You need to contemplate on what is the soul, what is its source, and what is meant by death, with regard to the soul. If that is what you understand about the soul, so be it. jan.
Yes. That much is clear. Or anything in between. Yes Likelihood follows what one desires and what one deserves (as a general rule ... actually all the laws of karma are general ... its much like a legal case ... there is a basic framework of laws that provide a clue as to what thr defendant is up against, but how things come before and get resolved by the judge and jury remains to be seen). Generally to go from the human form to something so far down the ladder you would have to made a colossal waste of the human form of life (there is some suggestion that such a fate may be possible for someone who misleads many others in the name of spiritual life ... just being a regular dolt that succumbs to a lack of self control or blatant disregard for what the human form offers tends to lead to somewhere a bit higher than bacteria ... for instance plenty of birds and mammals get it on better than humans, if that is what one is looking for). But regardless of that, entering into species lower than human generally means one is locked in to a long, slow, gradual advancement back to the human form. IOW the human form is unique since it offers the best opportunity for getting out of this cycle ... yet its a double edged sword since the brief human existence of a few decades can literally send one back to the drawing board for many milleniums. They are along for the ride. You have your karma and they have theirs. We don'thave the experience of our sense of self being hijacked by others, nor do others have that experience of us. Every person is an island.
I is the guy who doesn't see how "asdfghsfjir" is obvious. If you think you're talking sense, explain yourself. Otherwise, don't try to tell us that nonsense is obvious.
You don't "own" your brain. Your brain is part of you. You didn't buy it, you won't sell it and it's not a separable part of you.
Yet you refer to it as my brain, just as you'd refer to your car as my car. You never refer to "I" as my/mine, simply because you are the "I", and it would be absurd. Jan.
Why don't you answer the non rhetorical question, the last one I asked. Then let's take it from there. Jan.
Right. Just as I might refer to a friend as your friend, even though you do not own them. Your brain is part of you. It is where your awareness, your consciousness, resides. Consciousness is an emergent property of complex neural networks, and has served us very well.
This all begs the question: how do you know? Is this merely your opinion, what you believe, what someone has told you and it makes sense to you, or is it what you know to be true? If the latter, how have you come to the state that you can claim you know it?
The "you" is your brain and body. Your consciousness is based on sensory input that comes to you from all your senses, which are distributed throughout your body - and is expressed by your voice, your hands and your body (i.e. your muscles.) Your brain drives all of that. The awareness that you consider to be 'you' is an emergent property of the complex neural network that we've evolved to help us survive.
You demand answers to your questions but you refuse to answer mine. How is that discussing in good faith?
Perception of the self as a soul (a designation beyond both the mind and body) may be possible. What occurs to specific individuals after leaving the body, etc in specific circumstances may tend to be known from hearing from authority. I'm not sure how you would equate that with not knowing something though. Granted "appeal to authority" is a logical fallzcy, but any field of knowledge presents more advanced fields within communities wherein everyone agrees what constitutes a reliable authority. For instance, if you get robbed by tribespeople in a foreign country, there would probably not be any point in getting legal advice in your homeland (since the tribespeople are not within such a legal jurisdiction). If you suffered such events at the hands of people who were within such a legal jurisdiction, then seeing a lawyer (ie an authority in the field of law) would grant you advanced knowledge of your options. Utilizing the skills of professionals is how we go about knowing many things. Now of course, many people, for whatever reasons, are adverse to certain professional fields. So they do not partake in the consensus on what constitutes a reliable authority .... and of course there may or may not be a basis for such a stance. In the case where there is no basis, the problem continues unabated. For instance, that black lump on the back of your neck continues to get bigger even if you think all doctors are quacks. tl;dr : the topic of the transmigration of souls is more of an advanced field of knowledge arising from a uniform consensus .... and less a tool for "winning arguments" against people who see the body as the self.
