Empirical Proofs of reincarnation.

[JayUtah]

Dr. Brian Weiss is featured in a Huffington Post article. He uses hypnosis to help his patients recall their past lives.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/24/brian-weiss-past-life-when-we-die_n_4661482.html

No, this is not something hypnosis can do. For a number of years it was widely believed that hypnosis could help people recover lost memories, or recall poorly-remembered events with greater clarity and accuracy. This has been shown via rigorous empiricism not to be the case. One is just as likely to imagine, and to fabricate false memories, under hypnosis as not. Dr. Weiss' work is not scientific. He plays to popular audiences, capitalizing on remnants of the former misconceptions regarding hypnosis.

 

[sylvan8798]

It still doesn't makes any sense. Explain away whatever you want. I can spot what's evidence and what's not. And look I'm being very generous and tolerant with you, as I didn't ask -like others- how do you define "reincarnation".

Yeah, and awkwardly OP still has not done that.

 

[Mojo]

I am going to reply to several posts at once. Several opponents criticized my usage of the phrase “open mind”. Well, anyone who has an open mind could use the past lives recall procedure to see that, most likely, he/she had a past life...

Unless their open mind has any reasonable sort of door policy.

 

[Ron Swanson]

Anecdotes are not proof of anything, except the ability to tell a story.

 

[JayUtah]

Yeah, and awkwardly OP still has not done that.

From context I think it's safe to say he means the definition as believed in Buddhism. It would then be wise to mention that this is not the animist style of reincarnation that Jabba argued in his thread.

 

[carlitos]

You recognized Sanskrit? How posh of you! Why didn't you recognize Alanic or Guarani?

Or Alanic Guaraní - It's like 10,000 bombillas, when all you need is a ka'ay.

Okay, then we know Natasha's mother must know Russian!

Good catch.

 

[theprestige]

Okay, then we know Natasha's mother must know Russian!

How do we know that? In the passage you quoted, Natasha answers in English, and the mother confirms the answers. All we can conclude from this passage is that the mother must know English.

 

[aleCcowaN]

What observations did you collect to confirm Natasha hadn't been exposed to Russian during the three years you didn't know her? What observations did you collect to attempt to falsify your reincarnation hypothesis? None -- you simply jumped to the desired conclusion.

... and that, "Buddha", is epistemological hedonism in a nutshell.

 

[aleCcowaN]

I do not believe in demons and in psychic powers, so I do not have to analyze these possibilities.

And that is the hard proof that you are an epistemological hedonist and nothing else.

 

[The Greater Fool]

How do we know that? In the passage you quoted, Natasha answers in English, and the mother confirms the answers. All we can conclude from this passage is that the mother must know English.

How did she know the English answers were correct if she didn't understand the Russian questions?

 

[Dancing David]

I am going to reply to several posts at once. Several opponents criticized my usage of the phrase “open mind”. Well, anyone who has an open mind could use the past lives recall procedure to see that, most likely, he/she had a past life, although this may not necessarily be the case –according to Buddha, some people do not have past lives. The procedure in its original form is presented in the book, Buddhist Scriptures, written by Conze. In its original form the presence of a counselor is not required, anyone can run it on himself, so this is not a “guided meditation”. I tried the procedure on myself and it worked for me.

I didn’t find an Internet reference to the ABC special on past lives that I mentioned in my post. However, I found something else, also on ABC website.
https://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=132381&page=1

Dr. Brian Weiss is featured in a Huffington Post article. He uses hypnosis to help his patients recall their past lives.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/24/brian-weiss-past-life-when-we-die_n_4661482.html

This would fail as a high school research paper

 

[Dancing David]

The burden of proof is the procedure itself. You can run the procedure on yourself without an outside help. The original procedure worked for me, I was able to recall my past life along with two Sanskrit phrases. It might as well work for you. If you're successful, would you accept your own experience as burden of proof?

That does not meet any reasonable burden of evidence

"It worked for me is low standard"

 

[theprestige]

How did she know the English answers were correct if she didn't understand the Russian questions?

<<What is your name?>>

"My name is Natasha."

"Yes, that's correct."​

OR

<<What is your name?>>

"Natasha."

"Did you ask her name?"

"Yes."

