It depends on the nature of reincarnation. Most cases Iâve heard of involve people being linked to passed lives without even knowing it, and once they learn who this person was (by Madam Cloe or whatever), they still see no meaningful relation between themselves and that person. This implies that the link is based on something outside their conscious experience of themselves or what they recognize as themselves.
I completely agree. Iâm not defending the reality of reincarnation, just trying to flesh out what the idea means. What I gather from the cases Iâve heard of, it doesnât depend on one recognizing themselves in another past person, which tells me the idea of reincarnation hinges on the existence of a persistent soul that neednât carry with it memories or personal identity.
If itâs anything like the teleportation technology from Star Trek, then you might have a case for a physicalistâs version of reincarnation, but I think it would have to be all or nothing. The transfer of a few atoms from one person after they die into the foods eaten by a mother or father to be (which subsequently go to the gametes), does not count as reincarnation (unless you want to say you are a reincarnation of a million different things and that you will reincarnate as a million different things). But take the bulk of atoms in your body and reassemble them as someone else (whether as a replication of your body notwithstanding), and you might have a case.
Good analogy.
It all depends on how you want to define âyouâ. If âyouâ is the thing pointed to, then there is very little sense that the previous thing pointed to is the same as the next thing pointed to. But if âyouâ just is the pointer, then you are the same thing before and after. Either way, however, there is a way of linking the current life to a past life.
And yes, this all hinges on the reality of the âsoulâ.
Proof would be hard to come by, but Stevenson has evidence and I think his studies are being continued after his death. If someone had amnesia, but still had the same personality, tastes, skills - which can be the case - I think it would not be off to consider them the same person, in the main. And then if one could remember, which is what some claim in various spiritual disciplines. I donât think we can rule the idea out as not making any sense from the identity side of things.
But do they consider themselves the same person? Conditions of memory loss seem to primarily affect the short term memory, so these unfortunate people at least seem to have this to root themselves with, while suffering the confusion of recent events making no sense and therefore often being scary. What about without even long term memory though? Of course other people still recognise the same person, but this is why I included what other people say about you as an essential component of identity. I think itâs interesting, though, that when personality âchangesâ - like when people start acting completely differently, or if they have a degenerative illness of a certain kind, it is often said that they donât seem themselves, or people claim they donât know that person anymore.
A reincarnation lacks all these components of identity, and many more - I would say all reliably detectable and measurable ones. What evidence does this Stevenson guy have?
Without much knowledge of the series, I would assume the Star Trek teleportation would require a combination of harnessing quantum entanglement and reconstituting the chemical composition of the area where you re-spawn. Physically you would be constituted of completely different components, but components of the same type - physically being a different person, but recognisable to others and yourself as the same person according to memories. This would be a kind of plausible reincarnation in my mind, but then I would argue so would falling asleep and waking up.
The pointer is ânamedâ soul and it points to something that is defined to be a specific type, however it doesnât (canât in this case) point to anything. I guess therefore âyouâ is the pointer, and it points to gibberish. You can create the variable of this type, no problem, but can you meaningfully use it? No. Does the soul exist? Only insofar as you can use your imagination and call it something like Santa/Tooth fairy/God. Yes, I do think identity is highly dubious as a concept. I understand it to be a useful lie. Call me a hippie, but everything is one, and only artificially divided for utilitarian purposes.
Thatâs anteretrograde amnesia. I was talking about the long of long term memories.
He would investigate children who seemed to have past life memories. He would not down everything they said about their past life, and then try to find the previous family. Often the kids had died young in the past life. He would then interview the family about everything the kid had said about their habits, personalites, possessions, how the kid died, etc. Then compare notes. Often the kids would have birthmarks where, for example, they were stabbed in a past life.
You almost seem to be speaking of masochism here unless you do not actually mean that suffering is pleasurable though to a masochist it can be. They can derive pleasure and satisfaction from their suffering.
We are capable of suffering at times and of feeling pleasure/enjoyment/joy at times.
Perhaps they are like the aspects of a diamond ~ separate but belonging to the same self.
We know the one because we are intimate with the other.
Do we actually feel pleasure, if that is the experience or emotion, when we are suffering even though we realize that it is for a good cause? Or might it have, could we give it, a different name, a less masochistic or hedonistic name?
Why are we brought back to the generator of a 1000 lives swimming pool, and reunited with our higher selves to immerse ourselves into the spectrum of full elevation? Is there a machine thatâs harvesting us, pulling our strings, playing with our life shards, and dumping us back into a meat grinder?
For some reason, we have to learn the long and painful way, rather than just having a super computer god ultimate designer programmer upload all of he schematics into our minds.
Itâs kind of like asking why when we play Pokemon games, we canât all just start out at level 100.
There must be some deep engine in ultimate reality that we have to overturn, to defeat, to cast back into the darkness, and finally, when all preparations and stages are met, build the rainbow bridge to infinity.
Way outside our soul source, we could merge somewhere with pure Wish, giving us all of our desires, playing on the seashore to of a fantastic telescope of wonder.
It may be more basic, like getting down to the most often asked , yet all pervading question : is it this , or, is it that.
Is what we summarize as Consciousness , outsourced or in, or is there a causality to indifferetiate or Itâs opposite, .?
For, if , we are like receivers , channelling in signals shutting out most other interference, than itâs obvious we really are a form of convertible artificial simulation .
But if the paradox be held that the totality of that outsource can be absolutely re-created,and only internally sliced, then the paradox dissipates.
We setup conduits and activation sites for the light to stream onto our physical canvas, to illustrate the finest principles of metaphysical engineering, and work into form the lights of our bizarre station. Reincarnation helps us to do this, because we have missions to fulfill, and by ejecting all of that mirth onto the playing field, we become avatars of the light.
