Darkover
Archangel
- Jul 29, 2021
- 5,462
The universe has been shifting matter around for billions of years who's to say if it can or can't bring you back alive in some form
The universe does recycle everything. Matter, energy, atoms they've all been part of stars, planets, people, animals, dust. You're made of stuff that was once part of other things. So in that sense, yeah — you do come back, at least physically.
like, could your conscious experience come back, even if it's not "you" as you are now? Could the universe somehow reconfigure things in a way that feels like waking up again? Not remembering your past life, but still being again.
The universe has been shifting matter around for billions of years and will for trillions of more years
Who knows if this universe could ever rearrange matter in such a way as to make a new you
I think the fact that we're even here in the first place existing as something alongside everything around us is such an insane fact that we witness everyday but never truly comprehend it. There is something rather than nothing basically.
Here is what I think: This doesn't seem to be a common view but if we know it for a fact that you started to exist for some reason at the point of your birth (your consciousness, your self did), before which you didn't exist, then would it not be logical to assume that after you cease to exist (after death), out of that non-existence you will emerge again in another body? I am not talking at all about reincarnation, consciousness probably dies after death, but if the only real thing we can know for sure about consciousness is that it (seemingly) randomly appears out of non-existence, why wouldn't the same happen after you die?
This seems a lot more likely to me than "nothingness forever". You started to exist once, without any reason, why not again? Obviously you would not have memories or anything, cause that dies with the previous brain, but the baby would be you.
I am basically asking:
If consciousness randomly "popped into being" once (at birth),
and matter/energy are always being recycled endlessly,
then isn't it at least possible that it could happen again?
Not you as in your memories, your name, your story — but you as in "beingness" — the subjective experience of being alive, of being something rather than nothing.
the fact that we are anything at all is already such an improbable miracle that we barely even grasp it most of the time.
Let's ground it in two core ideas:
Matter and energy are conserved and recycled.
Your atoms have been in stars, oceans, animals, dust clouds, other humans. In that physical sense, you already reincarnate endlessly.
Consciousness appears to emerge when matter (brain structures) arrange themselves a certain way.
It's a mystery how and why consciousness arises, but it seems tied to complex, organized matter. If that configuration happened once, why couldn't it happen again?
There's nothing in the laws of physics that strictly says it can't happen.
There's no rule saying that the vast, swirling cosmic machinery couldn't randomly arrange matter into another being that experiences being alive, from a first-person perspective.
It wouldn't be you with memories, but it might still be a you in the deep sense of "there is something it's like to be this creature."
In a way, I am saying:
Consciousness is an emergent property of matter.
The universe is constantly remixing matter.
Therefore, consciousness could re-emerge, over and over, without any metaphysical "soul" needing to survive death.
Maybe endlessly, maybe only rarely, maybe never again — but not impossible.
Consciousness could be a kind of natural byproduct of the universe's endless dance of matter.
You've already "won the cosmic lottery" once by existing at all.
So it's not crazy to imagine that winning ticket could be drawn again someday, somewhere, somehow.
The universe has been shifting matter and energy around for billions of years, and will continue to do so for trillions more. It recycles everything — stars explode and reform, atoms drift through planets, living beings, and clouds of dust. Every particle that makes up our bodies today was once part of countless other things. In that sense, we are constantly being remade, physically speaking. But what about consciousness? Could the universe, through its endless rearrangements, reconfigure matter in such a way that "being alive" — that raw, first-person experience — could emerge again, even if it's not "you" as you are now?
The very fact that we exist at all is a miracle we often overlook. It is a staggering thing that there is something rather than nothing — and not just something, but ourselves, alive to witness it. Before our births, we did not exist; yet somehow, at some point, consciousness appeared. Why, then, would it be impossible for this process to happen again? If consciousness can arise once from non-existence, without prior cause or intention, why should it not arise again after death? Not reincarnation in the traditional sense — no soul carrying memories from one body to another — but a new instance of being. A new "you," feeling the same sense of aliveness, even if untethered to any past.
This idea, though uncommon, finds surprising echoes in the works of some of the world's most profound thinkers. Philosopher Derek Parfit, in Reasons and Persons, questioned whether personal identity was anything more than a collection of memories, thoughts, and processes. To Parfit, what matters is not the continuation of the same self, but the continuation of conscious experience. If another being, built by the cosmos, were to emerge with a fresh consciousness, it would be no less meaningful than the emergence of "you" at birth.
Physicist Sean Carroll, in The Big Picture, argues that consciousness is an emergent property of matter — nothing supernatural is required. Matter and energy, governed by the laws of physics, are eternal: they never disappear, only rearrange. Given enough time and space, it is not unreasonable to imagine that the right conditions for conscious experience could reoccur, randomly, somewhere in the vast stretch of cosmic time.
Alan Watts, the philosopher and mystic, offered perhaps the most poetic take on this idea. He described individuals as waves on the surface of the ocean: temporary, unique patterns in a vast, ongoing reality. We are not separate from the universe, but expressions of it — just as waves are expressions of water. To Watts, life and death are not true beginnings or endings but transformations in a larger whole. Birth and death are like inhaling and exhaling: natural, rhythmic processes of the cosmos itself.
In this view, the "you" that exists right now is not a permanent, isolated entity. It is an event, a temporary flowering of the universe's ongoing process. If that has happened once — without conscious effort, without precondition — why would it not happen again? Maybe, across the endless recombinations of atoms and energy, consciousness blooms again and again, in forms we cannot predict and cannot remember.
The most profound mystery is not what happens after death, but that we are here at all. Consciousness appeared once, seemingly from nothing. And in a universe that has no clear beginning and no foreseeable end, perhaps there is no final "nothingness" waiting for us either — only endless possibilities for new forms of being.
