You can't perceive the passage of time when you are dead, so you're just going to experience dying and then immediate rebirth after the countless eons pass for that rare moment where entropy spontaneously reverses to form your mind again.

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[–] QueerCommie@hexbear.net 2 points 6 days ago

I agree. I brought up no self because multiple people in this thread suggested that it could only be “them” if they had the same memories and picked up right where they left off. I find this implausible despite my agnosticism on the question of rebirth. More likely would be the same life lived exactly again from birth like “eternal recurrence” or the widespread idea of samsara where you will simply experience more lives without the memory of past ones (except possibly accessible through meditation).

The idea that it could only be “them” if they pick up where they left off implies that there is a self or soul that continues from their past through their current circumstances. Buddhists have ideas about general consciousness as well mind you.

If you are constantly losing this body and mind then maybe those aren’t necessary for continued consciousness. Buddhism posits consciousness like a flame passed from one candle to the next. Each moment contains no essence from the last and yet it is experienced consciously. It’s not all about seeing through identification (though that is what allows that flame to finally cease), non-self also means that everything else is empty. The concept of essences is just [useful] bullshit. Things still exist colloquially, this is just how things have always been if you paid enough attention.

Thus, I argue that everyone who is willing to consider this question should consider the theory of samsara rather than limiting their thinking with certain fallacious dogmas.