In all seriousness though, do you see death as an event that will result in the end of all that makes you, 'you' ? If not how would you describe the aspect that moves beyond the death process intact? Where did that essence originate ? And where will it go after death?
I have no idea and if someone has any way of knowing they haven't shown me. I lean towards reincarnation because in my view it is the most optimistic outlook. What you don't need is an irrational fear of death that can be leveraged to get you to do what others want. I reject philosophies that teach that (for example) if you don't do or believe this thing you will burn in fire for all eternity after you die.
I used to think that this life was it and that all that we are is housed in the brain but then I was humbled by a few near death experiences that challenged that conventional materialistic viewpoint. After that, I sought to retrace my steps to perceiving that which exists beyond the veil of our 5 senses through meditative practices and was confronted by the reality of the multi-dimensional nature of my own being (catching glimpses from what many would describe as "other lifetimes"). I share your concern about the prevalent (and often weaponized) irrational fear of death and I also reject childish ideas about an angry temper tantruming anthropomorphized toddler Creator that seeks eternal retribution if you do not behave or swear fealty to it's rule.
Thanks for the comment, I hope you have a great weekend involving some fun in the kitchen, time in nature and hopeful moments of peace and clarity.
I don't know what to believe any more. I wouldn't know if there is a god, however you define that, or not, we're pretty amazing creatures. I am a cultural Christian, and so are you from what I know about you. We could use some more Christian morality and I think of Christians as my allies. Except for the ones who say you can't be moral without a fear of God. Maybe it's true for those people.
The way I see it and from what I have experienced, the Creator is, that is fact. However, most of the stories projected onto the Creator by humans through their various religious institutions are skewed to the point where they actually serve the opposite purpose of helping people get closer to perceiving, knowing and aligning their choices with the will of God. The way I see it, and based on what I have sensed, God is not a control freak with human-esk issues, but rather a non-human non-physical yet distinct, whole and complete being which initiates the existence of our souls as an act of love and joy. The Creator then allows us to exercise our own free will, as we learn, grow and evolve as conscious beings with an eternal spirit (being present and responsive in various ways to those who seek guidance and support, but not intrusive nor overriding of our free will, despite the obviously often horrible consequences of our choices as humans).
In other words, all this crazy shit going on on Earth with humans suffering, torturing, murdering each other and choosing to cause mass devastation, that is all our choices, not related to God at all. Fear won't change those choices (at least not in any lasting way) only love, humility, compassion and having the courage to look inward and cultivate Self-awareness can begin to change those things.
I strive to see all beings (human and non-human alike) as allies (even those that plot against me or would seek to harm me) as though they may choose malice or duplicity in their current fear/ego driven state, underneath it all, they carry the same spark within them that exists within me, waiting to be uncovered. For some it will take multiple lifetimes to scrape off all the muck and allow that spark to shine again, but the potential is always there, IMO.
I mean comments... that being said I suppose it's fair to give my own 2 cents.
Having a couple near death experiences I could go either way but mostly I think spirit/soul is a real thing. I sometimes eat ganja chocolate and go to estate sales on Sundays-1/2 price day-and sometimes I can actually vibe on the spirits of the deceased. I KNOW that sounds far out but I can site my experiences and to me they are real and sometimes a bit haunted.
I don't like cremation but I also don't like worms so someone else will have to make peace with whatever happens to my corpse.
Thanks for taking the time to comment and share your thoughts Alyce.
How about if instead of a traditional burial or cremation, the body was put into a container and inoculated with fungi that would serve to transform those raw materials back into life giving elements to become the foundation for new life to flourish (in a similar way to what the worms would do, just involving non-insect species instead)? Would that be less unsettling?
Personally, I don't really care what happens to this body I am inhabiting after this life is over, well that is, as long as some mad scientists don't get a hold of it and do some weird transhumanist brain upload/cyborg type stuff haha. Whether via worms, other insects, fungi, bacteria or ashes, all paths lead to the material that makes up our bodies becoming food for other beings and becoming part of their physical bodies in the future. This may take hours, years or eons after death occurs, but it is inevitable. Beyond that inevitability is also the path of every atom that makes up our bodies to return to the stardust from once it came (when the lifespan of this solar system we live in comes to an end and this planet and everything on it is recycled into it's constituent atoms by the stellar death cycle). All that makes up our bodies will be returned to stardust when the life of our local star, "the sun" aka "sol" comes to an end, and that stardust, will, in time, become the foundation for new life to spring forth in a new solar system millions to billions of years in the future.
