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"Reincarnation"

canispeaktodave said:
A British programme in the 80s. They get a celeb on and suprise them with all their old friends.

Wow, that thread got a bit off topic. I don't think anyone really agreed with what I had to say. I'm just glad it generated a good bit of old fashioned debate, with very little flaming. Thanks for that, was fun :D
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I am culturally literate enough to recognize "This is Your Life" as a biographical show that ran in the U.S. from 1952 to 1961. What I don't understand is the last line of your hypothetical - it is not a sentence.
 
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Ladewig said:
I am culturally literate enough to recognize "This is Your Life" as a biographical show that ran in the U.S. from 1952 to 1961. What I don't understand is the last line of your hypothetical - it is not a sentence.
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You said you didn't understand the bit in quotes. The bit in quotes was "This is Your Life".
 
canispeaktodave said:
You said you didn't understand the bit in quotes. The bit in quotes was "This is Your Life".
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May I suggest that you stop being disingenuous.

If you are interested in having a discussion, then answer the question.
If you are not, then don't.
 
Ladewig said:
I have read the part in quotes several times and have no idea what you are talking about.
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What he's describing is a reincarnation process where, following a review of all of your bad acts, you are next sent to experience the life of one of the people that you victimized. The quoted text could read, "AND NOW, for your next life, you will be one of the people you stabbed to death because of his skin color!"
 
AvalonXQ said:
What he's describing is a reincarnation process where, following a review of all of your bad acts, you are next sent to experience the life of one of the people that you victimized. The quoted text could read, "AND NOW, for your next life, you will be one of the people you stabbed to death because of his skin color!"
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I suspected that was the interpretation, but I don't understand how one's next life will be another person's past life.
 
Ladewig said:
I suspected that was the interpretation, but I don't understand how one's next life will be another person's past life.
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He is describing Karma, in the Hindu belief system time is cyclic, so you can reincarnate in either direction.
;)
 
The Atheist said:
So what?
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This is the key to me. If I have no memory of the present "Me", it is trivially true that I still live on, but so what? "Me" in the future will have no memory of "Me" in the past, so it is a pretty pointless exercise, even if it is true, and how does one even begin to try to evidence such a hypothesis?

I will die and get buried. Some of the atoms that make up my present body will be exchanged when the worms grok and share me.

A bird will eat the worm, some of my atoms will go on in another body.

The hunter will kill the bird and eat it... I am alive again, or some of the atoms from which I was made are back in a living form.

But, so what?

Norm
 
Marduk said:
He is describing Karma, in the Hindu belief system time is cyclic, so you can reincarnate in either direction.
;)
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But if he reincarnates backwards into the person he stabbed, presumably somebody else will reincarnate into him as the stabbee. Unless he's two people at once. So if he's required to be stabbed in a karmic lesson of how he was a bad person before, does that imply that all history is fixed and we just spend our whole time playing and replaying the same events from different viewpoints?

Because that sounds rather unsatisfying; we're going to be stuck here for a long time. Roll on the grave, says I.
 
richardm said:
But if he reincarnates backwards into the person he stabbed, presumably somebody else will reincarnate into him as the stabbee. Unless he's two people at once. So if he's required to be stabbed in a karmic lesson of how he was a bad person before, does that imply that all history is fixed and we just spend our whole time playing and replaying the same events from different viewpoints?

Because that sounds rather unsatisfying; we're going to be stuck here for a long time. Roll on the grave, says I.
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brings a whole new meaning to "made in Gods image" doesn't it,
this has a downside and an upside
1. There is only one personality inhabiting all of us, taking each in turn
2. I am God

:D
 
Robert Oz said:
No qualifications here and I would welcome expert advice.

It was just my understanding that something accumulated throughout life wouldn't get passed on. I am humble enough to eat my words if I'm wrong, of course. :)
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I don't profess to be an expert, but I have some understanding of heredity. There are some (very limited) influences of a mother's experiences that appear to possibly have an effect on the expression of her offspring's genes. This is proposed to occur by the influence of, for example, nutritional excess or lack, on basic body chemistry that can affect the genes, so that the expression of those genes in the offspring may be better suited to the likely environment (excess or dearth of nutrition). This relatively crude mechanism is controversial but seems plausible. AFAIK there is no other evidence or known mechanism whereby ancestors experiences or memories could be encoded in the genes. One of the reasons for the great success of humankind is that we have evolved other ways to do this, unconnected with heredity, i.e. culture, via the lengthy learning period of infants and children. This is how our ancestor's knowledge and experience is passed down the generations.

