What if the “prison planet” theory has it exactly backwards? What if physical incarnation is something consciousness chooses?
The idea that our true selves are fundamentally separate from a physical body is obviously a popular belief. That the fundamental form of consciousness is something unbounded by time, space, and physical matter. The question of “why” we’d inhabit these physical bodies has always been so confounding to me though if this is true.
Prison planet theory is a popular and nihilistic view on this topic. Claiming that our true selves are forced to inhabit these limited, biological bodies in a sometimes cruel world, possibly to service some non-human intelligence that feeds off of us, etc.
What if we took the other side of it? What if our true conscious selves *choose* to be here? An unbounded consciousness could possess enormous knowledge and awareness but still lack embodied experience.
For example, a consciousness can fully understand how fire is made, the chemistry behind it, etc, but wouldn’t know what the warmth from it *feels* like.
The body could perhaps be an interface we willingly inhabit in order to experience this physical world. Not only do we see, hear, feel, taste, but the constraints the body places on us is an essential part of the experience. For example, we can only experience anticipation if the future is unavailable to us. Or physical intimacy if we are truly separate from someone else. The answer to “why would an unlimited consciousness choose to inhabit a limited and finite body?”…well that’s kind of the whole point.
The other question that lingers…”well if this is the case, why do we not come into this world knowing this from birth”? Well if we knew we are truly an immortal consciousness, then this human experience would lose all stakes. Risk wouldn’t feel risky. Death wouldn’t be frightening. We’d lose the idea of limitation that makes this experience “human”. Forgetting what we are may be a necessary mechanism of physical incarnation.
Maybe we aren’t here to learn lessons as many like to say. Maybe experience itself is the point. Maybe we simply wanted to know what gravity felt like, what food tastes like, what exhaustion feels like, what it’s like to fall in love with someone when you don’t know how things will turn out.
Horrible things happen in this world not because a higher power seeks to punish us, but because for this concept to work, it requires randomness and freedom.
If we take this view, **death might simply be the end of this temporary, localized experience rather than the end of consciousness itself.**
I don’t know about you. But I like this idea much more than any prison planet theory.