opinions of reincarnation

Vampireskiss

I was wondering what opinions people here have on reincarnation, do you think its more or less ridiculous than the believe in an afterlife?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Turtwig

Atheists can believe in reincarnation.
Unfortunately, I'm a materialist.

Sam Vimes

I would say slightly less ridiculous because it doesn't postulate a magical place outside the universe but only slightly. There's still nothing to suggest that it happens and a mountain of evidence that suggests that your consciousness is entirely contained within and defined by your brain and so your consciousness dies when your brain does, just like the software on your computer is irretrievably lost if you destroy the hard drive

Joe1919

Sam Vimes wrote: »

..... just like the software on your computer is irretrievably lost if you destroy the hard drive

Not a great comparison.You can have a sort of 'software reincarnation' and back up your hard drive using 'ghost' software.
http://www.symantec.com/norton/ghost

ChocolateSauce

As a concept I like it (unlike the concept of an afterlife), and it has its elegance, but it is in fact as nonsensical as the rest of them.

Turtwig

Joe1919 wrote: »

Not a great comparison.You can have a sort of 'software reincarnation' and back up your hard drive using 'ghost' software.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_(software)/

???

It's an excellent comparison,
Neurons stops firing in your brain == no conscience.
All Magnetizations state lost from Harddrive == fck all memory.

FedEx

Some people say as none of us were alive 100 years ago ... that we were in effect a state of death .... yet we came into existence .... and so can again ... but it won't be _you_ ...


Also ... what about someone who never exists (most possible humans) ...
? for example myself and Natalie Portmans child .. which unfortunately will never exist ... yet they are a possible existence .... meh ... could go mad thinking about this ...

fitz0

FedEx wrote: »

Some people say as none of us were alive 100 years ago ... that we were in effect a state of death .... yet we came into existence .... and so can again ... but it won't be _you_ ...


Also ... what about someone who never exists (most possible humans) ...
? for example myself and Natalie Portmans child .. which unfortunately will never exist ... yet they are a possible existence .... meh ... could go mad thinking about this ...

Commas exist for a reason.

OT I don't think reincarnation is an entirely plausible theory. We are all shaped by our experiences and the people we meet. So even if there were such a thing as reincarnation, all that would be reincarnated would be a blank slate, so to speak.

Ickle Magoo

FedEx wrote: »

Some people say as none of us were alive 100 years ago ... that we were in effect a state of death .... yet we came into existence .... and so can again ...

It's not a state of death, it's a state of non-existence. I can only be dead if I have, at some stage, lived. My parents had sex, their parents had sex & so on; which happened to pass on the genes that made me. How can that ever happen again?

FedEx wrote: »

but it won't be _you_ ...

I don't follow...

FedEx wrote: »

Also ... what about someone who never exists (most possible humans) ...
? for example myself and Natalie Portmans child .. which unfortunately will never exist ... yet they are a possible existence .... meh ... could go mad thinking about this ...

They are just a figment of your imagination unless the appropriate egg & sperm get in on the act, I'm afraid.

Joe1919

Malty_T wrote: »

???

It's an excellent comparison,
Neurons stops firing in your brain == no conscience.
All Magnetizations state lost from Harddrive == fck all memory.

I changed the hyperlink.

The reason for my criticism of this comparison is that, stricly speaking there are two seperate issues i.e.
1 Whether some type of afterlife exists.
2. Whether the human can be reduced down to its material parts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism

For example, some argue that the 'self' is the collection of conscious memories. Now, who knows, maybe it will be possible to download this collection of conscious memories or neural patterns into a some other 'blank' brain housed in a new body and hence be re-incarnated. (a sort of science fiction reincarnation).
This is similar to copying your hard drive and folders onto a new machine using 'ghost' software etc.

I'm just keeping an open mind.

liamw

Reincarnation seems far less ridiculous that some magical afterlife. However I don't really know much on the subject of reincarnation.

Can somebody who's already researched it tell me if it's scientifically impossible or still open to debate in some form?

Turtwig

fitz0 wrote: »

Commas exist for a reason.

