Thread: Ok, trying this again -- refining my theory on NON-SPIRITUAL, NON-RELIGIOUS reINCARNATION

Originally Posted by tommo

Hmmmm. cbf reading this whole thread but I thought about this exact thing when I was 10 or something and my Opa died. I imagined someday I might run in to "him" as a kid or something and we might recognise each other somehow. IMO it's just a way to cope with the fact that you'll never see someone you love again after they die.
Why are you pursuing this so strongly when it makes no sense?

Also, why would some people's 'self' or whatever you want to call it go back in to a body? Does everyone's 'self' do this? If not, why not?
What happens to the people who don't go back into another body?
I mean, everyone can't go back into a body for all time. Plus more babies are born than the amount of people who die; 1 person dies and 3 babies are born. So where do these extra 'self's' come from?

This is not at all or close to what we are talking about in this reincarnation. Also, there are ALOT of dead in the past, and where did you hear about 3 babies are born to 1 death per day. Alot more then 1 dead person a day.

Wow!!

Ok, some EXCELLENT responses! I've just read through them all, and I think we're actually all on pretty much the same page, maybe with just some slight differences in terminology.

Specialis Sapientia, (Wow, I still have to copy/paste that name! ... that's a mouthful!) I AM interested in that. What you said here:

"If you would like, there is a scientific theory of everything that explains everything, that combines physics, metaphysics and philosophy with logic and reason."

I need to ponder these posts before making a more detailed response, just wanted to say thank you to all of you for some very thoughtful and well-stated answers. I'll return in a bit and say some more.

Originally Posted by tommo

Hmmmm. cbf reading this whole thread but I thought about this exact thing when I was 10 or something and my Opa died. I imagined someday I might run in to "him" as a kid or something and we might recognise each other somehow. IMO it's just a way to cope with the fact that you'll never see someone you love again after they die.
Why are you pursuing this so strongly when it makes no sense?

Also, why would some people's 'self' or whatever you want to call it go back in to a body? Does everyone's 'self' do this? If not, why not?
What happens to the people who don't go back into another body?
I mean, everyone can't go back into a body for all time. Plus more babies are born than the amount of people who die; 1 person dies and 3 babies are born. So where do these extra 'self's' come from?

Yes, I don't think you were thinking of the same idea at all. If you were, there would be no reason at all that you'd be able to recognize him... or to expect that he would be born into anyone near you. It sounds like you're talking about traditional reincarnation, like when people "discover repressed memories of past lives" and all that. This theory has nothing at all to do with that.

These are very natural questions... heck I'd like to know the answers myself!! But honestly I don't claim to know the answers. I'm only proposing a theory which says that I see no reason why the completely subjective sense of "being you" can't happen again after you die, rising in an embryo in some womb somewhere... maybe human maybe animal. That's it... entire theory, There's absolutely nothing about it that's counter to current scientific knowledge (because science doesn't understand what makes YOU you and ME me etc). All science knows is that people die every day and people are born every day.

This theory is about reincarnation in a completely secular, non-religious and non-spiritual world... the world of rational material atheists. It really doesn't require that a spirit live on, even as energy... I was coming at it more form the perspective that one mind simply dies and then another is created in whatever way that happens. We don't understand how, but we do know that it happens hundreds or thousands of times every day through the miracle of childbirth.

Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia

Well, your idea is essential not so far away from "spirits" and such, you ascribe something non-physical to consciousness, which is correct.

But when I say consciousness is non-physical, what I mean is that it's electrical energy flowing between neurons in the brain. Energy is not physical. Just as the light from a bulb is not physical, yet there's nothing spiritual about it.

Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia

The error is in believing that the physical matter is the fundamental part of reality. Consciousness is fundamental, everything else is virtual.

Mmmmm... ok, really this idea has no place in a theory about non-spiritual reincarnation. That's no to say that you're WRONG... I think it really comes down to a matter of perspective. You believe consciousness is more essential than the physical body, the rational material atheist view says otherwise. I really don't want to argue the point with you... this thread wasn't meant for arguing about who's view is correct, but it was meant to START from the rational material atheist worldview. On the subject of exactly what consciousness IS or whether it can live on when the body dies, I don't pretend to any knowledge there but I subscribe to the scientific viewpoint that it's a function of the brain and most likely winks out like a candle when the brain dies. THIS MIGHT NOT BE THE Case... and I'd be perfectly willing to entertain other ideas... but I start with this idea because it's the most that science can say with any certainty. Anything beyond that is conjecture.