I find the Creator's regenerative cyclical design (whether on the scale of ecosystems on Earth or all the way up to entire star systems) to be quite genius and graceful in the way it transforms death into the potential for new life again.
Ganja chocolate eh? :) Perhaps you would appreciate these past articles I wrote:
Hi. I wake today to your reply and I am grateful. Yes if I must I imagine...that if I could just lay down in the soft green moss in the forest and melt back into the earth I would be in a state of perfection. I will go read your article re. ganja. Your reply has knocked my socks off. "Personally, I don't really care what happens to this body I am inhabiting after this life is over, well that is, as long as some mad scientists don't get a hold of it and do some weird transhumanist brain upload/cyborg type stuff haha. Whether via worms, other insects, fungi, bacteria or ashes, all paths lead to the material that makes up our bodies becoming food for other beings and becoming part of their physical bodies in the future. This may take hours, years or eons after death occurs, but it is inevitable. Beyond that inevitability is also the path of every atom that makes up our bodies to return to the stardust from once it came (when the lifespan of this solar system we live in comes to an end and this planet and everything on it is recycled into it's constituent atoms by the stellar death cycle). All that makes up our bodies will be returned to stardust when the life of our local star, "the sun" aka "sol" comes to an end, and that stardust, will, in time, become the foundation for new life to spring forth in a new solar system millions to billions of years in the future." Seriously wow.
Why don't you like cremation? I have left a request to have my ashes spread deep in the woods near fast flowing water. Will I appreciate that? I hope so.
Thanks for listening to the tunes I put together, glad you enjoyed them
That track with the MLK clip was created by my buddy Ryoto. He had some great talent and make a number of lovely instrumental tracks before his life took him in a different direction than music.
Neither? Your poll question presupposes the existence of the body and the separation from One Consciousness it represents. If we're One eternal spiritual being, the division into bodies and 'flesh-encapsulated minds' is a dream of death.
I went back to see if I could create a forth voting option that says "none of the above, I will explain in a comment" but if I do that it would erase the existing votes so unfortunately those who feel as you do will have to just comment here to explain (for this month's poll).
I will try to format future polls better to allow more other perspectives than I came up with to be represented in the poll votes too.
I`ll meditate on and respond to what you have shared as your perspective when I have more time.
For now I am curious to know if you would say that your perspective would align with what some people call "Pantheism" ?
Haha, I don't think you're ever going to design a poll where I'm satisfied just checking a box. I'm too much of a contrarian for that!
I looked up the definition of pantheism. Here are some of the contradictions in it. Logically, time and space can't coexist with eternity and infinity. When it says "since the beginning of time," what came before time? Once you break something up into increments, it has to have a beginning and end. Only something in motion, like the infinity sign or my analogy of a hamster wheel for time, can be without beginning or end.
It talks about the physical universe being God. But then who created God? You're stuck in the same circular reasoning if God created What Is and God Is What Is.
But since it's impossible to comprehend without using time and space as metaphors, let's say that God Consciousness only ever created one thing, which was Us (singular). God was lonely imagining things purely for His Divine Amusement, so he vested His Creativity in a different side of the God Brain, the female side of right-brain intuition. And then We, the Divine Creativity, dreamt things up to thrill and delight God, and He laughed.
But We got the crazy idea We didn't need the Left Side of the God Brain. We could be God by ourSelf! So We imagined up this whole world with no God in it but then got scared and guilty and thought God must be Goddamned Mad at Us and We didn't want to be big and powerful anymore. So we broke ourSelf into seven billion pieces where we could hide from God and pretend we weren't God.
So God gave us the hamster wheel, a little pocket of time where we could work out our little dream. When we stop running and catch our Breath (spirit) we'll step off the wheel and back into the eternity and infinity of Reality, which has no physical beginning and end. And God will Laugh.
I have a few questions to which i would appreciate reading your response.
