiritual master in the previous century which had some (or perhaps, even all) of these characteristics, but it was not “ME”, since what I am now is this ever-mutable Australian-born Aryan gentleman. These “subtle mind impressions” are known in psychology as the “collective unconscious”, in new-age spirituality as the “akashic records”, and in Islam as the “Preserved Tablet”. There is an abundance of evidence that humans are born with certain psycho-emotive links to previous persons, times and places. It is far beyond the purview of this document to list such evidences. As mentioned, in my case, I have an EXTREMELY strong association with all things Indian, despite not being of Indian origin, and the “collective unconscious” hypothesis seems to be the best explanation for this bond currently available, in my opinion (although the term “collective conscious” would, perhaps, be more accurate). For the popular view of reincarnation to be plausible, there would need to be an entity or an OBJECT called a “soul” (“jīva” or “ātman”, in Sanskrit), which somehow finds a copulating couple, then enters the woman’s uterus, to inhabit a zygote. Assuming the existence of an individual spiritual soul is profoundly illogical, because spirit is (by most definitions) the antithesis of finite matter. Therefore, how can an immaterial “soul” be confined to a single person’s body? It seems rather strange to believe that the universe was organized naturalistically in such a manner as to recycle an object called a “soul”, or even to recycle minds, particularly when one understands that a mind is naught but a series of flickering thoughts, feelings, images, and memories. Some believe that the “thing” which transfers to the next incarnation are the remnants of one's actions (“vāsanā” or “saṃskāra”, in Sanskrit) or at least one's psychological disposition (likes, dislikes, phobias, etcetera). This is far closer to the idea of the collective unconscious, and even if it is a perfectly accurate account of what occurs after death, it still cannot give substance to the notion of a SEPARATE individual which is travelling from one body to another and again to another (“saṃsāra”, in Sanskrit). According to the law of conservation of energy, first proposed and tested by Émilie du Châtelet, energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another. Both this law, and Dr. Leonard Susskind's minus-first law of physics, states that energy/information is indestructible. The analogy of one candle being lit by another candle is apt. Are the two flames the same flame or completely different flames? According to those laws, PART of the energy is transferred from one wick to the other wick, a portion of the energy is released by the flame, and part of the energy remains with the original candle. Regarding reincarnation, a rather appropriate analogy could be that of a whirlpool in a stream of liquid. A whirlpool is a definite form within a river but, just like the human form itself, it is never static. Some water molecules which were once swirling within one whirlpool may move farther downstream, mix with other water particles, and form a new, distinct whirlpool. So, in my particular case, it is eminently possible that a vast amount of “Indian energy” was transferred to my psyche from one or more persons from Bhārata (the proper name of the country), plus the addition of genetic matter from my Persian parents and their Aryan heritage. The fact that BOTH Iranians and North Indians are Aryan seems to add further credence to my hypothesis, even if to a small degree. Of course, there is no conclusive proof for such types of claims at this stage in human history, but the evidence is certainly extant, and as mentioned, the profusion of evidence available goes far beyond the purview of this document. One ought to do one's own thorough research into the matter, rather than relying on anecdotal testimonies. There are several well-documented books and videos published on the subject. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that my essential nature has NOT transferred from one body to another body, because I have fully understood and realized, by practicing the four systems of yoga/religion described in Chapter 16, that my true nature is Brahman (see Chapters 06 & 10 to learn of the Real Self). There is no such thing as a “soul” or “spirit”, unless, of course, one defines those words to mean the subject (that is, the observer of all temporal phenomena), and logically, the subject cannot be an object, at least in the transactional sphere. Cont...
