RexT
September 8, 2006, 07:11 PM
I would argue that an incorporeal internal self is the basis of body and mind and exists to the extent that it cannot be forever lost, but merely transfers itself to a new body and mind. I begin with an explanatory analogy using the Roman Empire; more specifically, the fall of Rome, since it fell not of bodily injury from external forces, but form internal disarray. By internal disarray, I do not mean its physical infrastructure had become dysfunctional or its economy had collapsed, these were incidental, but that the incorporeal idea of Rome had become incoherent. Rome grew from the idea of order, thus, disorder would seem to be its undoing. Yet, it was not mere chaos, but more the flux of competing ideas that fragmented and weakened it until it could stand no more. The fall of Rome reverberated throughout and left a power vacuum that effectively changed the world forever. As a single empire Rome was no more, but as the ideal of order, Rome merely underwent a metamorphous and continues to exist and thrive in many new empires.
The physical external world of body and mind, form and function, is like a theater, you and I are the characters powered and directed by the real players, the immortal set of ideals. We are used as motors for driving an invisible, incorporeal competition of war games, love games, and intellectual strategies of all kinds. Ideals compete not for survival, as do the mortals, but for power and dominance over the theater. The ancient Greeks knew this and devised a clever mythos that served several purposes, one of which was as a map of the incorporeal competition between the immortal ideals. The ancient Greek mythos is long died, and its memory languishing in old books, but the immortal competition between ideals that it once mapped, thrives as if no time has ever passed.
Unlike Rome however, Greece fell not from internal disarray but from external forces, not the least of which was Rome herself. Yet, Rome and Greece were both formed around ideals of order and these were their incorporeal internal selves that continue to exist today as fresh and alive as ever. These empires were used much as we individuals are used to carry within us the immortal ideals. Yet, we are not these ideals, but temporal representations of them, to be cast aside and replaced with a new cast that will takeover when we drop off. As the procession of evolution marches on, new and more powerful ideals will emerge to take possession of the theater and those new creatures and cultures will again find that they too exist for no other purpose than to temporarily represent the immortals. Should this world end and another begin, it would not be long before the immortals reappeared and the theater set for another show.
Rex
The physical external world of body and mind, form and function, is like a theater, you and I are the characters powered and directed by the real players, the immortal set of ideals. We are used as motors for driving an invisible, incorporeal competition of war games, love games, and intellectual strategies of all kinds. Ideals compete not for survival, as do the mortals, but for power and dominance over the theater. The ancient Greeks knew this and devised a clever mythos that served several purposes, one of which was as a map of the incorporeal competition between the immortal ideals. The ancient Greek mythos is long died, and its memory languishing in old books, but the immortal competition between ideals that it once mapped, thrives as if no time has ever passed.
Unlike Rome however, Greece fell not from internal disarray but from external forces, not the least of which was Rome herself. Yet, Rome and Greece were both formed around ideals of order and these were their incorporeal internal selves that continue to exist today as fresh and alive as ever. These empires were used much as we individuals are used to carry within us the immortal ideals. Yet, we are not these ideals, but temporal representations of them, to be cast aside and replaced with a new cast that will takeover when we drop off. As the procession of evolution marches on, new and more powerful ideals will emerge to take possession of the theater and those new creatures and cultures will again find that they too exist for no other purpose than to temporarily represent the immortals. Should this world end and another begin, it would not be long before the immortals reappeared and the theater set for another show.
Rex