Arcturus Descending
Umm . . . quite possibly a beautiful mind . . . what do you think Arcturus Descending?
Thank you again, encode_decode, but I was referring to a much deeper place though the mind does touch down and affect everything.
I was considering sensations of the Heart. But then again, a sense of qualia come from both, right?
I speak in terms of spirit - and heart - qualia in terms of conscious and conscience - I would say all three is where your Ich und Du love relationship is coming from.
I was saving this for another occasion but I will put it here too:
I also have reason to believe that the universe is intelligent - just not as we know it - whether it is aware of us in a way that we are used to being aware is unknown to me. Our awareness seems to boil down to reality, logic and emotions. The universe might experience these properties in a much different way. The fact that love is a fact of life may even suggest that the universe understands love - just not in a way that we are able to comprehend. Everything that we experience may be much different in the universe’s experience. The universe and everything in it has a tendency to organize itself. A star system is just an organization of configured and evolved objects that displace the area that they occupy. A planet is configured and a star evolves.
[-o<
That was beautiful and I do agree with you ~~ the Universe can be seen to be intelligent in the way in which it is structured, evolves and operates. It boggles my mind but perhaps that is just because I do not much understand its workings. This is why I remain an agnostic.
We can never know but we can have such an experience of not knowing that it becomes beautiful to us.
As for the rest, I have also intuited what you say but I find that there is just such a veil before my eyes that so much is left hidden but again I have the experience of it and that I am somehow loved by the Universe.
I truly sense as Shakespeare said through Hamlet that “there are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio,than are dreamt of in your philosophy [science]”. Even though so much less was known in Shakespeare’s time, I can say that even today he might be uttering these same words with what has become known to us.
Would an intelligent universe favor some essences over others or would they all have their place in purpose?
I don’t know, Wendy. I do intuit that we all have our place. It’s just a matter of finding it or knowing it. That is not an easy thing to discover. This I know from experience.
I think that it might all come down to paying attention, listening and being grateful.
Do we all appreciate and respect the gifts that have been placed right before our eyes?
I think that it might ALSO come down to how in tune we are with our Universe.
WendyDarling
That is profound questioning. I am not sure that I know either, but I will point a few things out.
There are destructive forces in the universe and there are constructive forces in the universe. If what is known was once unknown then it could be the case that some things that have become known(through a constructive force) may become unknown again(through a destructive force).
You could say from this that everything has its place including essences - but that would be saying that a place is only temporary . . .
. . . and that an essence can fade . . .
In the realm of the divine, I think that an essence would last forever - but as Arcturus Descending is known for saying - I could be wrong here.
Arcturus Descending
I could nearly guarantee that Shakespeare would be uttering those same words in ten thousand years time.
gib
If your essence is constant - that means it lasts forever.
As for the gib you’ve identified - you appear to be saying that he will have changed. Are you saying that the gib you’ve identified is different to the essence of gib? In other words - the gib that you are conscious of is different to the essence of gib. Am I perhaps misunderstanding what you are saying?
encode_ decode,
lol It’s nice that I can be known for saying something. 
It’s a good thing to remind ourselves that we do not have all the answers. The more we learn, the more we realize that we knew even less.
Arcturus Descending
Still there is a forever and it is the place where the constant is . . .
I am sure you are known for saying a few things. People with character usually are.
But why do we not have all the answers? Just kidding. It does seem like the more we realize the less we know.
Still I am on this essence thing - I feel there is a part of us which is permanent.
Exactly and that permanent is eternal…life after death.
WendyDarling
Like reincarnation?
I always think to myself - OK we are here now - so there is no reason to believe that we have not been here before or we wont be here again.
Like a rebirth.
Further thoughts
I have been thinking about this more - actually I have been thinking about this for years - since I was a child.
I don’t know whether it is my imagination but I have sensed over time that some people are offended by the word reincarnation, so I tend to not typically use it. If I have offended anyone then all I can do is offer an apology to each who were offended. This I have noticed for many years.
I want to expand what I mean here - and keep in mind that this is just what I think.
I always think to myself - OK we are here now - so there is no reason to believe that we have not been here before or we wont be here again.
Like a rebirth. Well not exactly a rebirth or maybe that is what I mean.
I mean that there is a part of us which stays the same forever. It is a part that helps us to reference ourselves after our awareness emerges. This part does not need our physical body to exist. It is timeless. After our physical body dies and we fall into the sleep of death - our final sleep for this life - this eternal part of us goes on.
