# Does the theory of "death is like before you're born" also 100% support reincarnation? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 17, 2017, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650 "2017-04-17T18:31:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/41 "2017-04-18T12:20:53Z")
The thought “I didn’t exist before I was born, and I will not exist after I die” is an actual comforting thought to me. I used to feel edgy about my own mortality too. What a tragedy not to see what happens after I die. What exciting things will I miss? What is being dead like? Then I thought, being dead is like being before I was born. Nothing scary. I just thought about history, and how I wasn’t there for most of it. Was that such a tragedy? No. So, having a concept of what it was like before my earliest memories, my state after I die has a certain familiarity that comforts me when I ponder my mortality. Everything is perception. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/42 "2017-04-18T13:08:08Z")
> [@dude\_robert](#): > > Well, as I said before, it seems very unlikely to have just been made a human by chance when there are much higher chances to have been made something else and then died as that something else and never became anything else ever again, according to the “no reincarnation” idea. > > So I would prefer to say that before I was born, I was probably many many trillions and trillions of bits of non-sentient lifeforms all having lifespans of probably a few minutes or seconds or even less, so that as soon as the lifeform dies it instantly is converted to another one, I guess? > > Well if you were careless with the water and splashed it on the fire in such a way that it forced the hot air and embers to escape the fire pit and instead populate a bunch of dry bush and buckets or opened canisters of generator fuel that was lying to the side of the fire then it might suddenly explode into a massive bushfire. > > Even if it doesn’t do that, you can still feel the warmed air, smoke and melted wood flying through the air and crashing into the ground. > Err, on a more serious note: > > Well, I think that if reincarnation was not a thing, then that fire will probably come back as the exact same fire made by the exact same person in the exact same environment after you give it some time. > > I mean, even without the instant reincarnation, I find it very hard to believe that there would be no sort of afterlife at all. I mean, surely there would be a very good chance of all of the particles of you all coming back together at least once, right? It doesn’t even have to be for very long, it could just be for less than a few milliseconds. > > I mean, isn’t it very unlikely that that will never happen? Since if you were completely unconscious for all of eternity, that means that the universe has already ended and begun and ended over and over again, right? After then after it has done that lots of times, surely something that is “more powerful” than the universe would also change in some sort of way many times as well, unless for some reason that area is “above” changing. So after the universe dimension changing and warping over and over, why wouldn’t all the bits of materials that make up you and the trees and bushes and the reasons you had for lighting that fire at least make themselves exist again at probably multiple points? I see no reason for this not to happen if reincarnation is either not a thing, or not a permanent thing so that it stops after a while for some reason. **robert, dude** … you’re not even wrong. You can speculate about whatever imaginary process strikes your fancy, but until you can show your work, imaginary is all that this is. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/43 "2017-04-18T18:03:13Z")
What does “reincarnation” even mean? That is to say, what does it matter if I was a dog or a tree or Benjamin Franklin in a past life if I don’t retain any knowledge or memories from that past life? > [@dude robert](#): > > No, I don’t mean a magical soul that is actually conscious of itself or anything. I just mean errr some sort of holding unit for all lifeforms. You have still not proved how the universe/whatever can differentiate between a person that’s never been born before and is about to be born versus a dead person. What is the difference of the time before you existed and after you existed? It doesn’t. You didn’t exists before you were born and you don’t exist after in any sense other than people’s memories. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/44 "2017-04-18T18:17:13Z")
[Holding unit for lifeform.](https://www.smallworks.ca/wp-content/uploads/farm_lane_house_vancouver_ext1.jpg) [Holding unit for deadform.](http://www.goodfuneralguide.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/co29-960x670.png) ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/45 "2017-04-18T18:40:52Z")
I thought that this existence was supposed to be some kind of computer simulation. If so, then the entities that run it can copy/paste me into a different being. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/46 "2017-04-18T19:24:48Z")