1) Why do you label yourself a contrarian?
2) Why does God have to be created?
3) Why do you suppose God was lonely or even alone?
4) From your perspective are we "One eternal spiritual being"?
5) Are you saying we are God and that we chose to split into many parts to become the population that has existed on earth?
I appreciate your sharing your perspective and suppositions about God, creation and humanity. From my perspective it seems there is a lot of anthropomorphizing in your paragraphs about God and a theme that has a popular undercurrent heard from many who are religious suppositions in which humanity is the most prominent player of creation.
Hi, Johrey. I was kidding about being a contrarian. I don't actually disagree just to disagree. In this poll, however, Gavin is taking one of the biggest questions pondered by sages for millennia and reducing it to two options with 'I don't know' being the only option left for those who don't choose one of the first two.
These are, obviously, things none of us have the answer to. Everything written about them is speculation. I'm adding my own and I don't expect anyone to agree with it. You clearly have your own suppositions.
Sorry if I didn't make it clear that I was speaking in metaphors. If there's no space and time, certainly God doesn't have a physical brain or body or gender. But there isn't any way we can speak about things that are abstract without comparing them to what we know. If my metaphors don't speak to your intuition about reality, let them go. It's funny that you're calling me religious, though (if that's what you meant.) On my last post I have a long thread with someone accusing me of being an atheist. Again, I wouldn't say I'm either.
Hi Tereza... Thanks for your response to one of my questions. I am grateful. However, i would be interested in hearing your response to the others.
I most certainly did not call YOU religious. I did note that the idea you were using about humans was in line with what many people who are religious believe. I do not enjoy labels but humans seem to stick them on anything.
As with regards God... i do not have any suppositions ( uncertain beliefs). God most certainly does not have anything physical but rather is an energetic being.
It is your choice how you perceive God, or if you do. I am not here to debate God with you, i honor that everyone has their own perspectives, opinions and beliefs. I was merely sharing honestly (bcuz i always prefer honesty) that from my perspective i saw a lot of anthropomorphizing in your paragraphs about God.
I would be most interested in knowing what you feel was a metaphor in your paragraphs and what you really were trying to say by using them.
I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on this.
I am curious, if you believe that our consciousness (everything that makes us who we are as a conscious being) is produced by (and contained within) the biology of the brain, does that mean you feel that humans are capable of developing a technology that could "upload" one's consciousness onto a computer harddrive (allowing one to 'live') forever?
If that is what you believe, I am also curious to ask you, if a technology was marketed that was advertised as being able to "upload your soul/mind" onto a computer (and/or into a synthetic cyborg body of some type) and mainstream science and institutions deemed this process and technology as "safe and effective", would you choose to make use of such a technology?
That is one of the issues with the prominent belief system on Earth which sees consciousness as a byproduct of the brain (and by extension death as final and representing the end of all that one is) it leads to psychopathic and delusional billionaires trying to "conquer death" with their creepy brain chips, A.I. and server farms (and then of course them using a massive propaganda apparatus that is at their disposal to drag a good portion of the population along with them through appealing to their fears and ego).
More on this when I have time to write a post which will be my response to the question posed above.
Thanks again for taking the time to answer and elaborate on your views.
I go with animistic everything is conscious, not just humans. But I disagree with panpsychism (that's just materialists trying to bridge that explanatory gap between meat robots and consciousness)
It is the idea that consciousness is part of the material make up of the universe - so to me, it doesn't go far enough - it doesn't escape beyond the confines of materialism - which if you think about it, materialism largely originate in the European philosophical tradition (this isn't strictly true, in a sense that atheism and materialism have been thought of by various people over the ages for sure, but the current Western-cultural, and thus globally dominant format of materialistic atheism does root there), especially from Enligntenment onwards. Vast majority of humans ever existed (if you think in terms of all humans that have existed 'stoneage' onwards) have leaned towards belief in what we now in our culture call 'paranormal', spirit world (shamanism, animism), etc - so I feel - and this is my personal opinion - who are we to tell all these other humans historically and culturally - that we rooted in the West know better than them? It is like these old style colonial anthropologists, 'studying primitives' and humouring their backward beliefs and ways to figure out how these people ticked - I don't think that's resulted in a particularly positive outcome. I don't personally believe in progressivist enlightenment atheistic materialism, and I feel that panpsychism is deeply embedded and cannot escape that tradition.
