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MrRed

this is just one of my ideas I have about life. There could be many diffrent dimensions..and each time you die you just slip into another dimension.Im not talking about reincarnation..im talking about a completly different world that is nothing like this. Or maybe this life is just preparing us for whatever happens after we die.

Just thing, what if we learned to have TOTAL control over the brain, meaning we could make the brain make certain pain nerves react at will, make tastebuds react at will..and every other sense. You could make the human body think it was walking down a street...getting hit by a car..or swimming simply by controling all the senses..maybe that is what is happening and once we die we just wake up from this dream world and nothing that happened on this world mattered.
I could ramble on about my thoughts forever but I will shut up before someone tells me how obsure my ideas are. Again this isnt my main idea about life...and I don't think I have one that I completly believe..I just wanted to share the wild things that go on in my head with you.

 

CAT33

I do know one thing: No matter what there is or isn't after our demise, God did not intend for us to "suffer our way through life." Anyone who thinks enjoying the victimless pleasures of this life is somehow "bad" (i.e. the government, i.e. religious finatics of all religions, etc)...even though they harm nobody else....is a fool. When they're layin' on their death bed, they'll be regretting every day they wasted that they didn't try to fully enjoy while they had the chance.

MadmanFantasies

Here here for hedonism!

I completely agree. If you constantly try to restrain yourself from pleasure you will simply reach a point in your life were you realize that you've wasted your life listening to some invisible paternal figure from 2 millenia ago... It's no way to live

succubus

These are some cool ideas...i especially agree with the "live life to the fullest," i mean that's just a given, right!?

One of my thoughts on reincarnation (if it does exist) is that, once you die, no matter where you go, what form your soul inhabits, or where fate places you, you have eternal links with specific souls. The people closest to you in this life are the ones who you have encountered over and over again throughout the eons of coming back in different forms. That kind of comforts me- to think that 'soul mates' are always near you, that life ensures you have togetherness with these entities.

I think fate sets it up in a way that the people (souls) who "complete" you, even with the small interactions that may change you somehow, are easily found if you just look. For example if you're in love with someone for the majority of one life, this person's soul has a bond to you and is a soul you have known in many other lives- but inhabiting a different form- maybe not as a love, but as a brother or a mom or dad or a first pet or a best friend or who-ever else may have had importance in your life.

I don't have any definitive opinions on what really happens when you die but this is just a possibility.

__________________
"In the US, you have to be a deviant or die of boredom." -William S. Burroughs

jvthc

I’m new to this section of the forum. If you’ve run across my posts in other areas you know my posts aren’t short, and the deeper the subject, the more I tend to write (take that as a mix of apology and warning). If you’re interested in something a bit unusual on THIS topic, I endeavor to make the read worth your time.

This is a subject on which I’ve devoted considerable thought. I’m not a theologian. By nature I’m a scientist; my beliefs must agree with scientific findings and while I don’t automatically reject Judeo-Christian beliefs, I’m forced to be eclectic about them.

For years I would have said that I don’t believe in God, though I usually chose to avoid the discussion unless it was with someone I considered a close friend. After answering the inevitable question, “Well, what DO you believe in” there was one person that proclaimed to me that I did believe in God, just not the same kind as everyone else she knew. She was the most unlikely source from which to gain new insight, as she was among the least intellectual or philosophical people I’ve ever known. I learned that good ideas can come from anywhere, or anyone.

I don’t believe in the parallel universe theories, or the reincarnation variants (per se), nor do I accept the heaven and hell dogma. All of them seem to have origins in psychological needs. It is apparent that the notion of dying is incompatible with ego and identity, and we all seek to find a solution to ease the burden of loosing ourselves. I don’t deny that my own belief is outside that motivation, but at least I’ve devised one that’s consistent with scientific realities, without creating a soul or a heaven in the process. Still, that one unlikely friend seemed to recognize that what I do believe isn’t entirely inconsistent with these ideas either.

The notion of soul surviving death, or transferring from one life to another, is quite time oriented. Time is not constant, but can be stretched as a consequence of mass and velocity. The soul’s involvement with time and matter would suggest it would have physical properties as well. In many discussions and writings about the soul, authors invoke the notion of energy, which would qualify, but then there’s a requirement that something contain, control or conduct that energy to keep the structure intact. If not, it would stream away, much as light or radiation does. Much could be argued about how the soul might be bound to the 4th dimension, or others. Still, this requires so much conjecture that it breaches into the realm of fantasy. To most theologians, “Them’s fightin words.” I certainly don’t hope to start a fight.

Instead, I look first to eternity. This is an infinity in all math associated with physics and cosmology. It is in this intrinsic infinity that I begin my own belief. I must accept a few postulates that are outside the realm of cosmology and physics, but only a little. Namely, that the universe as we recognize it is as much a process as a thing, and that process has a point of origin, and a likely destination of conclusion. Eternity would most certainly exceed that boundary, and so most everyone asks, “Well, what happened before the beginning of the universe?”

