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Having given the matter a bit more thought, I can be more specific and complete than my prior post:
I think that under most circumstances we, as spiritual beings, are temporarily cultivated by a phenomenon I have yet to name or see named or defined; the structure of the human being acts as a scaffolding of sorts that erects a temporary metaphysical being in the form of our consciousness.
This process is not by my reckoning miraculous or even an act of creation, but rather a process of organizing and activating an omnipresent and latent force in the physical universe; the human being is a fleeting window into a property of the cosmos that is not in our conception or literature.
When I said fleeting, I meant it. I also believe that, under normal circumstances, the metaphysical being this process produces has nothing to support it when the brain dies; it lacks the fundamental context to grapple with the cosmos, and it lacks the structure by which to support such endeavors.
My evidence for that belief is brain damage - ordinarily, the consciousness does not restore itself to a prior state when the framework supporting permanently destroyed. If we were beings of potency and control, I think that there would be a greater capacity to push back, to re-assert one's self using the wonderful neuroplasticity our brains are sometimes capable of. I have seen many individuals tested in a way that should demonstrate spiritual cohesion beyond the mind, but there is very little enduring power to the human being demonstrated by my personal experiences.
Any delusions of personal reincarnation are not the re-occurrence of the individual, but (in genuine cases, and good luck proving them) these ideas are rather the echoes of beings that are truly gone, resonating in the sensitive consciousness. Ripples on the water, and all that. The droplet is gone, it is one with the ocean.
I do not have any reason to believe this is an absolute limitation, though, any more than I have reason to believe we, humans, are the end-product of this process of cosmic evolution.
The short version is that our souls are guttering candles; they are as luminous as we could hope, but easily snuffed.
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