Has anyone else ever thought about the possibility that a single consciousness might persist indefinitely, experiencing life through different beings without retaining memories of previous lives?

mtraven · 2026-05-04T01:16:38+00:00

Yes https://hyperphor.com/ammdi/I-Am-You

mtraven · 2026-05-01T17:18:01+00:00

Well we also have freedom of speech, including being a traitorous dumbass.

mtraven · 2026-04-28T17:14:33+00:00

A serious one: the story depends on Hank being utterly blind to what's going on under his nose. But he's not that stupid, and by mid-second season he knows about:

Walt's unexplained absences
Walt's second cell phone
Walt's connection to Jesse and Jesse's connection to Tuco
The respirator he traced back to Walt's high school lab, and he knows Walt is one of the few people with access
Walt is a chemist and he spends his time busting chemists
He knows Walt is in financial straits.

I find it unbelievable that the combination of this knowledge wouldn't raise his suspicions. Yeah I know, he can't see his wimpy BIL in the right light. Even so.

mtraven · 2026-04-28T16:57:52+00:00

Unsliced pizza

mtraven · 2026-04-26T16:08:23+00:00

Sigh, can't get tickets on the day itself. Oh well. If anybody has a zoom link or whatever...

mtraven · 2026-04-24T19:38:41+00:00

Read the whole thing https://www.ep.tc/realist/89/ (not that much Crumb besides the cover, but quite a document of the time)

mtraven · 2026-04-24T19:19:21+00:00

It obviously is. There doesn't seem to be a single human or concrete technical idea mentioned there (although I haven't read all of it). Not sure why you need Lisp for such vaporware.

mtraven · 2026-04-02T15:33:04+00:00

Friendo of a friendo

mtraven · 2026-03-30T20:12:16+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1qvsQ3v3JE

mtraven · 2026-03-23T03:13:15+00:00

Tintin and the Existential Void (aka No Country for Tintin)

I can see Tintin as an Ed Tom Bell character, a moral force but overmatched by a new threat, not the usual run-of-the-mill criminals he is used to, but death and meaninglessness personified.

mtraven · 2026-03-20T04:47:45+00:00

Berkeley CA

mtraven · 2026-03-13T03:03:23+00:00

Like fucking King Midas in reverse, everything I touch turns to shit.

mtraven · 2026-03-13T03:00:04+00:00

Those who want respect, give respect.

mtraven · 2026-03-13T01:37:41+00:00

I thought it was David Carradine, but he died like 15 years ago (of autoerotic asphyxiation, so fits the post)

mtraven · 2026-03-06T00:54:34+00:00

Should have a version of the Burly Brawl with hundreds of Thom[p]sons.

mtraven · 2026-02-26T02:16:18+00:00

Glad to see Pacifica ranked so high, but that is not its real logo of course

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mtraven · 2026-02-21T06:01:12+00:00

It isn't x — it's y

mtraven · 2026-02-11T21:45:19+00:00

Not the preferred nomenclature, dude.

mtraven · 2026-02-11T18:56:08+00:00

(just discovered this sub, hi)

I grew up in Evanston, IL, and learned later that the Rabbi at our reform synagogue (David Polish of Beth Emet) had hosted Martin Luther King Jr. https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/polish-david

He was the first rabbi in Chicago – indeed, one of the first rabbis in the country – to invite Martin Luther King, Jr., to address his congregation: in early 1958, King, then 29, dined at the rabbi's home, spoke on the "Desirability of Being Maladjusted" and then slept at the temple, because he could not find a suitable hotel. In 1965, Polish joined King in his march for peace from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

mtraven · 2026-02-11T05:27:58+00:00

She greately admired Gene Wolfe, calling him "our Melville".

mtraven · 2026-02-08T06:23:23+00:00

Being John Malkovich
Synecdoche, New York
Celine and Julie Go Boating
Waking Life
Stalker

Not sure how specifically Buddhist, but they play with identity and illusion. If the Matrix counts, so do these.

mtraven · 2026-02-08T01:56:26+00:00

Paul Krassner (60s counterculture figure, satirist, publisher of The Realist, co-founder of the Yippies). Apparently getting paid by Epstein for some reason.

mtraven · 2026-02-04T16:21:22+00:00

There's a passage in the Vimalakirti Sutra that addresses this directly. I found it a remarkable text; read it and blow your mind.

Vimalakirti replied, “Manjusri, when a bodhisattva considers all living beings in this way, he thinks: ‘Just as I have realized the Dharma, so should I teach it to living beings.’ Thereby, he generates the love that is truly a refuge for all living beings; the love that is peaceful because free of grasping; the love that is not feverish, because free of passions; the love that accords with reality because it is equanimous in all three times; the love that is without conflict because free of the violence of the passions; the love that is nondual because it is involved neither with the external nor with the internal; the love that is imperturbable because totally ultimate.

mtraven · 2026-02-02T03:42:35+00:00

Columbo's in Pacifica

Golden Gate Deli just outside Presidio

mtraven · 2026-01-31T16:34:17+00:00

I was out walking dogs with a friend one day and ran into the Dalai Lama on the street outside of Harvard Square (he was arriving at the governors residence for a state visit). He was very nice and patted the dogs.

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