Did you write that? It was definitely a good read.

I don't agree with everything that was said, and I certainly don't have enough time to break those points down and explain my perspectives on said points, but I think that this writing definitely presents some important points to be considered.

The writing speaks of consciousness, awareness, and I think this is the centrum that really needs to be focused on. The issue lies on knowing whether consciousness exists seperately, beyond the physical body, and that it is accessed by the brain and the interactions between the two (the mind), or if awareness arises as a result of reactions within the physical body itself. Basically, does the body create consciousness itself, or does it access it?

Personally, I do not know which one it is, but I do know that knowing where consciousness is coming from would answer these questions - if we have a soul, etc. etc. etc. Personally, although I do not have a scientfic understanding of this, I see a link between consciousness and energy... I think they are of the same. This becomes more intriguing when one realizes that we do not understand what energy is, it is an ultimate. This intrigue is intensified when one realizes that energy composes everything.

I do not feel that alterations of the chemical balances of the brain, or removing or fucking with parts of the physical brain point towards a consensus that the brain is responsible for creating consciousness. Just as we say that psychadelics will alter one's perceptions, I would see it feasible to conclude that it is possible that altering one's brain, physically or chemically, alters our perception of consciousness. If I manipulate a radio so that it no longer accurately reproduces a broadcast from the local radio station, does this suggest, then, that the radio itself was responsible for creating the radio signal? The signal is coming from an external source and is still existing independant from the radio, whether or not the radio is accurately reproducing the signal as sound.

No matter where pure awareness arrives from, the importance still lies with pure awareness itself, with consciousness. I cannot make assumptions on whether we have a soul, or if we will reincarnate, or go to heaven, or simply die, although it seems to me, personally, that this is it. Awareness, even if it is produced by your chemical reactions, still will continue to exist - it is formless, and its source does not matter. Awareness does not identify with your thoughts or your memories or your life, it observes them, impartially, as it goes down, and I don't see any individual aspect of ourselves carrying on after this physical body stops functioning.

It doesn't matter, anyways. Presence and being is all that matters in this life. Energy is energy, and it feels cosmic to be energy.

One last thing:

dr_mandelbrot said:

Your permanent identity of time-energy-space continues unharmed (see The TES Hypothesis), but there is no soul, no reincarnation, and no Buddhist transference of personal karma.  If this is true it means that Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, Christianity, and Islam are all wrong.

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Perhaps whoever wrote this article does not understand Taoism, but I would personally say that this doesn't prove Taoism wrong, it would prove it right. Taoism and this way of thinking go hand in hand.


Peace.

JacquesCousteau said:

Finding your own spirituality without buying into a "group-belief" would be a much wiser route.

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