Reincarnation, the Sequel!

Great Debates
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David said:

Two words: Martin Gardner.

I remarked:

And David responded:

“Help!! The entities are multiplying like rabbits.” – Doc Ock(ham) :smiley:

I confess to very poor language use in my comment quoted above. Restated: If you allow for spiritistic explanations of any phenomenon whatsoever, you have opened a can of worms. But it would be my presumption that virtually any spiritism accepts the concept of a “soul” acting as the vehicle of one’s “self” (however defined) that has the potential of surviving bodily death. Even the pre-Exilic Jews and Bronze Age Greeks, with an afterlife that was exceedingly close to nothingness, still posited some sort of survival. Freyr, from your studies would you have any insight into whether this is in fact universal or just happens to be common to all traditions I’ve looked into?

Okay, given this supposed surviving “soul” (pick alternative terms if you find that one offensive), and given the as-yet-unproven assumption that there are in fact some of these small children with valid if furtive past-life memories, at that point the “least entities” rule would assume that the surviving soul carrying the memories of its past life has entered into that child, i.e., that he has become the reincarnation of whatever the soul “was” before its body died.

Several contrary-to-known-evidence hypotheses in that paragraph, but I feel the logic holds. Whatever truth value you place on the hypotheses, the conclusion is validly drawn from them by the Razor. “If 2+2=5 and 5+5=11, then 2+2+2+2=11” is a valid statement, assuming the law of substitution of equals to be true, even though the arithmetic is all wrong.

I was making no assumptions about what might be true in real life, but drawing a conclusion within a set of hypotheses. To say “If the Divine Weasel really runs the universe, then Gaudere, David, SqrlCub, and slythe are destined for Hell” is not to make presumptions about their destiny, but to validly infer something based on a premise that I do not accept. This stands on all fours with that.

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What a great quote!

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Wow, you can’t read a particular thread for a few days and look what happens! :smiley: Into the trenches!!

First, I’d like to state that in opening up this thread, I didn’t intend for it to be a proving ground for re-incarnation, I wanted to accept it as a given and then comparing and contrasting various beliefs. Now I know what FoGgy felt like when he as making his statements about Xianity being the THE religion and you just gotta believe!

Second, since we are trying to verify the existence of souls, I’d like to offer a theory about the nature of reality. There are two types of reality, the Objective and the Subjective. Consider, as an example, a street lamp. With Objective reality, we can confirm and agree upon various aspect of the street lamp; its height, weight, composition, etc. With Subjective reality, the asthetics (sorry for my mis-spellings) of the street lamp are considered. These qualities change from person to person, yet each person would consider them real qualities of the street lamp. If the street lamp is of modern design, yet in a place that is modeled after turn-of-the-19th-to-20th century America, it would look terrible. Yet, if it fits its surrounding, then the street lamp looks pleasing. Nothing about the lamp has changed, yet our perception of it has.

Taking this a step further, I would submit to the materialists here that this Subjective reality does exist, because otherwise, the whole genre of Art (in all its various forms) would be reduced down to its material components. Michaelangelo’s David suddenly becomes a piece of marble shaped like a big man and da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is nothing more than splotches of paint on canvas. The beauty of these pieces of art are the sum of the whole, not simply a physical/chemical part of their composition.

The materialist have pointed out, if the soul exists, then where is it? Which part of the body is it connected to? To draw a comparision, where are your emotions? Emotions are quite real and can cause a person to do various things, from physical violence to tender love-making. Yet where are they? Can our emotions be simply reduced to hormonal secretions in the blood stream? I think not. Emotions are in the soul, prehaps they ARE the soul. Otherwise, the body is nothing more than a chunk of matter. It breathes, excretes and otherwise functions, but it has no life, no vitality. It’s alive, yet unaware, responding only because of instinct.

I use that to indirectly point to the soul. Our soul is the sum of our existence; our feelings, our experiences our physical bodies rolled into one.

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regarding this business of the soul sometimes remembering the previous life.

in the book: OLD SOULS 60% of the people who remembered the previous life had died violently in that life, whereas statistically only 5% of people die violently. a girl had fallen down a well and drowned, another burned to death, a woman was shot by her husband, a man hit in the head by shrapnel from a bomb.

suppose God intended for us to figure out how the universe worked. it might make sense for him to design the universe with cookie crumbs for us to find. the universe is a playground/learning program.

as to how the soul is connected to the body, i suspect it has something to do with chakras but haven’t read much about them yet. in one of my lazy moods. wading and sorting thru bullsh!t is a pain.