... someone has been reading too much into the ludicrous prophecies regarding the Intelligent Creation and subsequent speciation of several BILLION species from nothing 6000 years ago...by an immaterial all powerful and loving being.:eek::D

In the beginning The Lord Noodlyship created a singularity through which the reversed process of spaghettification arose giving rise to all the heavens and earths.
The heavens that reverse spaghettified first aged quicker than those than came after making it appear like the universe was 13.7 billion years old because the Earth came last


Believe it or not this is actually a slight variant on a "genuine" creationist theory.

fatmammycat

Excellent JC take off Malty!

GLaDOS

As made up reasons to not fear death go, I prefer reincarnation to the concept of heaven. A lot simpler, and you always have a chance to live a better life in your next turn if you mess up your current one

The Mad Hatter

Sceptics will rule out reincarnation for the same (justifiable) reasons that they do afterlives and gods.

Not all atheists are absolute sceptics, and some (probably few) will accept reincarnation; some will reject it as indemonstrable and some will ignore it.

dvpower

Sure aren't we all reincarnated (in the sense that we are made of the same stuff that our ancestors were made of)?

GLaDOS

dvpower wrote: »

Sure aren't we all reincarnated (in the sense that we are made of the same stuff that our ancestors were made of)?

Not really as the molecules will split up and wont ever all be together again

liamw

dvpower wrote: »

Sure aren't we all reincarnated (in the sense that we are made of the same stuff that our ancestors were made of)?

Yes, but the atoms would be in such a different form it wouldn't be us anymore. What's interesting is the thought that an effective snapshot of our brains could be stored somewhere. I find it hard to see why this would be impossible, extremely difficult and complex, but not impossible (as long as you believe the brain is purely materialistic).

aidan24326

Joe1919 wrote: »

Now, who knows, maybe it will be possible to download this collection of conscious memories or neural patterns into a some other 'blank' brain housed in a new body and hence be re-incarnated. (a sort of science fiction reincarnation).

I'm just keeping an open mind.

What you suggest might be possible, but that's not the sort of reincarnation that people are normally talking about. What you're suggesting is more a kind of super-advanced future technology where you're effectively brought back to life. Cryogenics only alot smarter. What the average religious person (or otherwise) would believe in is a more wishy washy ' I'll come back as somebody else but it'll still be me ' sort of thing. Which is just nonsense.

liamw wrote: »

Yes, but the atoms would be in such a different form it wouldn't be us anymore. What's interesting is the thought that an effective snapshot of our brains could be stored somewhere. I find it hard to see why this would be impossible, extremely difficult and complex, but not impossible (as long as you believe the brain is purely materialistic).

Given the staggering complexity of the brain that would be very very difficult to do, and maybe even impossible. I think it will be a long time before we ever have that kind of technology. Not in our lifetime anyway that's for sure.

Personally I think reincarnation in the way people commonly refer to it is completely impossible. When my body and my brain die I die, end of. Whatever or whoever exists after that, it won't be me.

liamw

aidan24326 wrote: »

Given the staggering complexity of the brain that would be very very difficult to do, and maybe even impossible. I think it will be a long time before we ever have that kind of technology. Not in our lifetime anyway that's for sure.

Personally I think reincarnation in the way people commonly refer to it is completely impossible. When my body and my brain die I die, end of. Whatever or whoever exists after that, it won't be me.

My point is, as long as you believe that the brain is materialistic, I don't see why it wouldn't be theoretically possible. Practically near impossible perhaps.

CerebralCortex

aidan24326 wrote: »

Given the staggering complexity of the brain that would be very very difficult to do, and maybe even impossible.

For now.

aidan24326 wrote: »

I think it will be a long time before we ever have that kind of technology.

How long?

aidan24326 wrote: »

Not in our lifetime anyway that's for sure...

Really? You're that sure? I'm reading The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil at the moment if anything it would seem that people are quite poor at gauging what's possible.

Reincarnation is impossible unless, as has already been mentioned, you can store a personality and put it into a new body but that's not really reincarnation in the traditional sense.

pljudge321

liamw wrote: »

My point is, as long as you believe that the brain is materialistic, I don't see why it wouldn't be theoretically possible. Practically near impossible perhaps.

Ahem, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

Turtwig

pljudge321 wrote: »

Ahem, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

Tut tut.

Undergod

As far as I'm concerned, that which is me is created by my thoughts and memories. I have no memories of past lives, therefore I have not been reincarnated.

