Merged Defend/Debate Reincarnation / Child Reincarnation Stories

[Dave Rogers]

How did you determine that there was practically no way?

I like the "other than deliberately searching for it" bit too. Some children do, in fact, deliberately search for information on obscure subjects; I remember having been one of them.

Dave

 

[Pixel42]

In a previous thread someone brought up the documentary The Boy Who Lived Before. The youtube link to it no longer seems to be working, but here's the description I cut and pasted at the time:

Ever since he was two years old and first started talking, Cameron Macauley has told of his life on the island of Barra. Cameron lives with his mum, Norma, in Glasgow. They have never been to Barra. He tells of a white house, overlooking the sea and the beach, where he would play with his brothers and sisters. He tells of the airplanes that used to land on the beach. He talks about his dog, a black and white dog.

Barra lies off the western coast of Scotland, 220 miles from Glasgow. It can only be reached by a lengthy sea journey or an hour long flight. It is a, distant, outpost of the British Isles and is home to just over a thousand people.

Cameron is now five, and his story has never wavered. He talks incessantly about his Barra family, his Barra mum and Barra dad. His Barra dad he explains was called Shane Robertson and he died when he was knocked down by a car.

He has become so preoccupied with Barra and is missing his Barra mum so badly that he is now suffering from genuine distress.

Norma considers herself to be open-minded, and would like to find out if there is any rational explanation for Cameron's memories and beliefs that he was previously a member of another family on Barra. Her first port of call is Dr. Chris French, a psychologist who edits The Skeptic magazine which debunks paranormal phenomena.

Not surprisingly, he discounts any talk of reincarnation mooting that a child's over-active imagination can be fed by the multitude of television programmes available and the easy access to the Web. Norma is not convinced, she does not believe that Cameron has ever watched programmes that could have provided this information.

Norma's next step is a visit to Karen Majors, an educational psychologist whose speciality is children and their fantasy lives. She considers that Cameron's accounts are very different to normal childhood imaginary friends.

It has become clear to Norma that there are no easy answers to the questions thrown up by Cameron's memories. Cameron has asked, persistently, to be taken to Barra. Norma has finally decided to make that journey.

I goggled 'Barra documentary' and found this short (26 minutes) documentary:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0996476/

O Ye Barra (1996)

The Isle of Barra, situated at Southwestern tip of Hebrides, is an isolated place with a mysterious magnetism. The film depicts everyday life on this remote island where traditional tasks such as fishing and crafting are carried out. We are captured by the fairy tales and the Celtic folklore of Barra, and the dreamlike beauty of the landscape. The recurrence of symbols, colors and signs have given a poetic quality to this impressionistic documentary film.

It's just the sort of filler programme that might be shown on Scottish daytime TV, and which the young Cameron might have watched and absorbed whilst his parents were out of the room.

I haven't seen either documentary so I don't know how closely (if at all) its contents match Cameron's 'memories', but it does make me wonder how diligent people are in investigating all mundane possibilities before jumping to the supernatural explanation.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Was the definition of reincarnation I gave earlier not sufficient?

By reincarnated I mean that there's a connection between the person the current person remembers being and their current self wherein the memories of the memories of the former are had by the latter.

By being reincarnated I mean the memories of the previous person show up in someone else. (I know that this is where they usually say awareness is transferred from one body to another, but let's stick with memories)

That's certainly not the standard definition of reincarnation. Most people who believe in reincarnation believe in souls, believe the souls are reincarnated, and believe that most reincarnated souls do NOT remember their previous lives.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

- In the case of the argument that the world population has grown from millions to billions and that there would be no new souls to occupy the new bodies, I argue that there could be a vast amount of souls, much more vast than is currently incarnate that are disincarnate.

They come from the Mimbari. It's as well evidenced as the existence of souls themselves.

 

[Donn]

- In the case of the argument that the world population has grown from millions to billions and that there would be no new souls to occupy the new bodies, I argue that there could be a vast amount of souls, much more vast than is currently incarnate that are disincarnate.

And you should see the software to manage all that dead-tape. The algorithms to account for every ill and virtue; summed to either pend, or bloom a fresh meat suit. Complexity falls shy.

 

[SOdhner]

So here are a few of my objections, feel free to respond if you can.

1. Memories are stored in our physical brains. We know this from doing a whole lot of scientific research. There's no known way that a memory, stored in our physical brains, could be recalled by a different brain somewhere else.