@@That_Freedom_Guy When I die, my physical body, composed of the five gross material elements (“sthūla-śarīra”, in Sanskrit), will be reabsorbed into the biosphere, whilst the non-tangible aspect of my body, composed of the three subtle material elements (“sūkṣma śarīra”, in Sanskrit), will possibly merge with the collective unconscious, and the story of my life will come to an end FOREVER. See Chapter 05 regarding the eight elemental groups. It seems likely, judging by the evidence, that the “vāsanā” of a deceased person may transfer to more than a single individual. That explains why there are so many persons at once claiming to be the reincarnation of certain famous personalities. The fact that human life ends at death is difficult for many to accept, since they are thoroughly attached to their pseudo-egos, their intellects, their minds, their bodies, their loved-ones, and their possessions. However, when one realizes that one is not an ever-mutating psycho-physical organism, but, essentially, never-changing, all-pervasive CONSCIOUS AWARENESS (“Brahman”, in Sanskrit), all fear is alleviated. The only “thing” remaining of a person at the time of death is the only “thing” which has ever “existed” - Pure Unalloyed Awareness, or Eternal-Conscious-Peace (“sacchidānanda”, in Sanskrit). We do not normally dread the dreamless portions of our nightly sleep cycles, so why would we fear a more permanent period of existence similar to deep-sleep? This existential crises is the basis of most all angst and uneasiness. So, fear not - death is a normal, NATURAL, and even a necessary consequence of conception. That which has a beginning, surely must end. Putting aside whether or not reincarnation is an accurate account of what happens in this world, it is ABSOLUTELY certain that we receive a completely new body approximately every seven years (via a gradual process, of course). Our first body was a microscopically-sized zygote and our present body is several kilograms heavier. From where has all that extra weight come? Obviously, it came from all the nutrients that we have absorbed via the umbilical cord in our mother's uterus, or via the food, air and water we have consumed since birth. Therefore, one who believes that he is nothing more than the body-mind organism is grossly ignorant of basic biological science. Genetically, approximately half of the cells in the body are not even of human origin, believe it or not! We can all easily understand that our infantile body is completely and utterly different to our present-day form, so logically, our true identity must be something quite APART from it. Nothing, including one’s genetic code, remains constant from conception to death. The sense of self does not even make its appearance in our psyche until two or three years after conception. Therefore, a person is more accurately defined as a process (a verb), rather than an object (a noun). For the sake of philosophical IMPARTIALITY, it is germane to acknowledge the perspectives of other eminent pundits. E.g. In “Bhagavad-gītā”, one of the very greatest spiritual authorities the world has ever known, Lord Śri Krishna, uses the analogy of how the individual person (“ego”, in Latin, or “jīvātman”, in Sanskrit) travels through the various stages of life (that is, from childhood, to pubescent adulthood, to geriatric), with His description of the process of reincarnation, as conceived by the ancient seers (“ṛṣi” [rishi], in Sanskrit) of India (“Bhārata”, in Sanskrit). “...each person is destined to die once...” Anonymous (possibly Paul of Tarsus), Letter to the Hebrews, 9:27. N.B. Ironically, the author of the above letter was a close disciple (or at least a follower) of Lord Jesus of Nazareth, who, according to the New Testament portion of the Judeo-Christian holy book, raised his acquaintance, Lazarus, from the dead. Logically speaking, Lazarus must surely have died more than one time, as did the many dead persons who were supposedly raised from their graves at the crucifixion of Lord Jesus. Assuming that Paul was the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, he himself even raised a young man from the dead (although, in that case, the man, Eutychus, was dead for only a very short period of time, so it was likely that he was merely unconscious, rather than fully deceased). OBVIOUSLY, the writer means that, generally speaking, each individual person is destined for one life alone, as opposed to any alternative scenario such as reincarnation. Yet, as we now know, humans beings are not stable objects, but ever-mutating processes of mind and matter. “The entity that is supposed to be reincarnated in another body, does not even itself exist, except as a concept! How can a mere concept be reborn?” ************* “When you are dead, you will be back in the primordial state of rest, which existed before you were born; that stillness before all experience. It is only the false sense of a limited, separate 'me', that deprives life of its meaning and gives death an ominous significance, which it really does not have.” ************* “The fear of death, is actually a product of the desire to perpetuate one's identity. Were you not dead before you were born? Those who know Reality, know the falsehood of life and death.” ************* “What is born, must in due course, die. The objective body, will thereafter be dissolved and irrevocably annihilated. What was once a sentient being, will be destroyed, never to be reborn. But consciousness is not objective - not a thing at all. Therefore, consciousness is neither born nor dies, and certainly cannot be 'reborn'.” Ramesh S. Balsekar, Indian Spiritual Teacher.