I relate it to DNA and epigenetics. The other 20% is epigenetics, so from your own attitude, to external influences, which there are many. If that makes sense? On mob so hard to type with big fingers. ☺️
We are accidental eternal spiritual beings inhabiting human bodies.
Or not.
It's either or.
:)
Thanks for swinging by my friend
In all seriousness though, do you see death as an event that will result in the end of all that makes you, 'you' ? If not how would you describe the aspect that moves beyond the death process intact? Where did that essence originate ? And where will it go after death?
I have no idea and if someone has any way of knowing they haven't shown me. I lean towards reincarnation because in my view it is the most optimistic outlook. What you don't need is an irrational fear of death that can be leveraged to get you to do what others want. I reject philosophies that teach that (for example) if you don't do or believe this thing you will burn in fire for all eternity after you die.
I appreciate your candor.
I used to think that this life was it and that all that we are is housed in the brain but then I was humbled by a few near death experiences that challenged that conventional materialistic viewpoint. After that, I sought to retrace my steps to perceiving that which exists beyond the veil of our 5 senses through meditative practices and was confronted by the reality of the multi-dimensional nature of my own being (catching glimpses from what many would describe as "other lifetimes"). I share your concern about the prevalent (and often weaponized) irrational fear of death and I also reject childish ideas about an angry temper tantruming anthropomorphized toddler Creator that seeks eternal retribution if you do not behave or swear fealty to it's rule.
Thanks for the comment, I hope you have a great weekend involving some fun in the kitchen, time in nature and hopeful moments of peace and clarity.
I don't know what to believe any more. I wouldn't know if there is a god, however you define that, or not, we're pretty amazing creatures. I am a cultural Christian, and so are you from what I know about you. We could use some more Christian morality and I think of Christians as my allies. Except for the ones who say you can't be moral without a fear of God. Maybe it's true for those people.
The way I see it and from what I have experienced, the Creator is, that is fact. However, most of the stories projected onto the Creator by humans through their various religious institutions are skewed to the point where they actually serve the opposite purpose of helping people get closer to perceiving, knowing and aligning their choices with the will of God. The way I see it, and based on what I have sensed, God is not a control freak with human-esk issues, but rather a non-human non-physical yet distinct, whole and complete being which initiates the existence of our souls as an act of love and joy. The Creator then allows us to exercise our own free will, as we learn, grow and evolve as conscious beings with an eternal spirit (being present and responsive in various ways to those who seek guidance and support, but not intrusive nor overriding of our free will, despite the obviously often horrible consequences of our choices as humans).
In other words, all this crazy shit going on on Earth with humans suffering, torturing, murdering each other and choosing to cause mass devastation, that is all our choices, not related to God at all. Fear won't change those choices (at least not in any lasting way) only love, humility, compassion and having the courage to look inward and cultivate Self-awareness can begin to change those things.
I strive to see all beings (human and non-human alike) as allies (even those that plot against me or would seek to harm me) as though they may choose malice or duplicity in their current fear/ego driven state, underneath it all, they carry the same spark within them that exists within me, waiting to be uncovered. For some it will take multiple lifetimes to scrape off all the muck and allow that spark to shine again, but the potential is always there, IMO.
We do have psychopaths, my theory there is that somehow they don't have a soul, but other than that it seems a reasonable hypothesis.
I mean comments... that being said I suppose it's fair to give my own 2 cents.
Having a couple near death experiences I could go either way but mostly I think spirit/soul is a real thing. I sometimes eat ganja chocolate and go to estate sales on Sundays-1/2 price day-and sometimes I can actually vibe on the spirits of the deceased. I KNOW that sounds far out but I can site my experiences and to me they are real and sometimes a bit haunted.
I don't like cremation but I also don't like worms so someone else will have to make peace with whatever happens to my corpse.
Basically I do pray. It brings me peace.
Thanks for taking the time to comment and share your thoughts Alyce.
