Article "The Schopenhauerian Mind" (book review)

[Secular Sanity]

We never realize eternity. Like most dreams, once we leave them they are soon forgotten. The same would be true of a past life. If your memory is effectively reset, everything is new all over again... every time.

Is that something that you really believe?

If we live multiple lives, yes.

Born to another couple? Same DNA as before?

[Syne]

If we live multiple lives, yes.

Born to another couple? Same DNA as before?

Of course not. Why would you need the same DNA in a different life?

[Secular Sanity]

If we live multiple lives, yes.

Born to another couple? Same DNA as before?

Of course not. Why would you need the same DNA in a different life?

To be me.

[Magical Realist]

Even in the context of some generic subjectivity that we either dissolve back into or are just a local component and instance of... It's not a continuance of this particular personal identity if the latter's memories are not retained. I mean, it's still equivalent to "absence of everything" after death for Jane Doe once the stored and utilized information constituting Jane Doe ceases, even if there is some grand manifestation behind the universe which persists that is inclusive of all specific or discrete manifestations of images, sounds, feelings, etc affiliated with a multitude of short-lived biological bodies. One "light" in the Overarching Experience just winked out in the collective, even if the others remain.

Which is to say, one really does need a simulation-like scenario where information about the life of _X_ digital person is retained, and then resurrected in a new body in either a similarly simulated afterlife or at the prior-in-rank stratum itself that makes the simulations possible. Reincarnation could even be possible in that scenario, too, but memories of all the former identities must be accessible during an "in-between" phase so that there can be any shared sense of it being the same infomorph persisting. Otherwise, it just becomes akin to the situation above -- where former identities like Lucy Lute and Timmy Trott and Drew Dinx are gone for good (at least in a presentism conception of time, not the eternalism view).

Interesting thesis on "generic subjectivity"..I quote from that article:

"To identify ourselves with generic subjectivity is perhaps as far as the naturalistic materialist can go towards accepting some sort of immortality. It isn't conventional immortality (not even as good as living in others' memory, some might think), since there is no "one" who survives, just the persistence of subjectivity for itself. It might be objected that in countering the myth of positive nothingness I go too far in claiming some sort of positive connection between subjectivities, albeit a connection that doesn't preserve the individual. I might be construed as saying, to borrow the language of a different tradition, that an eternal Subject exists, ever-present in all contexts of experience. I wouldn't endorse such a construal since it posits an entity above and beyond specific consciousnesses for which there is no evidence; nevertheless such language captures something of the feel for subjectivity and death I want to convey.

It is possible that this view may make it easier to cope with the prospect of personal extinction, since, if we accept it, we can no longer anticipate being hurled into oblivion, to face the eternal blackness that so unsettled Burgess (and, I suspect, secretly bedevils many atheists and agnostics). We may wear our personalities more lightly, seeing ourselves as simply variations on a theme of subjectivity which is in no danger of being extinguished by our passing. Of course we cannot completely put aside our biologically given aversion to the prospect of death, but we can ask, at its approach, why we are so attached to this context of consciousness. Why, if experience continues anyway, is it so terribly important that it continue within this set of personal characteristics, memories, and body? If we are no longer haunted by nothingness, then dying may seem more like the radical refreshment of subjectivity than its extinction."
https://www.naturalism.org/philosophy/de...bjectivity
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The article makes a crucial distinction between our individual identity as such and such objective person/body that has a specific history and memories of past events and the subjectivity of experience itself. He hesitates positing this "subject" as an entity in itself that transcends spacetime and experiences all past and future lives of ourselves as one "eternalist" unifying consciousness. But from my own research the existence of such a higher Subject aligns well with various spiritualities such Jung's Higher Self, paranormalism, Sufism, Buddhism, and the Hindu idea of the atman or soul. It appears to me to follow quite logically that if there is subjectivity after death that is defined by its continuity of experience instead of any objective identity as a particular person then it really would be beyond spacetime and so connected to all lives we live at once. Think of all our various incarnations arranged in a circle that are all equally connected to the center.
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"In Hinduism, the one true reality is called brahman, with anything else being labeled maya, which literally means “play” and is related to the word for “magic”; it is that which is not “really real.” Anything that we think about or experience rationally is maya. This includes all physical objects, including our bodies, along with our feelings and emotions.

Inside everything, including the human soul, there is a reality that is not maya, which is called atman, sometimes translated as “true self” or “inner self.” The atman is eternal and is itself the core essence of each individual, the personality. Hinduism teaches that where the atman or true self resides, there is God. The atman provides humans with their consciousness and gives them divine qualities. According to Hinduism, “The Supreme Lord is situated in everyone’s heart . . . and is directing the wanderings of all living entities, who are seated as on a machine, made of the material energy” (Bhagavad Gita, 18.61).

Atman is identical with brahman; both are true reality. The key to Hindu thought is to transcend the world of maya/experience and uncover one’s identity with the atman or brahman. This is done from separating oneself from the world and living a life of deep contemplation. Only in quietude and the cessation of all sensory activity and thought processes can one realize his oneness with the atman.

In Hindu philosophy, the atman is contrasted with the ego. The ego is a “false center” of self, the product of sensory experiences, accumulated memories, and personal thoughts. The ego is the feeling of “separateness” or limitation, that is, the sense that we are distinct from other beings. Thinking in terms of “me” and “you,” rather than acknowledging that all entities are eternal and undivided, is an example of the ignorance of the ego. The atman is reality; the ego is illusion. The atman is permanence; the ego is transience. The atman is blessedness; the ego is suffering. The ego must be rescued by the indwelling atman.

If oneness with the atman is accomplished in life, then at death the atman or brahman reality is fully recovered, the cycle of reincarnation is broken, and the soul reenters brahman as a drop of water returns to the ocean. At that point, nirvana, a state of supreme bliss, has been realized."--- https://www.gotquestions.org/atman-hinduism.html

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The lessons learned are retained without the lessons themselves remembered. It's like finding inspiration from a dream you don't remember. You retain the "feel" or the moment of inspiration/idea, but without any of the context. Or like knowing how to add without remembering exactly how you learned to.

VERY illuminating distinction! The idea that it is not about our literal memories themselves and our reflection upon them but about the soulful enlargement of our being thru the unconscious lessons of those past experiences.

[Secular Sanity]

Wow! You guys are killing me. 

If you want some of your energy to last for generations, I’d suggest natural decomposition.

[Syne]

Of course not. Why would you need the same DNA in a different life?

To be me.

Oh, you're just a body. Okay.

[Secular Sanity]

Of course not. Why would you need the same DNA in a different life?

To be me.

Oh, you're just a body. Okay.

Yeah, everything that I experience as "me" ultimately comes from my body, which includes my brain. And you? Something different?

[Syne]

Yeah, everything that I experience as "me" ultimately comes from my body, which includes my brain. And you? Something different?

You don't think there's a mind-body/hard problem of consciousness that leaves that an open question?
I agree with Descartes.

[Secular Sanity]

Yeah, everything that I experience as "me" ultimately comes from my body, which includes my brain. And you? Something different?

You don't think there's a mind-body/hard problem of consciousness that leaves that an open question?
I agree with Descartes.

How does an immaterial mind interact with a physical brain?

[confused2]

In more detail .. The First Law of Wizardry..
People can be made to believe anything either because they want it to be true or because they are afraid it's true.
The counter to it is.. there isn't one.