Dal Timgar

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Sure, such things exist subjectively. We think they’re art because we perceive them that way; they really are just paint on canvas (the Mona Lisa was oils on wood, BTW), or a big piece of rock. The existence of the objects can be objectively proven; the “art” does not objectively exist in the same manner that living beings or a lump of rock can be shown to objectively exist. And I am perfectly comfortable, as an artist, saying so.

And if the physical body, and all apparent medium for emotion is apparently destroyed with the brain, what happens to the soul? If the Mona Lisa is physically destroyed, does the “art” of that painting persist? It persists in our memories, certainly, as those who die exists in the memories of those still living, but I would argue that if the Mona Lisa is physically destroyed it ceases to objectively exist and lives only in human minds, just as if we are destroyed we cease to objectively exist and live only in other’s memories. It’s “life beyond death” of a sort, but not much consolation for those who wish to objectively exist past their physical death, not just live on in other’s thoughts. :wink:

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**Lemur866 wrote:

First of all, there is no such thing as reincarnation.**

You speak as if you have absolute proof that it doesn’t exist. Can you present your evidence? I’d be interested in seeing it demostrated.

**later Lemur wrote:

If the universe has moral agency, then I claim god is an asshole. If the universe does not have moral agency, then there is no god to call an asshole, and I deal with that and accept it. It’s the difference between my mom getting hit by a car because the road was slippery and the car had a certain velocity and my mom was in a certain location, and god deciding that it would be cool if my mom was hit by a car.**

You seem to think that this god is one of the All-Powerful, All-Knowing Types, and therefore the Universe has been set up according to its whims and strange tastes.

How about a compromise. What if the Gods are Very Powerful, Very Knowledgable Beings, but NOT Omnipotent or Omniscent? The point I’m making here is that bad things happen to good people. Does this mean it doesn’t care to help or isn’t able to help? I think it’s been show in other threads that having an All-Powerful, All-Knowing god leads to logical fallacies. But what if it (god) wasn’t All-Knowing or All-Powerful? Then the logical knots we have with Omnipotence and Omniscence untangle themselves.

**jmullaney wrote:

Now, wait a minute. The problem here is there’s no inherent morality in the system. How do you know what is right? What if you are Hitler? Do you get to keep coming back with an improved way to kill more and more Jews (oh, wait, don’t invade Russia. OK, I got it now – send me back!)?**

Well, the point is that re-incarnation is part of a whole moral/philosophical system, not the whole system itself. Since I’m Wiccan, I follow the Rede (An It Harm None, Do What Thou Will). But you do raise an interesting point and one I’ve wondered about. What of the people who don’t seem to want to learn or realize the harm they’re doing. Two answers: 1) I believe in the inherent logical-ness of people. Once they’re shown the evil they’re doing, I think they would realize their mistakes and try to do better. 2) the Gods are patient. You keep coming back 'til you learn the lesson, no matter what it is.

As for your example of Hitler, well, I doubt he’d be in the same situation to repeat the same pattern all over again.

**then jmullaney wrote:

But what if you don’t care? What if, each time you come back, you decide you are going to do things more and more wrong?**

See what I said above. I honestly feel that unlees you criminally insane, no person would not be able to see the error of their ways, the harm and hurt they’re doing when confronted with it directly. Think of the Gods as the ultimate encounter therapists. :smiley:

**even further, jmullaney wrote:

So, eventually, only evil people, those who had no interest in moving on to the next stage, would be left on earth.**

Not exactly, since new souls, graduating from a lower level of existence (cats? dogs? Republicans? :smiley: Sorry, I couldn’t resist!) would be there, too.

**and jmullaney wrote more:

So basically, you can not do what is right in this life, but that is OK, because you will get another chance. But how do you know you haven’t been saying this to yourself for an eternity already? What if you are the last evil guy who hasn’t quite gotten it yet?**

Re-reading your statement, you said: you can not do what is right in this life which I take to mean: you can not know what is right in this life.