How about if instead of a traditional burial or cremation, the body was put into a container and inoculated with fungi that would serve to transform those raw materials back into life giving elements to become the foundation for new life to flourish (in a similar way to what the worms would do, just involving non-insect species instead)? Would that be less unsettling?
Personally, I don't really care what happens to this body I am inhabiting after this life is over, well that is, as long as some mad scientists don't get a hold of it and do some weird transhumanist brain upload/cyborg type stuff haha. Whether via worms, other insects, fungi, bacteria or ashes, all paths lead to the material that makes up our bodies becoming food for other beings and becoming part of their physical bodies in the future. This may take hours, years or eons after death occurs, but it is inevitable. Beyond that inevitability is also the path of every atom that makes up our bodies to return to the stardust from once it came (when the lifespan of this solar system we live in comes to an end and this planet and everything on it is recycled into it's constituent atoms by the stellar death cycle). All that makes up our bodies will be returned to stardust when the life of our local star, "the sun" aka "sol" comes to an end, and that stardust, will, in time, become the foundation for new life to spring forth in a new solar system millions to billions of years in the future.
I find the Creator's regenerative cyclical design (whether on the scale of ecosystems on Earth or all the way up to entire star systems) to be quite genius and graceful in the way it transforms death into the potential for new life again.
Ganja chocolate eh? :) Perhaps you would appreciate these past articles I wrote:
- https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/raw-cannabis-in-the-kitchen-the-medicine
- https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/theobroma-cacao-mana-from-the-rain
Thanks again for the comment(s).
Hi. I wake today to your reply and I am grateful. Yes if I must I imagine...that if I could just lay down in the soft green moss in the forest and melt back into the earth I would be in a state of perfection. I will go read your article re. ganja. Your reply has knocked my socks off. "Personally, I don't really care what happens to this body I am inhabiting after this life is over, well that is, as long as some mad scientists don't get a hold of it and do some weird transhumanist brain upload/cyborg type stuff haha. Whether via worms, other insects, fungi, bacteria or ashes, all paths lead to the material that makes up our bodies becoming food for other beings and becoming part of their physical bodies in the future. This may take hours, years or eons after death occurs, but it is inevitable. Beyond that inevitability is also the path of every atom that makes up our bodies to return to the stardust from once it came (when the lifespan of this solar system we live in comes to an end and this planet and everything on it is recycled into it's constituent atoms by the stellar death cycle). All that makes up our bodies will be returned to stardust when the life of our local star, "the sun" aka "sol" comes to an end, and that stardust, will, in time, become the foundation for new life to spring forth in a new solar system millions to billions of years in the future." Seriously wow.
Why don't you like cremation? I have left a request to have my ashes spread deep in the woods near fast flowing water. Will I appreciate that? I hope so.
Cool to hear Martin Luther King! Just hangin out to read the comment. Thanks for the playlists. Cool idea.
Thanks for listening to the tunes I put together, glad you enjoyed them
That track with the MLK clip was created by my buddy Ryoto. He had some great talent and make a number of lovely instrumental tracks before his life took him in a different direction than music.
I like this track too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iUqntnpTTM (there are more of his original solo tracks at that old youtube channel)
and he also teamed up with some buddies in a series they called "HeRajiKa tracks"
Here is a link to a playlist with some of those tunes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP3enD9s-wU&list=OLAK5uy_niaaUgUQe35_DaIjh4VT2RwbHV0Mu5p5U&index=6
Enjoy! :)
Neither? Your poll question presupposes the existence of the body and the separation from One Consciousness it represents. If we're One eternal spiritual being, the division into bodies and 'flesh-encapsulated minds' is a dream of death.
Thanks for taking the time to comment my friend.
I went back to see if I could create a forth voting option that says "none of the above, I will explain in a comment" but if I do that it would erase the existing votes so unfortunately those who feel as you do will have to just comment here to explain (for this month's poll).
I will try to format future polls better to allow more other perspectives than I came up with to be represented in the poll votes too.
I`ll meditate on and respond to what you have shared as your perspective when I have more time.
For now I am curious to know if you would say that your perspective would align with what some people call "Pantheism" ?
Haha, I don't think you're ever going to design a poll where I'm satisfied just checking a box. I'm too much of a contrarian for that!
