Selves living on??

The development of information theory applies to this discussion. information is not dependent on its medium. (ie. theoretically you could create an alphabet of odors [pine=a; skunk=b;etc] and translate the entire works of Shakespeare into a series of smells.) The meaning or information would remain the same. You could then convert it from smells to ones and zeroes on a magnetic disk and from there back into printed words. "Shakespeare" had continued to exist through all those transformations. Only if information does not exist in any medium is it lost (or partially lost through imperfect translations from one medium to another [=static or noise].
In another field, I have yet to see biologists really grapple with the significance of the genome. The genome is information and merely [we could say for purposes of argument] has existed until now only in a biological medium. Now it exists not only in a biological medium but also in computer databases. Same info; different medium. So . . . what medium did the information that was encoded into the biological medium come from?
I propose the mind of God. When I die what happens to "me"? I'm still in the mind of God [at least] even if there is no other medium until the resurrection (which is the Christian hope -- not "life after death". Heaven as popularly construed is merely a holding tank.

"For we know that if this hard drive of our life fails, there is a backup in the heavens -- not another drive that will fail again but an indelible and secure memory that is forever able to imprint the information that is "us" into new media"

Or . . . maybe we need to go top down -- instead of accepting the paradigms of arguments of materialists. I have a piece of soap that no one can really say what it is. Yes, it has been carved into some sort of shape that is clearly not how came from the soap company but so what? Well, my middle son carved it, pronounced it a fish and gave it to me when he was quite young. First thing that he gave me of his own effort and initiative, I believe. What the soap "is" is a gift -- having become so not by any actions of Proctor and Gamble but by the display of my son's generosity.

So, what is this body of mine?? A gift from God. And my life that I have? Also a gift from God. Just as understanding what the soap "really" is depends on awareness of a relationship, so also we must recognize relationship in order to discern what we really are. We can no more come to it by thinking than all the philosophers in the world aided by all the scientist and computers could ever determine what that object on my shelf "really" is.

So the key to answering these questions is not shrewdness or intellect or the categories that philosophers usually propose, but gratitude and a response of generosity. From gratitude proceeds understanding and true understanding nourishes gratitude and produces generosity.

So this gift of life and "self" is in my hands -- for now. But underneath my hands and supporting them are the hands of God. When my hands fail and I can no longer hold my life, those other hands will continue to do what my hands no longer are able to do. (And I would do well in the here-and-now to avoid the delusion that I am single-handedly holding my own life.) The importance of understanding the mode of continuity fades in direct relation to the significance for me of the relation with the One whose hands are under mine holding my life.

• Re(1): Selves living on?? - By Sara January 27, 2006 at 08:42:41 AM
• Re(1): Selves living on?? - By jimmish January 26, 2006 at 08:35:58 PM
• Re(1): Selves living on?? - By karen January 26, 2006 at 12:35:10 PM