@JagadguruSvamiVegananda That's very good. You understand clearly. Now retell the whole thing using interpretive dance! Lol! I'm kidding! You DO understand much, and I agree with you. Helping others to know and understand is very wholesome, karmically speaking so thanks for reaching out and going to that much effort to help. You are very kind as well as very wise, a knock-out combination! Letting go of that which never existed in the first place, is the heaviest burden I have ever laid down. 🪷
@@That_Freedom_Guy, I am not really concerned about what any particular person BELIEVES. You may believe that there is an old man with a white beard perched in the clouds, that the Ultimate Reality is a young blackish-blue Indian guy, that the universe is eternal, that Mother Mary was a certifiable virgin or that gross physical matter is the foundation of existence. The ONLY thing that really matters is your meta-ethics, not your meta-physics. Do you consider any form of non-monarchical government (such as democracy or socialism) to be beneficial? Do you unnecessarily destroy the lives of poor, innocent animals and gorge on their bloody carcasses? Do you believe homosexuality and transvestism is moral? Do you consider feminist ideology to be righteous? If so, then you are objectively immoral and your so-called "enlightened/awakened" state is immaterial, since it does not benefit society in any way.
What would happen if the two halves were recombined almost instantaneously. Long enough for both bodies to wake up and "turn on" their consciousness, but then quickly undone and returned to one functional brain. Are you back to "normal"? Are you the same you as before?
This is a really good clip, thank you! With the "soul" argument, and with your conclusion, you come very close to a Goethean phenomenology (as I understand it). Essentially, you reason and think and perceive out of a conscious entity, then you seem to forget this in your analysis and then separate this rational analysis from the entity that is responsible for the very existence of this analysis, and then try to find the link back to this conscious entity (Descartes made a similar error). Call it a soul or a self or an entity or whatever one wants, but why not acknowledge the existence of this entity, study it phenomenologically and accept this as the starting point?
I wonder what exactly is meant by placing memories of a person into the head of another person. Surely my memories of the way I used to walk to school are clearly describable physical events with colours, textures, temperatures etc. but the qualia of doing the walking is not describable. This way, if my memories were placed into a being who is biologically identical to me, her mind wouldn't work the same as my mind works as she simply wouldn't have the qualia to help recall events in the past the way I do, right?
I think transplant analogies are meant to take you in every sense of you, including your specific relationship to your own memories, as well as your particular first-person perspective.
I think it’s correlated to the quantum parallel theory of everything that could happen has happened - but what’s happening now is a string of possibilities that accumulate to the sense a human has to oneself. My theory is that there is an infinite part of who we are on a higher plane of energy consciousness where it cannot be created or destroyed. And where time doesn’t exist or does exist all at once - it’s incomprehensible to our minds since we can only recall time in a string of conscience memories relaying quantitive patterns together formulated into a machine where the equation of identity is constantly changing through string of 1 consciousness of time. Basically, I could be you and you could be me because in the shadows between possibilities is energy that to our knowledge is a form of nothingness or a vacuum of space awaiting data of information to recall a sense of self- so for all we know we could all be the same entity of a collective sense in nothingness
@@alexandriacorral7494 Very interesting comment, thanks for the reply. I am somewhat familiar with Taggart's A, B and C theory of time , which indeed is a mind bender but does 'feel' true. Having trouble understanding what you mean by an infinite part of you, how that part relates to the whole and why does it need to be on a higher plane, why can't it be simultaneous in time and space but on a different frequency? What constitutes identity in an infinite expansion if not a specific quality or a type of 'suchness'? I'll try to think this over a bit more.
@@evinnra2779 Henri Bergson of the early 1900's emphasized the reality of duration in comparison to the mathematical progression of time. As you say, the walking itself would embody a duration which could Not be reproduced exactly.
I am pretty sure that the questioner is Ken Campbell. Ken was an interesting guy - actor , director and ventriloquist. He appears in a famous episode of Fawlty Towers . If I recall ken did a couple of programmes in the late 80's about the meaning of life and identity , and this is an excerpt from one of them .
