Why We are Worlds

"It was for this reason that man was first created as one person [Adam], to teach you that anyone who destroys a life is considered by Scripture to have destroyed an entire world; and anyone who saves a life is as if he saved an entire world."

       -Jewish Talmud

      I had thought of the concept of human beings as worlds within a larger world, or universes within a world, for a while now. It is not a new concept. Jewish scholars have entertained a similar philosophy over the centuries. It's a fascinating philosophical/theological concept with some actually quite profound moral and ethical applications.

       Why does this concept work? Well, it's because of information. 

       The existence of all things in the whole scope of the world or the larger existence with respect to each and every one of us as individuals is contingent upon an information exchange relationship. The relationship between the projection of information from our external reality and the reception of information within our minds. 

Each individual person is a unique and isolated receiver of information that receives all information projected into their awareness by the external universe. 

If you break this information relationship, you negate the whole system. You terminate a receiver, within respect to that receiver you terminate the projection as well. You can't have a projection without something to receive it, in the same fashion as you can't have a performance without an audience. 

   If it is true, and the nihilist view of existence is legitimate and we cease to exist when we die, than when you kill a human being you are truly killing a world, or even a universe, or even a much more complex existence because of how this severs the information exchange relationship.

 I don't believe we truly cease to exist when we die, but even if we continue on, you are severing that relationship with respect to this world when you end a life. That person no longer dwells as a citizen of humanity, regardless of where their spirit dwells, and you have broken their relationship with this world and this universe.

    The relationship between a receiving awareness/consciousness and a projector of something for it to be aware of is probably the foundational relationship for all of reality, and it is the foundational relationship for each and every one of us as isolated minds. You break this relationship you negate the whole system, which is why I don't think it ever breaks for any of us. I don't think you can end existence or consciousness. I just think we enter into new information relationships with new realities or new existences depending on a variety of factors and stipulations, like our choices or ethics, or even a full immersion in a relationship with God-who is both the ultimate projector and ultimate receiver.

I don't think consciousness ever ceases because this primary relationship of information is so foundational and so essential. It's like an unbreakable law of nature, and so even our own minds will never lose this information relationship with existence. It will just change forms or change "places."

   Regardless, humans are more like universes within a world because of this information relationship, and to harm one maliciously is like harming an entire universe because with respect to them as individuals the existence of this universe is contingent on their awareness of it. It makes killing and harming someone all the more egregious and atrocious when you have this viewpoint and believe this concept to be true.

When you save a life, though, you've saved an entire universe...or an "infinite existence" if that idea lives in the person you saved!😁