I am interested in seeing some of the later parts fleshed out more, this was very interesting to read through. Made me think not about our current existence, but what happens after. Curious your thoughts on afterlife.

When I was little, I had an imaginary fairy friend, Rose. She gave warnings and told jokes. My father said she was my spirit guide. A soul that was meant to help me through this life before being reborn themself. The Summerland is how we referred to heaven- the Pagans' heaven. No bodily firm, but energies of souls. Your soul is not you. You are now. You are fleeting. You are one rendition of your soul. In the Summerland, you are everyone and everything you have ever been. You remember all your past lives. I think that idea is beautiful, this cyclical nature. Christian heaven scares me. Not in that I think it is real (that any of this is for that matter), but it frightens me that people find comfort in stagnation. That we will be content to be frozen in our most basic human form. And for eternity? That heaven is dreadful. As if people can't imagine there is something greater for us to become, or for us to understand after we pass from this fleshy existence. Maybe we become wholly unrecognizable to this consciousness we are experiencing now. Parts "living on" as they say. That is more comforting, to me at least. Let our energy be reabsorbed or transformed. There is no comfort in stagnation.

Robyn Apologies for the delay in response. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

You remember all your past lives.

I currently believe this. I lean towards a panpsychist view of the world. At the bottom layer, we're all the same, we're all energy, (like the energy in physics textbooks), manifesting itself in different ways (different humans). You're genetics undoubtably get passed down from generation to generation and we're now finding out that the epigenome gets passed down as well. The epigenome is more related to your lifestyle choices and how you chose to live your life. So in this sense, if consciousness permeates all matter, and your genes and lifestyles choices get passed on. Incarnation is real and you very much remember all your past lives.

Christian heaven scares me.

I agree. I don't like the idea of stagnation and being frozen in time indefinitely. Progression is key.
I think we're in heaven right now. It could very well be that outside this heaven, is hell. With regards to this, reincarnation and panpsychism saves us from that hell when we die.

Maybe we become wholly unrecognizable to this consciousness we are experiencing now. Parts "living on" as they say. That is more comforting, to me at least. Let our energy be reabsorbed or transformed. There is no comfort in stagnation.

Yes. The law of conservation of energy. Energy is neither created nor destroyed. Energy creates matter (e=mc^2) and we are made of matter and put into motion by energy. It's beautiful really.

Great blog!

The brain, to our knowledge is the only biological construct that has the ability to ponder its own existence.

Also, in making the suggestion above, I find it intriguing that sometimes the brain has an affinity to break out of its loop so to speak, because of this drive to ponder it's own existence. For instance, sometimes this will drive two individuals who have never traveled to a third world country to travel there in pursuit of new experience to expose itself to. Why would our brains make that decision, when this is one thing that is not familiar to our past self.
What is the motive. Is it that our brains are all to familiar with our current environment and wants to consume more data about a would in which it has not resided. Is it that we are fleeing something from our current environment in search of a better umvelt. Or simply all of these factors....

I find it intriguing that sometimes the brain has an affinity to break out of its loop so to speak, because of this drive to ponder it's own existence.

I believe the loop you are referring to the loop of biological evolution. For 99.99% of human history, the goal was to grow up, reproduce and die. This is what evolution selected for.

However, at the point in human history when we started developing cultural databases, it wasn't just biological evolution that was evolving. The space of ideas began to evolve. At first the space of ideas evolved in efforts to satisfy the biological evolution. Symbiosis.

Now that our biological boostrapped us to a point where our needs are mostly met, we have the luxury of persisting ideas that aren't directly relevant to our reproduction and survival. We can afford to spend our time thinking about the meaning of things and how to make the best use of the lives that we have been given. In a strange sense, the idea space might become parasitic, killing off the need to evolve along side biology.

Given the luxury of time, why do persist those ideas? Because experience is at the root of what we value, because we can only value what we experience. Now that we aren't optimizing for our basic human survival needs, we are optimizing for the best experiences.