Empirical Proofs of reincarnation.

[JoeMorgue]

My toddler must speak ancient babbylonian. Anyone who knows him will confirm he babbles alot.

"I love my new baby but I wish he would stop screaming 'THIS HUMAN FORM IS LIMITING!' all the time"

 

[Kid Eager]

What an odd initial post by Buddha. Promises empirical proof and proceeds to tell a story that is neither empirical nor contains any proof.

Was this actually an attempt at irony that was taken too seriously by others?

 

[MetalPig]

Our toddler has a made-up word for 'thumb'; she calls it 'pannemond'.


Now I realize that she is a reincarnated French person and it's 'panne mond'. She is giving 'world failure' the thumbs up.

 

[JayUtah]

Our toddler has a made-up word for 'thumb'; she calls it 'pannemond'.

She's clearly the reincarnation of Jean-Paul Sartre. What some may have missed is that at six months, a human infant is still pre-verbal. They don't even speak coherent words or phrases in the languages in which they are immersed. The notion that "Natasha" is gurgling out recognizable Russian at that age -- as attested to by a nameless individual who doesn't speak Russian -- is implausible on its face.

Unless you're Buddhist.

The story, improbable as it is, fits the Buddhist idiom of reincarnation belief, where infants are said to recall their prior lives while pre-verbal, but then forget it as they mature. "Natasha" stopped speaking Russian, it was reported, but could still understand it at age 3, as attested by our claimant. The story doesn't really wash in terms of human development in infanthood, but it's right down the middle of the fairway when it comes to Buddhist folklore. What a remarkable coincidence that the "empirical" evidence for reincarnation happens to match exactly what the claimant believes as a matter of faith, even if it makes no sense otherwise.

 

[Porpoise of Life]

A six month old speaking fluently in any language at all...
Specialist, yet undefined, meditation techniques, that are expertly adjusted on the fly by our OP in order to make them much more efficient.
A dismissive skeptic who gladly spends 10 hours doing guided meditation.
Nearly all OP's subjects turn out to have spoken one of the three languages OP kind of knows in a past life...

It all seems like confabulation.

 

[JayUtah]

It all seems like confabulation.

I'm voting for yet another attempt at self-aggrandizement.

 

[Buddha]

Cool story bro.

Someone wake me up when we get some actual verifiable evidence rather than anecdotes.

Anecdote: a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person.

You should have checked the word "anecdote" before using it. It refers to real incidents, not to a paly of imagination.

Anyway, what kind of "empirical" evidence would you like to have, if any. I suspect that you would reject any kind of evidence.

 

[Buddha]

Not seeing anything that requires an explanation of reincarnation.

What is alternative explanation? A Christian man gave me an alternative explanation -- these people were possessed by the demons, so they were talking tongues". Is this kind of explanation that you would accept?

 

[JayUtah]

Anecdote: a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person.

Your last appeal to the dictionary didn't work out so well for you.

Anyway, what kind of "empirical" evidence would you like to have, if any. I suspect that you would reject any kind of evidence.

I gave you a lengthy post describing in detail what it would take to make your proofs empirically valid. Answer that instead of quibbling.

 

[JayUtah]

What is alternative explanation?

You're the one purporting to be an empiricist here. What did you do to identify and falsify alternative explanations before drawing your conclusion? Your critics are not required to do your homework just because you jumped to the desired conclusion.

Is this kind of explanation that you would accept?

Straw man.

 

[Buddha]

Perhaps you should start by explaining what you think an empirical proof is, and how this qualifies.

Meanwhile, for the amusement of others reading this thread:

1. One possibility is that the subjects in these stories were reincarnated.

2. Another possibility is that Buddha invented these stories.

As to (1), the process of reincarnation was not observed. As to (2), we did in fact observe that Buddha has written the stories. Therefore, by the principles of Conductive Logic, (2) is the empirically correct solution.

Now that this has been resolved, we can turn to the true purpose of this thread: Debating Karl Popper's contributions to the philosophy of science.

If you want to observe reincarnation, you would have to either describe the process of reincarnation or prove that no such process exists. Where is your proof?

Yes, there is a possibility that I invented the stories. But what was my purpose?
1. I wrote these stories to promote my book about reincarnation.
Indeed, I though some time ago about writing a book on this topic. But then I did market research and concluded that there is very little chance of success -- there are so many books on this very limited market so it is not worth spending money on a book.
2. These stories are my hallucinations.
You would love this to be the case, wouldn't you?
3. I made up these stories just to stick them to the atheists.
Well, that would be very unethical for me -- it would indicate that I am trying to impose my religious beliefs on them. Frankly, I do not care what the atheists think, I am not trying to rock their world. But there might be agnostics in this group, perhaps my stories would convince them that this matter is worth further investigation.

 

[Crossbow]

What is alternative explanation? A Christian man gave me an alternative explanation -- these people were possessed by the demons, so they were talking tongues". Is this kind of explanation that you would accept?

Excuse me for butting in ...

But I really do not think that very many Forum members will say that a person can be possessed by demons in lieu of a person being reincarnated.

 

[Porpoise of Life]

Well, if we follow your line of argumentation for the existence of God... if 1 and 2 aren't correct, it must be option 3!

