What is death?

Reading the Brad McFall thread this statement of Brad's lead me to my topic question: Is there death? Or is there just a gross change of function? After I die the energy and matter of my body simply undergo a change of relationship, but they did that we then entered into and participated in my living body. So in what sense is there death or is it merely transformation?lfen

I don't know. There is another approach in Buddhism which denies a permanent self and yet in Tibet for example recognizes incarnations. So the question is what incarnates and the answer is memories, tendencies, intents. As I understand it, and please don't take my word for this it's just a possibility that I may have this right but I've probably garbled most of it, the Dalai Lamas are not held to be the same person. Each life is a different person but the intent of the Dala Lama is transfered.The other question is what is memory and how is it created and transfered. Culture, language, values, habits are often transferred from other sources. Is there an unknown way to transfer memories? Not that I know of, but I'm going to start sounding like Hangdawg here and say we've not thereby ruled it out. Many times it turns out that cases of supposed reincarnation can be accounted for by conventional memory transfer, the person heard something and perhaps forgot the source. There are more cases of reincarnated memories in young children in India but then Hindu's believe in reincarnation and beliefs have a way of being confirmed.So I'm skeptical but it was a very interesting article. Thanks for the link.lfenThis message has been edited by lfen, 11-21-2004 04:27 PM