@@jxliarj You are welcome . I didn't know who Derek Parfitt was ( or I had forgotten?) , but his name came up on a YT channel I watch called ' Brain in a Vat ' . I googled him which gave that piece on Derek Parfitt and I thought ' that's Ken Campbell ' asking the.questions . As I said I recall ken doing a few documentaries about Reality , the Meaning of Life and Personality around the Millennium. At that time I was still a spiritual questor so was interested in these programmes . I had been tormented by this question ' Who Am I ? ' since I was a small child . Anyway you may not be interested in this , so apologies , but I found my answers in the Indian philosophy of Advaita Vedanta as personified in Sri Ramana Maharshi. Philosophy is interesting and there are some philosophers I like ( Schopenhauer, Kant , Berkeley - the Idealists ) but they weren't transformational . I was looking for peace as well as answers . Interestingly in more recent years quantum physics seems to be more and more confirming the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta. I am a great ' fan ' of the philosopher - scientist Bernardo Kastrup who seems to be bringing science , philosophy and advaita into a singularity. Apologies if this is all irrelevant to you .
Yes, but it’s almost like time collapsing down to memories being time. And in a way returning back to your purest form of nothingness - I wonder why babies are so pure and unapologetically curious to their surroundings? It’s almost as though being empty or a void has more value since it can be like a vacuum for data. The more memories of time we accumulate the more we are hypnotized by the illusional sense of modern personal identity
@@alexandriacorral7494 Identity is a useful way for verbal creatures to communicate what they need from each other. And in the modern case, it helps prevent future bigotry by acknowledging our differences, instead of hiding it away in the closet and pretend that it doesn't exist.
No. It tries to show that the concept of existence of a person and the identity is messed up when we consider that our existence depends on matter. If there were a soul, then identity is necessary.
But its only half of the brain, your identify may cease to exist but you do not capture the full identify of the donated half-brain. You still have the other half of your brain. The two twins do not become the deceased person, I can understand that they could become individually different people because half their brains were replaced. Different memories are stored in different parts of the brain so splitting a brain by hemisphere cannot result in the same person if the halves were separated. Am I missing something here? If so please fill me in.
the two are the same, and i go so far to suspect that both halves of the brain will communicate with one another without conventional physical contact, and maintain the individual's identity. good ol superposition
This is so stupid!! idk why am i taking philosophy. The most absurd subject!!! How can you cut a brain and put in other human, daah we have lobes and left and right hemispheres does completely different function and memory is stored in corticoid region. Tf is this philosophy guy saying!!!!
I think the answer to this is that we are not the same person from one moment to the next anyway. I remember the last 50 years of my life quite clearly. But I can't say that I really experienced them. I can only say that I am currently experiencing the memory of them. Perhaps someone else was experiencing them a moment ago.
Agreed!
Indeed. The existence of a continuous self is nothing more than an interesting trick of the mind. Buddhists have been saying this for thousands of years. With close enough observation of the mind this trick can be caught red handed.
Does the mind stitch together experiences to form a consciousness? Like yes we are different from each second to the next, but is there something consistently YOU present while the body and cells change around it?@@lobovutare
@@tylergardiner341 there is definitely harmony, convergence coherence in our universe, but to actually say what that is, who we are, requires a great deal of abstraction to the point that when we think of ourselves we are discarding 99% of the info that makes us us. The 1% get us by, but shouldn't fool us into thinking we know anything substantial.
I arrived at this notion while having an existential crisis on mortality, which now sustains my existential crisis. Any thoughts on how to rectify the feeling of dread from realizing that I may only truly exist in a single moment?
It’s interesting to me that different channels featuring this video get completely different ratios of likes to dislikes.
Why is it interesting? What does it tell you?
@@ajra4626
Yeah I'm also interested.
Sometimes the analogy of a candle 🕯️ lighting another candle 🕯️ is used to consider this idea. Is it the same flame or different? The standing wave like process that we call being, is like that too. Moment by moment we are metabolizing and catabolizing cells. The physical substance of our bodies is completely refreshed every 10 years or so. We go through about 8 different bodies in one lifetime! So this is what it is like when we are dying and being reborn already. If it happens in one lifetime, why not between lifetimes also?