And... dig this... this is the coolest part of this whole theory.... IF REINCARNATION IS POSSIBLE IN A COMPLETELY ATHEIST, MATERIAL RATIONAL WORLD, THEN WE NEED NOT FEAR DEATH AT ALL. That's always been one of the biggest stumbling blocks of atheism, the fact that it essentially says when you die, that's it... game over... kaput! That idea really doesn't frighten me, in fact it seems to me LIFE is the part where we're subject to all kinds of suffering and pain (thought of course it's also the only part with love and joy and great sex etc.... Im not a nihilist or anything). But heck yeah... if I can live again (and again and again... ) then sign me up!!

Oh, and when I said Karma, I was talking about a different concept of it than the one you spoke of. THAT kind of karma I totally agree with (the kind described in The Tibetan Yogas of Sleep and Dream). I always understood karma to mean like you said... a system of points good or bad that you accrue throughout each life and that carry on after you die with your spirit. And if you lived a good life you were rewarded by being born HIGHER in the next life, but if you lived a bad life then you would be punished by being born LOWER. I prefer the type of karma you spoke about instead.

Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia

For you concept to be completely compatible with an atheists view, you need to describe what consciousness is, how it arises, in why it is subjective in purely physical terms.

Ummm... so, do you need this report later tonight then? Wow... seriously??!! I need to figure out what all the scientists together have never been able to understand? Why is this onus on me? Really all that info isn't necessary to the theory I described... it begins with the only thing we really know about consciousness... that it exists. Science hasn't been able to tell us much more than that about it. So essentially all Im saying is that "This COULD happen". Im not saying "I KNOW it happens" or even that it PROBABLY happens. Though to me it seems more likely that it does than that it doesn't. That's just a gut feeling though.
I'll be the first to admit that I don't KNOW what awareness really is, how it comes into existence or what makes yours and mine different.

Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia

From most atheist views (see: materialism) consciousness is purely something physical, something that is created by the brain, your brain is your consciousness so to say. Then saying one can regain awareness when the brain is gone wouldn't make sense in that particular belief system.

Then I don't think you're understanding quite what Im saying. You're obviously VERY CLOSE... but again, I wouldn't call consciousness physical... it's a state of awareness. The brain CREATES it, as you said, but the brain itself is NOT consciousness (if it creates it, how can it also BE it?). Hmmm... but I thank you for questions that make me think more deeply onto my beliefs and ideas. This is the only way to stimulate deeper thinking and to work toward a better understanding of the nature of reality. Ok... let me try this...

As you said, the brain CREATES and MAINTAINS awareness. As science knows, the brain runs on electrical impulses. So... is awareness itself then an electrical field? Or is AWARENESS really the subjective "sense of self" that we get... some pattern sustained WITHIN that fluctuating electrical field? Awww.... BRAIN... HURTING..... (I have no idea what that smiley is, but it looks like a brain with a tumor on it). But in the same sense that electric light needs a body (bulb) and a current (power) to maintain itself, I believe consciousness needs the body and the current to exist. When either stops, the consciousness winks out like a light. I'd LOVE to believe differently, and who knows, maybe soon I will... but as it stands right now, and especially for the purposes of this rational, material, atheist theory, I'm with the scientists on this one. Kill the body kill the mind.

Note... I AM open to other interpretations, especially on a subject as "subjective" as consciousness... I like to explore alternate theories and ideas. So I will look into some of these other ideas some of you have posted... but that's really beyond the scope of this particular theory.

I state once again....

IF REINCARNATION IS POSSIBLE EVEN IN A RATIONAL, MATERIAL ATHIST WORLDVIEW, THEN WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR FROM DEATH.

I think that explains why this theory is important to me.

Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia

If you would like, there is a scientific theory of everything that explains everything, that combines physics, metaphysics and philosophy with logic and reason.