Typically, physics has dubbed this “undefined” since there’s no math or theory which adequately explains what could have happened. Cosmology must leap into conjecture, though an educated one, and suggest all manner of possibilities, most of which settle upon the notion that there is an eternal repetition of creation and destruction. A recent set of studies indicated that the expansion of the universe will likely continue without end, and eventually reach a point where the distance between the nuclease of an atom and any electron spinning around it would be wider than the limits of the known universe (that is, a single atom larger than all galaxies combined). In such a state, there are similar infinities that leave the physics either undefined or particularly foreign to lead us into any understanding. The opposite theory (of which there are many) proposed that the universe would condense into a big crunch, quite the reverse of the big bang.

Herein I insert some conjecture, but I submit these are less invention than that of a soul, heaven or God. First, even the approximate 15 billion years of age of our universe is but a flash of an instant when compared to the extent of eternity. Like Hawking, I suspect (and accept by belief) that it would be most unique in that infinite expanse of time, and therefore difficult to accept, that this creation and subsequent destruction is an isolated event in an otherwise quiet eternity. No, this isn’t a unique event. Without proof or much of a complete theory, I believe it can only be one of an infinite number of recurrences.

We’re still not sure of the demise, but we are fairly certain about the beginning. Hawking previously posed the two disparate concluding notions, the big crunch and the long fade out, but I propose either would do. In the case of the big crunch, everything looks just like the big bang, and Hawkings great mathematical efforts demonstrate that the crunch leads into a new big bang. Otherwise, the big fade would seem to return the universe to a quiet state, which likely brings about a condition where forces which are now interrupted by matter are left at a tenuous balance, and after a moment, burst into creation again.

In either case, it is from the big bang forward that we view the universe, and from which I draw inspiration. As Hawkings illustrated, that moment is akin to an instant where every particle in the universe has 100% potential, but as of yet, 0% expression. Once the big bang unfolds, each particle traces out a history. These particles are the various quarks which form the structure of matter and energy. As they follow along a path of interactions, they eventually give rise to our life, at least today they do.

Now, think of the infinite repetition of this cycle, most specifically from the point of the big bang forward, without concern for answering the puzzle as to how things conclude in each cycle. At the point of creation, anything is possible, but nothing has occurred. Every possibility exists at that moment. It is in this moment that the concept of parallel universes may develop, but not so that they coexist in the same frame of time. Instead, each one has its own frame of time.

That is, if you could look over eternity, and witness every possible outcome from the big bang, you would witness every possible outcome. This is as close to a God like viewpoint as I can imagine; all knowing, present everywhere. Several paradoxes emerge. For one, the need for creation doesn’t exist. Every possible creation is contained within. No need to fuss with details, because every detail is expressed.

The size of this matrix (no pun about the movie intended) is beyond huge. There is possibly a finite quantity involved, but that is by no means certain. However, if you assume there is a range of quantity involved, then there are only so many particles involved, and therefore only so many histories; a finite quantity expressed in every possible permutation and combination, which can only be expressed over eternity.

From a truly eternal viewpoint (quite a non-scientific concept, I agree), each cycle of the universe is but a tick on a clock, and every outcome is visible at once. That is, only if, from the viewpoint of God (which I’ll invoke as an imaginary viewpoint, but agree He just might exist), all possible universes are visible at once – not played out over time as we see from “inside” a single event. They exist and have form for all time.

Even from the notion that they repeat we regain this viewpoint. Think of it this way, it IS possible that a future cycle of the universe will unfold precisely as OURS has. Not likely, and not frequently, but possible. Now, mix in the infinity. Over eternity, every possibility will occur. Not might, will occur. Eternity is so very long by comparison to the age and length of time the universe might exist, that even with an incomprehensible number of repetitions, the possibility can’t be denied within the expanse of eternity. This universe will repeat, if only because it was possible to occur once at all, there’s nothing to deny it existence once again.

Further, from God’s viewpoint, that repetition might as well never end. If it can repeat even once, and the cycle never ends, it will repeat an infinite number of times. In both directions, into the past and on into the future, the repetition is universally possible, and therefore the number of repetitions are infinite.

Zoom out again – since eternity is infinite, God’s view would then see that this universe, as we have known it, never ceases to exist. There may be interludes between various cycles where it doesn’t, but here and there, speckled throughout the unending expanse of time, its repetition is infinite.