🐟 09. REINCARNATION (OR NOT):
Just as there is NOTHING about an individual person (neither any particle of matter, nor any mental object whatsoever) which remains intact from conception till death, there is NOTHING about the individual person (that is, the “ego”, as defined in the following chapter) which transfers to another body after death, except, perhaps, habitual tendencies in the form of indelible mental impressions (“vāsanā”, in Sanskrit).
For example, in my present incarnation, I have a strong affinity for the culture of Bhārata (India), a highly-advanced intellectual capacity, a very slim body, and an attraction to a frugivorous diet. That suggests there was an Indian spiritual master in the previous century which had some (or perhaps, even all) of these characteristics, but it was not “ME”, since what I am now is this ever-mutable Australian-born Aryan gentleman.
These “subtle mind impressions” are known in psychology as the “collective unconscious”, in new-age spirituality as the “akashic records”, and in Islam as the “Preserved Tablet”. There is an abundance of evidence that humans are born with certain psycho-emotive links to previous persons, times and places. It is far beyond the purview of this document to list such evidences. As mentioned, in my case, I have an EXTREMELY strong association with all things Indian, despite not being of Indian origin, and the “collective unconscious” hypothesis seems to be the best explanation for this bond currently available, in my opinion (although the term “collective conscious” would, perhaps, be more accurate).
For the popular view of reincarnation to be plausible, there would need to be an entity or an OBJECT called a “soul” (“jīva” or “ātman”, in Sanskrit), which somehow finds a copulating couple, then enters the woman’s uterus, to inhabit a zygote.
Assuming the existence of an individual spiritual soul is profoundly illogical, because spirit is (by most definitions) the antithesis of finite matter. Therefore, how can an immaterial “soul” be confined to a single person’s body?
It seems rather strange to believe that the universe was organized naturalistically in such a manner as to recycle an object called a “soul”, or even to recycle minds, particularly when one understands that a mind is naught but a series of flickering thoughts, feelings, images, and memories. Some believe that the “thing” which transfers to the next incarnation are the remnants of one's actions (“vāsanā” or “saṃskāra”, in Sanskrit) or at least one's psychological disposition (likes, dislikes, phobias, etcetera). This is far closer to the idea of the collective unconscious, and even if it is a perfectly accurate account of what occurs after death, it still cannot give substance to the notion of a SEPARATE individual which is travelling from one body to another and again to another (“saṃsāra”, in Sanskrit).
According to the law of conservation of energy, first proposed and tested by Émilie du Châtelet, energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another. Both this law, and Dr. Leonard Susskind's minus-first law of physics, states that energy/information is indestructible.
The analogy of one candle being lit by another candle is apt. Are the two flames the same flame or completely different flames? According to those laws, PART of the energy is transferred from one wick to the other wick, a portion of the energy is released by the flame, and part of the energy remains with the original candle.
Regarding reincarnation, a rather appropriate analogy could be that of a whirlpool in a stream of liquid. A whirlpool is a definite form within a river but, just like the human form itself, it is never static. Some water molecules which were once swirling within one whirlpool may move farther downstream, mix with other water particles, and form a new, distinct whirlpool.
So, in my particular case, it is eminently possible that a vast amount of “Indian energy” was transferred to my psyche from one or more persons from Bhārata (the proper name of the country), plus the addition of genetic matter from my Persian parents and their Aryan heritage. The fact that BOTH Iranians and North Indians are Aryan seems to add further credence to my hypothesis, even if to a small degree.
Of course, there is no conclusive proof for such types of claims at this stage in human history, but the evidence is certainly extant, and as mentioned, the profusion of evidence available goes far beyond the purview of this document. One ought to do one's own thorough research into the matter, rather than relying on anecdotal testimonies. There are several well-documented books and videos published on the subject.
There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that my essential nature has NOT transferred from one body to another body, because I have fully understood and realized, by practicing the four systems of yoga/religion described in Chapter 16, that my true nature is Brahman (see Chapters 06 & 10 to learn of the Real Self). There is no such thing as a “soul” or “spirit”, unless, of course, one defines those words to mean the subject (that is, the observer of all temporal phenomena), and logically, the subject cannot be an object, at least in the transactional sphere.
Cont...
