Souls, Self, and Consciousness
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Concept Description

This category overlaps with   Death      Epistemology      Happiness      Idea of "Other"

It includes the soul, self, atman, or consciousness that is usually unchanging and survives Death. I don't believe anything of "me" survives death, so I don't believe in a soul or unchanging self. My self changes a little bit with each word I type, that is with all my experiences.

Another concept of self or consciousness is "free will", the ability to choose among alternative actions, thoughts, or feelings. Nothing will convince "me" that I do NOT have free will, despite knowledge that the finger reacts before the brain, the thought.

I "know" I have free will despite that God-damned (Aphorism 54) Chung Tzu butterfly. Perhaps I don't, but it sure seems like I do. Everything I've encounterd until now tells me I have freedom to make choices. Perhaps free will is the last vestige of "humanity" before passing life to silicon, down one row on the periodic table.

The free will merges with and is part of "my" universe, my soul, my self, my consciousness. My universe is all I can ever know, it includes my concept of god, God, galaxies, germs, greed, genes, Google, generations and every other word I can put to thought, action or feeling.

Language is how we try to communicate ideas and feelings to others. It is also how I think that I am a godlike as anything I know. When I die, my God, my concept of immortality, my galaxies, my understanding of everything goes away. This eternal life "now" of awareness is God-like. We are mortal gods. That conjecture is part of my unverse, as is my certainty that "I am", "you are" and a reality I can never know exists.