I looked up the definition of pantheism. Here are some of the contradictions in it. Logically, time and space can't coexist with eternity and infinity. When it says "since the beginning of time," what came before time? Once you break something up into increments, it has to have a beginning and end. Only something in motion, like the infinity sign or my analogy of a hamster wheel for time, can be without beginning or end.
It talks about the physical universe being God. But then who created God? You're stuck in the same circular reasoning if God created What Is and God Is What Is.
But since it's impossible to comprehend without using time and space as metaphors, let's say that God Consciousness only ever created one thing, which was Us (singular). God was lonely imagining things purely for His Divine Amusement, so he vested His Creativity in a different side of the God Brain, the female side of right-brain intuition. And then We, the Divine Creativity, dreamt things up to thrill and delight God, and He laughed.
But We got the crazy idea We didn't need the Left Side of the God Brain. We could be God by ourSelf! So We imagined up this whole world with no God in it but then got scared and guilty and thought God must be Goddamned Mad at Us and We didn't want to be big and powerful anymore. So we broke ourSelf into seven billion pieces where we could hide from God and pretend we weren't God.
So God gave us the hamster wheel, a little pocket of time where we could work out our little dream. When we stop running and catch our Breath (spirit) we'll step off the wheel and back into the eternity and infinity of Reality, which has no physical beginning and end. And God will Laugh.
I have a few questions to which i would appreciate reading your response.
1) Why do you label yourself a contrarian?
2) Why does God have to be created?
3) Why do you suppose God was lonely or even alone?
4) From your perspective are we "One eternal spiritual being"?
5) Are you saying we are God and that we chose to split into many parts to become the population that has existed on earth?
I appreciate your sharing your perspective and suppositions about God, creation and humanity. From my perspective it seems there is a lot of anthropomorphizing in your paragraphs about God and a theme that has a popular undercurrent heard from many who are religious suppositions in which humanity is the most prominent player of creation.
Hi, Johrey. I was kidding about being a contrarian. I don't actually disagree just to disagree. In this poll, however, Gavin is taking one of the biggest questions pondered by sages for millennia and reducing it to two options with 'I don't know' being the only option left for those who don't choose one of the first two.
These are, obviously, things none of us have the answer to. Everything written about them is speculation. I'm adding my own and I don't expect anyone to agree with it. You clearly have your own suppositions.
Sorry if I didn't make it clear that I was speaking in metaphors. If there's no space and time, certainly God doesn't have a physical brain or body or gender. But there isn't any way we can speak about things that are abstract without comparing them to what we know. If my metaphors don't speak to your intuition about reality, let them go. It's funny that you're calling me religious, though (if that's what you meant.) On my last post I have a long thread with someone accusing me of being an atheist. Again, I wouldn't say I'm either.
Hi Tereza... Thanks for your response to one of my questions. I am grateful. However, i would be interested in hearing your response to the others.
I most certainly did not call YOU religious. I did note that the idea you were using about humans was in line with what many people who are religious believe. I do not enjoy labels but humans seem to stick them on anything.
As with regards God... i do not have any suppositions ( uncertain beliefs). God most certainly does not have anything physical but rather is an energetic being.
It is your choice how you perceive God, or if you do. I am not here to debate God with you, i honor that everyone has their own perspectives, opinions and beliefs. I was merely sharing honestly (bcuz i always prefer honesty) that from my perspective i saw a lot of anthropomorphizing in your paragraphs about God.
I would be most interested in knowing what you feel was a metaphor in your paragraphs and what you really were trying to say by using them.
The issue is more a question of whether the egotism of the brain is more dependent on what most people do than anything that comes from outside it.
Thanks for the comment Vonu, your comments are, as always, illusive and offering a lot to unpack/work on interpreting.
I'm going with just the brain.
Because it's so complicated and it commandeers all the body parts at all time.
Instincts in animals and humans also lie in that lump of connectivity.
I think.
I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on this.
I am curious, if you believe that our consciousness (everything that makes us who we are as a conscious being) is produced by (and contained within) the biology of the brain, does that mean you feel that humans are capable of developing a technology that could "upload" one's consciousness onto a computer harddrive (allowing one to 'live') forever?
