What are we?

**Schmaven** · 10-22-2008 09:26 PM

My random thoughts on what we are:

Everything we can perceive in this universe is made of matter. We are no exception. We are a collection of atoms just as everything else, only we are conscious. It’s like everything is one giant parachute, stretched out over everything, and we’re the forms underneath it that give it shape and movement. Our lives are meant to be whatever we want, this time is our time to make of it whatever we will.

We come into this world as every other animal does, as a baby, probably with not much of an idea of what’s going on. Then through trial and error, we figure out how to move our parts, and what we should eat / do by watching others who are around us / taking care of us.

While we may have a complex language, I don’t assume that other species don’t have a form of language, they just make different sounds based on their vocal cord layout. Through this learning / developing process, we also begin to associate things with other things, and make mental connections that help us function and survive here.

On a larger time scale, life is constantly changing and adapting to survive in whatever environment it is in. When it gets colder, we grow more hair. When it’s sunny, our skin darkens. When food and shelter are somewhere else, forms of movement develop. Aging is the process of our physical bodies decaying as everything else does.

Everything is consciousness, all stemming from the same source. We come into this world having no memories of anything before this existence. This is to give us a clean slate to work with where we can do whatever we want without the impedance of past lives / whatever was before this. Considering infinity, one consciousness could cycle through experiencing every existence of every life form in the universe, during different times, with each life being a completely new experience. Nothing would be excluded from this, plants, insects, animals, all have some form of consciousness, and live their lives the best they can. In this case, the golden rule definitely applies, do onto others as you would have others do onto you. Because at some point in the infinite moment, consciousness is inhabiting that life form.

Or, life could be like a time trap. Consciousness is everywhere, beyond our physical perception. We only see what consciousness does, and how it affects the physical universe. Life is like the flexible barrier / quagmire that consciousness hits and journeys through. At first impact, consciousness begins to materialize inside a womb / egg. It hits a new stage at birth, where it experiences the outside world. Then it exists throughout our lives, remaining ever the same, while our bodies change, grow old, break down, and eventually cease to function, at which point consciousness probably leaves our bodies. If you look at time in more of a 4th dimensional kind of way, and look at the paths we take through life, consciousness is kind of like a projectile that passes through the physical realm on its own accord, gathering pieces of this physical world as it goes, and leaving them behind at death. I think it would be unusually cruel if once our bodies died, we just had to exist in it as it decayed and became part of other organisms.

The universe is like a giant organism, with each part of it feeding off of another part of it. Solar radiation fuels plant and bacteria growth, which feed small insects and animals, which feed other animals and insects (even plants sometimes), and on and on through the food chain. Life feeds off life. If you look on the right size scale, you can find life almost everywhere. You might cite space as an example of no life, but within our own bodies, there is an equally large void of material within the molecular structure of our cells. Perhaps on an even larger scale than we have yet to see the universe, it is some kind of molecule.

Herbivores eat plant life, and carnivores eat the easiest to catch herbivores. It is as if the universe is one giant organism, with all of its parts unknowingly performing quality control and cleanup of itself as part of their survival methods. Ants clean up the smaller bits of food leftover from larger animals, and with other insects, are kind of like the cleaners. Predators find the weak or slower organisms, and destroy them, converting their energy into their own, and leaving leftover energy for scavengers. Predation fuels the development of better herbivores, as they must avoid being eaten to survive, which in turn fuels the development of better carnivores as they have to work harder to catch the herbivores. Herbivores convert plant energy into heat and poop, eating the easiest to acquire plants more than others. This pushes plants to grow faster, and develop their own ways of deterring being eaten (thorns, poison, bark etc). With countless forms of life, each with individual functions to the whole, weaknesses are destroyed by predators, leaving stronger, healthier sub-organisms, that by being healthier and stronger, are better able to help the whole. The entire food chain process is this organism feeding off of itself, becoming more efficient at using its own energy all the while.

With a constant supply of new life beings introduced into this world, there are always more forms of existence to experience. With everything being consciousness, everything can be said to be one. So in a sense, reincarnation would be true, as consciousness experiences life after life. However, as each life is its own, with no memory of the past life (as far as I know), I hesitate to call it reincarnation. What levels of consciousness do other forms of existence experience? And what else is capable of thinking? (not just the internal dialogue kind of thinking)