It explains the concept of what we call reincarnation elegantly, in a way that makes logical sense. Tell me if you are interested in that.

Yes, as I mentioned before, I am interested. Feel free to PM me or post here if you want.

Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia

You are right, but you still have conflicting beliefs.

There is absolutely no reason that an awareness can't be "reborn" into a completely new body.

But if you have gone so far in realizing that, why can you not realize that there is absolutely no reason for this is not a non-physical process?

Who knows, maybe I'm headed toward just such a belief? But I really don't think my beliefs as expressed in this thread are conflicting. It seems perfectly logical to me that it can happen, and I really don[t see how it contradicts scientific ideas, since it doesn't require that a spirit live on after the body dies... it's about a completely new awareness being born, and the only thing that makes it YOU is the fact that you exist in it. Damn this ineffectual language with no words to express these ideas!!

... And sorry for the massive post!!

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

This is not at all or close to what we are talking about in this reincarnation. Also, there are ALOT of dead in the past, and where did you hear about 3 babies are born to 1 death per day. Alot more then 1 dead person a day.

Who said per day? Not me.

Also I think we are thinking of the same think, I just added in that recognising thing because that is what I was thinking of when I was younger. But I still know what you mean. And I still don't think you're right.

It doesn't fit in to the atheist's or scientists world view, that's wrong.

We know our ego is a product of our mind. Further, even Buddhists knew thousands of years ago that the ego is not real. There is no 'self'. Our brains just create that illusion so that we strive to keep on living, evolution.

If you're talking about some sort of 'something' that is you, but isn't your sense of self. Then this theory is useless, and there's no basis for it whatsoever. You're basically saying that there is a 'something' that is you, maybe energy or something and it go from a blank state in to an animal (including human). It's just ridiculous. Why do you feel the need to add to our understanding of the universe with someone which is just basically superfluous, a loose thread, fluff.

It's like believing in god even though we understand how the universe was 'made' and how humans evolved. You're just making up something on top of a perfectly good, rational understanding of living creatures.

IMO you're just scared to die.

You're wrong... you're still not understanding.

Ok, now THIS part I completely agree with:

"We know our ego is a product of our mind. Further, even Buddhists knew thousands of years ago that the ego is not real. There is no 'self'. Our brains just create that illusion so that we strive to keep on living, evolution."

THIS is what I'm talking about. Exactly. The ego, or the SUBJECTIVITY. Quite simply, the SENSE OF SUBJECTIVITY... the sense that you're INSIDE THIS PARTICULAR BODY. That subjectivity is the only thing that happens again (and I refuse to say it "carries on" or is transferred... rather it dies and rises again).

What is that little sense? Why are you inside your body, and I'm inside mine, while he's inside his, she's inside hers etc. What gives us that sense of life being a 1st person shooter (well... more like a 1st person exploring game for most of us, though a few do go around shooting others... )?

To understand the concept, you'd have to arrive at the same concept of what that sense of subjectivity is that puts you inside a body. Each one of us has subjectivity, yet we each have it for a different and unique body/brain. I can't make you understand the concept of subjectivity the way I've recently come to understand it... and I suspect not many people do understand it. You definitely won't come to an understanding of it from telling me that I'm wrong, or most likely even just from reading this thread (thought that might help). Personally for me it came as a result of reading ETWOLD and then finding this site.

I'm really starting to think this thread has run its course... there might be some people who understand the idea the same way I do, some who understand something CLOSE to it, and the vast majority will just tell me that Im crazy and this is a bunch of stupid BS that has nothing whatsoever to do with science or atheistic materialism. To them I say they simply don't understand the theory.

I didn't propose this because I'm afraid of dying, I proposed it because the idea suddenly occurred to me, and when it did I sort of grunted and said "WTF... that can't be possible"... and I thought about it some more, and damn... what do you know... it actually does seem possible and in fact quite likely. The nearly impossible and very unlikely part is expressing it in terms that people who haven't thought along these same lines can understand.

This is basically turning into little more than me trying over and over the express it better while people tell me what THEIR beliefs are. But some of you have definitely put some great thoughtful posts up here, and for that I thank you.