If that is what you believe, I am also curious to ask you, if a technology was marketed that was advertised as being able to "upload your soul/mind" onto a computer (and/or into a synthetic cyborg body of some type) and mainstream science and institutions deemed this process and technology as "safe and effective", would you choose to make use of such a technology?
Thanks in advance for your time.
Meh, i dont know about all this upload stuff. And who the hell want to live for ever?? Not me. Damn. Haha
I think the brain processes everything and adapts naturally.
Like, if you see your whole family getting blown up. It is not your eyes or your ears that is traumatic for. It's the brain.
And also, if you take up knitting. You do it with your hands but it is the brains that coordinates the hands.
"who the hell want to live for ever??"
Well, people like these:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/08/musk-thiel-zuckerberg-andreessen-alternate-autocratic-reality
and their other plutocratic friends at Blackrock, The Vanguard Group, Statestreet and the B.I.S.
Though they may end up suggesting something like this: https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/03/13/144721/a-startup-is-pitching-a-mind-uploading-service-that-is-100-percent-fatal/ for the everyday followers in their transhumanist cult ( https://www.churchofperpetuallife.org/about )
That is one of the issues with the prominent belief system on Earth which sees consciousness as a byproduct of the brain (and by extension death as final and representing the end of all that one is) it leads to psychopathic and delusional billionaires trying to "conquer death" with their creepy brain chips, A.I. and server farms (and then of course them using a massive propaganda apparatus that is at their disposal to drag a good portion of the population along with them through appealing to their fears and ego).
More on this when I have time to write a post which will be my response to the question posed above.
Thanks again for taking the time to answer and elaborate on your views.
You mentioned connectivity that you didn't include, indicating that the brain is a modem more than a processing center.
I go with animistic everything is conscious, not just humans. But I disagree with panpsychism (that's just materialists trying to bridge that explanatory gap between meat robots and consciousness)
Thanks for taking the time to comment and share your thoughts. I am not familiar with "panpsychism". How would you describe that view point?
It is the idea that consciousness is part of the material make up of the universe - so to me, it doesn't go far enough - it doesn't escape beyond the confines of materialism - which if you think about it, materialism largely originate in the European philosophical tradition (this isn't strictly true, in a sense that atheism and materialism have been thought of by various people over the ages for sure, but the current Western-cultural, and thus globally dominant format of materialistic atheism does root there), especially from Enligntenment onwards. Vast majority of humans ever existed (if you think in terms of all humans that have existed 'stoneage' onwards) have leaned towards belief in what we now in our culture call 'paranormal', spirit world (shamanism, animism), etc - so I feel - and this is my personal opinion - who are we to tell all these other humans historically and culturally - that we rooted in the West know better than them? It is like these old style colonial anthropologists, 'studying primitives' and humouring their backward beliefs and ways to figure out how these people ticked - I don't think that's resulted in a particularly positive outcome. I don't personally believe in progressivist enlightenment atheistic materialism, and I feel that panpsychism is deeply embedded and cannot escape that tradition.
For more detail try:
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/20543665
Also,
https://footnotes2plato.com/2020/10/24/rune-soup-podcast-with-gordon-white-talking-whitehead-plato-panpsychism/
https://runesoup.com/2018/05/talking-animism-and-the-anomalous-dr-jack-hunter/
https://skeptiko.com/bernardo-kastrup-mainstreaming-controversial-philosophy-of-mind-theories-378/
https://skeptiko.com/248-bernardo-kastrup-materialism-is-baloney/
I think our consciousness binds 80% of our holographic crystalline DNA together. :)
Very interesting, thanks for the comment my friend.
What binds the other 20% together?
Mayonnaise.
Real or fake?
I like Hellman's best, but it's made with canola oil, which is rapeseed oil which is poison so then real.
Rapeseed oil becomes canola oil by having its poisonous ingredients reduced in volume.
Rapeseed oil is still used as an industrial lubricant, largely in Canada.
That's good to hear. I don't eat it but I know a lot of people who do and don't listen.
I relate it to DNA and epigenetics. The other 20% is epigenetics, so from your own attitude, to external influences, which there are many. If that makes sense? On mob so hard to type with big fingers. ☺️
In the absence of epigenetics, genetics is academic.