Not wanting to sound all spooky but eventually this eternal part finds a new host and we are born again - into the same universe? I am not certain - Into the same dimension? This I am also not certain of - after we die, we live again? I can feel it - hopefully I am right about it.
And this what I feel - well - maybe that is my essence.
Well I for one am not offended. 
You are right but the how this rebirth occurs is maddening in its shroud of mystery. Part of me believes that we live one life over and over until we get it right, another part says we live many lives in different host bodies, and the last part says both many repeated lives in many bodies, but why?
Were we an alien race without any typically physical components? Did we invade Earth, homo sapient and overrun it by sheer force of our wills, our mental prowess?
Evolution does not connect all the dots or make any sense regarding cognitive development, the great sudden advances in cognitive abilities nor does it look as if that will ever be rectified. We could be like the alien race in the movie, The Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, and that doesn’t sit well with me.
Why are our memories erased, kept Earth-bound? I have astral projected three times while fully awake and this realm is the only physical realm so far, but there are more realms, near a dozen in all that I am aware of. I would like to astral travel more but my psych. medications keep me too drugged up.
Oh, it seems I forgot to take into account…time. How could you be you multiple times? How are you able to enter the time differentials of different realms? Yah, there’s that mystery too.
encode_decode
But can we in actuality say that THERE IS A FOREVER?
How can we know this?
So, if there is not, then our constant what we refer to as essence survives until Death.
Why would anyone be offended that others believe or see reincarnation? Anything that can appear, rationally speaking, to be plausible or possible can be both plausible and possible.
Those who ARE offended by the concept perhaps are/may be just too steeped in their own beliefs to allow for other possibilities and openness.
It’s not as though those who see the Possibility of R. are also saying that they can see witches flying on brooms in the sky.
Why? I think that it is because our brains are much too puny (have not evolved), despite the brilliance of some, to take it all in at one time ~~ and to understand it. Besides, I intuit that the Universe is also a process like humanity is.
Anyway, perhaps an Intelligent Universe realized how some would love and be amazed at the mysteries of life.
Is every experience which we have ~~~ based on “reality” I mean real reality? lol
I also feel that way at times especially when I am experiencing only being and stillness?
Is that based on religious/spiritual belief or actual knowing (can there be such a thing?)
What I’m saying is that the identification of an object is not the same as the object itself. The object can go through change while you still identify it as the same object (which isn’t necessarily wrong). Identifications are like labels. If you have a ship and you identify it as “the ship of Theseus,” and the ship has a plank replaced, you still identify it as the ship of Theseus. The label remains the same even though the object has changed. But this doesn’t mean the label is wrong. We decide whether the object is the same object (has the same essence) by applying these labels. Sameness of essence doesn’t have to depend on sameness of form or structure. It might depend on continuity, or appearance, or function, or any number of other things.
Furthermore, the label itself might change over time in a way I’m not aware of. When I say “Yep, still gib,” 10 years after the last time I looked in the mirror (that’s a long time to go without looking in a mirror), I may have a different concept in mind of “gib” than I did 10 years ago, but if I don’t remember what my concept was 10 years ago and I think it’s the same as the concept I have now, I will still tell myself “it’s the same gib.”
gib
Thanks for answering, that is interesting the way you have put it. What you are saying is very meaningful . . . I have missed our exchanges . . .
It makes perfect sense to me what you have written. It actually took my mind back a few years - if I remember correctly I think I approached something similar in mathematics . . . or maybe it was physics . . . but yes you are right in this regard . . .
Hmm . . . I understand what you mean. There is something else that I have this feeling inside me about . . . I found something today from a week or two ago - I am not certain how long but that does not matter so much. I am not sure how many people feel this way either . . .
I guess I was thinking about some central reference point here - I am not too sure. All I know is there is something deep down that I feel that determines who I am at my most basic - without any change taking place - I am not sure whether it could be classed as physical either.
From what you have written and what I feel - I sense a couple of different things going on . . . I totally understand what you have written and totally agree with what you have written and in fact I really enjoyed reading what you have written too for that matter - no ifs or buts about it . . .
A meaningful exchange gib . . . I only wish my response was as good as yours . . . I would be very interested in more of your thoughts . . .