As I said, this is one part of the whole moral/philosophical code. If I screw up the lesson this time around, I get another chance. The whole point of this discussion is how re-incarnation is a more logical than the “one life time and you better get it right or you get Hellfire for Eternity” system. I think I’ve done pretty good this time around. I think I’ve figured out the Game and try not to hurt anyone intentionally and I’ve enjoyed myself. Just about any moral code would call that “good”!

**DavidB wrote:

Well, there are certainly skeptics who go around investigating these things. Of course, they can’t hope to keep up with all the claims, but they tend to focus on the ones that are getting the most news and/or claim the most
evidence.**

Speaking of evidence. I have a friend who knows someone who’s child did the “past life” thing (never been in an area before yet knew his way around. I’m trying to get details for confirmation. Be patient! :slight_smile:

My friend his a pastoral counsellor and has a PhD in psychology. He’s not easily taken in and he believes this story. More details as I find them.

**Gaudere wrote:

And if the physical body, and all apparent medium for emotion is apparently destroyed with the brain, what happens to the soul? If the Mona Lisa is physically destroyed, does the “art” of that painting persist? It persists in our memories, certainly, as those who die exists in the memories of those still living, but I would argue that if the Mona Lisa is physically destroyed it ceases to objectively exist and lives only in human minds, just as if we are destroyed we cease to objectively exist and live only in other’s memories. It’s “life beyond death” of a sort, but not much consolation for those who wish to objectively exist past their physical death, not just live on in other’s thoughts.**

If you accept the way I indirectly pointed to the soul and what it is, then we get to the real meat of the matter, does it survive beyond death? I say it does, even tho our evidence for it is only indirect. I think we simply haven’t the technology or understanding to detect souls directly. Like the evidence for a heliocentric universe, the ancients didn’t possess the technology (or understanding) to detect its existence.

I don’t know the mechanism for how the soul exists outside the body or moves from body to body, but that doesn’t discount that the hypothesis could be right.

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What sort of evidence are you referring to? “Past lives” and such? I do not think I can agree with your argument that our subjective perception of “art” is evidence that a subjective concept can have “real” existence. You seem to be promoting a sort of Idealism, and as I lean heavily towards Nominalism, we may have to agree to disagree. Nevertheless, I’d like to take another stab at it. Do you think the “art” of any particular thing exists even if no conciousness can perceive it? In other words, does “art” exist only in the subjective perceptions of a brain capable of deciding that the “art” exists, or does it exist even if no one ever sees it as art?

“Art” definitely does not seem to objectively exist; there seems no way to absolutely determine whether a thing is “art” from its physical properties, no matter what sort of technology we advance to. If two people come across a blotch of paint on the wall, they might differ as to whether it was “art” or whether it is simply a blotch, and there is no way for them to know who is right and who is wrong without further information beyond the blotch’s objective existence. I may decide that the blotch is the work of imperceptable purple faeries, which, since there is no objective evidence on my part, is a subjective judgment not shared by you. Now, is the subjectively perceived “art” of the blotch “real”? Then is the subjectively perceived painted-by-imperceptable-purple-faerieness of the blotch “real” as well?

[Edited by Gaudere on 09-14-2000 at 03:40 PM]

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**Gaudere wrote:

What sort of evidence are you referring to? “Past lives” and such? I do not think I can agree with your argument that our subjective perception of “art” is evidence that a subjective concept can have “real” existence. You seem to be promoting a sort of Idealism, and as I lean heavily towards Nominalism, we may have to agree to disagree. Nevertheless, I’d like to take another stab at it. Do you think the “art” of any particular thing exists even if no conciousness can perceive it? In other words, does “art” exist only in the subjective perceptions of a brain capable of deciding that the “art” exists, or does it exist even if no one ever sees it as art?**

The evidence was the commentary on emotions. **I wrote:

The materialist have pointed out, if the soul exists, then where is it? Which part of the body is it connected to? To
draw a comparision, where are your emotions? Emotions are quite real and can cause a person to do various things, from physical violence to tender love-making. Yet where are they? Can our emotions be simply reduced to hormonal secretions in the blood stream? I think not. Emotions are in the soul, prehaps they ARE the soul. Otherwise, the body is nothing more than a chunk of matter. It breathes, excretes and otherwise functions, but it has no life, no vitality. It’s alive, yet unaware, responding only because of instinct.**

The evidence I’m giving is that emotions are real, yet can’t be pinpointed in any part of the body. You don’t say “this is where your anger resides” or “this is where your loves lies.” I was showing that emotions are real and tied to the body, yet can’t be pinpointed; By way of analogy, I maintain the soul is the same way. Where is your consciousness? Which part of the body does it connect to? The brain? Exactly here in the brain?

