Reincarnation

Say hypothetically IPUs do exist, but there is no way to observe them scientifically. Besides being invisible to the entire electromagnetic spectrum, they are also massless, solid matter passes directly through them, etc. No way to prove that they exist but no way to prove that they don’t.

Now suppose somebody discovers a drug that induces some kind of change in the brain so that, by a mechanism currently unknown to science, people on a trip are capable of seeing IPUs clearly and unambiguously. But again there’s no way to prove that the brain is seeing something that’s actually there, because the changes that enable it to do so are undetectable by present day scientific apparatus. How can one prove or disprove the existence of IPUs?

Actually, IPUs are a lot like neutrinos in that respect, except that very very rarely (a few out of every billion or so, IIRC) the odd neutrino happens to smash into an atom’s nucleus just right and induces a detectable change. Were it not for that quirk would neutrinos even be anything more than a theory?

I am not trying to say that IPUs exist, nor am I trying to say that Question’s posts make any sense, but it’s certainly a thought worth pondering.

Dude. I just looked to my left and saw my own reflection staring back at me from my closet mirror!! All has been made clear!!

[Otto]

You know, they call 'em fingers but I’ve never seen them fing

oh wait…there they go [/Otto]

cityboy you have an exceptional physical mind, so i am certain that you will understand the following…

but first you must stare to the right… do not let your eyes wander from that point until the truth has been revealed…

the proof that the IPU exists is right in front of you… reality as we know it is our perception of the collapsing wavefunction… before our observation there is nothing but totality in a quantum state and in such a state anything is possible, including invisible pink unicorns…

<snipped>

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!. BWAHAHAHA!..Wooooo!

::wiping tears from my eyes. Spurts milk out nose::

Jeez man. That’s a good one. Damn, my keyboard is covered with milk.

Slee

**sampiro[/], your glass door post was a thing of beauty; thanks! I might use it as a metaphor when I’m talking about such matters with people.

Brutus said:

Be fair, now: from this thread, we’ve learned that lunatics think Satan is a leftist.

Daniel

and we all know a lunatic couldn’t possible ever be right :smiley:

Crap! Damn this posting before my coffee kicks in!
Daniel

oops !

i meant possibly … well actually i didn’t … because it is possible for a lunatic to be right … i’m sure you understand …

See! And now we’ve learned that the same person thinks you don’t have lunatics on the right!

Consider the source, Brutus and boo-yah!

Daniel

whoa !

what an unpossibly strange coincidence that we both made an error at such a close proximity in “time” … NOT ! hahaha…

these astounding coincidences abound ! what are the chances that this could continue ? very good, i am thinking …

No, they wouldn’t, but they’d still have a leg up on IPUs. Because in the case of neutrinos we have a large theory that seems to be testing out in every testable way that also indicates that neutrinos should exist, even if we can’t reliably detect them.

There is no such case for IPUs.

It is the difference between saying “I think IPUs exist because that would be cool” and “I think IPUs exist because they would be a consequence of theory X, a theory that has been tested in these other areas and has not otherwise been contradicted.”

Yay, sleep. That’s where you’re a Viking.

I really wish that I had said that…

:smiley:

Alas that we do not live in the unobserved universe.
So, as far as we’re able to determine, IPUs don’t exist.
Many things may well exist in a universe that we don’t observe. However, the value to us of such an existence seems very limited.
In some unobserved universe, I’m sure that you’re entirely right.

Didn’t Donald Rumsfeld speak about the “unobserved unobservables?”

I would swear I wasnt on any drugs before I started reading this thread, now im not so sure. So the IPU to my right, or left, does not exist? Then why the hell do I keep giving him cookies??

Question you make no sense, but what you lose in quality you do make up in quantitiy. I have a question for you tho, if we are all of one mind can the individual “mind” influence the hive mind as a whole? Really, I want to know your thoughts on this.

For fun I looked for this one on the web. First, Dr Morris Netherton is a practicer of Alternative Treatment Modalities . There is no reference on his own web page as to what he is a doctor of. In fact, if you read his bio and your B.S. detector doesn’t fly off the chart you need to check in somewhere.

As this would be an amazing case, I find it odd that it isn’t even mentioned in his case studies. I was hoping to find the proffessor who verified this, but I can’t even find a ‘Department of Oriental Studies’ at any of the California Universities’ web-sites.

If this truly happened, why is it not a well-documented and easy to find case for all to see? Whye didn’t the professor record the child so he could have a colleague verify it? The problem I have with Zammit and his ilk is that he blindly puts crap like this up as evidence, without even a rudimentary check of its validity.

Okay, but what if the IPU was part of a theory that explained the nature of the universe, the purpose of life, etc., and aside from that, people had firsthand experience of them?

Right, although it seems to me that a statement such as “I want to believe in IPUs but I need proof” is a good one to make - healthy skepticism. ([humble opinion]I’ve heard people say that about reincarnation.[/humble opinion]) But say after weighing the evidence for IPUs and the arguments against IPUs, as well as a person’s own experiences, that person developed a belief system using IPUs to explain who we are and why we’re here. It’d be a theory but if it’s not testable then it would not fall within the realm of science.

Is it possible to scientifically test the theory of reincarnation? What kind of empirical evidence would be required to satisfy the skeptics, and how might such evidence be obtained?