Yes, but this is begging the question. If “you” can be cut and pasted into a different being, how exactly is that different being still “you”? What makes you you? And if you weren’t you, how would you still be you? I get it, if there were such a thing as a soul (which there isn’t), and that soul is attached to your body, then we could identify “you” as the soul and not the body. But why would we do that? Supposed we could track souls, and we see one attached to your body. Then you die, and the soul float around for some time, and then attaches to some other life form, like a frog or a gestating baby. But that life form has no memories or personality in common with the being consisting of the body and soul that used to make up “you”. So how and why do we say that the soul is you? Isn’t the soul more like some weird parasite that attaches itself to random bodies for a while, and when the body dies it goes off to find some new host? The existence of souls doesn’t make the problem of your identity any easier. I mean, sure, if your soul contained your memories and thoughts and personality, then that would be one thing. But if it doesn’t, then how is “your soul” the same thing as “you”? Of course, this is all made much easier if we simply ask for some evidence that an entity worth calling a “soul” exists, and since we lack any such evidence we don’t have much call to speculate about the properties of a phenomenon that we haven’t established to exist yet. “What color is the turtle the world is resting on?” is a silly question when we haven’t even established that the world is resting on the back of a turtle yet. And also we have some pretty good evidence that there is no such turtle, when we go underneath the planet to look for it we don’t see it, so at the very least if it has a color that color is “invisible”. ---
**Author:** ![mikecurtis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikecurtis/32/3284_2.png) [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/47 "2017-04-18T19:37:30Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > What does “reincarnation” even mean? That is to say, what does it matter if I was a dog or a tree or Benjamin Franklin in a past life if I don’t retain any knowledge or memories from that past life? Buddhists believe > [@](#): > > Memories are a part of the mind, the mind dissolves with the gross body upon death. What is carried from one life to another are ‘impressions’ on the jiva. If you do something with all your heart and do something repeatedly every day, then it will make a deep impression that will carry forward to and manifest in your next life. [QUOTE=msmith537] You didn’t exists before you were born and you don’t exist after in any sense other than people’s memories. [/QUOTE] maybe, but many believe otherwise even 24% of christian americans > **[25 percent of US Christians believe in reincarnation. What’s wrong with this...](https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2015/10/21/25-percent-us-christians-believe-reincarnation-whats-wrong-picture)** > > One cannot claim to believe in reincarnation without compromising key tenets of Christian faith. > [@](#): > > According to data released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2009 survey), not only do a quarter of Americans believe in reincarnation, but 24 percent of American Christians expressed a belief in reincarnation. . . .To be sure, we’re not dealing with a “nonsense” notion here. Nearly a billion Hindus have for thousands of years held a cyclical view of life. You are born. You live. You die. And because nobody’s perfect, your soul is born again and will continue to be born again until the negative karmic imprints on your soul from bad thoughts, words or deeds have been expunged. mc ---
**Author:** ![Staggerlee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/staggerlee/32/3134_2.png) [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/48 "2017-04-18T20:14:03Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#): > > Buddhists believe: > Memories are a part of the mind, the mind dissolves with the gross body upon death. What is carried from one life to another are ‘impressions’ on the jiva. If you do something with all your heart and do something repeatedly every day, then it will make a deep impression that will carry forward to and manifest in your next life. Whatever I’m reborn as will be quite the masturbator. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/49 "2017-04-18T20:16:00Z")
They are only the same insomuch that you don’t exist at either point. ---