My examples of the Objective and Subjective qualities of Art are to show the existence of objective and subjective realities. Prehaps it wasn’t the best example.

I think I’ve shown the existence of a soul, albeit indirectly. I do certain agree with your definitions of Idealism and Nominalism.

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They’re subjective perceptions generated by the brain, much like “beauty” or “art”. For me, perceptions generated within a conscious brain do not necessarily have objective individual existence. Perception points towards reality, it is not reality–just the best method we have for guessing about it. For example, if I hallucinate an apple that only I can see, does the apple truly exist? I certainly perceive it in the same manner that I perceive anger or love, but is the perception alone enough to make it real?

In the cerbral cortex. As evidence, you remove it and, although still alive, your body is no longer conscious (or sentient). :slight_smile: If consciousness does not reside in the brain, you have to speculate on some “place” where the consciousness for some reason decides to go to when the brain is removed or damaged, yet the brain is wholly unnecessary to consciousness, which seems a needless (albeit comforting) complication.

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First of all, I don’t believe in the soul of reincarnation, yet I am open-minded and thus I don’t discard the plausibility of their existence of the former nor the occurrence of the latter. Not everything that escapes sensorial perception can be classified as non-existent, so I eagerly join this debate hoping to get a more well defined position regarding this subject.

Several comments:

As Polycarp mentioned, there is no way to explain how memories are kept alive after neurological death, therefore we must recur to the existence of a soul as a means to keep the argument going. Inna ny case, we are still in the territory of Speculation and not empirical evidence.

Now, why should reincarnation take place anyway? Oriental religions consider it as a away to continue your existence until reaching the elusive nirvana or whatever name you want to call it. My problem with that is that, unless a transcendental experience happens in your life to trigger a flashback from a previous existence, you have no memory of it. And, as we all know, is not common for such to happen, even if we assume that “documented” cases are real happenings and not fakes. Even accepting déjà vu as brief recollections from previous lives doesn’t cut it since not everyone experiences such events.

Then, from a practical standpoint, what is the justification for coming back to life again, how cam you improve upon your past existence if you don’t haven’t any recollection of the mistakes and experiences you had? From my viewpoint, since past life memories lay dormant in the unconscious self, a reborn person is leaving a whole new life even if he/she is carrying the same soul of her previous carnal manifestation.

Another points, previously not mentioned, and wide open for serious speculation: when did reincarnation start occurring? Does every soul reincarnate? How is it determined which soul goes into which body? Is there a capitalistic “invisible hand” governing the supply-demand side of spiritual transactions?

Is there a critical point when the rate of deaths equal the rate of births and a natural equilibrium results under which every soul will travel instantaneously from a death corpse into its new host?

When does the soul reach its new destination? At the fetal stage? Immediately after the baby is born? Can a single body house two souls, one from the present incarnation and one from a previous one? Do psychological traumas arise from the resulting struggles between two spiritual entities competing for the control of the same physical space? Is this an appropriate explanation for multiple personalities?

I know all this is highly speculative. I restrain myself from posting any hypothesis since I don’t have much time available at this moment and this post has extended more than originally envisioned. I do welcome any debate that may spring from the aforementioned inquisitions, as I consider them important introspections into the nature and functional working of the mechanism of reincarnation.

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I apologize for all the typographical blunders displayed in my previous post. I would correct them if they weren’t so many.

::mental note to self:: Proof read before you post, you idiot!

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Here’s what I think about the “afterlife” issue:

I think that calling it the “afterlife” is an incorrect term. “After” means “at a later point in time.” I believe that when you die, your existence continues somewhere outside of time. Death only exists at all if linear time exists. Sure, it seems like time is linear, but even the best physics geniuses can’t explain why that is so. I believe that when mankind understands what time really is and why we perceive it as linear that we’ll finally have a scientific theory of the so-called “afterlife.”