Well, that little thing that tells us we are in a body is not really a little thing. It is our nervous system. We can feel our hand touching wood, but we can't feel wood touching wood, we can't feel leaf falling off a tree.

I don't get what you mean if it's not the ego basically.
You're saying this subjectivity is what continues (even though you don't want to use that word, but for arguments sake). But why does it need to continue?
Why can't it just be that our brains have a specific wiring which gives us this subjectivity?
I mean it's highly unlikely, given the variable wiring in everyone's brains, that we would all perceive everything exactly the same.
So why does this thing you speak of have to be there to explain it?

Ah ok. I just looked at the Theory of Everything video you posted back on the 1st page SS (hah... much easier that way!). That's about a spiritual belief that your "soul" lives on when you die and goes to apparently something like a train station and has to stand in line and speak to clerks behind desks... ok, I understand he was speaking sort of metaphorically, but still... a belief like that totally DOES NOT fit into a rationalist/materialist system at all.

And I will say this... I do stray sometimes. I'm not always a complete rationalist. At times I do sway toward a more spiritual belief. But this theory isn't about that.

See, the rationalist/materialist belief system is the bottom rung of the ladder... it says you only get one chance at life... maybe 70 or 80 years or a little longer, and that's it! For all the rest of eternity you simply don't exist.

If that's so, then how very odd that we're here, alive, RIGHT NOW.... Why didn't you or I live our single lifespan centuries ago, or maybe at some time in the future, and be in non-existence right now? Hmmmm.....

But as soon as you reach that understanding about the subjectivity of awareness, bingo!! It becomes clear that there can be another YOU... a whole bunch of them in fact (not living at the same time of course). So, absolutely without the muss or fuss of traditional spiritual reincarnation, it's possible that YOU will indeed live again... and again and again... and have done so many times before. Perhaps you were a dinosaur... and an archaeopteryx... and a lungfish crawling laboriously across stinking swamps gasping for air, and a fish before that... then maybe a protosimian, and a caveman, and on and on.

To try to answer a question somebody posed earlier... I think it was Tommo... he asked something along the lines of "How can the population be increasing the way it is then?". Well, new consciousnesses are created all the time. In fact every consciousness is brand new... they form at some point in the developing fetus. 1st there's a single fertilized egg cell, it splits and splits again, and grows in this way... you know the drill... eventually becoming a baby. I don't know exactly WHEN in that process the brain is developed enough to say it has awareness... probably not till fairly late.

So we have consciousnesses dying all the time, and new ones being born all the time. All the ones being born are brand NEW. Each one will have SOMEBODY who is subjectively INSIDE it... and why wouldn't one of them be YOU?

Damn... words fail me yet again. It's so incredibly frustrating. As somebody said earlier... this really is a very simple concept... but it's just impossible to explain.

Ah cool... Tommo, Im glad you posted while i was typing... it saved me from posting right after myself! (Ummm... waitaminnit.... )

Ok, this is giving me a headache, but I think I have another way to try to explain it. Ok, forget about the nervous system.. that's a part of the physical body. To understand what I'm getting at you need to think of how a consciousness relates to other consciousnesses - not how it relates to the physical world. You were actually a lot closer when you said the Ego. It's the part that says "I think therefore I am"... the I inside of you. You have one inside you, I have one inside me... everyone does. But your I can only relate to other I's physically, by talking to people, or through nonverbal communication of some kind. Your I sees your own body from the inside... it sees the back of your eyelids, but it sees only the OUTSIDE of other people's bodies. It cannot be intimately aware of those other consciousnesses except by inference... as I said by talking or communicating with people through physical means.

Let's say there's a huge crowd of people... Lollapalooza maybe. Imagine a bird's eye view of the entire crowd. Thousands of I's, each housed in a body. Now zoom in rapidly on one of them, and through one of those crazy CGI hyper-zoom effects you go INSIDE one head and are looking out through the eyes. Now this person is YOU because you're inside. Next big CGI hyperzoom... camera pulls out of the head it entered, back up into the sky, then zooms back down again, but this time into a different head. Now you're this other person, because you're inside this one.