**Author:** ![dude\_robert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8e7dd6/32.png) [@dude\_robert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dude_robert)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/50 "2017-04-18T20:56:43Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > You either aren’t grasping the meaning of “non-existence”, or you have no intention of discussing it at all because it conflicts with this “reincarnation” idea you have. Yeah, I was just using the term “unconscious” because it seemed easier. What I really meant was that if they did not reincarnate, then that means that “they” would be somehow just floating around as a non-existent being in nothingness forever, but that doesn’t make sense to me, since “forever” would literally be “forever”, but not just forever as in a short term period, but literally until a giant green universe snake comes in and revives you or something. I mean that MUST happen, or in my head it has a very large chance of happening, because how could it not? So I think I was saying that umm as soon as the “universe death cycling machine” has made sure you ARE dead, then it will instantly reincarnate you as something else at a random chance. Since there are more non-human entities than human entities, there is more likely chance for you to reincarnate as a non-human. Then I was also saying that I thought it would be very unlikely for this process to NOT exist, because then I wouldn’t be a human, you see? I wouldn’t be one, because I would have a higher chance of being a non-human because there are infinitely more non-humans in probably five seconds of typing than this then there ever will be humans. The chance of being born as a human is so absurdly unlikely out of all the things that I could have been born as. Now with reincarnation as “A THING”, then you would keep dying as nonhumans and cycling over and over again until you must eventually hit a human, right? But if reincarnation was NOT a thing, then that means you would be a bacteria and die, perhaps from some soap someone put on their hands or the infinite amount of other stuff they die to, since hardly any bacteria actually die from people at all. But then because the universe death machine would have marked me as “meh, he’s already gotten dead” basically a really powerful DNR order, then I wouldn’t have been born as a human again… > [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > But in your first post, you were on about me getting reincarnated as bacteria and insects. Now you’re talking about me getting reincarnated as – well, as _me,_ as “the exact same person in the exact same environment”, again lighting a campfire for the same reasons while again surrounded by trees and bushes that “exist again”. > > I think I get that; I just don’t see how it has anything to do with whether an insect can be reincarnated from a bacterium and then be reincarnated as a human. > > The idea that an indistinguishable entity would briefly flare into existence if the same components ever got reassembled in the same circumstances – how does that have anything to do with vastly _different_ organisms somehow being reincarnations of the same entity? What does that even mean? Well to be honest those were just two different thoughts that I had. I mean, both were sort of an afterlife, except the reincarnation thing was sort of only a hybrid afterlife since it’s not really you, even thought it’s your singular consciousness. > [@Lemur866](#): > > Yes, but this is begging the question. If “you” can be cut and pasted into a different being, how exactly is that different being still “you”? What makes you you? And if you weren’t you, how would you still be you? > > I get it, if there were such a thing as a soul (which there isn’t), and that soul is attached to your body, then we could identify “you” as the soul and not the body. But why would we do that? Supposed we could track souls, and we see one attached to your body. Then you die, and the soul float around for some time, and then attaches to some other life form, like a frog or a gestating baby. But that life form has no memories or personality in common with the being consisting of the body and soul that used to make up “you”. > > So how and why do we say that the soul is you? Isn’t the soul more like some weird parasite that attaches itself to random bodies for a while, and when the body dies it goes off to find some new host? > > The existence of souls doesn’t make the problem of your identity any easier. I mean, sure, if your soul contained your memories and thoughts and personality, then that would be one thing. But if it doesn’t, then how is “your soul” the same thing as “you”? > > Of course, this is all made much easier if we simply ask for some evidence that an entity worth calling a “soul” exists, and since we lack any such evidence we don’t have much call to speculate about the properties of a phenomenon that we haven’t established to exist yet. “What color is the turtle the world is resting on?” is a silly question when we haven’t even established that the world is resting on the back of a turtle yet. And also we have some pretty good evidence that there is no such turtle, when we go underneath the planet to look for it we don’t see it, so at the very least if it has a color that color is “invisible”. IMO, if the aliens had a computer powerful and eldritch enough to simulate our entire universe, then… they probably know things that we couldn’t physically even dream about… > [@QuickSilver](#): > > **robert, dude** … you’re not even wrong. > > You can speculate about whatever imaginary process strikes your fancy, but until you can show your work, imaginary is all that this is. Well, I am just saying, that, either way, there, must be some sort of afterlife, whether it’s a magic green turtle reviving you a trillion big rips and big bangs away, or whether it’s a continuous cycle of spawning and death. ---
**Author:** ![Staggerlee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/staggerlee/32/3134_2.png) [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/51 "2017-04-18T21:24:43Z")
> [@dude\_robert](#): > > The chance of being born as a human is so absurdly unlikely out of all the things that I could have been born as. The fundamental disagreement in this thread appears to be between your idea of ‘you’ as an entity which exists prior to, and after, the biological vehicle it inhabits (e.g. a human) - and the other view that ‘you’ are a product of your biological vehicle. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/52 "2017-04-18T21:28:17Z")
