Tom Campbell - escaping the simulation

Your avatar is not immortal, except in the sense that the information that describes everything your avatar thought, felt and experienced is recorded and made available to all.  You, as a subset of consciousness (an IUOC), are immortal -- there is no end , only endless opportunities to evolve -- to become whatever you can be.

I have a big problem with this. I would interpret this passage as saying that we as human beings are the "avatars" that identify themselves as their unique memories going back to childhood, personalities and physical bodies, and exist only temporarily during this physical life. According to this statement that which is immortal is an individual unit of consciousness which has its own separate and different uniqueness. This being could be understood as the soul but it is alien to us - it is not what we as humans sense ourselves to be. All of the unique thoughts, decisions, memories and personalities of the human "avatar" continue to exist only as stored information. 

Campbell apparently says that "you" are free to become whatever "you" can be, but that is fallacious since in his scheme what is immortal with an unlimited potential for growth and new experiences is not "you", but is this alien being called the soul. 

Therefore, we, our human selves, can not expect to really have an afterlife. Not only is this rather concerning, but it also is very problematical because it conflicts with the large body of empirical evidence from certain paranormal phenomena that have demonstrated survival of death, such as NDEs, CORTs and mediumistic communications. My view is that evidence always trumps theory.

Of course, the apparent afterlife revealed by these paranormal phenomena may be only temporary, and at some point the human personality dissolves into the soul entity.

I have a big problem with this. I would interpret this passage as saying that we as human beings are the "avatars" that identify themselves as their unique memories going back to childhood, personalities and physical bodies, and exist only temporarily during this physical life. According to this statement that which is immortal is an individual unit of consciousness which has its own separate and different uniqueness. This being could be understood as the soul but it is alien to us - it is not what we as humans sense ourselves to be. All of the unique thoughts, decisions, memories and personalities of the human "avatar" continue to exist only as stored information. 

Campbell apparently says that "you" are free to become whatever "you" can be, but that is fallacious since in his scheme what is immortal with an unlimited potential for growth and new experiences is not "you", but is this alien being called the soul. 

Therefore, we, our human selves, can not expect to really have an afterlife. Not only is this rather concerning, but it also is very problematical because it conflicts with the large body of empirical evidence from certain paranormal phenomena that have demonstrated survival of death, such as NDEs, CORTs and mediumistic communications. My view is that evidence always trumps theory.

Of course, the apparent afterlife revealed by these paranormal phenomena may be only temporary, and at some point the human personality dissolves into the soul entity.

He mentions a life review, so it seems that we would know something about who we are during the transitional In Between Lives phase prior to the next incarnation.

He then notes that we, in order to genuinely grow toward Love and away from Entropy, retain something of our personalities but not our memories when we reincarnate again. (Errors in this designed process may be why there are CORTs at all?)

What is unclear to me is if, when we are in the Between Lives phase, if we again remember all previous lives.

While I dislike the computational metaphors, and even think they lead Campbell astray, I do think he provides an interesting perspective.

He mentions a life review, so it seems that we would know something about who we are during the transitional In Between Lives phase prior to the next incarnation.

He then notes that we, in order to genuinely grow toward Love and away from Entropy, retain something of our personalities but not our memories when we reincarnate again. (Errors in this designed process may be why there are CORTs at all?)

What is unclear to me is if, when we are in the Between Lives phase, if we again remember all previous lives.

While I dislike the computational metaphors, and even think they lead Campbell astray, I do think he provides an interesting perspective.

I don't think you addressed my main point, which was this:

The Self is the sense of the person who you are, deep down - your identity. The meaning of identity is the distinguishing character or personality of a person. According to Campbell, after death the identity or personality is converted to information that can be accessed by the soul. Therefore, whatever the soul is, it seems to be an alien entity not having the former person's (or any person's) self, character or personality.

I don't think you addressed my main point, which was this:

The Self is the sense of the person who you are, deep down - your identity. The meaning of identity is the distinguishing character or personality of a person. According to Campbell, after death the identity or personality is converted to information that can be accessed by the soul. Therefore, whatever the soul is, it seems to be an alien entity not having the former person's (or any person's) self, character or personality.

Based on the video Campbell says it's memories that are removed (temporarily?) from the person before their next incarnation but the personality developed up to that moment remains.

It seems to me it is akin to how our childhoods shape us but most of us don't recall every event from our youth.

I think the fact Campbell notes that the person's character is preserved and developed across lifetimes suggests that when we die we will retain our current personality. Which seems to align with CORTs?

