Suppose reincarnation is a real thing. Now what?

[Bubba]

Suppose science with overwhelming evidence determined for certain that you reincarnate after death, would anything change ?

Set aside the karma angle for now. Nothing religious involved. It is simply nature.

Lets just say you know for sure that you will reincarnate. Would you change? Would this affect the world? If so how? If not, why not?

What comes to mind?

 

[marplots]

Suppose reincarnation is a real thing. Now what?

Now what? I get a lot more interested in reparations for slavery. Now it's personal.

 

[Kid Eager]

Depends whether the reincarnated people are able to remember who they were previously and how many times it happens.

I would see a legal can of worms being opened and legislation relating to claims arising from prior incarnations.

 

[fagin]

But it isn't, so shouldn't this be in pop philosophy?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Without Karma? Nothing changes. There's no consequence. How you get reincarnated is just a roll of the dice with no bearing on anything at all.

 

[EHocking]

Suppose science with overwhelming evidence determined for certain that you reincarnate after death, would anything change ?

Set aside the karma angle for now. Nothing religious involved. It is simply nature.

Lets just say you know for sure that you will reincarnate. Would you change? Would this affect the world? If so how? If not, why not?

What comes to mind?

I would finally come to terms with the deep philosophical questions raised in the film Groundhog Day.

 

[Bubba]

You do know that you will reincarnate time after time.

You dont know whether or not there is an end to it.

You do remember all past lives.

You never know how long until next time around.
You do know it can be from 1 year to 100 year intervals.

You dont recognize anyone from before. Occasionally you and someone else ssomehow figure out you knew each other before, sometimes were family members.

Everyone knows all those things apply to each person.

 

[TheGoldcountry]

Suppose? I can suppose anything.
Suppose unicorns are real. Buy stock in rainbow manure.

 

[Bubba]

Without Karma? Nothing changes. There's no consequence. How you get reincarnated is just a roll of the dice with no bearing on anything at all.

Maybe just knowing we all come back and could have been family/friends has an effect similar to karma.

Plus knowing people occasionally figure out they were friends or family or maybe not friends might have effects

 

[Sideroxylon]

If you "were" once Joan of Arc what of it? At best you might gain a sense of pride in telling this to others but that past identity is not you in the same way that the five-year old you is/was. If you knew you were going to be reborn as a completely different person or animal that had no recollection of your life experience how would it make you feel?

Questions of our own lifetime identity are fraught - see teletransportation paradox - while ideas of reincarnation are meaningless without some essentialist ideas about self that are unwarranted by evidence.

Some of the atoms that make up your body have been the part of many other humans and animals great and small. And you are star stuff. In a sense reincarnations.

 

[stanfr]

I'd drink more beer. And I drink a lot as is.

 

[Bubba]

If you "were" once Joan of Arc what of it? At best you might gain a sense of pride in telling this to others but that past identity is not you in the same way that the five-year old you is/was. If you knew you were going to be reborn as a completely different person or animal that had no recollection of your life experience how would it make you feel?

Questions of our own lifetime identity are fraught - see teletransportation paradox - while ideas of reincarnation are meaningless without some essentialist ideas about self that are unwarranted by evidence.

Some of the atoms that make up your body have been the part of many other humans and animals great and small. And you are star stuff. In a sense reincarnations.

If you knew your past experience, wouldn't all of it be of value just as your current life is a learning curve?

Wouldnt we then be building on all of the past experiences cumulatively ? Hopefully in a good way, but....who knows...maybe thats a reason to add the karma thing to it.

 

[xterra]

Why is it that people who believe in reincarnation thinks they were once Cleopatra or Joan of Arc or Napoleon?

How come no one was the barber, or the street sweeper, or the person who cleaned latrines?

Bubba, read "Last Enemy, " a story by H. Beam Piper, about reincarnation. Go to http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18800

 

[stanfr]

Why is it that people who believe in reincarnation thinks they were once Cleopatra or Joan of Arc or Napoleon?

How come no one was the barber, or the street sweeper, or the person who cleaned latrines?

Bubba, read "Last Enemy, " a story by H. Beam Piper, about reincarnation. Go to http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18800

If you are the latrine cleaner, you probably would not remember such a mundane existence. If you are Napolean, on the other hand, your prior life was more memorable. Hence, those who lead exciting previous lives are more likely to remember them, and thus, be believers in reincarnation..

 

[Foolmewunz]

If you are the latrine cleaner, you probably would not remember such a mundane existence. If you are Napolean, on the other hand, your prior life was more memorable. Hence, those who lead exciting previous lives are more likely to remember them, and thus, be believers in reincarnation..

Per the law of diminishing returns, though, you wind up in a situation like that in Bhutan. There, as everywhere else, no rice farmers or goatherds are reincarnated, it's only "notable monks". And they've run out of notable monks. They've all been reincarnated, so the batch of a few dozen from 2009, say, may be the last and all the "special children" born thereafter, whose parents would normally want to claim them as reincarnated visionaries are stuck. They can't be notable monks or leaders, because they're already leading certified (by the Big Ol' Temple boss or whatever the authority is) reincarnated lives, already. So your little indigo child is just a child. Oh, well.

Obviously this reincarnation thing can't be universal. It's mathematically impossible to have everyone alive being reincarnated from someone. (Just by the fact that there are more living h. sapiens every year, with only a few exceptions in the last several millennia. So where's the choice mechanism. Which people get reincarnated?

It's Navel-Gazing 101.

 

[Bubba]

Why is it that people who believe in reincarnation thinks they were once Cleopatra or Joan of Arc or Napoleon?

How come no one was the barber, or the street sweeper, or the person who cleaned latrines?

Bubba, read "Last Enemy, " a story by H. Beam Piper, about reincarnation. Go to http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18800

Thanks, it looks appropriate and interesting !!

 

[Bubba]

Per the law of diminishing returns, though, you wind up in a situation like that in Bhutan. There, as everywhere else, no rice farmers or goatherds are reincarnated, it's only "notable monks". And they've run out of notable monks. They've all been reincarnated, so the batch of a few dozen from 2009, say, may be the last and all the "special children" born thereafter, whose parents would normally want to claim them as reincarnated visionaries are stuck. They can't be notable monks or leaders, because they're already leading certified (by the Big Ol' Temple boss or whatever the authority is) reincarnated lives, already. So your little indigo child is just a child. Oh, well.

Obviously this reincarnation thing can't be universal. It's mathematically impossible to have everyone alive being reincarnated from someone. (Just by the fact that there are more living h. sapiens every year, with only a few exceptions in the last several millennia. So where's the choice mechanism. Which people get reincarnated?

It's Navel-Gazing 101.

OK so there'd be a provision for newcomers to enter the system from somewhere somehow.

Tell Bhutan.

 

[Hokulele]

If reincarnation were real, I would promptly do my best to access weapons of mass destruction, and go on a homicidal rampage, targeting the most poverty-stricken areas of the world, to better my odds of being born into fabulous wealth.

What, wouldn't everyone?

 

[Vortigern99]

Depends whether the reincarnated people are able to remember who they were previously and how many times it happens.

I would see a legal can of worms being opened and legislation relating to claims arising from prior incarnations.

Also a literal can of worms. One of those worms could be your grandpappy!

 

[William Parcher]

What if 631 people come forward at the same time all saying that they were previously Joan of Arc? What then?

You could just shoot them all dead. It isn't really murder because reincarnation.