As far as the OP's question about self and some kind of 'reincarnation', this sounds like the old question "Why am I me and not him/her?" It is the essential clue to the illusion of self as a separate entity apart from the body. You are the particular 'you' that you are because your consciousness has grown and developed as part of the development and functioning of that particular body and brain - the functioning body and brain are you, and you are them. When you die, the body and brain cease to function, and you cease along with them. Fragmentary echoes of your personality will continue for a while in the memories of people who knew you, but 'you' will be gone. Other people will come into existence and ask the same question, but they won't be you because they don't have your body and brain and experiences. They will look out at the world through their own eyes and it won't be you looking out through them. There is no evidence for any 'life essence' or 'soul' that survives death.
 
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dlorde said:
snip "Why am I me and not him/her?"
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This! I think its one of the things that used to go round my head. I wondered not about karma, or reincarnation in the way that you could trace past lives or have knowledge, but just a total new 'me'. Does that make sense? I never could phrase it without it sounding like I bought into reincarnation and past lives!
 
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canIspeaktodave?
A most interesting thread to read through. I've written several version of another sentence here but it keeps getting too long and involved, so I'll see if I can come up with a short one later.:)
 
shandyjan said:
This! I think its one of the things that used to go round my head. I wondered not about karma, or reincarnation in the way that you could trace past lives or have knowledge, but just a total new 'me'. Does that make sense?
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It makes sense to the extent that it's a sign of the difficulty we have of grasping how we are intimately part of the body and brain we developed in, and that our mental self has no independent existence.

What would a total new 'you' actually mean? You are result of your genetics, your physical and mental development and experiences. No-other person will ever have that configuration and timeline.
 
dlorde said:
It makes sense to the extent that it's a sign of the difficulty we have of grasping how we are intimately part of the body and brain we developed in, and that our mental self has no independent existence.

What would a total new 'you' actually mean? You are result of your genetics, your physical and mental development and experiences. No-other person will ever have that configuration and timeline.
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Yep, that is what I mean. It is hard to put it into words. I think a new person, not a new me would have better described it! My question which I find hard to phrase makes no real sense and doesn't really beg to be thought about. But these crazy thoughts are human, something many of us go through, as you descibe 'the difficulty of grasping..'
I don't think of them any more. I think there are more wonderments that can be described to think about these days :)
 
shandyjan said:
Yep, that is what I mean. It is hard to put it into words. I think a new person, not a new me would have better described it! My question which I find hard to phrase makes no real sense and doesn't really beg to be thought about. But these crazy thoughts are human, something many of us go through, as you descibe 'the difficulty of grasping..'
I don't think of them any more. I think there are more wonderments that can be described to think about these days :)
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That's why I think of me as more of a driver of the body. Just like electricity runs a circuit, consciousness runs the body. When you buy a new car, the old one is not aware you drove the last one, and if you had your memory wiped before driving the new one, you'd have no recollection of the last. Now think of the driver of the body as just a perspective in space and time and does not have awareness itself or consciousness, just a persepctive. That perspective is what I wonder if I will experience in the body or any other conscious entity.
 
Just as an aside (and it's really not my area, but) I thought current thinking tended to the fascinating idea that consciousness was more of a passenger than a driver; that our consciousness tells itself that it's calling the shots, but it isn't really.

Edit to add: Maybe that isn't an aside...
 
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canispeaktodave said:
That's why I think of me as more of a driver of the body. Just like electricity runs a circuit, consciousness runs the body. When you buy a new car, the old one is not aware you drove the last one, and if you had your memory wiped before driving the new one, you'd have no recollection of the last. Now think of the driver of the body as just a perspective in space and time and does not have awareness itself or consciousness, just a persepctive.
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Is it just me or does this seem deliberately confusing?

That perspective is what I wonder if I will experience in the body or any other conscious entity.
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No, you won't. Sorry. Why should you?
 