Now, enter yet another bit of conjecture. There is every possibility that the universe may exist, exactly as it has to this point, and yet has an infinite (or at least a huge number) of possible futures from here forward. This tells us that it’s possible, and therefore unavoidable in the expanse of eternity, that every possible permutation and combination of every history of every cycle of the universe is expressed. That is, your life to this point has every possible future. Here again, we see the emergence of parallel universes, but not all at the same time frame, each one after the other.

From our viewpoint, there would be incomprehensible delays between our life now, and our life repeated. Fortunately, we are spared waiting around. We have the fortune of experiencing it anew each time, and in every permutation the universe can express. Some of those possibilities might be horrible, others may be fantastic.

Now, zoom out again. All of this construct has the paradox of being quite unique in each particle and each moment of time, and yet is all one thing. From God’s viewpoint, there is nothing unique; it’s entirely homogenous, smooth and indistinct. From our viewpoint, each particle is separate, bumpy and unique.

Zoom way in, and look underneath. Whatever it is that gives rise to our life has been here all along. It’s the same in each of us, and while it’s unique from our viewpoint, it’s a single point of origin from the God’s viewpoint. In one sense, we are ourselves; the center of our universe. The beginning of our life is, to us, the beginning of time, and our end is time’s end. Our experience after life is probably just the same as our experience before our life; painless, oblivious and peaceful. And, too, like the universe itself, if we trace through time stretching backward into history, before the current cycle, and into the most recent repetition of this universe, we run into the end of our life going backwards. Running forwards, we pass our birth, pass our death, and meet up again with our childhood.

This invokes the notion of reincarnation on two levels. First, we, as ourselves, never cease to exist because we share the durability of the universe, and of God himself. Second, we are not the unique entity we perceive, but an emergent property of the universe in action. We are God living out each separate existence, even in each unique particle. If you prefer, one could see that as OUR opportunity to live every life. This invokes a few famous and celebrated theological themes;

- Whatever you do to the least of these, you do also to me.
- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
- All things shall come to pass.

And countless others from all forms of belief that reach for the immortal, infinite and wise image of God they embrace.

So, if you want to know where you go when you die, like around you – you are probably already there. If you want to discover what life you’ve lead in a previous body, look to history; every life has probably been yours at least once. As to your future, look to the galaxies; you will probably enjoy a stay as an alien, as a pet or an exploding star spraying nebula for the next generation of planets to yield life.

__________________
Imagination is more important than knowledge - Sounds like BS, until you realize Einstein said that.

 

succubus

Hmmm...i'm a little too stupid to understand that in all it's depth (let alone half the words in it), but i do agree with you on one thing-that all religion, mythology, folklore is created out of a human desire to justify their own existence/death/etc. All recorded religion was recorded by...man. So yes, my beliefs too serve to rationalize my existence or make me feel better about my place and future in the universe.

The Hoon Warrior

That was probably one of the best articulated thoughts on the subject that i have ever heard (read).

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My 2 cents:

since time is relative, eternal life, as it were, could be this life, for if "you" cease to be there is no time, no life, so the eternal life that is spoken of in religion could be a reference to this life, in the Bible the Garden of Eden was on Earth. Since man wrote the Bible and translated it numerous times, there have been a lot of places for the message to get edited by the new author/translator, What if we are still in the Garden of Eden, Christianity's paradise, living eternally right now? I realise that this world isnt paradise, but to experience and understand pleasure and happiness, you must at least be aware of unhappiness and displeasure otherwise you would not understand pleasure and happiness (a yin-yang thing), so maybe we are in the paradise living eternally right now, and there is no more for our "soul" after this.


That train of thought would beg the live life to the fullest philospohy.

anyway, I enjoyed your post jvthc

sorry about the scatterdness of thought in this post.

peace

masterg

Interesting idea, no doubt, but what logic do you have to suggest it actually could hold true?

Zero

I just want to say, jvthc, that was a great post. I really liked your viewpoint and I enjoyed reading it. I've never really thought about it that way as in depth as you because I always confuse myself, but you presented it well.

__________________
"All of your life, all your memories
Go to your dreams, forget it all"

zoltron

You make a good point, jv, and I go along with the part about if
"you" could use the whole brain, instead of the, what, 10%(?) we
use now...in Albert Brooks' movie "Defending Your Life", after a
person died, they ended up in Judgment City where depending
on how good of a life you led determined the percentage of your
brain you could use...it was a very interesting thought...and if
your life on earth was filled with spite & dishonesty, you had to
repeat it until you got it right...now that would be terrible because
contrary to a lot of people, I'm really not that afraid of kickin'...I
figure my mom & dad are in Heaven and am looking forward to
being with them again and eventually all the people that are close
to me will be in Heaven together...plus just think of the concerts
that will be up there: Jimi, Janice, Jim, Keith Moon on drums and
throw in Muddy & John Lee and you talk about one hell of a jam!
We all be rockin' Heaven until 7:00!!