In another thread @anandhaqq wrote the following that touches on something very near to the thoughts that originally triggered this thread.
Though I agree with some of these sentences, I don’t agree with his interpretation. I look at it from an evolutionary perspective and believe it’s a window into the human brain and consciousness. Over the past week+ I’ve spent literally dozens of hours watching another infant develop, along with watching the progress of another infant I had held and walked around with and interacted with all told easily a couple hundred hours worth during his first year and a half.
The human brain is a sponge and everyday new layers of memories and structure are laid down, one on top of the other. Then consider brain’s structure. Here I start running into my limitations, I’ve got something at the tip of my grasp, a sense of consciousness growing out of the mind interacting with the world and every moment of thought, which is of course in direct interaction with its environment and circumstances.
We act differently to different people, because that’s how it must be. Would it be appropriate to deal with your child, wife, boss, employees the same way? I think not.
You aren’t living thousands of different lives, our life is complex and we live thousands of different aspects of the same life that is you, which is the accumulation of all the days and experiences that you’ve lived. Those with richer experiences and learning inevitably live richer lives, like a diamond with extra complex facets cut into it.