@
Skarekrow
Because we aren't unique even by our own standards. We want to identify and find so much common ground with others that we really secretly want to be
the same rather than unique.
The closest thing we have to being unique is DNA and that is only from combinatorial probability. i.e. DNA is unique because it is complicated enough that having the same DNA by chance is incredibly unlikely,
but not actually impossible.
You are too much like everything else to be unique though. What you are is
individuated. Like a car with a license plate.
Everything is made of the same stuff.
Everything is made of
recycled stuff that used to be other things.
The amount of stuff does not increase.
To me it's like taking a red shirt, dying it purple, and calling it a new shirt. Yeah it's different now but it's the
same shirt.
I do not say we are unique because in my mind we are
literally and
physically not by
any stretch of my imagination.
@
Skarekrow
Also consider that the number of valid combinations for DNA probably exceeds the number of particles in the known universe.
Yet, the number of valid combinations of the particles of the known universe by far exceeds,
and actually includes all combinations of all DNA everywhere.
So, people say that having the same DNA is so improbable as to be impossible, yet having the universe that we currently have out of the possible universe combinations is even
less probable. Is the universe impossible?
@
Skarekrow
Also from my perspective, not considering a soul makes it easier to be harmonious. Treating us all as one interconnected organism that is seeking homeostasis makes it easier to be harmonious.
If I treat you as separate then I start having to question agendas and motivations. Why is your soul important to my soul? I have to invent morality, and rely on my subjective rules and goals.
But like Miku says in her song
Nebula "Correlation: I am You." For me, subjective difference gives rise to the human condition. Subjective difference gives you something that you think you can love, but it also gives you things to hate and kill based on personal ideals. Ideals that I often feel are unnecessary.
It’s semantics [MENTION=6917]sprinkles[/MENTION]...
Yes...you could say that we are not unique by certain standards and I could argue that we are unique by other standards.
Just because a ruby may be made of the same atoms as everything else doesn’t mean that it isn’t unique and beautiful and something to look upon with awe.
I don’t see the differences in myself and another person as something to separate us and cause strife...I see them as perfect in their own unique way...the differences in one person to another are the reasons people are beautiful and amazing.
Your example of DNA combinations is valid...it is possible for two people to have the same DNA, although highly improbable...but having the same DNA does not make two people the same...because even if two clones were created using the same DNA....and even if both were raised in the same exact environment...from birth, their brains would not be making the same connections...and throughout their lives no matter how closely you tried to give them the same experience they would still be different from one another via the cascading effect of the connections made in their neurons. So yes, they would be the same on the DNA level, but they would each be different and unique. I think many of us hear the word “unique” or “different” and automatically think of it as being a negative thing. It is in fact those differences that we have been conditioned from birth to recognize as negative things....if you are overweight, or wear glasses in the first grade, or are of a different race amongst the majority....etc...etc. People are singled out, teased, excluded....a small part of it is how we are wired, but most of it is learned behavior. A field of wild flowers with their differences in size, color, and fragrance, is far more beautiful to most than a farm of one kind of flowers. They are all flowers, and yet, we recognize their beauty in their contrast and variability. It’s all a conditioned response...it’s all semantics.
The idea of the universe having infinite combinations doesn’t make it impossible...if fact it supports many theories of how the universe works.
Look at Chaos Theory - When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future...we call it chaos theory now, but we are soon discovering that there is an underlying mathematical process at work. Take weather for example...the same exact weather pattern may reoccur but will never be exactly the same as it was before. It conforms with the idea of "sensitivity to initial conditions"...or the Butterfly Effect...things may start out on the same path or a closely approximated path and due to small variables can end up either on a similar path or wildly off. What’s even more amazing is that Chaos Theory doesn’t remain on a linear dimension...if you look at the “chaos” in the dimensions that we know of through our visual and spacial recognition then the physicists are finding that there is in fact a predictability to the response and action the “chaos” will take...for a dynamical system to display chaotic behaviour it has to be either nonlinear, or infinite-dimensional. An infinite-dimensional universe is not only possible but actually becoming the field of study for many quantum physicists. That not only makes any and everything in the universe possible, but the infinite amount of variables are a rule of thumb.
Does that make our universe less important or less unique? My answer is absolutely not. Who is to say that if you could put a percentage on an infinite amount of universes that life as we understand it would represent an incredibly small amount? And out of those with “life” a conscious, thinking, problem-solving creature such as ourselves is even more rare? And just as an example we understand that 1.5 of the population is INFJ...lol. Or a small percentage have two differently colored eyes...or can play piano without ever having a lesson....or maybe have an IQ of 80 yet still make everyone that meets them smile and feel welcome.
I do actually prescribe to the idea of a collective consciousness sprinkles...but I believe that there can absolutely be a collective consciousness and also be an individual “soul”. One could say that a hive of ants of bees is the closest things we have on Earth to a “collective consciousness”, and yet as similar as each member of that group of insects is...as genetically similar as they are...each one has a different experience that eventually is shared. One bee my fly off in a different direction one day due to any number of conditions, wind, etc...and find a once unknown field of flowers. That experience is unique to that bee and one could argue that the bee is momentarily a unique individual. Of course the bee will return to the hive, do his dance, and share his learned knowledge with the others. Each bee will learn from that one bee and in turn understand the value of this new discovery...does that still make that bee unique - yes....not one single bee after him will have the same experience even if it were to fly the same path. My belief is similar....I believe we are here to learn something, I think that what we are here to learn is unique to each person...when we die, I believe that knowledge gained will be shared with a collective consciousness of sorts...that we will have an understanding of what it all means...perhaps that goal has not been met yet and that is why we are still returning again and again. The knowledge we gain represent gears in the grand machine...with each piece we understand more of what the grand machine is. Anais Nin said, “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.”. It is that unique perspective that in my belief is the necessary ingredient in order to create the understanding that is vital to what is the “collective consciousness”.