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You are focusing way too much on semantics instead of dealing with the real issues addressed by this discussion, essentially: the plausibility of reincarnation, the existence of a soul that carries memories from the dead into new carnal manifestations, the mechanism by which reincarnation operates, whether or not everyone experiences reincarnation, and a bunch of other philosophical inquisitions, some of which you can find at the bottom of the previous page, on my typos filled post.

:

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I don’t think that I’m focusing too much on semantics. I think the linear time issue is directly relevant to the idea of reincarnation. With reincarnation, you’ve got “past” lives and “future” lives. In other words, reincarnation requires linear time to exist. I believe this is not the way things work; instead, the spirit exists outside of any concept of past and future. When a person dies, they are “liberated” from the confines of time; at least, that’s my theory.

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**Gaudere wrote:

They’re subjective perceptions generated by the brain, much like “beauty” or “art”. For me, perceptions generated within a conscious brain do not necessarily have objective individual existence. Perception points towards reality, it is not reality–just the best method we have for guessing about it. For example, if I hallucinate an apple that only I can see, does the apple truly exist? I certainly perceive it in the same manner that I perceive anger or love, but is the perception alone enough to make it real?**

I have to disagree here. I think the emotions we experience are very real, even tho we can’t pinpoint them precisely. If the emotions are only preceptions, shouldn’t we be able to simply change our preception and “turn them off”?

**the Gaudere wrote:

In the cerbral cortex. As evidence, you remove it and, although still alive, your body is no longer conscious (or sentient).**

I agree with you here. Then the connection point between a person and his/her soul would be the brain? Even if we can’t pinpoint precisely where, the whole organ seems to “support” the soul. If it were possible to transplant brains (assuming we could overcome the various medical problems associated with that operation), would the soul also come along for the ride? :slight_smile:

I know Heinlein deal with this in I Shall Fear No Evil and did a pretty good job as well.

**quasar wrote:

Now, why should reincarnation take place anyway? Oriental religions consider it as a away to continue your existence until reaching the elusive nirvana or whatever name you want to call it. My problem with that is that, unless a transcendental experience happens in your life to trigger a
flashback from a previous existence, you have no memory of it. And, as we all know, is not common for such to happen, even if we assume that “documented” cases are real happenings and not fakes. Even accepting déjà vu as brief recollections from previous lives doesn’t cut it since not everyone experiences such events.**

Good question about why re-incarnation exists. The only answer I can give you is that otherwise, there’s no reason for living life if in the end it doesn’t account for anything. When you die poof it’s all over. All those memories and experiences are gone, for good. I want to think the Universe is organized better than that. Agreed, this is only a wish, not a fact. But all the experiences of my life point in the direction of “life has meaning!”

Another point about memories from previous lives; I think it’s not the memories that are saved in a person’s soul but the experience one gains from those memories. If a child touches a hot stove, it’s not the memory of the burn that is retained but the learning experience of “be careful where you put your hands.”

I think transcendental experiences happen more often than people like to talk about. Talking about them, in our oh-so-rational world here in the States, earns one a trip to the local sanitarium, especially if it’s done too often. The point is that these non-rational experiences have happened throughout history, more often than mere chance or ascribing it to mental disease or defect could explain. Therefore, I conclude that something non-rational exists and comes into our lives every so often. Or that are a LOT of mentally disturbed people in the world. :smiley:

**ricksummon wrote:

I think that calling it the “afterlife” is an incorrect term. “After” means “at a later point in time.” I believe that when you die, your existence continues somewhere outside of time. Death only exists at all if linear time exists. Sure, it seems like time is linear, but even the best physics geniuses can’t explain why that is so. I believe that when mankind understands what time really is and why we perceive it as linear that we’ll finally have a scientific theory of the so-called “afterlife.”**

How about, rather than existing outside of Time, after death, you’re able to view time in a non-linear fashion rather than the typical linear fashion we view it now.

It would be interesting to try to raise a group of newborns to view time in a non-linear fashion and see what happens. Unfortunately, such and experiment wouldn’t get past the approval board.

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For Freyr, so good to answer all challengers, I have more questions. And they’re not necessarily snarky questions to try to trip you up, but more along the lines of “Ask the Reincarnted Guy!”

