The Egg by Andy Weir

[edgitarra]

I tried to search it here on the forum, but I could not find any results of it. Seems like it is a good time to post it then.
I don't know how many of you have heard of the movie called "The Martian", actually it is based on a book by Andy Weir, a software engineer.

He also wrote "The Egg", which I found to be a very profound story. It somehow made me understand easier the illusion of time.

It is short and I think it deserves to be on the forum as well, to be more accessible to those who haven't heard about it.
Enjoy!

The Egg
By: Andy Weir

You were on your way home when you died.
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
And that’s when you met me.
“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”
“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.
“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”
“Yup,” I said.
“I… I died?”
“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.
You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”
“More or less,” I said.
“Are you god?” You asked.
“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”
“My kids… my wife,” you said.
“What about them?”
“Will they be all right?”
“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”
You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”
“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”
“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”
“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”
“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”
You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”
“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”
“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”
I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.
“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”
“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”
“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”
“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”
“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”
“Where you come from?” You said.
“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”
“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”
“So what’s the point of it all?”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”
“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.
I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”
“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”
“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”
“Just me? What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”
You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”
“All you. Different incarnations of you.”
“Wait. I’m everyone!?”
“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.
“I’m every human being who ever lived?”
“Or who will ever live, yes.”
“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”
“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.
“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.
“And you’re the millions he killed.”
“I’m Jesus?”
“And you’re everyone who followed him.”
You fell silent.
“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”
You thought for a long time.
“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”
“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”
“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”
“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”
“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”
“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”
And I sent you on your way.

 

[Solie123]

Oh! That was a nice read. The concepts aren't perfect, but in general they're pretty good. :) thanks for posting edgitarra

 

[Shared Joy]

Thank you for posting, it's a good read and good to ponder!

 

[electrosonic]

That is an awesome quote, seriously. I'm definitely going to look up that book!

 

[edgitarra]

Oh! That was a nice read. The concepts aren't perfect, but in general they're pretty good. :) thanks for posting edgitarra

It's a story, remember that.

That is an awesome quote, seriously. I'm definitely going to look up that book!

The Egg is just that short. Nothing else to it. The Martian, I don't know.

 

[aaronfransen]

Brilliant actually, especially coming from a "mainstream" author.

Contains many ideas I've thought myself...and he beat me to putting it on paper :)

 

[edgitarra]

Brilliant actually, especially coming from a "mainstream" author.

Contains many ideas I've thought myself...and he beat me to putting it on paper :)

Actually, he is not so mainstream. His book was for free, until he needed to make money and sold the rights to a company, which afterwards told him to remove his free version of the book. That is at least what I know from a conference i watch where he was invited.

Sooner or later he is do decide if he corrupts himself or not.

 

[ashu]

Thank you for posting, it's a good read and good to ponder!

Aye, thank you for sharing edgitarra, twas a great read.

“My kids… my wife,” you said.
“What about them?”
“Will they be all right?”
“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”

As well as addressing the concept of time, as quoted above, this bit reminded me of attachments - especially when they hang around because of concerns over family they have left behind etc.

 

[obyvatel]

When reading speculative material of this kind, it may be useful to consider it in relation to other material one is familiar with. Considering different concepts which are in opposition, or at least not in complete agreement, at the same time, exercises thinking and goes towards building understanding. Without such pondering, we often continue to hold compartmentalized views in our minds. Sometimes, such isolated compartments may hold contradictory material without us being aware of them.

Here are a few things I noticed.

[quote author=The Egg]
“Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.
[/quote]

This is a very popular concept, one that has come from East and adopted by the New Age movement in the west. This forum uses 4th Way concepts that came down from Gurdjieff, and Gurdjieff's conception of a soul is different from what is described above.

For those who are not familiar with G's concept of soul, he believed that man was not born with a soul but it was something that could be grown as a result of right effort and right conditions.

[quote author=Gurdjieff]
Blessed is he who has a soul, blessed is he who has none, but woe and grief to him who has it in embryo.
[/quote]

Now moving on to the concept of reincarnation. This is also very popular Eastern concept adopted by the New Age movement in the west. 4th Way view of reincarnation is different. In 4th Way, only those who have reached a high level of development and grown higher bodies (I think "soul" is an umbrella term for higher being bodies) are able to reincarnate consciously. As for others, individual existence ceases after physical death.

How then can one explain cases of accurate remembering of past lives, as is studied and cited in reincarnation studies? I personally think a lot of assumptions we hold about "isolated and localized minds" need to be challenged to find alternative explanations. Carl Jung's work on the "collective unconscious", Rupert Sheldrake's work on "morphic fields" (discussed very briefly here ) provide some preliminary directions. To give an analogy, when my old computer was "dying", I was able to copy the data stored in it in an external hard drive and then copy it back into a new computer. The new computer now "remembers" all the old data - is it a reincarnation of the old computer?


