Is the Survival of the Self or Ego an Important Facet of your Afterlife?

[LuisDantas]

Not to sound emo, but I find life to be a burden because it is what allows the existence of burdens. With that, I'd prefer the self to not survive, but I know that is impossible.

According to your faith, I assume?

 

[CynthiaCypher]

Including mine... it just turns out that it does not involve an afterlife as such, or keeping or recreating my ego or consciousness.

In my beliefs, reincarnation and the like does not necessarily mean you grow any further with each life but you just become more deeply mired in self, you develop crust after crust of self and that just keeps you chained here. So no, I don't want the recreating of my ego.

 

[George-ananda]

In my beliefs, reincarnation and the like does not necessarily mean you grow any further with each life but you just become more deeply mired in self, you develop crust after crust of self and that just keeps you chained here. So no, I don't want the recreating of my ego.

I think the process of reincarnation is to remove the crust through gained soul wisdom. Old souls are less concerned with 'crusty' things and more concerned with their Source and love..

 

[TheGunShoj]

Not at all.

I do not believe in any form of after life or reincarnation. I have no reason to think that after my brain is dead that I will continue to exist elsewhere. This idea does not bother me as I had been in a state of non existence for many years before I was born and was not inconvenienced by it.

If I did manage to transfer into some other form like some of you are suggesting, and I did not retain my personality, then I wouldn't be me. So what's what point of that? I'm me but I'm not me.

 

[Straw Dog]

How important is it to you for your ego and self to survive death and enjoy an afterlife?

Not at all. It would be so redundant.

Life is just a form with parts because we perceive it as such. Really, there are only particles/waves or vibrating strings with no composition. I am neither the whole form or the parts. Upon death, this form will break down into what we would perceive as more 'parts'. These parts will continue to transform and be transformed. Total annihilation will take place over billions of years after no more work can be accomplished.

 

[Runewolf1973]

What is the point to anything? What is the point of this universe even existing in the first place? It just does. Matter continually changes form, but the information it picks up or collects along the way is never destroyed. I may not be the same person or have the same personality as I did in a previous life, but does it really matter? When you think about it, we are not the same person now as we were even just 15 minutes ago.

 

[Runewolf1973]

For us to be existing now means we were never a "nothingness", we were always a something and we will always be a something. If I were to become a tree or a rock in the next life, that would suit me just fine, but I will never be a nothing. It is physically impossible to destroy me, I can only be changed. The matter which makes up me and allows me to be in this conscious state now has never experienced such thing as non-existence.


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[George-ananda]

Matter continually changes form, but the information it picks up or collects along the way is never destroyed.

I guess I don't see this at all. What does that mean? How can matter pick up information?

 

[CynthiaCypher]

I guess I don't see this at all. What does that mean? How can matter pick up information?

Same way your brains cell retain information.

 

[George-ananda]

Same way your brains cell retain information.

But only while the cells are alive....right?

And even that requires this mysterious thing called consciousness.

 

[Runewolf1973]

Exactly what Cynthia said... How do you think we pick up any information?

 

[CynthiaCypher]

Exactly what Cynthia said... How do you think we pick up any information?

And what are our brains cells made out of? Protein molecules. And what are those molecules made of? Atoms and electrons. So just maybe those molecules and those electrons and atoms are retaining information.

 

[Runewolf1973]

But only while the cells are alive....right?

And even that requires this mysterious thing called consciousness.

Matter does not need to be conscious to pick up or retain information. Even when you do something so mundane as stretching a rubber band, the information is there in the form of stored energy which allows it to spring back to it's original position. I know this may sound silly, but think "memory foam". Matter retains information.

 

[George-ananda]

So just maybe those molecules and those electrons and atoms are retaining information.

OK......but that was what I said I couldn't understand. They have no capacity that I can imagine for memory.

 

[Runewolf1973]

And what are our brains cells made out of? Protein molecules. And what are those molecules made of? Atoms and electrons. So just maybe those molecules and those electrons and atoms are retaining information.

Exactly. I agree.

 

[CynthiaCypher]

Matter retains information.

Because all matter is information. Information being the fundamental building block of everything. That's all this universe is. Bundles and bundles of information all clustered together.

 

[Sunstone]

I think Jiddu Krishnamurti was most likely right: Nothing remains.

 

[George-ananda]

Matter does not need to be conscious to pick up or retain information. Even when you do something so mundane as stretching a rubber band, the information is there in the form of stored energy which allows it to spring back to it's original position. I know this may sound silly, but think "memory foam". Matter retains information.

The complex structure of many zillions of molecules can have temporary memory. But when the structure breaks down, the individual molecules have no memory as I see it.

I hate to be a pain.

 

[Runewolf1973]

OK......but that was what I said I couldn't understand. They have no capacity that I can imagine for memory.

That is why I brought up my own theory earlier... matter retains information because of that attracting force we call gravity. We remember things because gravity binds or holds that information to the very atoms or electrons which make up our bodies. If there were no attracting, binding force, then we would not be able to recieve signals, nor would we be able to retain the information those signals carried.

 

[Runewolf1973]

Because all matter is information. Information being the fundamental building block of everything. That's all this universe is. Bundles and bundles of information all clustered together.

Indeed.