"Then yes, that's correct."​

OR

"Here, let me ask her what her name is."

<<What is your name?>>

"Natasha."

"Yes, that's correct."​

 

[aleCcowaN]

"Buddha", I would like to know what you make of this (audio and transcript available)

https://www.npr.org/2014/01/05/259886077/searching-for-science-behind-reincarnation

 

[The Greater Fool]

<<What is your name?>>

I assume <<< >>> = Russian?

Your first assumes mom speaks Russian, the others are not how the story was related.

 

[JayUtah]

This would fail as a high school research paper

Makes me want to read his Master's thesis. Not.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Okay, then we know Natasha's mother must know Russian!




And a three-year-old whose mother knows Russian understanding some questions in Russian and knowing one word of Russian is remarkable, how?

To be fair, "Buddha" asked the girl some questions that Natasha answered in Russian -"Buddha" is the witness of this- and then "Buddha" turned to the kid's mother and ask her about the answers given -which supposedly he translated into English-. The mother confirmed the exactitude of the "answers" -Natasha's mother is the witness of this-.

I would like "Buddha" to provide the link to the record of this experience. Voices are enough. No need to see faces (videos or the selfies you took of the group). But in this time of mobile phones it would be suspicious not having recorded evidence of this interview.

 

[Dave Rogers]

How did she know the English answers were correct if she didn't understand the Russian questions?

The way I read that was that Natasha's mother confirmed that the facts stated by Natasha in the answers were correct. That, of course, is more or less irrelevant to whether Natasha understood the question if Natasha's mother didn't speak Russian, because she didn't know what the question was. Note also - aleCcowaN, you seem to have got this wrong - Natasha's answers were in English, apart from one Russian word Buddha claims to have recognised. So we're not being told that Natasha could speak Russian, apart from one solitary word, but that she could understand it but answered in English. That in itself seems more than a little odd; in fact, when examined in any detail at all, the whole thing makes very little sense except as a desperate attempt to imagineer some evidence where none exists.

Dave

 

[JayUtah]

<<What is your name?>>

"My name is Natasha."

"Yes, that's correct."​

Mom would need to know Russian to confirm that Natasha answered the question correctly.

<<What is your name?>>

"Natasha."

"Did you ask her name?"

"Yes."

"Then yes, that's correct."​

This obviously works. The answer was given before the question was rendered in English, which Natasha presumably understands.

"Here, let me ask her what her name is."

<<What is your name?>>

"Natasha."

"Yes, that's correct."​

This works only if Natasha doesn't hear the question in English when Buddha asks the mom.

Either way I don't think it's clear from Buddha's scant details that Natasha's mother speaks or understands Russian. This is why I say you need empirical controls on such exercises, so that the outcome cannot be easily or credibly attributed to anything other than the child's proficiency in Russian. You have to eliminate such things as nonverbal cues, pat answers, and so forth. Especially in this sort of test involving children, you have to control for collusion from the parents. This has come up before in a lot of these purported proofs. The research is done among cultures where reincarnation is widely believed and where one's past lives -- and the clairvoyance to "remember" them clearly -- convey social status in present life. For children, this reflects on the parents. Hence we've seen cases where the parents coach the children or telegraph correct answers, or lie to investigators about what allegedly has been recalled. Looking for potential biases in Natasha's mother would be a normal empirical approach, if she's participating in the test.

In the larger sense you have to eliminate via observation and deduction the normal ways a three-year-old can have come to understand Russian. That hasn't been done in this case.

 

[theprestige]

I assume <<< >>> = Russian?

Your first assumes mom speaks Russian, the others are not how the story was related.

My first assumes that an English-speaking mother can understand the English phrase "my name is Natasha", can evaluate its truth value with regard to the child she named, and can even deduce the question that prompted it, without understanding a word of Russian.

The story was related without a lot of information about the details of the method. It's possible those details would reveal whether a Russian-speaking mother is necessary. It's also possible that they wouldn't. I offer two scenarios in which those details don't require a Russian-speaking mother.

I think the few details we do have are not sufficient to conclude that the mother speaks Russian. Ironically, Myriad commits the same error that Buddha does: jumping to a conclusion without properly accounting for and ruling out other possibilities.