 

[Buddha]

That was a lot of extra background. Okay, so you met a 3 year old that you believe referred to her finger in Russian. This is pretty weak evidence.



Hang on. This guy was a skeptic that was only doing this to prove you wrong and he played your game for TEN HOURS? I call shenanigans.



Okay so you spent ten(!?) hours telling Joe to describe something, he humored you, you said "Eureka!" and he said "No dude I'm just imagining something." Got it.

You go on to describe essentially a guided meditation, something I've been on both sides of. You can do this with anything, getting people to add details and asking leading questions. I could do this with someone and get them to describe hunting a dragon, that wouldn't mean it ever really happened.



So these are both useless. So far we have absolutely nothing.



Yes, it's always easier to fabricate this kind of thing with a willing participant.



And so you looked up the actual article, and... oh, no? Hmm. So someone wrote a paragraph of fake news copy. Or are you trying to imply it was in a language you knew and he didn't? If so, let's see his original writing so we can check your translation against it.



Citation needed.

I do not know what guided meditation is because I have never used it. The method that I was using consists of asking a subject to recall repeated activities that he had done in this life such as having breakfast on different days, going to the beach, etc. After his recollections improve I ask him to recall the books that he read earlier in his life, people that he met in childhood, etc. After he provides detailed descriptions of these event I ask him to recall his birth. The next step is recollection of his death that he experienced in his past life. Then I ask him to recall episodes of his past life that occurred at different times.

Now, about that 3-year-old --- you could say that I heard the word that I was expecting because of my overactive imagination. But what about her correct answers to all my questions?

 

[JayUtah]

The method that I was using...

You didn't describe the process you used to validate that this method results in recalling actual memories.

But what about her correct answers to all my questions?

Let's stipulate arguendo that she understood your questions and didn't, say, simply respond to your unconscious non-verbal cues. All you've proven is that she understands a smattering of Russian. The leap from that to reincarnation is vast. What did you do, empirically, to falsify other (more plausible) possibilities that would explain a knowledge of Russian?

 

[Buddha]

Actually yeah, let's talk about possibilities.

MOST LIKELY (IMO):

1. The examples Buddha gave were based on real things, but selectively presented and with details exaggerated or made up.

OTHER PLAUSIBLE:

1. Buddha is just lying.
2. Buddha is delusional.
3. Buddha has been misled by people that are lying.
4. Buddha has been misled by people that are delusional.
5. Some combination of the above.

SUPERNATURAL:

1. They were reincarnated.
2. They're psychic and were picking up other people's memories.
3. They're immortal and are remembering things from earlier in this same ilfe.
4. They've been repeatedly mind-wiped and re-written a la Dark City and bits are starting to bleed through.
5. They've been partially possessed by ghosts, and these are the ghost's memories.
6. They're aliens, they've been to Earth multiple times in different bodies.
7. The terrible god Nuuk'ta is doing this just to mess with Buddha.
8. The people in the past were psychics, and sent their thoughts forward in time.
9. Demons are trying to corrupt people by making them believe they'll get reincarnated rather than going to hell.
10. It doesn't matter because once we throw supernatural stuff into the mix it could be virtually anything at all.

I already replied to "other possibilities" Your response under the heading "supernatural" is truly remarkable, I might even include it in my book, The Most Plausible Biography of Buddha (This is a book about the historic Buddha, not about myself). Some people accept the alternative "supernatural" explanations, actually I met some of them, they believe in demons and psychics. I think they will be happy to hear from you.

 

[JayUtah]

I already replied to "other possibilities"

No, you didn't. You just shifted the burden of proof for others to provide and falsify alternatives. You're the claimed empiricist. That's your job, and you didn't do it. You don't seem to realize that for people who don't already believe in reincarnation, the leap from your "evidence" to that conclusion is just as ludicrous as the other options S0dhner mentioned that you dismiss.

 

[JayUtah]

I do not want to be offensive, but I just cannot resist saying this -- even former believers in graphology do not look terribly smart to me.

He brought up several important points that you ignored in favor of dropping an irrelevant and unnecessary insult. Focus, please.

 

[Dave Rogers]

If you want to observe reincarnation, you would have to either describe the process of reincarnation or prove that no such process exists.

That sentence needs to be taken outside and shot. I think you meant that if you want to study reincarnation, then you would have to either determine that reincarnation actually occurs, or prove that it does not; but you seem to be stipulating that unless a negative proof is obtained then the default is that it does. In fact, in the absence of a positive proof, we should
provisionally accept the null hypothesis that, in the absence of a physically plausible mechanism, it does not. And even that doesn't fix the sense of your sentence, as it still seems to imply that you can observe a phenomenon by proving its nonexistence.

I think you need to start by deciding what it is you actually want to say, then putting it into words, checking that the words convey the meaning you want them to, then posting them. I can't say for certain whether you're carrying out all those steps, but you certainly aren't carrying them out in the right order.

Dave

 

[Dave Rogers]

Now, about that 3-year-old --- you could say that I heard the word that I was expecting because of my overactive imagination. But what about her correct answers to all my questions?

Please list the questions you asked, both in English and Russian, give the full and correct text of her answers to them, and indicate what non-verbal cues you offered before and during her replies.

Dave