[quote author=The Egg]
I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”
“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”
“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”
“Just me? What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”
You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”
“All you. Different incarnations of you.”
“Wait. I’m everyone!?”
“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.
[/quote]

This is another New Age concept which is a mixture of Buddhist and Hindu beliefs. Buddhism does speak of a state of consciousness where duality or separation ceases and has practices to cultivate this meditative state. It is short-lived and people experiencing it come back to the more common place dualistic existence. However, Buddhism denies the existence of a transcendent deity (God) who controls the universe.

Anyway, an alternative (4th Way informed) view is that every one (or everything) exists for a purpose. That purpose is not just one's own personal development. One plays a role in a cosmic sense and that is related to transformation of energies. One has cosmic obligations towards a bigger whole. Part of these obligations are automatically carried out - just like our studies of ecology applied towards flora and fauna show. Humans are the same way - some energy transformations to fulfill cosmic obligations happen through us automatically. However, humans also have the possibility of serving the cosmic obligations in a more conscious way. This related to the 4th Way concepts of the "General Law" and the "Law of Exception".

Given that such material is speculative in nature at our level, I do not know which is more right than the other. I think it is useful to consider different views.

Personally, I favor the 4th Way informed views of reality over the other. It is rational, agrees with experience at the human level and is less anthropocentric in nature. Anthropocentric cosmology/philosophy is imo an offshoot of the psychological narcissism that afflicts us as a society, and what I see in "The Egg" and material of its ilk is a subtle manifestation of the same. It feels good, so it is more popular. Anyway, that is just me.

fwiw

 

[edgitarra]

When reading speculative material of this kind, it may be useful to consider it in relation to other material one is familiar with. Considering different concepts which are in opposition, or at least not in complete agreement, at the same time, exercises thinking and goes towards building understanding. Without such pondering, we often continue to hold compartmentalized views in our minds. Sometimes, such isolated compartments may hold contradictory material without us being aware of them.

It is a story? Can you tell the difference between a story and reality?

[quote author=The Egg]
“Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.

This is a very popular concept, one that has come from East and adopted by the New Age movement in the west. This forum uses 4th Way concepts that came down from Gurdjieff, and Gurdjieff's conception of a soul is different from what is described above.

For those who are not familiar with G's concept of soul, he believed that man was not born with a soul but it was something that could be grown as a result of right effort and right conditions.

[/quote]

If you reach the end of the story, there is only one soul? Like a collective soul? So maybe when God adressed to him he adressed to the soul as a whole, to the soul group? I can see you are very fixed into what Gurdjieff says. Like he was the only one who ever said the whole truth in the history of humankind.

[quote author=Gurdjieff]
Blessed is he who has a soul, blessed is he who has none, but woe and grief to him who has it in embryo.
[/quote]
Hmm, in the end of the story it seems like the "soul' is a fetus. Embryo, rings a bell?

Now moving on to the concept of reincarnation. This is also very popular Eastern concept adopted by the New Age movement in the west. 4th Way view of reincarnation is different. In 4th Way, only those who have reached a high level of development and grown higher bodies (I think "soul" is an umbrella term for higher being bodies) are able to reincarnate consciously. As for others, individual existence ceases after physical death.

I also remember Gurdjieff telling Ouspensky(in a coffee shop) something like: "If i tell Ouspensky there is no reincarnation then he is not happy anymore, grumpy etc, but if I told him there is then he would be more motivated".
Maybe it is not true, maybe it is an implication to Work more(to accelerate a process of learning - like in orthodoxy, when it is said you only have onel life, or G exercise to live an hour a day like it would be the last one), because I don't believe things can vanish. Everything transforms and nothing is lost in this Universe.

How then can one explain cases of accurate remembering of past lives, as is studied and cited in reincarnation studies? I personally think a lot of assumptions we hold about "isolated and localized minds" need to be challenged to find alternative explanations. Carl Jung's work on the "collective unconscious", Rupert Sheldrake's work on "morphic fields" (discussed very briefly here ) provide some preliminary directions. To give an analogy, when my old computer was "dying", I was able to copy the data stored in it in an external hard drive and then copy it back into a new computer. The new computer now "remembers" all the old data - is it a reincarnation of the old computer?

I am not sure your analogy is very well suited for reincarnation. What is the hard drive then ? What are the efforts of the hard drive so to speak? Memorizing. How does it do that?

On this one I will tell you a conclusion I arrived to based on some knowledge and some experience. I am prone to say I have experienced memories/flashes of something that felt like I was part of but not related to this reality. It happens for some time now(1 year or so).

Think of it like this: There are 3 types of memories(my own word jam)
1. Temporary - when the intellectual center is active and there is only 1 focused attention;
2. Long-term - when the intellectual center and the emotions are active to such an intensity one remembers very well the event even after some time, and attention is divided in 2 parts;
3. Past-life memory - When all the centers are active and attention is divided in 3 parts or more.