Subjectivity.

Inside/outside.

So, of all the people YOU could have been born as (or rather your ego could have formed in the brains of)... why are you in that body living in Melbourne? Why not a Russian? Or Chinese? If you were somebody else, you'd have their personality, their mind.... everything would be completely different from the YOU you are now... the only thing that would be YOU would be because your I (ego) is inside that person.

Whew!!

Ok, I've tried to explain this like 20 times now... and I think if you don't understand it you're not going to... or that you might understand it later. But I honestly don't think I can put it in words any better. But then I don't need to make it my mission to keep trying to explain this.... it gets extremely frustrating and I don't feel like this is my life's mission or anything LOL! Just a pretty cool idea that I hope some people will "get".

A few do seem to understand already, and for that I:m very grateful. Probably more than I should have expected. And maybe some people get it but just haven't posted.

I don't know though... as frustrating as these attempts are, if I keep trying I might get better at putting words to it. It's just a very intuitive feeling at this point.

So if the individual is made while growing in the womb or egg then how do the other individuals get in? Do they push the other one out?
Doesn't make sense.
Unless there's a massive stockpile of these things and some will never get in to a body.

As for the "why are we here now?" argument. It's completely nonsensical. We just happen to be here now, people born tomorrow will say the same thing 10 years down the track.

Originally Posted by juroara

I didn't want to say anything, but I have to admit I agree with Specialis Sapientia. You're saying that your theory is completely non-spiritual. If you are saying this, then the truth is you don't understand CONTEMPORARY spirituality which is far advanced than age old religions. I agree that your theory is NON-RELIGIOUS. But non-spiritual? No, it retains the essence of spirituality, which fundamentally revolves around consciousness itself.

Consciousness even in spirituality remains independent from memories and so called personality identities. Except when such consciousness willfully holds onto it.

Contemporary spirituality has NO problem what so ever with science. In fact, contemporary spirituality actually believes that all of their beliefs should eventually be supported by science, not pit against it as we see with Christianity versus atheists. Contemporary spirituality already agrees that what scientists called 'energy' religions call 'spirit'. In other words, they aren't two different things in spirituality. Energy IS spirit and spirit IS energy.

The human consciousness IS energy and this is scientific fact. It's already being described as a field of energy entangled within the brain.

Now the biggest difference between materialistic science and spirituality is which came first.......the consciousness or the brain? Obviously science says brain comes first. The other big difference is what happens to this field of energy after the brain dies. Because this field of consciousness would cease to exist after the brain dies in materialistic science, it stops right there from aligning itself to what religions call a soul

But contemporary spirituality remains optimistic, and feels science has only begun the mysterious journey of mind and matter.

Hi juroara (wow... you all have such difficult names to spell!! ) I really like a lot of what you're saying. In fact maybe all of it. And I agree completely with that last statement... science is definitely only beginning to understand the world. The mysterious journey of mind and matter as you so poetically put it. I think there's a lot of great discoveries to come, but I'm afraid there's still a lot of it that will remain mysterious. But, as a purely fact-based way of thinking, science is bedrock. It makes a solid foundation on which to build. But it's obviously not all there is.

Originally Posted by juroara

Is it possible to merge spirituality and science and talk about the human consciousness as something that can continue outside of the human brain? The answer is yes. While there isn't yet any absolute evidence of it, there are many ideas that have been put out there using a more scientific perspective. The one that interests me the most is the Field. Consciousness becomes entangled/composes this Field. And this Field in turn pervades the entire structure of the Universe. Placing mind before matter.

This is a very intriguing idea... something I'd like to look into in fact.

Originally Posted by juroara

Even atheists are now imagining the possibility of downloading consciousness onto a computer - the future era of androids! (scary actually). But why is it that atheists can imagine this? Because consciousness is not physical.

We're in complete agreement there... consciousness is energy.. or a pattern of energy, or something non-physical.

Originally Posted by juroara

Think of the Field as being like an internet in that you can view a website on your computer (physical). But this website(energy) still exists even if your computer blows up. Or you can think of the Field and consciousness as songs on radio waves. These songs continue to exist even if there are no more radio stations to pick them up!