I don't think you addressed my main point, which was this:

The Self is the sense of the person who you are, deep down - your identity. The meaning of identity is the distinguishing character or personality of a person. According to Campbell, after death the identity or personality is converted to information that can be accessed by the soul. Therefore, whatever the soul is, it seems to be an alien entity not having the former person's (or any person's) self, character or personality.

I didn't watch or listen to Cambell, so I don't know how much he discusses his own past lives, what he remembers and how it is affecting his current life. I will say that from my own experience my self and identity was and is the same, it persists from one life to the next. It isn't a matter of being able to recite data, such as being able to recite the list of kings and queens and the dates of their reigns, or whatever. These are not who we are. What is the essence is how we feel, how we are deep inside, it might be partially exposed in our behaviour or interactions with the world, but those are external traces. The part which only we ourselves know of ourselves, that deeper part, it continues.

The Self is the sense of the person who you are, deep down - your identity. The meaning of identity is the distinguishing character or personality of a person.

For me, the Soul simply is the Self by another name ~ it is our full, unfettered identity and existence in full, the very root of our being. The way Jung describes the Self is basically equivalent to how religions and spirituality describe the Soul.

According to Campbell, after death the identity or personality is converted to information that can be accessed by the soul. Therefore, whatever the soul is, it seems to be an alien entity not having the former person's (or any person's) self, character or personality.

If that's what Campbell actually believes, then he is quite incorrect ~ after death, the identity, the personality, is never lost. If it were mere "information" then there would be no clear progression of lives in which memories from past lives, including emotions, experiences, skills, knowledge, whether unconscious or otherwise, can affect the current life.

When I have recalled certain moments from past lives, the emotional power of those moments makes is clear that it was still me... even though they are from a past life. In those recalled moments, I was fully immersed in the emotional intensity ~ it was exactly like being back in that moment in time and space. That is not a sign of mere "information". That is a continuation of personality and identity.

Therefore, whatever the soul is, it seems to be an alien entity not having the former person's (or any person's) self, character or personality.

From my experiences of the higher self or oversoul ~ it is not at all "alien". I still felt entirely like me, just... transcendent in nature. It was like... I knew and understood, at that level, but I was not able to know anything beyond my psychological comprehension. There was simply an... indescribable gap my psyche could not cross. I knew about it, after the fact, but in that perspective as the higher self or oversoul, there was not a single worry or doubt. Everything just... made sense, at that level.

I was shown something about the nature of a Soul ~ that it can have multiple, simultaneous incarnations all co-existing. It was shown in the metaphor of a large garden filled with trees, each tree being an individual and all of its past lives in one. It is why I only have specific memories and experiences that I recognize as being... me-me, and not a parallel-incarnation-me, even though they also feel like me, just in another sense that's almost impossible to describe.

I have a big problem with this. I would interpret this passage as saying that we as human beings are the "avatars" that identify themselves as their unique memories going back to childhood, personalities and physical bodies, and exist only temporarily during this physical life. According to this statement that which is immortal is an individual unit of consciousness which has its own separate and different uniqueness. This being could be understood as the soul but it is alien to us - it is not what we as humans sense ourselves to be. All of the unique thoughts, decisions, memories and personalities of the human "avatar" continue to exist only as stored information. 

Campbell apparently says that "you" are free to become whatever "you" can be, but that is fallacious since in his scheme what is immortal with an unlimited potential for growth and new experiences is not "you", but is this alien being called the soul. 

Therefore, we, our human selves, can not expect to really have an afterlife. Not only is this rather concerning, but it also is very problematical because it conflicts with the large body of empirical evidence from certain paranormal phenomena that have demonstrated survival of death, such as NDEs, CORTs and mediumistic communications. My view is that evidence always trumps theory.

Of course, the apparent afterlife revealed by these paranormal phenomena may be only temporary, and at some point the human personality dissolves into the soul entity.

When we die, our minds expand back into being the Soul in full. There is no "dissolution" ~ simply a reawakening to what we had temporarily forgotten.

The Soul can only "feel" alien if you are so traumatized or numbed that you are essentially dissociated more than usual... it's a bit like soul loss, as described in shamanic nomenclature...

Our entire identity has its root in the Soul ~ our Soul can be said to be purest, most unfettered expression of our identity, actually. In my experiences, embodying the higher self or oversoul ~ a personification of the soul ~ was that I felt more like me than at any other time. There was nothing limiting me ~ no emotional blocks or doubts or pains or fears ~ there was just a pure expression of being me. I wasn't human... I was just me. It's hard to describe such a sensation, actually... you are nothing but yourself... you are beyond incarnate form and its definitions at that point. You aren't <insert your name>, you are... simply you.

I wasn't human, and it didn't matter, because my Soul knew that my psyche that was having the experience would descend back to human identity later on. And so it was.