You could say that I lived a past life and don't know about it, but it has no effect on my personality or my thoughts, so I can't see any way in which it's meaningful.

seamus

liamw wrote: »

Yes, but the atoms would be in such a different form it wouldn't be us anymore. What's interesting is the thought that an effective snapshot of our brains could be stored somewhere. I find it hard to see why this would be impossible, extremely difficult and complex, but not impossible (as long as you believe the brain is purely materialistic).

That would require that you are disintegrated at the exact instant that this copy is made. Otherwise the copy becomes a copy of you at a particular point in time, but not an exact copy of you, because what constitutes "you" is the sum of your experiences for every nanosecond of your life.

So if a copy of me was taken now, but I continued to live and later on after death that copy was used to create a new "me", then it wouldn't be "me" that wakes up, it would just be a consciousness very very like me. But "me" as I know me, i.e. experience my life through my eyes would have ceased to exist.

If you even extrapolate this and say that a scan was taken at the moment of death and "implanted" into another body, it's unlikely that I would experience the sensation of waking up - instead everyone else would be happy that the consciousness was me, but I would be gone, I would not experience the "reawakening" effect.

This is something I've given quite a bit of thought to. We accept that when you've died and been revived, it's no different to having been asleep. The key is generally that brain activity hasn't ceased. Imagine that brain activity had ceased, but we discover a way of restarting it (which we may well do). I think most people would also accept that this will likely be no different (in experience) to having been asleep.

But imagine that at the time of your death, a complete copy is taken of your body and that copy is revived. Would "you" wake up? No, someone just like you would wake up, but "you" would be gone, right?

Move onto theorised molecular transport technology. Imagine it was possible to disintegrate your body into energy, and then use that energy to reintegrate your body somewhere else. This supposes that it would be equally possible to "scan" your body and use energy from somewhere else to create a copy of you. Now, you would know for a fact that "you" are "you" and the copy is a copy.
However, from the copy's point of view, he got scanned by a machine and then "woke up" in a different place.

So if you take transportation as the process whereby you create a copy and destroy the original, it stands to reason that any kind of matter/energy transportation will result in the wholesale destruction of your "soul" and the first time you use it, you will die. From everyone else's POV, you have been transported - the copy will be you as far as everyone else is concerned, but "you" will have ceased to exist.

It's a mind****.

What this has to be with reincarnation is that reincarnation presupposes the existence of some etheral "soul" distinct from your body. Which, using the logic above, I've managed to convince myself doesn't exist.

Dave!

I think it's a load of bollix meself

Shocker

liamw

seamus wrote: »

So if a copy of me was taken now, but I continued to live and later on after death that copy was used to create a new "me", then it wouldn't be "me" that wakes up, it would just be a consciousness very very like me. But "me" as I know me, i.e. experience my life through my eyes would have ceased to exist.

But all this is based on the assumption that what makes 'you' you i.e. your identity is not stored in the brain? So the copy would be you, from the copy POV you would just remember getting hooked up to the machine, and then re-awakening. You would be the same person, your brain is EXACTLY the same state. I do get what your saying though. Imagine I made a copy of myself, then kept on living, but activated the copy 1 hour later. So now there would be 2 copies of myself.

It's a complete mindf**k alright, but makes you wonder is the concept of 'identity' really meaningless.

Xluna

Vampireskiss wrote: »

I was wondering what opinions people here have on reincarnation, do you think its more or less ridiculous than the believe in an afterlife?

Like Deism, it's more respectable than Theism;playing harps on a cloud for eternity/ Demons sticking red hot pokers up your ar*s for all eternity,but can anyone show me any evidence for it?

FedEx

fitz0 wrote: »

Commas exist for a reason.

quote]




I don't care much for sarcasm , AH please!! but not here ...

Dades

FedEx wrote: »

I'd expect that shít in AH , but not here ...

A bit like cussin' and big bold letters... :pac:

FedEx

hehehe point taken...

bnt

In the unlikely event that I had a past life, I'm not aware of it. I don't know anything about it, and I can't learn anything from it so: what's the point? A bit of harmless fun, perhaps, except that credulous people do get exploited by charlatans.

This is a reflection of my general attitude towards the supernatural, which includes Religion. If we know anything scientifically, or learn anything practical, we file that under Science or Naturalism. We are told that we can't learn anything objective about the Judeo-Christian "God" (it's a fundamental mystery), and we don't see it doing anything today, so: what's the point?