Our brain/consciousness also has different frequencies just like our radio stations. To take this analogy even further..........people with transplanted organs testify that sometimes they develop new personality traits after recieving the transplanted organs. These pesonality traits match up with the individual whose organs were donated. Since it's unrealistic to imagine that organs carry out such personalities, it seems more likely that our body is designed to download us.

Seriously freaky territory if our bodies really do 'download' us!

... I'm sayin'! Fascinating idea though. Thanks for sharing.

Originally Posted by juroara

Take for example those suffering from multiple personality disorder. Actual physical changes in the body have been noted when one personality switches to the other - the color of the eyes can actually change!

http://www.deeptrancenow.com/exc2_mu...ersonality.htm

While I am not saying that there is absolute evidence that we are 'downloaded', neither is this idea impossible!! It certainly answers a lot of questions if you take the time to consider it.

As for patterns. You're right! Time is fractal. Fractal time is something that mystified ancient people. Why did the Mayans believe something would happen on 2012? It's not because they saw the future. It's because they believed the past patterns would repeat itself in the future. And that the repetition of this pattern (end of world or a new one, you decide) was inevitable because time is fractal.

Wait... Fractal? Need to google that.

Originally Posted by juroara

It might be hard to imagine how time is fractal and how patterns within time repeat themselves. It's not that hard to imagine when you understand that time and space is all apart of the same thing. It's much easier to see how space is fractal because we can see the self repeating patterns with our own eyes.

I'm not saying join this or that religion - but what I am trying to say is - there is NO REASON for atheists to be so afraid of spirituality. You don't have to choose science or spirituality - you can have both.

Well, to each his own! I find this field of study fascinating

Well I definitely believe in cyclical patterns in both time and space. Is that what's meant by fractal? I'll google it.

Thank you for a very informative post, and some very interesting ideas that I do want to look into further.


Ah ok... "A fractal is "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole". Ok, I get that. Yeah, galaxies, solar systems, atoms. Ok cool. And time as well, yes.... repeating patterns. For one... the way a human embryo seemingly goes through all the stages of evolution... beginning as a single cell, then growing into something with gills, then becoming eventually human. And the way an infant goes through the stages of proto-human evolution, from crawling on all 4s and possessing a very simple mind, to eventually standing erect and developing critical thinking facilities and full cognizance. Mmmmm... maybe not quite what you mean, but similar I guess.



Whew!! Ok, I THINK I've responded to everyone now. If I missed anyone Im sorry... my fingers are worn down to nubs now!!

Ok, you just have a different definition of ego. You think the ego is the 'I' in the personality. The ego is really the personality itself, or it's nothing. I choose to say it's nothing. Afaik that is the truth. The ego isn't a separate thing.

I'm not going to agree with you so i'll just end it here coz you seem pretty content on sticking with your idea.

Originally Posted by tommo

So if the individual is made while growing in the womb or egg then how do the other individuals get in? Do they push the other one out?
Doesn't make sense.
Unless there's a massive stockpile of these things and some will never get in to a body.

As for the "why are we here now?" argument. It's completely nonsensical. We just happen to be here now, people born tomorrow will say the same thing 10 years down the track.

NO NO NO!!!!

Nobody is GOING IN or GOING OUT... it's clear you don't understand. I thought you were struggling to understand this better, but maybe you're just telling me that I'm wrong? I know this theory isn't wrong... there's nothing about it that can be wrong. It's so absolutely simple... everybody is making it a lot more complicated. Really it's just a somewhat different way of understanding exactly what a consciousness is... ah, I've said it all before....


Ok then, let's just agree to disagree, shall we?

I was trying to understand it. Then I realised you're wrong.

Yep, shall do.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Thanks Taosaur, I appreciate the thoughtful response. It sounds like you're talking about more traditional reincarnation, with a little Karma thrown in. This is the kind of stuff that doesn't sit right with an atheist/skeptic like me. It implies that some part of you lives on after the body dies. What I'm talking about is a completely rational idea that doesn't require any kind of magic or spirit.. it's completely in agreement with the scientific ideas that a mind can't exist at all without a physical body to produce it... the same way light from a light bulb can't exist once the current is turned off. Sure, there's naturally occurring light, but not that particular light produced by that bulb.