2. Memories are super fragile. We lose them all the time, and research has shown that we subtly alter them each time we recall them. Memories are fuzzy and inconsistent, and so it doesn't seem plausible that they would survive the transition from one brain to another even if that were possible.

3. Also, where do the memories go in-between? If the original owner of the memories dies, and then it takes a bit for them to move on to the new owner, where are they in the meantime? If we're supposing that they can survive, intact, between lives then I don't really understand why they would be stored in our physical brains at any point. Why would we lose memories to time, and disease, and injury if they're not in our brains?

4. Because we've never seen actual evidence of the paranormal that has stood up to scientific scrutiny, any supernatural explanation is less plausible than even the least plausible non-supernatural explanation. That being said, there are plenty of plausible explanations that don't involve the paranormal. Kids lie. Parents lie. Kids get confused. Credulous people who are looking for proof of the afterlife are highly motivated to (subconsciously) hint at the correct answers or to treat anything ambiguous as a 'hit' or whatever. Coincidences happen, and since they make for good stories they get passed around while the "my kid says he remembers being a carpenter but it turned out to be just a show he watched while he was falling asleep" stories don't go anywhere.

5. Whenever you deal with stories like this, the problem is that either you can't confirm the details (which means you don't know if they're accurate) or you can confirm the details and you don't know that the person telling the story wasn't already aware of them too. What you would really need is something that they couldn't have possibly found out about ahead of time. That's really, really tough - by definition if you could find it out to test the story they might have been able to find it out too.

 

[Donn]

2. Memories are super fragile. We lose them all the time, and research has shown that we subtly alter them each time we recall them. Memories are fuzzy and inconsistent, and so it doesn't seem plausible that they would survive the transition from one brain to another even if that were possible.

I'd say the meat that forms the memory, the media, is fragile. We lose memories because we lose brain cells (however technical it all gets).

I get what you're saying, but it plays to the woo by mistake because it gives memories a position independent of their necessary matrix.

 

[SOdhner]

We lose memories because we lose brain cells (however technical it all gets).

I'm pretty sure we lose memories for a whole lot of reasons, most of which aren't related to brain cells dying.

 

[Donn]

I'm pretty sure we lose memories for a whole lot of reasons, most of which aren't related to brain cells dying.

Okay, but that wasn't what I was saying. No expert, for sure, but I don't think one can usefully speak about memories on their own. It's like speaking of bytes without registers, RAM, or hard disks, etc.

 

[SOdhner]

Okay, but that wasn't what I was saying. No expert, for sure, but I don't think one can usefully speak about memories on their own. It's like speaking of bytes without registers, RAM, or hard disks, etc.

I'm offering up multiple issues with the idea of reincarnation (specifically with the transfer of memories). What you're saying above was point number 1. Repeating point number one in all the other points would be redundant.

 

[fibbermcgee]

Wonder 234, I don't know what kind of research you have done but do a search on Bridey Murphy. Probably the most famous reincarnation story. You should also look at something called Cryptomnesia.

 

[xjx388]

As another poster mentioned upthread, children are absorbing information practically from birth. They watch the same shows you watch, for example. It is certainly possible that a child saw something on a show you don't remember watching and used that as a seed for childhood fantasy and imagination. Every case I'm aware of started with weird "memories" that caused the parents to freak out, then the kid ends up seeing an "expert" that is involved with study of reincarnation. From there, it's impossible to ferret out what is true memory and what is "planted" memory (for want of a better term). All we have to go on is 1)The fertile and impressionable imagination of a child and 2)The testimony of a biased expert. We have no idea what information the expert gleaned independently and seeded back into the kids memory.

 

[Wonder234]

Just curious, have you guys looked into reincarnation very much? What have you seen that dissuaded you from a belief in reincarnation? If it's something you read/watched/heard online can you post it here? If it's not online can you tell me what it was? If your disbelief comes from your own convictions can you tell me what those are? Basically, what are your reasons for your disbelief in reincarnation?

 

[Mojo]

Just curious, have you guys looked into reincarnation very much? What have you seen that dissuaded you from a belief in reincarnation? If it's something you read/watched/heard online can you post it here? If it's not online can you tell me what it was? If your disbelief comes from your own convictions can you tell me what those are? Basically, what are your reasons for your disbelief in reincarnation?

There's no good evidence for it, and no credible mechanism.

ETA: And I don't like to see the burden of proof reversed.

 

[Wonder234]

There's no good evidence for it, and no credible mechanism.

ETA: And I don't like to see the burden of proof reversed.

I'm just curious.

