Go deeper. Where does consciousness come from? Your consciousness is not a unique phenomenon. Whatever makes you conscious, whatever makes you you, is made of something out there in the universe: whether electrical fields of living matter, "soulstuff," mass itself, I don't know.
The mass, the energy, the spirit if there is such a thing, that comprises you, from which you come, doesn't disappear when you die. Whatever made you conscious is still out there. After you die, it can make something like you, out of the same stuff you're made of, again.
So you, or rather everything that you come from, may well have to live with those consequences. You want to be a jerk to other people in this life? Society may say something about that, but hey, they're other people. But if you're reckless with the environment, your very mass and energy will still be here in the world you damaged. I think that changes things fundamentally from, "Once you die, that's it."
Even if you say that that's too abstract, that your specific, concrete brain, skin and bones will be buried six feet under in an airtight steel box; well, the embalmer will drain the fluids that fed them. Much of "you" will be back in the hydrologic cycle soon enough. And eventually, that steel box will crack. We are not separate from the larger phenomenon of the biosphere. We are part of it.
Reincarnation in the commonly understood sense of transmigration of souls doesn't have to exist for reincarnation in the looser philosophical sense to be very real.
We are part of a continuum.
So, yes, what you say is valid. At one level of wisdom. I just deny that it's the bottom level.
It is fine for a sea urchin to be mindlessly selfish, but we also don't give them the vote, and we probably wouldn't even if they could use it. To be human, however, is to be capable of deeper thinking and moral judgment. What is a human who scoffs at that? Well, human. Most of us aren't much at philosophy, good or bad. And society, in a sense, recovered from Qin Shi Huang, Tamerlane, Hitler, and so forth. If someone wants to be a selfish animal, he's free to do so, and that's nothing new. And society is free as well to scorn him and his desires for "freedom" or "dignity."
There's a lot of philosophy that tries to make humans out to be like other animals, because we're animals. But of course other animals don't enjoy "human rights," either.
I'm not sure this makes sense. I'm zoning out.
I thought I was going somewhere with this argument, and I ended up somewhere unexpected.
no subject
Go deeper. Where does consciousness come from? Your consciousness is not a unique phenomenon. Whatever makes you conscious, whatever makes you you, is made of something out there in the universe: whether electrical fields of living matter, "soulstuff," mass itself, I don't know.
The mass, the energy, the spirit if there is such a thing, that comprises you, from which you come, doesn't disappear when you die. Whatever made you conscious is still out there. After you die, it can make something like you, out of the same stuff you're made of, again.
So you, or rather everything that you come from, may well have to live with those consequences. You want to be a jerk to other people in this life? Society may say something about that, but hey, they're other people. But if you're reckless with the environment, your very mass and energy will still be here in the world you damaged. I think that changes things fundamentally from, "Once you die, that's it."
Even if you say that that's too abstract, that your specific, concrete brain, skin and bones will be buried six feet under in an airtight steel box; well, the embalmer will drain the fluids that fed them. Much of "you" will be back in the hydrologic cycle soon enough. And eventually, that steel box will crack. We are not separate from the larger phenomenon of the biosphere. We are part of it.
Reincarnation in the commonly understood sense of transmigration of souls doesn't have to exist for reincarnation in the looser philosophical sense to be very real.
We are part of a continuum.
So, yes, what you say is valid. At one level of wisdom. I just deny that it's the bottom level.
It is fine for a sea urchin to be mindlessly selfish, but we also don't give them the vote, and we probably wouldn't even if they could use it. To be human, however, is to be capable of deeper thinking and moral judgment. What is a human who scoffs at that? Well, human. Most of us aren't much at philosophy, good or bad. And society, in a sense, recovered from Qin Shi Huang, Tamerlane, Hitler, and so forth. If someone wants to be a selfish animal, he's free to do so, and that's nothing new. And society is free as well to scorn him and his desires for "freedom" or "dignity."
There's a lot of philosophy that tries to make humans out to be like other animals, because we're animals. But of course other animals don't enjoy "human rights," either.
I'm not sure this makes sense. I'm zoning out.
I thought I was going somewhere with this argument, and I ended up somewhere unexpected.