Moochie said:
Having contemplated my own demise for nigh on 60 years now, all I can say is that your statement makes little sense. Death may, indeed, be quite pleasant -- as pleasant as birth. Death may not be clever, but why would anyone weigh it this way? Finally, death may not be desirable to some, but one cannot make such a sweeping statement encompassing all living creatures.
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I don't mean the actual process of death. People die in all sorts of ways that could be construed as "pleasant", but that doesn't mean that if you were told "you are going to die peacefully and painlessly in your sleep tomorrow night" that you would be necessarily looking forward to it. I'm referring more to the (often unpleasant) contemplation on death.

And birth is pleasant? Have you witnessed a birth?:p

"Clever" may sound like an odd choice of words, but I think life is more "clever" than death. Death is easy. As easy as falling off a log. Everybody does it sooner or later, but relatively few people live to the age of 100. Life takes a degree of hard work, luck and at least a bit of what could be termed cunning.

Death may be "desirable" to a living thing in some form of pain, but it's hardly the "default" setting.

I sometimes think that death threatens those who have some or much unfinished business in this fantasy we call a life. My answer is to finish that business. As the "good book" says, never put off till tomorrow what you may finish today. (Disclosure -- I tend to put off till tomorrow most of the time.)


M.
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I tend to agree, but the fear of death is pretty ingrained, which despite the distress that it causes is (as I indicated in my last post) probably a good thing.


canispeaktodave said:
That's why I think of me as more of a driver of the body. Just like electricity runs a circuit, consciousness runs the body. When you buy a new car, the old one is not aware you drove the last one, and if you had your memory wiped before driving the new one, you'd have no recollection of the last. Now think of the driver of the body as just a perspective in space and time and does not have awareness itself or consciousness, just a persepctive. That perspective is what I wonder if I will experience in the body or any other conscious entity.
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I think I know what you're getting at and it may even be true in some very loose sense, but I don't find that concept of immortality the least bit consoling or even meaningful.
 
JohnG said:
I tend to agree, but the fear of death is pretty ingrained, which despite the distress that it causes is (as I indicated in my last post) probably a good thing.
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The interesting thing about being aware of death is that most people don't believe its going to happen (well until your really old), which is vital to be able to live your life day to day. When a trauma happens, e.g. Cancer or a death of a close relative, that "believing its not going to happen" is lost fear of death becomes death anxiety. Every little palpitation becomes "am i having a heart attack", every headache a "have i got a brain tumor". This happened to me, when my Dad died and took me the best part of 4 years to get over. (This is not the reason for the original post, coincidental). It's amazing how the human body/mind can be aware of its own demise but be happy to live and do moderately dangerous things (driving a car, football, rock climbing) without thinking actually of death.
 
canispeaktodave said:
That's why I think of me as more of a driver of the body. Just like electricity runs a circuit, consciousness runs the body. When you buy a new car, the old one is not aware you drove the last one, and if you had your memory wiped before driving the new one, you'd have no recollection of the last. Now think of the driver of the body as just a perspective in space and time and does not have awareness itself or consciousness, just a persepctive. That perspective is what I wonder if I will experience in the body or any other conscious entity.
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But with regards to the reincarnation your describing, how is it still "you"?

If your consciousness, memory and self-awareness are transferred to a new body, I can understand calling it "you".

If your mind is wiped of all consciousness, memory and self-awareness and you become a vegetable, I can still understand calling it "you".

In both cases, something remains, whether it is your consciousness, memory and self-awareness or your physical body and brain. But in the reincarnation your describing, none of these remain. Your consciousness, memory, self-awareness and physical body and brain have all changed. How is it still "you"?

The "you" is still unidentified. If it is perception, there is no reason to think that perception is recycled.
 
Some things may be less likely to happen , merely because they already have happened.

The self seems to be defined by environmental and genetic factors interacting.

Absent cloning, it is vanishingly unlikely that any two humans from different generations will have identical genomes, so there will always be genetic differences.

The environmental factors start at conception and will again be different between two generations. Embryonic development. Nutrition. Exposure to disease, parasites, radiation etc.
Education. Childhood environment. Culture. TV. Radio. Friends. Siblings.Parents. All different.
And then there's the brain.