Also, your idea as to what is more and/or less unlikely seems to be a bit…skewed. ---
**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/53 "2017-04-18T22:20:18Z")
> [@dude\_robert](#): > > What I really meant was that if they did not reincarnate, then that means that “they” would be somehow just floating around as a non-existent being in nothingness forever. Please explain to me how you can be “floating around” if you do not exist? ---
**Author:** ![CoastalMaineiac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e8c25b/32.png) [@CoastalMaineiac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoastalMaineiac)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/54 "2017-04-18T22:30:31Z")
> [@dude\_robert](#): > > …then shouldn’t that mean that you would be then begin to exist as something else? That something else is likely worm poop. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/55 "2017-04-18T23:30:19Z")
Let me try, just one more time, to make clear the definition of “non-existence”. The does not exist above your head right now a miniature flying unicorn. Does this mean that there is: 1. The lifeform of a miniature flying unicorn floating above your head waiting to come into existence, or 2. NO FREAKING MINIATURE FLYING UNICORNS ANYWHERE NEAR YOU. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/56 "2017-04-19T05:54:42Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#): > > Buddhists believe > > > [@](#): > > > > Memories are a part of the mind, the mind dissolves with the gross body upon death. What is carried from one life to another are ‘impressions’ on the jiva. If you do something with all your heart and do something repeatedly every day, then it will make a deep impression that will carry forward to and manifest in your next life. I don’t know what it is you’re quoting, but how is that different from > [@](#): > > If you do something with all your heart and do something repeatedly every day, then it will make a deep impression that will carry forward to and manifest in the life of an otherwise unrelated person who happens to be born after you have died? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/57 "2017-04-19T06:12:05Z")
I actually agree with the OP, I think. In that the line “After death will be just like before I was born, i.e. nothingness” doesn’t really work if you take it seriously. You can just turn it around, and say the last time I was in the state of not existing I then transitioned to the state of existing…why couldn’t it happen again? And you also have issues with using lack of memories as proof of something. This is not to say I believe in reincarnation, obviously. There are lots of reasons to assume that the end of your body is the end of your POV, your consciousness. Just that this one doesn’t really work IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/58 "2017-04-19T06:28:19Z")
> [@dude\_robert](#): > > Well, I am just saying, that, either way, there, must be some sort of afterlife… Why must there be? You have two pieces of wood and a couple of nails. You use the nails to fasten the pieces of wood into a cross shape. Now there is a cross. You take out the nails and separate the pieces of wood. Now there is no cross. The end. ---
**Author:** ![mikecurtis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikecurtis/32/3284_2.png) [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/59 "2017-04-19T06:40:46Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > I don’t know what it is you’re quoting, but how is that different from > > > [@](#): > > > > If you do something with all your heart and do something repeatedly every day, then it will make a deep impression that will carry forward to and manifest in the life of an otherwise unrelated person who happens to be born after you have died? its not different. if you believe in reincarnation then you reap the karma you have sewn (good or bad). if you do not believe, then you pass the benefits of your life (good or bad) to the future. mc ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650/60 "2017-04-19T07:59:53Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#): > > its not different. if you believe in reincarnation then you reap the karma you have sewn (good or bad). if you do not believe, then you pass the benefits of your life (good or bad) to the future. Is knitted karma OK? What about macramé? I did macramé a couple of times as a kid, in the seventies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-theory-of-death-is-like-before-youre-born-also-100-support-reincarnation/784650.md?page=4)