@@JagadguruSvamiVegananda
✨️ 🙏✨️
@@That_Freedom_Guy
When I die, my physical body, composed of the five gross material elements (“sthūla-śarīra”, in Sanskrit), will be reabsorbed into the biosphere, whilst the non-tangible aspect of my body, composed of the three subtle material elements (“sūkṣma śarīra”, in Sanskrit), will possibly merge with the collective unconscious, and the story of my life will come to an end FOREVER. See Chapter 05 regarding the eight elemental groups. It seems likely, judging by the evidence, that the “vāsanā” of a deceased person may transfer to more than a single individual. That explains why there are so many persons at once claiming to be the reincarnation of certain famous personalities.
The fact that human life ends at death is difficult for many to accept, since they are thoroughly attached to their pseudo-egos, their intellects, their minds, their bodies, their loved-ones, and their possessions. However, when one realizes that one is not an ever-mutating psycho-physical organism, but, essentially, never-changing, all-pervasive CONSCIOUS AWARENESS (“Brahman”, in Sanskrit), all fear is alleviated.
The only “thing” remaining of a person at the time of death is the only “thing” which has ever “existed” - Pure Unalloyed Awareness, or Eternal-Conscious-Peace (“sacchidānanda”, in Sanskrit). We do not normally dread the dreamless portions of our nightly sleep cycles, so why would we fear a more permanent period of existence similar to deep-sleep? This existential crises is the basis of most all angst and uneasiness. So, fear not - death is a normal, NATURAL, and even a necessary consequence of conception. That which has a beginning, surely must end.
Putting aside whether or not reincarnation is an accurate account of what happens in this world, it is ABSOLUTELY certain that we receive a completely new body approximately every seven years (via a gradual process, of course). Our first body was a microscopically-sized zygote and our present body is several kilograms heavier. From where has all that extra weight come? Obviously, it came from all the nutrients that we have absorbed via the umbilical cord in our mother's uterus, or via the food, air and water we have consumed since birth.
Therefore, one who believes that he is nothing more than the body-mind organism is grossly ignorant of basic biological science. Genetically, approximately half of the cells in the body are not even of human origin, believe it or not! We can all easily understand that our infantile body is completely and utterly different to our present-day form, so logically, our true identity must be something quite APART from it. Nothing, including one’s genetic code, remains constant from conception to death. The sense of self does not even make its appearance in our psyche until two or three years after conception. Therefore, a person is more accurately defined as a process (a verb), rather than an object (a noun).
For the sake of philosophical IMPARTIALITY, it is germane to acknowledge the perspectives of other eminent pundits. E.g. In “Bhagavad-gītā”, one of the very greatest spiritual authorities the world has ever known, Lord Śri Krishna, uses the analogy of how the individual person (“ego”, in Latin, or “jīvātman”, in Sanskrit) travels through the various stages of life (that is, from childhood, to pubescent adulthood, to geriatric), with His description of the process of reincarnation, as conceived by the ancient seers (“ṛṣi” [rishi], in Sanskrit) of India (“Bhārata”, in Sanskrit).
“...each person is destined to die once...”
Anonymous (possibly Paul of Tarsus),
Letter to the Hebrews, 9:27.
N.B. Ironically, the author of the above letter was a close disciple (or at least a follower) of Lord Jesus of Nazareth, who, according to the New Testament portion of the Judeo-Christian holy book, raised his acquaintance, Lazarus, from the dead. Logically speaking, Lazarus must surely have died more than one time, as did the many dead persons who were supposedly raised from their graves at the crucifixion of Lord Jesus.
Assuming that Paul was the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, he himself even raised a young man from the dead (although, in that case, the man, Eutychus, was dead for only a very short period of time, so it was likely that he was merely unconscious, rather than fully deceased).
OBVIOUSLY, the writer means that, generally speaking, each individual person is destined for one life alone, as opposed to any alternative scenario such as reincarnation. Yet, as we now know, humans beings are not stable objects, but ever-mutating processes of mind and matter.
“The entity that is supposed to be reincarnated in another body, does not even itself exist, except as a concept!
How can a mere concept be reborn?”
*************
“When you are dead, you will be back in the primordial state of rest, which existed before you were born; that stillness before all experience.