Right now, I can think the same thing two days running, but each time it feels different, because my environment is different and so am I. I'm older than yesterday. I've lost brain cells and gained weight. It's an hour since dinner and yesterday I thought the same thing in the morning- so my gut is different and so is my blood chemistry.
How similar do two brain states have to be at two different times, to feel the same?

In the absence of memory, how would I know I'm the same person I knew I was yesterday?
If memory is not transmitted after death, how would anyone be able to say he was the same person in any sense as someone who had lived before?
 
canispeaktodave said:
Yes, but to get the evidence you need an hypothesis. My hypothesis is that I once didn't exist in my current form and now I do. Therefore when I die and don't exist, will I have the same chance of existing again. I don't need evidence to form that hypothesis. But I would need evidence to PROVE the hypothesis. And to just say, there's no evidence is fallacious. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. How to test my hypothesis? I have no idea. That's why I posted here, see if the hypothesis could be proved, not disregarded due to no-one currently looking for evidence for it.
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If you're going to argue the possibility that "you" can die and then "you" can exist again, there has to be something about "you" that persists during the two lives and in between. Otherwise there is nothing about the two people that can be said to be the same. So, then, to find evidence for the hypothesis all you have to do is find a "you" existing between lives without a body.

You could call it the search for the Dave's Youon.

~~ Paul
 
CanIspeaktoDave, is this the concept with which you are struggling with your "driver" analogies?

It is a powerful illusion, nothing more. I believe that what we view to be continuity in our own consciousness is probably much the same.
 
Gate2501 said:
CanIspeaktoDave, is this the concept with which you are struggling with your "driver" analogies?

It is a powerful illusion, nothing more. I believe that what we view to be continuity in our own consciousness is probably much the same.
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I guess it would be, it would be the guy in the head watching the screen. Thanks
 
Robert Oz said:
But with regards to the reincarnation your describing, how is it still "you"?

If your consciousness, memory and self-awareness are transferred to a new body, I can understand calling it "you".

If your mind is wiped of all consciousness, memory and self-awareness and you become a vegetable, I can still understand calling it "you".

In both cases, something remains, whether it is your consciousness, memory and self-awareness or your physical body and brain. But in the reincarnation your describing, none of these remain. Your consciousness, memory, self-awareness and physical body and brain have all changed. How is it still "you"?

The "you" is still unidentified. If it is perception, there is no reason to think that perception is recycled.
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I'm reminded of the old story about my grandfather's axe. Sometimes the head needed replacing, and sometimes the handle needed replacing, but it's still the same axe. The trouble with canispeaktodave's idea is that he is simply throwing out the axe and buying a chainsaw, but trying to claim it's still the same axe.

If you redefine the word "axe" so that the claim can be true, it becomes a completely meaningless claim. Similarly, his claim appears to require redefining the word "you" to no longer have anything to do with actually being you, and is thus entirely devoid of any meaning at all. If you define "you" in such a way that it has nothing whatsoever to do with your body, thoughts, memories, or anything else, then sure, you can pretend that absolutely anything you like happens to you when you die. For example, I could define "you" as "a pink fluffy unicorn". When you die, you gambol for eternity in a field made out of chocolate and sharks.

In fact, this actually makes more sense than canispeaktodave's claim, since in my example "you" is actually defined as something. In his case, it is not defined as anything more than "not actually you at all", and the claim is even more useless than it may first appear.
 
canispeaktodave said:
Yes, but to get the evidence you need an hypothesis. My hypothesis is that I once didn't exist in my current form and now I do. Therefore when I die and don't exist, will I have the same chance of existing again. I don't need evidence to form that hypothesis. But I would need evidence to PROVE the hypothesis. And to just say, there's no evidence is fallacious. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. How to test my hypothesis? I have no idea. That's why I posted here, see if the hypothesis could be proved, not disregarded due to no-one currently looking for evidence for it.
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With reference to (my) bolding, above - this part of your hypothesis is plainly fallacious. 'You' are the construct of the brain in your head. You were born and developed to be the person you are through a unique set of circumstances, involving your parents and a host of other events back into the mists of time. These circumstances will not happen again, therefore there is no chance of you existing again. You have one shot at life, make the most of it.
 