 

[Solie123]

When reading speculative material of this kind, it may be useful to consider it in relation to other material one is familiar with. Considering different concepts which are in opposition, or at least not in complete agreement, at the same time, exercises thinking and goes towards building understanding. Without such pondering, we often continue to hold compartmentalized views in our minds. Sometimes, such isolated compartments may hold contradictory material without us being aware of them.

It is a story? Can you tell the difference between a story and reality?

I think we all understand that it's a story. We're also putting a disclaimer because maybe some of us may like some of the concepts portrayed in the story and want to expanded on some of the ideas.

I think it's a great story, and a could probably be a superficial depiction of the reality at large.

 

[edgitarra]

When reading speculative material of this kind, it may be useful to consider it in relation to other material one is familiar with. Considering different concepts which are in opposition, or at least not in complete agreement, at the same time, exercises thinking and goes towards building understanding. Without such pondering, we often continue to hold compartmentalized views in our minds. Sometimes, such isolated compartments may hold contradictory material without us being aware of them.

It is a story? Can you tell the difference between a story and reality?

I think we all understand that it's a story. We're also putting a disclaimer because maybe some of us may like some of the concepts portrayed in the story and want to expanded on some of the ideas.

I think it's a great story, and a could probably be a superficial depiction of the reality at large.

Sure, it is just that I felt that Obyvatel's mechanism that protects these convictions of his got over the whole purpose of my initial intention to post this story.

 

[Solie123]

I do see that, he was being a bit overly critical about it

 

[obyvatel]

It is a story? Can you tell the difference between a story and reality?

I think so. This particular story presents cosmological views of the New Age type. Presenting such ideas as fiction is common and convenient since no claims are being made about it being real. So ideas can be presented without accountability.

Do not however underestimate the effect of fictional ideas on the mind. Simplistically speaking, ideas are like food that we digest. If you are interested in a more scholarly look at this concept, follow the pdf link provided in this post regarding a hypothesis about "How Mental Systems Believe".

[quote author=Edgitarra]

If you reach the end of the story, there is only one soul? Like a collective soul? So maybe when God adressed to him he adressed to the soul as a whole, to the soul group? I can see you are very fixed into what Gurdjieff says. Like he was the only one who ever said the whole truth in the history of humankind.
[/quote]

You say this is just a story, yet you defend it with gusto. What you see about me is not accurate but that is ok, though it is not relevant to the discussion.

[quote author=Edgitarra]
[quote author=Gurdjieff]
Blessed is he who has a soul, blessed is he who has none, but woe and grief to him who has it in embryo.
[/quote]
Hmm, in the end of the story it seems like the "soul' is a fetus. Embryo, rings a bell?
[/quote]

If it is a fetus, then it is not "gigantic" as described in the excerpt. But that is the license of fiction. One is allowed to say contradictory stuff and get away with it without clarification. But if a reader accepts the idea wholesale (magnificent, gigantic fetus) , then such contradictions can cause issues down the road.

It is possible to reconcile this specific contradiction but that is not my point. The motivation behind my previous post was to raise the point that pseudo-esoteric stories like this should be treated with careful thinking.

[quote author=Edgitarra]

How then can one explain cases of accurate remembering of past lives, as is studied and cited in reincarnation studies? I personally think a lot of assumptions we hold about "isolated and localized minds" need to be challenged to find alternative explanations. Carl Jung's work on the "collective unconscious", Rupert Sheldrake's work on "morphic fields" (discussed very briefly here ) provide some preliminary directions. To give an analogy, when my old computer was "dying", I was able to copy the data stored in it in an external hard drive and then copy it back into a new computer. The new computer now "remembers" all the old data - is it a reincarnation of the old computer?

I am not sure your analogy is very well suited for reincarnation. What is the hard drive then ? What are the efforts of the hard drive so to speak? Memorizing. How does it do that?
[/quote]

If this interests you, reading Sheldrake's ideas on "morphic fields" could be useful. It is too complex a topic to discuss in this thread. The basic idea is that memories may not be strictly individual but a collective and distributed resource. The brain/mind can be more like a tuned radio receiver accessing and playing out such records.

 

[electrosonic]

Maybe it just depends on what we choose to take away from the story, or how you interpret it ...

Personally, I took away the story the fact that the author insinuates that all consciousness is ultimately from the same source - and when all consciousness is returned to its source it once again forms 'God' so to speak.

Whether the mechanics of reincarnation are expressed correctly or incorrectly in relation to consciousness & the idea of souls, I have no idea, but I merely took the story for what it is, a story, and took the overall message to be about the shared source of all consciousness.

But maybe I'm just reading into it what I want to read in to it, and each person reads it differently?