Man, if you only knew how easily my ego can be inflated… 
I’m sure there’s a way of construing the identity of a thing such that we can say it remains constant. I think, however, that constant would have to be on a more abstract level. I think for sure our physical constitution changes, as does that of every other physical thing. The constancy of things can’t be in their structure or form or material content. I’m sure it can’t be mental either. If anything changes, it’s the mind. There’s not a single experience I can imagine that stays in my mind constantly without changing. Maybe constancy lies in continuity. If we know that a thing started out as A and gradually became B, we could say that A and B share a common identity. The butterfly is the caterpillar it once was. What would be constant in that case would be the thing’s history. It’s not like the butterfly can change so much it ceases to have come from the caterpillar, as if its whole past has changed.
Another thing that might preserve the identity of a thing might be a range of states (or properties, or structure, or whatever). So suppose I buy a new hammer. It’s all nice and shiny, full of bling, no rust. But over time it might accumulate rust. This might wear a bit at its integrity. But so long as its integrity remains within a reasonable range of functionality (i.e. it doesn’t break when I hit a nail with it) we can say it remains within the range require to be a functional hammer, my hammer. But if one day, it got so rusty that it just broke apart, it clearly would have falling outside the range of acceptable change, and you would say your hammer got destroyed, it no longer exists.
This idea of range works well with another theory of identity (not mine). Some philosophers say that we identify a thing based on its essential properties. This is in opposition to a things peripheral properties. For example, what makes a car a car? Is it the color? No, because I could paint my car a different color and I would still say it’s my car. Is it the noise it makes? No because if the muffler was damaged and it started making a loud noise, I would still say it’s my car. These would be peripheral properties. What would make the car essential to being the car? Maybe its form? Well, it could change form a little, maybe incur a dent from an accident, and I would still call it my car, but if it got crushed in a compactor or got blown apart in an explosion, would I still call it my car in that case? Maybe the form is an essential properties (i.e. without it, the car is no longer the car I identify it to be) but it requires change beyond a certain range of states in order for that property to be said to be gone.
There’s also function. So long as a thing performs the same function, we could say, it preserve the same identity. In my computer, there’s an adder (circuitry for performing addition). If I tell it: compute 2 + 2, it will tell me: 4. This circuitry obvious degrades with time. It gets worn from the heat, from corrosion, from physical bumps my computer incurs, but even after several years it still computes 4 when I give it 2 + 2. It’s not like the result slowly changes with the degradation, like after a year it starts computing 4.00001, after 5 years, 4.01, and so forth. So we could say that the circuitry remains an adder so long as the function doesn’t change, but again, function is an abstraction.
In any case, whatever it is that makes a thing constant, it has to be abstract. Physics is always in a state of flux. Even solid objects like rocks are constantly undergoing change when you look at them at the subatomic level. None of its particles remain still. But they do tend to reacquire their prior states. That’s how atoms are so stable. Though the electrons, protons, and neutrons that constitute the atom are always undergoing change and movement, they tend to push each other back to their prior states, or keep each other relatively close to the same state. On a macroscopic level, this gives the impression of a constant, an object that just sits there doing nothing. Maybe the fact of the particles always remaining close to this state is like the range of possible states a thing can move within while still being consider the same thing. As far as the mind goes, I would say there is way to much flux there to identify any constant, but there is recurrence. In order to identify a constant, the mind has to bring to consciousness the identity of the thing, but it’s not like that identity remains in consciousness permanently. Once the thing is out of sight, we stop thinking about its identity, but it comes back to mind later when the thing appears again. That’s recurrence, like the state of the atom recurring from the mutual influence of its particles. It might also be like function: though the neural circuitry of my brain obvious changes over time, the concepts it computes might be exactly the same. If we want to define constancy based on something more abstract–like continuity, essential properties, a range of values–then that too requires mental identification (abstraction is, by definition, mental) which is to say it can’t be there when we’re not thinking of it and so only makes sense as a recurring thing.
In the end, however, I don’t think all this matters that much. I’m quite satisfied to say that my favorite coffee mug is the same coffee mug I’ve had for years. Somehow, this works even if I know the particles that make up the mug are constantly changing and the mug itself slowly degrades over time. The reason why we need to think of certain things as constant seems to be met in most cases, including our identification of people, not least of which is ourselves. I definitely think it’s one of these things–continuity, function, range of states–that we go on when we identify things, including who we are, and so long as this works, there must be something we are anchoring our identifications onto even if that thing isn’t literally constant. In other words, I think there is a way to resolve this problem philosophically (which means you probably do get to say you have a constant ‘self’ within) but I would veer away from imagining that thing as literally an object that literally doesn’t change. It’s got to be something more abstract.