Mind Expansion 101

Thanks for the recap, D.

I do have comments.

See...in your claim that insanity/dreams/drunkedness are states of a different consciousness from the traditional awake, sane, sober state: That's cool..I'll go with that for now.

BUT...

This is a lot like someone who believes you have past lives. To those who believe this I ask: "What were you in your past life, exactly?". Even if they answer something like, a dog or a tree.. Do you remember experiences during this past life. Most likely the answer is "No". What good is it then? If you cannot recall anything or if it doesn't apply to you in this current consciousness..it may as well be someone else. I want to be able to enjoy any experience in this conscious state..otherwise to me it's no good. It may as well have happened to someone else entirely. If you black out from too much alcohol/drugs and the next day you wake up and your buddies tell you that you hooked up with the best looking girl in a party but you don't recall a thing..it may as well have happened to your buddy because this current fellow has no recollection. Same with an afterlife where you are in on such "different conscious state". If there is basically no link between your current conscious...not even sharing a body at this point, then what's the use?

I know you're not argueing this point..but rather simply the existence of this consciousness and how it is preserved. It's like in "what the bleep"..what is a "thought", really? What's it made of. It's an idea we cannot scientifically identify, we have these theories that they are not quite a matter of matter, but something that kinda exists in the way we percieve them, but maybe there are these parallel universes in some ways related...do you recall that part?

And tell me again, what was that other movie you recommended..something about waking up??

Let me know.

Freddie

Chlor: You are correct that you missed something earlier. It is indeed worthless to speculate about an intangible soul, and all my arguments thus far have stayed strictly scientific and biological (in terms of consciousness that is.)

So then, how does one argue on a strictly biological basis that consciousness may outlast physical function? That, my friend, is where Einstein comes in. (Yes!) My theory - um... I just realized that I posted this all before (page 1) so if you don't mind I'll just quote from there:

Quote:

---

You talk about spirit being seperate from biology. I tend to disagree with this notion. However, I do believe that a certain part of us "goes on" after death. How is this possible without an intangible soul, you ask? I'll tell you.

Think about time for a moment. Einsteinian physics are all well and good, but don't forget that our concept of time is without a doubt a product of our biology, of our brains in particular. So, imagine if death were some sort of lapse into infinite time? A personal infinite. Or to be modern, a relative infinite time. This would mean that the world we left would go on, and we would shrivel and make dust, but that moment would live on forever because we perceived it too.

---

Nomas: It's possible that you are right, and the experiences you had during drugs, dreams, and mental illness are worthless if you cannot remember them. But let's say you lived an entire year, and then forgot everything about it. You still would have existed during that year, and for all you know it may have affected the person you are now, even if it cannot be recalled.

Of course, this is a somewhat different subject. Death probably is a great forgetting, but I don't think it's nearly "the end."

EDIT: Oh, and the movie is "Waking Life." Definitely give it a try.