It also sounds like you're talking about people living again and meeting each time, like for instance Cleopatra and Mark Antony being reincarnated over and over and always finding each other/ re-enacting their love through various lifetimes. It's a great idea, but again it requires a belief in some part that lives on when you die. That just goes against all scientific rationality.

I think your rejection here but acceptance of what I said above is only a matter of cultural misunderstanding. You said you liked the pattern analogy. Well it is not really an analogy, but a literal description in the most basic terms. A human being is put extremely simply, a pattern. Every part of a human being, from a cell to a personality to 'awareness' is another type of pattern contained within the encompassing pattern of that person.

During the course of your lifetime, there will be recurring patterns in your life. You will date very similar women, you will enjoy similar experiences. In terms of the role that they fulfill, you could say that you will date the same woman over and over again.

What Taosaur said was no different to what I had said earlier, it just applied to a larger scale. There are social and physical patterns that encompass large amounts of people, animals, plants, earth, ideas, etc. For instance, the United States, or Catholicism, or "people who have read The Lord of the Rings". These patterns act as a unified force and have the ability to create smaller patterns within themselves purely by the methodical and recurring way they effect the world and the parts that make them up.

I believe Carl Jung's 'archetypes' is the closest explanation that I've found for something like this from a scientific perspective.

The reason why 'karma' effects you from a past life is the same reason why a person's bad or good habits effects their cells now the same way they did 15 years ago. The reason why we don't understand that this is natural and not supernatural is because we are not very good at stepping back and seeing the larger patterns that we are a part of.

Edit:
Taosaur brought up a very good point that I wanted to expand on. You say that your awareness only exists in your body and is created by the forces of that body. An absolutely materialistic world view that disregards quantum indeterminacy assumes that "you" were bound to happen exactly as you did, and you were bound to do/think exactly as you do based on a chain of cause and effect that extends backwards through time as far as we might care to look. Why then, are your predetermined actions driven by awareness and conscious thought now, but not before? Why is this particular portion of the unending, unbending chain of cause and effect aware and conscious but other portions were not? Don't you think it is extremely coincidental that the only aware portion of the particular chain of events that causes you to exist is the same portion that is now asking "why me? why now?". If we were to apply Occam's Razor, we'd say that there really is nothing special about you or now, and that the entire process is the same.

Originally Posted by tommo

Who said per day? Not me.

Also I think we are thinking of the same think, I just added in that recognising thing because that is what I was thinking of when I was younger. But I still know what you mean. And I still don't think you're right.

It doesn't fit in to the atheist's or scientists world view, that's wrong.

We know our ego is a product of our mind. Further, even Buddhists knew thousands of years ago that the ego is not real. There is no 'self'. Our brains just create that illusion so that we strive to keep on living, evolution.

If you're talking about some sort of 'something' that is you, but isn't your sense of self. Then this theory is useless, and there's no basis for it whatsoever. You're basically saying that there is a 'something' that is you, maybe energy or something and it go from a blank state in to an animal (including human). It's just ridiculous. Why do you feel the need to add to our understanding of the universe with someone which is just basically superfluous, a loose thread, fluff.

It's like believing in god even though we understand how the universe was 'made' and how humans evolved. You're just making up something on top of a perfectly good, rational understanding of living creatures.

IMO you're just scared to die.

This whole thing is not about trying to meet your realitives from past lives like you think, you're not understanding the whole picture here. You do not exist when you are dead, when you are reborn, you're someone else with everything different. There is no way to even know if you are reborn, because you are not reborn like we think reborn is like.

Of course i am scared to die, who isn't? but that is not what this is about, i'm just saying what i think reincarnation could be like. I already stated this is just a theory. This actually does make sense to me, but you seem to be holding your belief as it's the only truth.

It doesn't fit in to the atheist's or scientists world view, that's wrong.

Lucid dreaming was once considered bullocks and laughed at, so were many ideas of other things, people just don't seem to learn. Science is about understanding, not telling you it is wrong and you are right because that theory makes no sense to logic (which is overrated...i mean just because something seems logical does not mean it's right :/). Many things are just theorys and that is all this is.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

NO NO NO!!!!

