Is the human self nonexistent?

Maybe, but not if these immortals embodied anything like the "hard wired" damage = pain = suffering circuit in their basic sentient beings. They would know better.

They might be incredibly selfish entities, choosing to play games about what eye injuries they should inflict on their bodily incarnations rather than take up the Great Work of trying to move all existence to a better state.

Perhaps they are marginally better than those who try to flee to "Nirvana" or "Heaven", abandoning the possibly vast amount of suffering in reality. Though perhaps beyond physical reality there isn't much suffering at all...

My point being we don't really know that spirits are more enlightened than us, in fact it seems there are spirits that are just as if not crueler than humans so why shouldn't some of the dead be like that. They might masquerade as gods, play masochistic games with the bodies they incarnate into...basically anything we might expect from beings who've gone "insane" from being immortal.

OTOH I do think there are helpful spirits, even benevolent entities we might call "gods" or at least "angels". Whether there is a God, and if that entity is genuinely benevolent...that is a bigger question I doubt even most spirits have a good answer to...

But the human self can't do that. Hence the injustice.

If the Soul is creating some separate entity that it knows will experience suffer, then, yes, that would be unjust.

But, if the Soul is putting part of itself, not truly separate, only in appearance and sense to that part of itself, then it is that part of the Soul that suffers.

There's no separate entity, no splitting, nor any merging or absorbing after the human self moves on from this life.

It's much more akin to waking up from a dream, except that the dream is running parallel to waking reality, with you able to observe your dreaming self doing stuff in the dream. Except that the dream is a shared one, with multiple dreamers interacting with one another.

Another, I think deeper, aspect of this debate is the issue of why there is so much suffering in this physical reality, assuming it was created by the Deity or at least very powerful and knowledgeable spiritual beings? Why should the Deity (or very powerful spiritual beings) create such a very imperfect physical reality that automatically invokes this suffering?. As I outlined in my suggested theodicity (at https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-i...g#pid47682 ), I think that it is at least plausible that the complexity and often mutual contradictory nature of the requirements set by these beings automatically invoked the necessity of a lot of wrenching tradeoffs between much less suffering, and providing an environment suitable for humans to learn and grow. 

In analogy with common human engineering practice with complex systems, basic logic prevented meeting all the ideal requirements simultaneously, so reality contains an awful lot of "natural evil", things like disease, natural disasters, even natural mass killing of animals by other (predator) animals. In other words, even the Deity (and certainly angel-like powerful spiritual beings) couldn't violate the laws of logic - hence an abundance of natural evil. The other major category of suffering is evil acts by human beings and perhaps even by some spiritual beings, and comes about because of the absolute requirement for free will. Correcting these apparent flaws in reality would remove the regularity of natural laws (making science impossible), remove the difficulties that would induce learning and growth on the part of humans, and make humans automatons or robots obeying commands from on high. 

Presumably, the powerful spiritual beings that created this physical reality decided that, in the overall tradeoff, the benefits exceeded the losses, and went ahead with it. So we can ultimately blame these beings for this situation, rather than the intermediate-level beings such as souls. A suggestion.

If we literally are the soul, then it seems completely inexplicable how we can make such abysmally bad choices for the next life, abysmally bad for our human characters I mean. It's as simple as that.

I understand that reasoning but I disagree. We can't know what the motivation of other's (souls) is. I suspect it's highly likely that some souls do rock up on earth to attempt to wreak havoc on it and others and on themselves. I'm stressing this to make the point only. If we know we are not the body, and that whatever we do anyway and whether we like it or not the body will die, I can easily imagine that that could be a lot of fun for some mischevious souls. Sort of like getting into a car and driving it recklessly through the town to do as much damage as possible. 

And what is a bad choice ? Someone has to make a bad choice so that good guys can make good choices and create God's favourite stories?  Or if you mean a bad choice is choosing an abysmal life (what certainly appears to us to be) as you previously described, what if that soul had literally had enough of being handsome, successful and fulfilled and wanted to experience being an ugly, hopeless failure? Why is that such an outlandish possibility ? 

There is some analogy with the use of anesthetics - nobody would undergo surgery if they knew that the only anesthetic used would be a hypnotic agent that prevented them from having any memory of the surgery,

The problem with that is, people did submit to surgery without anaesthetic. Everybody did in the past, because there wasn't any anaesthetic, so I'm not sure what your point is there. However, I certainly do not want to do battle with any of you guys over this, though.

I understand that reasoning but I disagree. We can't know what the motivation of other's (souls) is. I suspect it's highly likely that some souls do rock up on earth to attempt to wreak havoc on it and others and on themselves. I'm stressing this to make the point only. If we know we are not the body, and that whatever we do anyway and whether we like it or not the body will die, I can easily imagine that that could be a lot of fun for some mischevious souls. Sort of like getting into a car and driving it recklessly through the town to do as much damage as possible. 

And what is a bad choice ? Someone has to make a bad choice so that good guys can make good choices and create God's favourite stories?  Or if you mean a bad choice is choosing an abysmal life (what certainly appears to us to be) as you previously described, what if that soul had literally had enough of being handsome, successful and fulfilled and wanted to experience being an ugly, hopeless failure? Why is that such an outlandish possibility ? 


