You could take refuge in the fact that you must have been a very good plankton to make it all the way to human in a single cycle.
But human existence is suffering. Buddhism teaches that if you do incredibly well, you’ll be reborn as a being with a worry-free life. Being a plankton sounds exactly like that.
IMO human existence, with all its benefits, is waaaaay below plankton.
He was a good christian plancton.
Then wouldn’t he have gone to plankton heaven?
No, this is Patrick.
I guess it would explain why everyone can fucking eat me.
Even if you were a human your memories would still be in your previous brain. I see no reason to assume you’d remember anything from your previous life unless you believe there’s a “soul” that carries your memories rather than your brain.
I assume that belief in reincarnation requires belief in something like a soul to be reincarnated
In the traditional sense yeah but it could also be linked to the idea of the multiverse or quantum immortality. Or maybe our physical brain only acts as some kind of a receiver that tunes onto some greater consciousness.
I would call all of those “something like a soul”; an embodiment of your essence external to your physical body.
If it’s not an embodiment of your essence external to your physical body, then it’s difficult to really call it reincarnation, since it’s not you
I see it simply as a continuation of experience after this current biological vehicle dies. I think that the idea of a “soul” - in the sense of there being a center to consciousness where “you” are located - is an illusion anyway, so the notion of that moving into another body isn’t something I’m concerned about.
Of course, it’s an abstract term, and people use it to mean different things, so in that sense, I suppose the transfer of your “soul” is necessary too. I just don’t agree with what most people mean by that term. Even now, the people who do believe in reincarnation assume they’ve already had past lives they can’t remember. So if “you” aren’t your physical body or your memories, then what actually remains? I’d say it’s the bare fact of experience - consciousness itself. The feeling of being.
That’s the whole point of this post.
What if you do retain your memories, but your past lives were creatures that didn’t have the ability to form memories?
Yes, but the point of my response is that I disagree with the premise. It’s a serious answer to unserious question. I’m willing to entertain the idea of something like reincarnation, but I’m not making the same assumptions about what that would actually mean.
Let’s assume that reincarnation is real for all living things, and that you get reincarnated the moment you die. And you get to do it a lot.
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Wait a minute, I fucked up, viruses aren’t technically alive. Too bad, your soul is in it until it gets destroyed cause I’m not changing my original comment. You’ll just have to wait it out, then you can go back to being probably-but-not-always bacteria.
I feel like there’d be a lot of ants and insects in there too.
These odds aren’t promising either.
No, they aren’t. With the number of bacteria that have lived over the course of life on Earth, compared to the number of non-bacterial life forms over that time, I would guess that the vast majority of organisms alive now have never been anything other than a bacteria.
I lean in favor of open individualism these days, so yes, I was, am, and will continue to be plankton for as long as plankton continues to exist. And to be extra cliche, I am also you, and you, and you, and you, and I am he, as you are he, as you are me, and we are all together.
Sounds like thr Advaita Vedanta concept of Brahman which is described in Dharmic religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism.
Always fascinating to see Eastern spirituality’s influence on philosophy.
If you’re a really well-behaved plankton you could have become the bodhisatva. But you were very poorly behaved, and became Human.
All life is born of Gaia and each life has a spirit… When the physical body dies, the mature spirit, enriched by its life on Earth, returns to Gaia, bringing with it the experiences, enabling Gaia to live and grow
That assumes that people reincarnate as non humans and that they reincarnate into the same world.
Does my previous life have any effect on my current life? If no, then if I don’t even remember, the fuck do I care?
Guess I was a bad plankton :(
Nah I get flashbacks of the old west and colonial New York. They mean literally less than nothing but I get glimpse of a past and it feels like déjà vu. Maybe I just have an over active imagination and read too many books