It's like the question of Jesus' existence: what would it actually mean if he existed, but none of the stories told about him have any evidence to support them? Mere existence is not enough: you have to do something before you matter at all. Imagining I was reincarnated would be no help to me in this life.

aidan24326

CerebralCortex wrote: »

Really? You're that sure? I'm reading The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil at the moment if anything it would seem that people are quite poor at gauging what's possible.

I've no idea how long it might be before we have that sort of technology. Maybe never. I just think it's very optimistic to expect it in our lifetime given how far away we are from being able to do that kind of stuff.

Reincarnation is impossible unless, as has already been mentioned, you can store a personality and put it into a new body but that's not really reincarnation in the traditional sense.

Which is pretty much what I was saying.

seamus wrote: »

That would require that you are disintegrated at the exact instant that this copy is made. Otherwise the copy becomes a copy of you at a particular point in time, but not an exact copy of you, because what constitutes........

Star Trek did an episode along those lines once. There was an error with the transporter and it created two copies of Commander Riker, one which got beamed back to the Enterprise and one which got left behind on some planet or other. When they met years later they were identical, had the same memories before the splitting but had now become different individuals. Both felt they were the 'real' Riker.

rohatch

Reincarnation.
More BS to go along with religion, astrology, and faith.

robindch

rohatch wrote: »

More BS to go along with religion, astrology, and faith.

Rohatch - welcome back after your week-long ban for conduct unbecoming. Let's try keep it clean this time.

Thanks.

ItisintheSTARS

rohatch wrote: »

Reincarnation.
More BS to go along with religion, astrology, and faith.

It is true that the astrology you will have heard of is cr...,but then it is astronomically wrong to start with .If you are going to study physics,or engineering etc ,it helps to have good maths to start with.
So I am with you there .
And telling the future is divination ,which is not the same as TRUE ASTROLOGY.
This is more an observable science,where you can see that given a certain astronomical situation when a person is born [full chart ]
that a certain 'fate ' is likely.

ItisintheSTARS

rohatch wrote: »

Reincarnation.
More BS to go along with religion, astrology, and faith.

Maybe we could look at your chart to see what you are so afraid of ?

iUseVi

ItisintheSTARS wrote: »

Maybe we could look at your chart to see what you are so afraid of ?

Oh oh oh! Lets, please! Sounds like fun.

fitz0

ItisintheSTARS wrote: »

Maybe we could look at your chart to see what you are so afraid of ?

*sigh* who left the door open?

Turtwig

iUseVi wrote: »

Oh oh oh! Lets, please! Sounds like fun.

+1
DO, DO, DO!!

Sam Vimes

Malty_T wrote: »

+1
DO, DO, DO!!

+2

I heard that blue will be lucky for me this month. Can you confirm that?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Turtwig

Sam Vimes wrote: »

+2

I heard that blue will be lucky for me this month. Can you confirm that?

I don't know Sam, boards.ie is covered in blue and was hacked this month. Actually come to think of it, maybe blue was unlucky this month.

robindch

fitz0 wrote: »

ItisintheSTARS wrote: »

Maybe we could look at your chart to see what you are so afraid of ?

*sigh* who left the door open?

Now, now, please be polite.

I'm sure ItisintheSTARS's meant that ironically.

Dades

I don't like where this thread is heading - so I'm going to consult the bones.

/tosses magic bones on ground

Sam Vimes

Malty_T wrote: »

I don't know Sam, boards.ie is covered in blue and was hacked this month. Actually come to think of it, maybe blue was unlucky this month.

I said it's lucky for me, not boards. You just don't understand astrology :rolleyes:

robindch

Dades wrote: »

/tosses magic bones on ground

Abuse of DeForest Kelley will not be tolerated!

Turtwig

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I said it's lucky for me, not boards. You just don't understand astrology :rolleyes:

No, what applies to one applies to all.

iUseVi

Dades wrote: »

I don't like where this thread is heading - so I'm going to consult the bones.

/tosses magic bones on ground

And? What do they say Oh Mighty One? I'm in suspense here.

Caveat

On a purely practical level surely reincarnation, as a concept, has a very basic flaw:

Apparently, there are more people alive today, now, than have ever died.
(Source? can't remember TBH, I've heard this a few times though. Needs clarification maybe)

Therefore, there are not enough 'souls' to go around for a start.

But of course believers then bring in trees and rocks etc and make it all even more silly...