The problem with that is, people did submit to surgery without anaesthetic. Everybody did in the past, because there wasn't any anaesthetic, so I'm not sure what your point is there. However, I certainly do not want to do battle with any of you guys over this, though.

But I understand that some could not tolerate such agony and chose instead to die. And complicated lengthy surgical procedures were not resorted to for obvious reasons, because of the prolonged agony, hence much death that otherwise would not have occured. And in any case that does not remove the ugly reality of the extreme suffering undergone by these patients - I think that that is inherently, existentially, a very bad thing, for a sentient being to suffer so much. 

As for a soul choosing an abysmally miserable next life being reasonable and not outlandish, I don't think that the miserable life could be a rational choice - such a choice would only be if the soul was a masochist. A bizarre and unlikely possibility I think.

[Ninshub]

They might be incredibly selfish entities, choosing to play games about what eye injuries they should inflict on their bodily incarnations rather than take up the Great Work of trying to move all existence to a better state.

Perhaps they are marginally better than those who try to flee to "Nirvana" or "Heaven", abandoning the possibly vast amount of suffering in reality. Though perhaps beyond physical reality there isn't much suffering at all...

My point being we don't really know that spirits are more enlightened than us, in fact it seems there are spirits that are just as if not crueler than humans so why shouldn't some of the dead be like that. They might masquerade as gods, play masochistic games with the bodies they incarnate into...basically anything we might expect from beings who've gone "insane" from being immortal.

You're allowed your views or hypotheses, Sci, but your take is completely and utterly insane to me, and it's not supported by the information we receive, from NDEs for one thing. Do NDEs report that the souls they encounter are "selfish entities" and less enlightened than their human incarnations and "cruel"?

But I understand that some could not tolerate such agony and chose instead to die. And complicated lengthy surgical procedures were not resorted to for obvious reasons, because of the prolonged agony, hence much death that otherwise would not have occured. And in any case that does not remove the ugly reality of the extreme suffering undergone by these patients - I think that that is inherently, existentially, a very bad thing, for a sentient being to suffer so much. 

I assume you're making a general point about the unavoidable ghastly nature of some aspects of our existence. I can only address you to the general principle of how else could it be ? Being frivolous, one could imagine how it might be if we were created (bodily) out of material that can't be damaged. But then logically, wouldn't that would ruin the game/experience/adventure/task whatever life here is?

I don't think that the miserable life could be a rational choice - such a choice would only be if the soul was a masochist. A bizarre and unlikely possibility I think.

Once again, I disagree. Rationality is such a limiting, restricting principle. Nothing out of the ordinary would ever be achieved if we were always rational. And the soul that chooses to experience a terrible life (for a change of perspective) is not masochistic because he (the soul) is not being damaged ultimately. He's getting into a temporary vehicle for a miniscule period of time (cosmically) to find out how it feels to be in that predicament. 

He returns home, leaving the vehicle behind and rejoins his fellow souls to tell them about his experiences this time, which were in direct contrast to his last life, where everything went well (by earth standards).

I'm not saying that this is how the universe is set up. It (that) may be completely wrong but I get the sense both from my own memories and other's experience that it is likely at least, on the right lines.

Do NDEs report that the souls they encounter are "selfish entities" and less enlightened than their human incarnations and "cruel"?

What about the souls that Howard Storm encountered, Ian ? I actually think Sci's point was reasonable. Unless we say he didn't have an NDE, it seems there may be areas where dark (shall we say) souls lurk. I don't know anything other than I'm more or less certain that we survive.

[Ninshub]

What about the souls that Howard Storm encountered, Ian ? I actually think Sci's point was reasonable. Unless we say he didn't have an NDE, it seems there may be areas where dark (shall we say) souls lurk.

I disagree that Sci's point was reasonable.

On the question of hellish NDEs:
I am tempted to think people who experience hellish NDEs are in the very beginning of the transition and are manifesting their own human, fear-based reality. I say this in part because I've heard NDErs like Nanci Danison who have reported going further, right into Source, and having this knowledge. She specifically mentions Howard Storm's NDE, which she's analyzed in one of her books, as an example of this.

Back to Sci's point:
Even if we grant the possibility there may be dark souls, Sci's point seems more to be that souls in general are cruel entities for what they put their incarnations through, like Natalie Sudman's that was deciding on which injuries here body would sustain from the bomb explosion. Bonkers.

Presumably, the powerful spiritual beings that created this physical reality decided that, in the overall tradeoff, the benefits exceeded the losses, and went ahead with it. So we can ultimately blame these beings for this situation, rather than the intermediate-level beings such as souls. A suggestion.

Personally, and this is just an opinion, I would decline to use terminology such as "these beings" and "blame". I see that it is an attempt to understand suffering in this world, and to accuse someone somewhere of causing it is convenient. The real problem I have with such ideas is the way they position us all as victims. I'm not willing to cast myself in the role of victim, it doesn't help me in my daily existence to so so. Somewhere there has to be a more positive role for humans, a better way for each of us to look at ourselves and our relationship with everything else.

The more positive self-description is something that could be worthwhile to seek. As someone said a long time ago, rolling in the mud is not the best way to get clean. I'll add that the latter phrase is something I've considered when looking at myself.