It is only the false sense of a limited, separate 'me', that deprives life of its meaning and gives death an ominous significance, which it really does not have.”
*************
“The fear of death, is actually a product of the desire to perpetuate one's identity. Were you not dead before you were born?
Those who know Reality, know the falsehood of life and death.”
*************
“What is born, must in due course, die.
The objective body, will thereafter be dissolved and irrevocably annihilated.
What was once a sentient being, will be destroyed, never to be reborn.
But consciousness is not objective - not a thing at all.
Therefore, consciousness is neither born nor dies, and certainly cannot be 'reborn'.”
Ramesh S. Balsekar,
Indian Spiritual Teacher.
@JagadguruSvamiVegananda That's very good. You understand clearly. Now retell the whole thing using interpretive dance! Lol! I'm kidding! You DO understand much, and I agree with you. Helping others to know and understand is very wholesome, karmically speaking so thanks for reaching out and going to that much effort to help. You are very kind as well as very wise, a knock-out combination! Letting go of that which never existed in the first place, is the heaviest burden I have ever laid down. 🪷
@@That_Freedom_Guy, I am not really concerned about what any particular person BELIEVES. You may believe that there is an old man with a white beard perched in the clouds, that the Ultimate Reality is a young blackish-blue Indian guy, that the universe is eternal, that Mother Mary was a certifiable virgin or that gross physical matter is the foundation of existence.
The ONLY thing that really matters is your meta-ethics, not your meta-physics.
Do you consider any form of non-monarchical government (such as democracy or socialism) to be beneficial?
Do you unnecessarily destroy the lives of poor, innocent animals and gorge on their bloody carcasses?
Do you believe homosexuality and transvestism is moral?
Do you consider feminist ideology to be righteous?
If so, then you are objectively immoral and your so-called "enlightened/awakened" state is immaterial, since it does not benefit society in any way.
What would happen if the two halves were recombined almost instantaneously. Long enough for both bodies to wake up and "turn on" their consciousness, but then quickly undone and returned to one functional brain. Are you back to "normal"? Are you the same you as before?
la ultima vez que la vi la vi en la discoteca dejandose el alma
This is a really good clip, thank you! With the "soul" argument, and with your conclusion, you come very close to a Goethean phenomenology (as I understand it). Essentially, you reason and think and perceive out of a conscious entity, then you seem to forget this in your analysis and then separate this rational analysis from the entity that is responsible for the very existence of this analysis, and then try to find the link back to this conscious entity (Descartes made a similar error). Call it a soul or a self or an entity or whatever one wants, but why not acknowledge the existence of this entity, study it phenomenologically and accept this as the starting point?
'Reasons and Persons' brings back memories though not pleasant ones LOL
Why not?
what film is this originally from?
What if we are just a particle? Since they are indivisible that would solve the identity problem.
Are all particles the same size?
lol wtf does that even mean "what if we are just a particle". these philosophy videos attracted the biggest morons
It's hard for me to parse these philosophical questions when I can't stop wondering if that guy is wearing a wig.
The Prestige is a better example of an apt movie.
I wonder what exactly is meant by placing memories of a person into the head of another person. Surely my memories of the way I used to walk to school are clearly describable physical events with colours, textures, temperatures etc. but the qualia of doing the walking is not describable. This way, if my memories were placed into a being who is biologically identical to me, her mind wouldn't work the same as my mind works as she simply wouldn't have the qualia to help recall events in the past the way I do, right?
I think transplant analogies are meant to take you in every sense of you, including your specific relationship to your own memories, as well as your particular first-person perspective.
@@lightningandodinify Interesting.
