I wonder though, if it can be guaranteed that a future self will be any more wise than the current model, does the self model Mark II have any wisdom advantage over self model Mark I. If the self of the universe is considered to be absolute being, does it really evolve or grow? And if evolution means advancing to that state of experience, and one ends up as absolute being, essentially unchanging with the appearance only of change, have we gone forward or backward?
Further the word 'self'. What exactly, is a 'self'? Is there really such a thing as a self? Science as not located anything that could be 'self' in the physiology; neuroscience seems to be tending to the idea that while there is a process going on in the brain, there is no such thing as a self inside. This is also a tenet of Buddhism, Buddha's central thesis is there is no self (small 's'), that it is a fiction. If we look to other traditions, such as M's, we find that, whatever the small self might be, it will dissolve and become the Self (with a big 'S'). Also, our ideas of what we are as 'a person' seem to lie behind our thinking about what self and Self is, that is, an intelligent, intentional entity of some kind that acts, but when we investigate, for example with meditation, we find an existential blank, undefined being. Since it is undefined as an experience, how could that be a self in the sense there is some-thing there, as we tend to think of a person? Transcendental consciousness, if we define that state with those words, is always the same, so it does not evolve. If that blank is the container of our experience, is it really a 'self'? For example, if we have a bowl of rice, and we remove the rice and just have the space for the rice in the bowl, is that space 'rice'? It would seem not. The bowl is certainly not rice, and without the rice it is not a 'bowl of rice', it's just a bowl. It just seems to me that whenever we try to define what a self is, or attempt to find one, it is not really there at all. Some quality was there, upon retroflection, as a memory, but it always seems to be an undefined quality. And when we look at ways 'Self', (with the big 'S') is described, it also tends to be a melange of contradictions. Example, in the Bhagavad-Gite, Krisha in describing the 'Self' at one point says 'I am the probability of the gambler's dice'. As a 'self' in the conventional sense, that certainly does not sound like a 'self'. Does all this mean that 'self', or 'Self', is not a very good way to describe what are, that is, is a ludicrous attempt to describe something or a state of being that is in reality very unlike what we are attempting define, attempting to define what is indefinable, and in so doing giving our-'selves' a misleading image? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <s3raphita@...> wrote: I think it's even possible that our future, way more evolved selves can, if needed, help our present day selves. : Yes, I like that idea. It crops up in occult circles where it is held that our personal "Holy Guardian Angel" is actually our future wise(r) self. ---In fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com, <sharelong60@...> wrote: Seraphita, I think it's even possible that our future, way more evolved selves can, if needed, help our present day selves. I think Now contains past and future and it's just a matter of sufficient brain development for us to be able to live that reality. For example, finding old photos of ourselves can prompt us to put our attention helpfully on our younger self. That was an experience I had when my Mom accidently found pictures of my 9th birthday party.
