Very nice

Oh, I like this post very much. Thank you, Hugh. Ordinarily, I resist others' characterizations of my position, but yours is very gentle here, I feel. The Wikipedia entry introduces a number of concepts that are useful to explain my views. On the other hand, I cannot say that I am firmly entrenched in any view as yet, there are so many and they often contradict each other. That makes me, I suppose, still like a sophomore, or at best, a junior. But please don't call me sophomoric; I have some life experience to call upon.

In Buddhist schools, I believe, they hold that there was never an individual "soul" to begin with and therefore no aggregate of souls called Atman. This sounds even more heretical to a typical westerner than Hinduism. We feel there is something and call it soul, an everlasting individuality, as you say.

Here I feel you flirt with Jefferson's "impatient of reason" description of the Calvinist, by not carrying your reason all the way through. I do not disagree that "there will be water and fishes until this finite dimension ends," but I am finding no support for the idea that "then we all will be in a new dimension where our individualities still exist but the conflicts between our individualities cease." No support in the realm of reason, that is, so it strikes me as a bridge too far.

Is not "an individuality among other individualities" the very definition of finitude? If it was an infinite individuality there could only be one of them. So do you not thus posit merely another finite dimension after this one? That may be possible but still, by observation and intuition, all finite dimensions are impermanent, along with everything in them.

And what is this fetish we carry for "individuality?" At the end of the day we can hardly wait to go to sleep and be rid of the damn thing for several hours, and while asleep we don't miss it at all. On the contrary, its absence refreshes us for another round of foolishness all the next day long.

~Tim Klay