Don't ask me for the scientific details. Luckily my graduate school days are over and I am no longer compelled to cite every source before making a comment. Suffice it to say that things I have been reading lately about quantum entanglement got me thinking that there may be hope yet for my fundamental spiritual hope and assumption - namely that there is some sort of life after death where we maintain our sense of self, some sort of self-identity, some kind of self-awarenenss and consciousness.
I recently read about successful teleportation of information thanks to quantum entanglement that showed the simultaneous disappearance of information at the sender end and its appearance at the receiver end, without any trace of it in between. In mundane terms, this has relevance for future tech security, but in terms of spirituality, here's a thought I had.
While evidence seems to point to the fact that our consciousness, thoughts, sense of "I" comes from the brain, this would on the surface also suggest that our personal continuity is out of the question once our brain dies. But quantum entanglement opens up the possibility that our physical brain may very well be entangled at the quantum level with some sort of super-brain, pan-consciousness, and that our identities can be "uploaded" if you will, upon death, to this main brain, and then "downloaded" in varying degrees in future incarnations. I say "varying degrees" since most people do not have any clear memories of previous lives, yet some do. And most of us have experienced otherwise unexplainable phenomenon such as dejavous, or a strong affinity or repulsion of something without having any earthly exposure to it in our current life.
As I lay in bed thinking about this new bit of hope, it occurred to me that perhaps this is another example of how I am attached to my desire for immortality, a holdover from my Catholic Christian days, as well as being attached to my loved ones with whom I want to spend eternity.
Buddhism would frown on this new idea of mine and suggest I need to keep letting go. While there are plenty of things I do need to keep letting go of, I disagree with Buddhism on the underlying goal of total detachment. I think that the human experience by its very nature requires a certain healthy level of attachment. Babies and young children who do not develop a healthy attachment to their caregivers grow up maladjusted at best, and downright criminal at worst.
And while I appreciate the idea of feeling one type of love towards all of humanity, I do not see the virtue in being "beyond" preferential treatment of one's own family to some degree. Not to the point where relatives can do no wrong, of course, but to the point where if I have to choose who will live under my roof when two people are in need, and one of them is a relative, then the relative wins.
The only sort of Buddhism that appeals to me is Zen, which overlaps heavily with Daoism. And since there is a lot more literature about Buddhism in the West, it does behoove me to wade through it and just keep in mind that just because it's not Christianity doesn't mean it's got all the answers either. But I digress.
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