Do you believe that all life is ensouled? I think you mentioned that animals also have souls, and can work their way up the ladder of enlightenment. For you, how far down does this ladder go? Do animals of very little brain have souls? With no brains?

Take single-celled life. I’m not sure what sorts of experiences they have that enable their souls to grow, but then again, I’m not a bacterium. Do you think they have souls, of a sort, or do you think there can be forms of life that don’t have souls?

–Had to stop myself from following up with snarky questions. Probably just my materialist biases acting up. Made me really dislike the sequels to “Ender’s Game,” too, what with their “philotic twining” (the idea that there are incorporeal “philotes” which are the basis for all matter, which are all interconnected, and are especially powerful in sentient beings, and form connections amongst sentient beings – not quite “midichlorians,” but still weird enough to suck out some of the fun of the books – although, very similar to what you believe, Freyr. I think. Not to imply that you’re sucking the fun out of anything. Or that you suck. Or maybe I should just shut up and get back to work.)

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If the apple you are hallucinating is not truly “real”, why can’t you just “turn the perception off”? Do you think all our hallucinations are “real”, too? Besides, we do have far more control over our emotions than our physical perceptions, anyhow. I can choose to calm my anger, to see the ugly as beautiful, to fight depression or encourage happiness; I cannot choose to see the sky as plaid.

Well, considering I don’t believe in the soul, that’s an impossible question for me to answer. The conciousness and sentience might persist, but for all we know removing a brain from its native home might cause irrevocable cognitive dissonance, away from its familar sensory input, and might lead to madness and utter decay of the faculties. I doubt I’d volunteer for it without extensive animal research and unless I was near death.

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Freyr and Gaudere: I thought you might be interested in this article from yesterday’s Washington Post, on new discoveries concerning where in the brain emotions are experienced:

Emotions Linked to More Areas of Brain

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The only bad thing about the Washington Post’s website is that they didn’t put the illustration that was in the dead tree edition online.

The only thing I have to say was that late one night when I couldn’t sleep, I had thought that thought about if we all were all one soul (way back on page one, I forget who mentioned it). It lead to one of the strangest 9[sup]th[/sub] grade English papers I’ve ever written. I never new there was a book written on the subect.

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**Gaudere wrote:

If the apple you are hallucinating is not truly “real”, why can’t you just “turn the perception off”? Do you think all our hallucinations are “real”, too? Besides, we do have far more control over our emotions than our physical perceptions, anyhow. I can choose to calm my anger, to see the ugly as beautiful, to fight depression or encourage happiness; I cannot choose to see the sky as plaid.**

I think this is our point of contention and one we’ll not be able to surmount; even tho something is subjectively perceived, it might have a physical reality (albeit one we can’t measure with our technology of the moment).

I agree with your logic; the evidence for a soul is lacking, but my own experience says otherwise. So, because of our own particular viewpoints, we have very different views of reality.

Regarding switching brains it’s a fascinating thought experiment, but I’d not ever try it, unless there was a case such as in Heinlein’s I Shall Fear No Evil. Know any really old rich guys wanting to die? :slight_smile:

**Keenan wrote:

Do you believe that all life is ensouled? I think you mentioned that animals also have souls, and can work their way up the ladder of enlightenment. For you, how far down does this ladder go? Do animals of very little brain have souls? With no brains?

Take single-celled life. I’m not sure what sorts of experiences they have that enable their souls to grow, but then again, I’m not a bacterium. Do you think they have souls, of a sort, or do you think there can be forms of life that don’t have souls?**

I think all life has a soul of some sort, even single-cell life forms.

What that soul can perceive and learn about, I don’t know, but as you said, we’re not bacteria, we’re humans.

At some point, awareness creeps in and the being becomes aware of itself and its surroundings, or perceives two points self and not self. When that happens, I don’t know. Most insect life, they don’t appear to be aware. Beings like cats, dogs & cows appear to be aware (aware of their surroundings and treating them as not self). Beings like elephants, the great apes, whales and dolphins, I think they have awareness and cognitive thought, maybe even on a level similar to humans. The difference seems to be that in one set of animals, you have a developed brain organ where in the other you have simply a string of nerve tissue in the body.