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[the_fantastic_ms_fox]

There are ramifications to this dissolution of boundaries. If who 'I am' is an arbitrary midpoint between a cell and an ecosystem, between a moment's stray thought and a universe alive with cognition, then 'my' existence or nonexistence is basically unimportant. "I" am a bucket full of water in an ocean, minus the physical bucket.

More to the point, if all thought and feeling are one then I am a component of a larger soul; a component predisposed to thinking of itself as separate. What am I praying to then? Is the left pinky kneeling before the rest of the body, hoping to receive a glimpse of its wisdom or power?

Death? Unimportant: an evolutionarily programmed fear of the termination of a self that really doesn't really exist. The point where homeostasis stops is akin to the point where you whang your head on alow door and it stings and you lose a brain cell or two. My memories and personality cease but those are not fundamentally different from what I have done in the world. "My" actions leave traces in this brain called mine and in the world around it. There is no oblivion nor an afterlife, just a self-obsessed leaf drying up and falling off.

Selfishness? Foolishness: a calculation based on mislayed boundaries. A mistake. Not evil, just stupid. Kind of like selling your left hand for money or trying to cheat your toes..

God? You, me, everyone, everything. What's left when you remove imaginary barriers. Admittedly, this leaves us without an infinitely wise or more powerful being, but it also puts it within touching distance. Hell, it puts it within circulation distance.

So then: what's been distracing me is a stab at a solution to that "God, Ethics and The Afterlife" question.

Comments

[kurrs.livejournal.com]

Is the left pinky kneeling before the rest of the body, hoping to receive a glimpse of its wisdom or power?

That's how I always thought about it. Blood cells worshipping a body, which is turn is worshipping a universe, which probably in turn is worshipping something else.

Of course the analogy isn't perfect, saying blood cells or universes are like humans is prepostrous to say the least. However, it is interesting to think "Well, what if I were a blood cell, would I worship the body?"

The short answer I think is yes.

For instance, I woship the earth, because it's close enough to me to understand enough (it is a living organism, I am a part of that organism, yay). However, the galaxy, or, heck, the universe, is so beyond my understanding why should I even worry about it? Earth's biosphere is, at least by action though not necessarily by motivation, self-interested. It survives, I survive, etc. The galaxy, on the other hand, would eradicate me and my Mother's (capital M for Earth) existance without a second thought (forgive the humanisation of astrological bodies again, the idea being that the galaxy destroying Earth wouldn't be a bad thing for it, in fact is probably part of a larger system in it's interest). Me and the Milky Way don't really have enough in common.

Do I contradict myself?