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I think it polarizing for irrational people on both sides.
People in the middle understand that people's traits repeat. Especially in the same family. If a brain state has parts that are in the configuration of a brain state in the past, it will be very close to the same type of person.
I don;t do the soul thing.
My view on reincarnation is that it is somewhat irrelevant for me. I neither fear it nor dismiss it, it is just not very relevant. I look at it as wishful thinking - in my next life ... kind of thing.
The purpose of life per Hinduism any way is NOT rebirth, punarjanma, it is to to cease the cycle of birth and death. Theoretically one needs to be completely free of karma - good and bad - to be rebirth free. In a practical sense what is emphasized is living a life mindfully per the four stages of life, to be free of attachments that only cause misery, causing no harm, showing kindness and generosity of spirit, and having a positive outlook in general.
My view on reincarnation is that it is somewhat irrelevant for me. I neither fear it nor dismiss it, it is just not very relevant. I look at it as wishful thinking - in my next life ... kind of thing.
The purpose of life per Hinduism any way is NOT rebirth, punarjanma, it is to to cease the cycle of birth and death. Theoretically one needs to be completely free of karma - good and bad - to be rebirth free. In a practical sense what is emphasized is living a life mindfully per the four stages of life, to be free of attachments that only cause misery, causing no harm, showing kindness and generosity of spirit, and having a positive outlook in general.
"Theoretically one needs to be completely free of karma - good and bad - to be rebirth free."
Name one thing that has a beginning/origin that does not have an end. Your over-the-top annoyance and abuse over this simple concept only reveals how aware you are about your mistaken premise. Come into the light and be peaceful.
Is God eternal?
Now you want to use the evidence of our Reality to refute my use of eternal to include something with a beginning but is unending. Yet you ignore the equally true fact that there is NOTHING that is "timeless" or "unchanging" in our Reality either, but that seems okay to you as a premise. I do not have any over-the-top annoyance and my expressions of disagreement are not abuse.
I just recognize the ancient definitions as irrational, illogical, and completely inconsistent with ANY evidence from our discovered and experienced Reality. Much as you want to imagine timelessness and unchanging as attributes of God, there is NO evidence or even an inkling that it makes any sense whatsoever. I realize the very human desire to see God as "worthy" of being God by possessing extraordinary attributes such as the Omni's, etc. But I see no actual reason to presume any of it.
My view on reincarnation is that it is somewhat irrelevant for me. I neither fear it nor dismiss it, it is just not very relevant. I look at it as wishful thinking - in my next life ... kind of thing.
The purpose of life per Hinduism any way is NOT rebirth, punarjanma, it is to to cease the cycle of birth and death. Theoretically one needs to be completely free of karma - good and bad - to be rebirth free. In a practical sense what is emphasized is living a life mindfully per the four stages of life, to be free of attachments that only cause misery, causing no harm, showing kindness and generosity of spirit, and having a positive outlook in general.
I am ok with irrelevant to me. I would change "fear" nor dismiss it to see no hard data for it nor do I dismiss it.
People repeat.
That's the best base line we have to build a belief from.
Unless of course some one is willing to tell me people don't look like they repeat. I leave out the word "exactly" because its just more sensible.
Now you want to use the evidence of our Reality to refute my use of eternal to include something with a beginning but is unending. Yet you ignore the equally true fact that there is NOTHING that is "timeless" or "unchanging" in our Reality either, but that seems okay to you as a premise. I do not have any over-the-top annoyance and my expressions of disagreement are not abuse.
I just recognize the ancient definitions as irrational, illogical, and completely inconsistent with ANY evidence from our discovered and experienced Reality. Much as you want to imagine timelessness and unchanging as attributes of God, there is NO evidence or even an inkling that it makes any sense whatsoever. I realize the very human desire to see God as "worthy" of being God by possessing extraordinary attributes such as the Omni's, etc. But I see no actual reason to presume any of it.
There is nothing that in unchanging in our reality? What about that awareness that you have grown old? That you cannot run down that hiking trail so fast, you knee may give out? What knows that you dont know Sanskrit? What is it that has stayed the same within all through the years? That is your self, not the body that is losing its youth and vigor, but the unchanging seer that you cannot see. That is the same substance that is Cosmic Consciousness, Brhman. You are incarnated in a perishable body, but you are not the body, you are the unperishable, unending consciousness.
Now you want to use the evidence of our Reality to refute my use of eternal to include something with a beginning but is unending. Yet you ignore the equally true fact that there is NOTHING that is "timeless" or "unchanging" in our Reality either, but that seems okay to you as a premise. I do not have any over-the-top annoyance and my expressions of disagreement are not abuse.
I just recognize the ancient definitions as irrational, illogical, and completely inconsistent with ANY evidence from our discovered and experienced Reality. Much as you want to imagine timelessness and unchanging as attributes of God, there is NO evidence or even an inkling that it makes any sense whatsoever. I realize the very human desire to see God as "worthy" of being God by possessing extraordinary attributes such as the Omni's, etc. But I see no actual reason to presume any of it.
Bold above is simply not true. There is ample evidence in the scientific literature and it is completely consistent with reality. So the statements in bold above are inaccurate. Because currently in physics, science and scientists more and more are actively recognizing, and addressing how time is an illusion, and they are "giving up the notion of time." That is very much alive in modern physics today. Science is confirming as OBSERVABLE that time is an illusion. That "the fundamental description of the universe must be timeless."
Interesting because "without time" "timeless" "no time" is a common element in many paths of religion and spirituality. to put it another way, this is an example of science and scientists catching up to what sages have recognized all along for the past tens of thousands of years. So if you are labeling that as "irrational, illogical, inconsistent with any evidence, nothing is timeless" well you are at odds with the modern physics of today.