You say there's no good evidence. Does that mean you've seen evidence and thought that it wasn't good? What was the evidence and why didn't you think it was good?

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

I'm just curious.

You say there's no good evidence. Does that mean you've seen evidence and thought that it wasn't good? What was the evidence and why didn't you think it was good?

Does any of the evidence you've supplied (substitute "alluded to" if you like) qualify as good?

 

[SOdhner]

Just curious, have you guys looked into reincarnation very much?

Yup.

What have you seen that dissuaded you from a belief in reincarnation?

The evidence is on the same level as UFOs, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, or Fairies. That is to say, there are anecdotes and people claim to have proof, but as soon as you look closely none of the supposed evidence is very inspiring. There's also no plausible mechanism for it.

Basically, what are your reasons for your disbelief in reincarnation?

Um... I gave a bunch and you didn't reply to my post. But sure, here you go again:

1. Memories are stored in our physical brains. We know this from doing a whole lot of scientific research. There's no known way that a memory, stored in our physical brains, could be recalled by a different brain somewhere else.

2. Memories are super fragile. We lose them all the time, and research has shown that we subtly alter them each time we recall them. Memories are fuzzy and inconsistent, and so it doesn't seem plausible that they would survive the transition from one brain to another even if that were possible.

3. Also, where do the memories go in-between? If the original owner of the memories dies, and then it takes a bit for them to move on to the new owner, where are they in the meantime? If we're supposing that they can survive, intact, between lives then I don't really understand why they would be stored in our physical brains at any point. Why would we lose memories to time, and disease, and injury if they're not in our brains?

4. Because we've never seen actual evidence of the paranormal that has stood up to scientific scrutiny, any supernatural explanation is less plausible than even the least plausible non-supernatural explanation. That being said, there are plenty of plausible explanations that don't involve the paranormal. Kids lie. Parents lie. Kids get confused. Credulous people who are looking for proof of the afterlife are highly motivated to (subconsciously) hint at the correct answers or to treat anything ambiguous as a 'hit' or whatever. Coincidences happen, and since they make for good stories they get passed around while the "my kid says he remembers being a carpenter but it turned out to be just a show he watched while he was falling asleep" stories don't go anywhere.

5. Whenever you deal with stories like this, the problem is that either you can't confirm the details (which means you don't know if they're accurate) or you can confirm the details and you don't know that the person telling the story wasn't already aware of them too. What you would really need is something that they couldn't have possibly found out about ahead of time. That's really, really tough - by definition if you could find it out to test the story they might have been able to find it out too.

Hope that helps.

 

[Pixel42]

Just curious, have you guys looked into reincarnation very much? What have you seen that dissuaded you from a belief in reincarnation? If it's something you read/watched/heard online can you post it here? If it's not online can you tell me what it was? If your disbelief comes from your own convictions can you tell me what those are? Basically, what are your reasons for your disbelief in reincarnation?

Over the years I've looked into several claimed cases of reincarnation (some brought to this forum, others brought to my attention elsewhere) and none have stood up to scrutiny. They are just anecdotes which can always be explained without assuming the existence of reincarnation, like the one in the documentary I referred to above.

When someone makes a claim which seems to contradict our understanding of how the world works (painstakingly acquired over generations by humanity's best minds) the burden of proof is on them. They are the ones who need to provide evidence to support their claim, and it needs to be evidence that cannot be explained unless their claim is true. Claims of reincarnation do not meet that requirement, so the default assumption remains that they are not correct.

 

[steenkh]

Just curious, have you guys looked into reincarnation very much? What have you seen that dissuaded you from a belief in reincarnation?

Why on Earth would I have to be dissuaded from believing in something that is obviously against the laws of nature and common sense? I would rather ask what made you give up on the laws of nature and common sense in order to believe in reincarnation?

Perhaps you never thought about how tied memory is to the physical brain, and how easily we forget everything even while we are alive?

What physical mechanism would you propose for storing memories outside of the brain? How can this memory get back into the developing brain of a child without a physical mechanism that we would know of, considering that we have found that we know every physical influence that makes an impact at room temperature?

If you think our understanding of physics is missing something, you need to have impressive evidence that goes beyond a lack of imagination of how normal physical interactions could make a child and its parents believe in reincarnation.

 

[Mojo]

I'm just curious.

You say there's no good evidence. Does that mean you've seen evidence and thought that it wasn't good? What was the evidence and why didn't you think it was good?

Why don't you post the evidence that has led you to believe in it?