The universe does recycle everything. Matter, energy, atoms they've all been part of stars, planets, people, animals, dust. You're made of stuff that was once part of other things. So in that sense, yeah — you do come back, at least physically.
like, could your conscious experience come back, even if it's not "you" as you are now? Could the universe somehow reconfigure things in a way that feels like waking up again? Not remembering your past life, but still being again.
The universe has been shifting matter around for billions of years and will for trillions of more years
Who knows if this universe could ever rearrange matter in such a way as to make a new you
I think the fact that we're even here in the first place existing as something alongside everything around us is such an insane fact that we witness everyday but never truly comprehend it. There is something rather than nothing basically.
Here is what I think: This doesn't seem to be a common view but if we know it for a fact that you started to exist for some reason at the point of your birth (your consciousness, your self did), before which you didn't exist, then would it not be logical to assume that after you cease to exist (after death), out of that non-existence you will emerge again in another body? I am not talking at all about reincarnation, consciousness probably dies after death, but if the only real thing we can know for sure about consciousness is that it (seemingly) randomly appears out of non-existence, why wouldn't the same happen after you die?
This seems a lot more likely to me than "nothingness forever". You started to exist once, without any reason, why not again? Obviously you would not have memories or anything, cause that dies with the previous brain, but the baby would be you.
I am basically asking:
If consciousness randomly "popped into being" once (at birth),
and matter/energy are always being recycled endlessly,
then isn't it at least possible that it could happen again?
Not you as in your memories, your name, your story — but you as in "beingness" — the subjective experience of being alive, of being something rather than nothing.
the fact that we are anything at all is already such an improbable miracle that we barely even grasp it most of the time.
Let's ground it in two core ideas:
Matter and energy are conserved and recycled.
Your atoms have been in stars, oceans, animals, dust clouds, other humans. In that physical sense, you already reincarnate endlessly.
Consciousness appears to emerge when matter (brain structures) arrange themselves a certain way.
It's a mystery how and why consciousness arises, but it seems tied to complex, organized matter. If that configuration happened once, why couldn't it happen again?
There's nothing in the laws of physics that strictly says it can't happen.
There's no rule saying that the vast, swirling cosmic machinery couldn't randomly arrange matter into another being that experiences being alive, from a first-person perspective.
It wouldn't be you with memories, but it might still be a you in the deep sense of "there is something it's like to be this creature."
In a way, I am saying:
Consciousness is an emergent property of matter.
The universe is constantly remixing matter.
Therefore, consciousness could re-emerge, over and over, without any metaphysical "soul" needing to survive death.
Maybe endlessly, maybe only rarely, maybe never again — but not impossible.
Consciousness could be a kind of natural byproduct of the universe's endless dance of matter.
You've already "won the cosmic lottery" once by existing at all.
So it's not crazy to imagine that winning ticket could be drawn again someday, somewhere, somehow.
The Possibility of Consciousness Emerging Again
The universe has been shifting matter and energy around for billions of years, and will continue to do so for trillions more. It recycles everything — stars explode and reform, atoms drift through planets, living beings, and clouds of dust. Every particle that makes up our bodies today was once part of countless other things. In that sense, we are constantly being remade, physically speaking. But what about consciousness? Could the universe, through its endless rearrangements, reconfigure matter in such a way that "being alive" — that raw, first-person experience — could emerge again, even if it's not "you" as you are now?
The very fact that we exist at all is a miracle we often overlook. It is a staggering thing that there is something rather than nothing — and not just something, but ourselves, alive to witness it. Before our births, we did not exist; yet somehow, at some point, consciousness appeared. Why, then, would it be impossible for this process to happen again? If consciousness can arise once from non-existence, without prior cause or intention, why should it not arise again after death? Not reincarnation in the traditional sense — no soul carrying memories from one body to another — but a new instance of being. A new "you," feeling the same sense of aliveness, even if untethered to any past.
This idea, though uncommon, finds surprising echoes in the works of some of the world's most profound thinkers. Philosopher Derek Parfit, in Reasons and Persons, questioned whether personal identity was anything more than a collection of memories, thoughts, and processes. To Parfit, what matters is not the continuation of the same self, but the continuation of conscious experience. If another being, built by the cosmos, were to emerge with a fresh consciousness, it would be no less meaningful than the emergence of "you" at birth.
Physicist Sean Carroll, in The Big Picture, argues that consciousness is an emergent property of matter — nothing supernatural is required. Matter and energy, governed by the laws of physics, are eternal: they never disappear, only rearrange. Given enough time and space, it is not unreasonable to imagine that the right conditions for conscious experience could reoccur, randomly, somewhere in the vast stretch of cosmic time.
Alan Watts, the philosopher and mystic, offered perhaps the most poetic take on this idea. He described individuals as waves on the surface of the ocean: temporary, unique patterns in a vast, ongoing reality. We are not separate from the universe, but expressions of it — just as waves are expressions of water. To Watts, life and death are not true beginnings or endings but transformations in a larger whole. Birth and death are like inhaling and exhaling: natural, rhythmic processes of the cosmos itself.
In this view, the "you" that exists right now is not a permanent, isolated entity. It is an event, a temporary flowering of the universe's ongoing process. If that has happened once — without conscious effort, without precondition — why would it not happen again? Maybe, across the endless recombinations of atoms and energy, consciousness blooms again and again, in forms we cannot predict and cannot remember.
The most profound mystery is not what happens after death, but that we are here at all. Consciousness appeared once, seemingly from nothing. And in a universe that has no clear beginning and no foreseeable end, perhaps there is no final "nothingness" waiting for us either — only endless possibilities for new forms of being.
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