"According to theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli, time is an illusion: our naive perception of its flow doesn’t correspond to physical reality. Indeed, as Rovelli argues in The Order of Time, much more is illusory, including Isaac Newton’s picture of a universally ticking clock. Even Albert Einstein’s relativistic space-time — an elastic manifold that contorts so that local times differ depending on one’s relative speed or proximity to a mass — is just an effective simplification."
"Efforts to understand time below the Planck scale have led to an exceedingly strange juncture in physics. The problem, in brief, is that time may not exist at the most fundamental level of physical reality. “The meaning of time has become terribly problematic in contemporary physics,” says Simon Saunders, University of Oxford. The trouble with time started a century ago, when Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity demolished the idea of time as a universal constant. One consequence is that the past, present, and future are not absolutes. Einstein’s theories also opened a rift in physics because the rules of general relativity (large-scale structure of the cosmos) seem incompatible with those of quantum physics (realm of the tiny). Some four decades ago, the renowned physicist John Wheeler, at Princeton, and Bryce DeWitt, University of North Carolina, developed an extraordinary equation that provides a possible framework for unifying relativity and quantum mechanics. But the Wheeler-DeWitt equation adds a baffling twist to our understanding of time.
“One finds that time just disappears from the Wheeler-DeWitt equation,” says Carlo Rovelli, a physicist at the University of the Mediterranean in Marseille, France. “It is an issue that many theorists have puzzled about. It may be that the best way to think about quantum reality is to give up the notion of time — that the fundamental description of the universe must be timeless.”
A sizable minority of physicists believe that any successful merger of the two great masterpieces of 20th-century physics will inevitably describe a universe in which, ultimately, there is no time. The possibility that time may not exist is known among physicists as the “problem of time.” It may be the biggest, but it is far from the only temporal conundrum. Vying for second place is this strange fact: The laws of physics don’t explain why time always points to the future. All the laws—whether Newton’s, Einstein’s, or the quirky quantum rules — would work equally well if time ran backward. “It’s quite mysterious,” says Seth Lloyd, a quantum mechanical engineer at MIT.
Einstein wrote in 1955: "People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
Bold above is simply not true. There is ample evidence in the scientific literature and it is completely consistent with reality. So the statements in bold above are inaccurate. Because currently in physics, science and scientists more and more are actively recognizing, and addressing how time is an illusion, and they are "giving up the notion of time." That is very much alive in modern physics today. Science is confirming as OBSERVABLE that time is an illusion. That "the fundamental description of the universe must be timeless."
Interesting because "without time" "timeless" "no time" is a common element in many paths of religion and spirituality. to put it another way, this is an example of science and scientists catching up to what sages have recognized all along for the past tens of thousands of years. So if you are labeling that as "irrational, illogical, inconsistent with any evidence, nothing is timeless" well you are at odds with the modern physics of today.
"According to theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli, time is an illusion: our naive perception of its flow doesn’t correspond to physical reality. Indeed, as Rovelli argues in The Order of Time, much more is illusory, including Isaac Newton’s picture of a universally ticking clock. Even Albert Einstein’s relativistic space-time — an elastic manifold that contorts so that local times differ depending on one’s relative speed or proximity to a mass — is just an effective simplification."
"Efforts to understand time below the Planck scale have led to an exceedingly strange juncture in physics. The problem, in brief, is that time may not exist at the most fundamental level of physical reality. “The meaning of time has become terribly problematic in contemporary physics,” says Simon Saunders, University of Oxford. The trouble with time started a century ago, when Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity demolished the idea of time as a universal constant. One consequence is that the past, present, and future are not absolutes. Einstein’s theories also opened a rift in physics because the rules of general relativity (large-scale structure of the cosmos) seem incompatible with those of quantum physics (realm of the tiny). Some four decades ago, the renowned physicist John Wheeler, at Princeton, and Bryce DeWitt, University of North Carolina, developed an extraordinary equation that provides a possible framework for unifying relativity and quantum mechanics. But the Wheeler-DeWitt equation adds a baffling twist to our understanding of time.
“One finds that time just disappears from the Wheeler-DeWitt equation,” says Carlo Rovelli, a physicist at the University of the Mediterranean in Marseille, France. “It is an issue that many theorists have puzzled about. It may be that the best way to think about quantum reality is to give up the notion of time — that the fundamental description of the universe must be timeless.”
A sizable minority of physicists believe that any successful merger of the two great masterpieces of 20th-century physics will inevitably describe a universe in which, ultimately, there is no time. The possibility that time may not exist is known among physicists as the “problem of time.” It may be the biggest, but it is far from the only temporal conundrum. Vying for second place is this strange fact: The laws of physics don’t explain why time always points to the future. All the laws—whether Newton’s, Einstein’s, or the quirky quantum rules — would work equally well if time ran backward. “It’s quite mysterious,” says Seth Lloyd, a quantum mechanical engineer at MIT.
Einstein wrote in 1955: "People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
I Hope the lurkers will search your information, Tzaph, but I am more than familiar with it. I have explained WHY time is an illusion as we experience it and measure it. That does not mean that the SOURCE of the "creative advance" that our measured time is derived from is illusory. It seems the illusion that our consciousness is instantaneous and unrelated to the activity in the brain necessary to experience it is widespread. But there is nothing instantaneous, period, our tendency to consider our consciousness instantaneous notwithstanding. If you still do not understand the difference between what we call time and the "creative advance" that is its source, read Alfred North Whitehead.
For an analogy of the issue this presents to our use and perception of time. our consciousness is like a video camera on the moon during the quantum time (creative advance) recording our bringing that very video camera to the moon. What is confusing is that we experience it as our current Reality (as playback) in our experienced and measured time. If this is not comprehensible consider it the reason we will never agree about consciousness.
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