I think it’s correlated to the quantum parallel theory of everything that could happen has happened - but what’s happening now is a string of possibilities that accumulate to the sense a human has to oneself. My theory is that there is an infinite part of who we are on a higher plane of energy consciousness where it cannot be created or destroyed. And where time doesn’t exist or does exist all at once - it’s incomprehensible to our minds since we can only recall time in a string of conscience memories relaying quantitive patterns together formulated into a machine where the equation of identity is constantly changing through string of 1 consciousness of time. Basically, I could be you and you could be me because in the shadows between possibilities is energy that to our knowledge is a form of nothingness or a vacuum of space awaiting data of information to recall a sense of self- so for all we know we could all be the same entity of a collective sense in nothingness
@@alexandriacorral7494 Very interesting comment, thanks for the reply. I am somewhat familiar with Taggart's A, B and C theory of time , which indeed is a mind bender but does 'feel' true. Having trouble understanding what you mean by an infinite part of you, how that part relates to the whole and why does it need to be on a higher plane, why can't it be simultaneous in time and space but on a different frequency? What constitutes identity in an infinite expansion if not a specific quality or a type of 'suchness'? I'll try to think this over a bit more.
@@evinnra2779 Henri Bergson of the early 1900's emphasized the reality of duration in comparison to the mathematical progression of time. As you say, the walking itself would embody a duration which could Not be reproduced exactly.
What film is this?
I am pretty sure that the questioner is Ken Campbell. Ken was an interesting guy - actor , director and ventriloquist. He appears in a famous episode of Fawlty Towers .
If I recall ken did a couple of programmes in the late 80's about the meaning of life and identity , and this is an excerpt from one of them .
@@michaeldillon3113 Thanks!
@@jxliarj You are welcome . I didn't know who Derek Parfitt was ( or I had forgotten?) , but his name came up on a YT channel I watch called ' Brain in a Vat ' . I googled him which gave that piece on Derek Parfitt and I thought ' that's Ken Campbell ' asking the.questions .
As I said I recall ken doing a few documentaries about Reality , the Meaning of Life and Personality around the Millennium. At that time I was still a spiritual questor so was interested in these programmes .
I had been tormented by this question ' Who Am I ? ' since I was a small child .
Anyway you may not be interested in this , so apologies , but I found my answers in the Indian philosophy of Advaita Vedanta as personified in Sri Ramana Maharshi.
Philosophy is interesting and there are some philosophers I like ( Schopenhauer, Kant , Berkeley - the Idealists ) but they weren't transformational . I was looking for peace as well as answers .
Interestingly in more recent years quantum physics seems to be more and more confirming the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta.
I am a great ' fan ' of the philosopher - scientist Bernardo Kastrup who seems to be bringing science , philosophy and advaita into a singularity.
Apologies if this is all irrelevant to you .
There's two of him.
When loss all you memories, are you still you?
Yes, but it’s almost like time collapsing down to memories being time. And in a way returning back to your purest form of nothingness - I wonder why babies are so pure and unapologetically curious to their surroundings? It’s almost as though being empty or a void has more value since it can be like a vacuum for data. The more memories of time we accumulate the more we are hypnotized by the illusional sense of modern personal identity
@@alexandriacorral7494 Identity is a useful way for verbal creatures to communicate what they need from each other. And in the modern case, it helps prevent future bigotry by acknowledging our differences, instead of hiding it away in the closet and pretend that it doesn't exist.
So the significance of Parfitts analogies and theory of the unimportance of identity, is that it attempts to prove the existence of the soul?
No. It tries to show that the concept of existence of a person and the identity is messed up when we consider that our existence depends on matter. If there were a soul, then identity is necessary.
Who is this guy?!
An amazing philosopher ^~^
But its only half of the brain, your identify may cease to exist but you do not capture the full identify of the donated half-brain. You still have the other half of your brain. The two twins do not become the deceased person, I can understand that they could become individually different people because half their brains were replaced. Different memories are stored in different parts of the brain so splitting a brain by hemisphere cannot result in the same person if the halves were separated. Am I missing something here? If so please fill me in.
He's begged the question against the soul view.
The answer is: there is no soul
But the situation is so contrived and unlikely, the speculation seems to me to be rather empty.
True it is unrealistic ergo useless and untrue
the two are the same, and i go so far to suspect that both halves of the brain will communicate with one another without conventional physical contact, and maintain the individual's identity. good ol superposition
also entanglement
This is so stupid!! idk why am i taking philosophy. The most absurd subject!!! How can you cut a brain and put in other human, daah we have lobes and left and right hemispheres does completely different function and memory is stored in corticoid region. Tf is this philosophy guy saying!!!!