canispeaktodave said:
My hypothesis is that I once didn't exist in my current form and now I do. Therefore when I die and don't exist, will I have the same chance of existing again. I don't need evidence to form that hypothesis. But I would need evidence to PROVE the hypothesis. And to just say, there's no evidence is fallacious.
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Neglecting the confusing addition of consciousness, consider the shape of the continents on earth: I don't actually know what the globe looked like 100 million years ago, but what's the probability it will ever look exactly the same again? And even if it did, would we say those were the same continents, in any meaningful sense?
 
canispeaktodave said:
Yes, but to get the evidence you need an hypothesis. My hypothesis is that I once didn't exist in my current form and now I do. Therefore when I die and don't exist, will I have the same chance of existing again.
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dlorde said:
With reference to (my) bolding, above - this part of your hypothesis is plainly fallacious. 'You' are the construct of the brain in your head. You were born and developed to be the person you are through a unique set of circumstances, involving your parents and a host of other events back into the mists of time. These circumstances will not happen again, therefore there is no chance of you existing again.
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What is wrong in http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3634697&postcount=285?

Cheers,
Wolfgang
 
A myriad bubbles were floating on the surface of a stream.
'What are you?' I cried to them as they drifted by.
'I am a bubble, of course' nearly a myriad bubbles answered,
and there was surprise and indignation in their voices as they passed.
But, here and there, a lonely bubble answered,
'We are this stream', and there was neither surprise nor indignation in their voices,
but just a quiet certitude.​

:D
 
wogoga said:
What is wrong in http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3634697&postcount=285?

Cheers,
Wolfgang
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Well, since you ask, it appears to me to be a string of non sequitur arguments:

It begins by arguing that much of the physical matter in our bodies is regularly replaced, yet we "feel" we are the same person, therefore souls. Uh, why? If I replace every brick in my house, one at a time, it will always "feel" like my house. So what?

Then it says the consciousness which emerges from each fetilised egg somehow distinguishes itself from all other near-identical fertilised eggs, therefore souls (at least I think it says so, it's rather long-winded). Again - why does this present any kind of puzzle needing souls to explain it?

Next it declares that since identical twins are born as two different consciousnesses, but have genetically identical bodies, therefore souls. That makes no sense at all unless you assume that consciousness does not arise from a brain's function but directly from an individual's genes. Who thinks that?

Then it declares the author's definition of soul = consciousness (as far as I can tell). Unhelpful added confusion.

Finally it makes some utterly unconvincing claims that such complexity couldn't arise from the relatively small amount of information in our genes and advances some unevidenced and unsupported claims for teleology, including the spectacularly stupid idea that if we evolved by random mutation then, consistently, all advances in human knowledge must also have come about by by a similar process of random copying errors in previous knowledge. Idiotic.


So, how's that?
 
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I light a candle and watch the flame dance.
I blow the flame out and it is gone.
I light the candle again, and watch the flame.
Is it the same flame?
 
There was a young fellow who stated
He thought he was reincarnated.
Of previous existence,
It was his insistence
All memory'd been eradicated.
 
Note to self: limerick kills thread.
Let's try again.


Though reincarnation sounds queer
And evidence fails to appear
Howe'er much you doubt
It can't be ruled out
And monkeys might fly out my rear
 
Interesting. My first thread on this forum was about a similar idea. Mostly the replies consisted of ~enigma~ yelling at me that I didn't under stand the 2nd law of thermodynamics. I learned a valuable lesson that day: People will automatically interpret anything you say as woo if you have a low post count.

Mainly my reason for thinking that I could exist again was because of a misinterpretation of the multiverse theory. I understood that to mean that there were an infinite number of other 'actual' universes out there, not quantum wave functions that haven't collapsed, or whatever it is.

From how I understand quantum mechanics, the statue of liberty could wave at me... if it could manage to exist for trillions of years (more?) but with an infinite number of universes, eventually there would be one in which the statue of liberty did wave its hand.

In the same way, the correct amount of carbon and hydrogen and oxygen and whatever other atoms could randomly come together somewhere to form an exact copy of my brain in the exact state it was right before I died. (maybe it could even be made of virtual particles popping into existence briefly?) With an infinite number of universes, this would happen in one of them eventually.

That was how I understood it anyway, no I don't see any reason to think that there are an infinite amount of universes, or that matter will 'always' exist, so I no longer think that I am immortal. (was a very unnerving idea anyway.)
 
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