"Reincarnation"

[Ladewig]

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

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.

 

[canispeaktodave]

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.

You said you didn't understand the bit in quotes. The bit in quotes was "This is Your Life".

 

[Ladewig]

You said you didn't understand the bit in quotes. The bit in quotes was "This is Your Life".

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.

 

[AvalonXQ]

I have read the part in quotes several times and have no idea what you are talking about.

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!"

 

[Ladewig]

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!"

I suspected that was the interpretation, but I don't understand how one's next life will be another person's past life.

 

[Marduk]

I suspected that was the interpretation, but I don't understand how one's next life will be another person's past life.

He is describing Karma, in the Hindu belief system time is cyclic, so you can reincarnate in either direction.

 

[fromdownunder]

So what?

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

 

[richardm]

He is describing Karma, in the Hindu belief system time is cyclic, so you can reincarnate in either direction.

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.

 

[Marduk]

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.

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

 

[The Atheist]

But, so what?

Norm

Now, when we can download our brains into a computer...

 

[dlorde]

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.

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.

 

[shandyjan]

snip "Why am I me and not him/her?"

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!

 

[whatthebutlersaw]

 

[SusanB-M1]

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.

 

[dlorde]

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?

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.

 

[shandyjan]

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.

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

 

[canispeaktodave]

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

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.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

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...

 

[Sean84]

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.

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.

No, you won't. Sorry. Why should you?

 

[JohnG]

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.

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?

"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.

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.

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.

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.