Nobody is GOING IN or GOING OUT... it's clear you don't understand. I thought you were struggling to understand this better, but maybe you're just telling me that I'm wrong? I know this theory isn't wrong... there's nothing about it that can be wrong. It's so absolutely simple... everybody is making it a lot more complicated. Really it's just a somewhat different way of understanding exactly what a consciousness is... ah, I've said it all before....


Ok then, let's just agree to disagree, shall we?

Well, there is as much evidence to support this as there is evidence to support other theorys of reincarnation, which is nada. There really is no right or wrong way to go about this, as it can't be proven, or disproven. But you can't really say your theory is not wrong, just call it a theory and try supporting it because it's what you believe is right. Nobody can take it away from you, your beliefs are yours alone.

For Xagaria

The reason why 'karma' effects you from a past life is the same reason why a person's bad or good habits effects their cells now the same way they did 15 years ago. The reason why we don't understand that this is natural and not supernatural is because we are not very good at stepping back and seeing the larger patterns that we are a part of.

I'm starting to wonder if karma actually exists. A guy at work told me about his story. They are having a hard tmem getting money to get food and pay the bills, he was thinking of staying home, but he came to work and she phoned him and told him she won alot of money, so it was good that he came to work, of course this really makes no sense but i told him "but she would have won that money even if you had stayed home". I'm on the fence about karma, while that was really not a karma story but really, does something happen to people because of karma, or was it going to happen regardless? i'm wondering if karma is just something people wanna say to an event that happens to them when they really need it or don't need it To me it was going to happen anyway, so where does the karma come into play? good deeds, bad deeds, this will still happen.

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

This whole thing is not about trying to meet your realitives from past lives like you think, you're not understanding the whole picture here. You do not exist when you are dead, when you are reborn, you're someone else with everything different. There is no way to even know if you are reborn, because you are not reborn like we think reborn is like.

Of course i am scared to die, who isn't? but that is not what this is about, i'm just saying what i think reincarnation could be like. I already stated this is just a theory. This actually does make sense to me, but you seem to be holding your belief as it's the only truth.

Lucid dreaming was once considered bullocks and laughed at, so were many ideas of other things, people just don't seem to learn. Science is about understanding, not telling you it is wrong and you are right because that theory makes no sense to logic (which is overrated...i mean just because something seems logical does not mean it's right :/). Many things are just theorys and that is all this is.

You're not reading threads again. I already said why I stated that, I didn't say it was the same thing people were talking about here.

And yes, I am saying that my belief is the truth. Just as you are.

Originally Posted by tommo

You're not reading threads again. I already said why I stated that, I didn't say it was the same thing people were talking about here.

And yes, I am saying that my belief is the truth. Just as you are.

You said

Hmmmm. cbf reading this whole thread but I thought about this exact thing when I was 10 or something and my Opa died. I imagined someday I might run in to "him" as a kid or something and we might recognise each other somehow.

That is not even what i am talking about.


I also never said this is the truth, i said for the 3rd time said it was a theory. I said i think it makes more sense to me then anything of reincarnation theorys. Start reading what is really being said, and not what you want to make up.

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

You said

Originally Posted by tommo

Hmmmm. cbf reading this whole thread but I thought about this exact thing when I was 10 or something and my Opa died. I imagined someday I might run in to "him" as a kid or something and we might recognise each other somehow.

Yes, and then I said

Originally Posted by tommo

Also I think we are thinking of the same think, I just added in that recognising thing because that is what I was thinking of when I was younger. But I still know what you mean.

LucidFlanders, so glad you got my back!!

People seem to think they're in the "state your own belief system" thread.

I mean it's cool... I don't blame anybody for posting the way they did - I'm basically stating a belief that runs counter to pretty much every popular religion and spiritual system. It's probably a wonder I didn't get lynched!!!

I wouldn't even call this a theory at this point... like I said somewhere back near the beginning, I'm just exploring an idea that struck me recently. And that idea has gotten a bit clearer after sleeping on it. I need to scribble down my thoughts and work them up into more presentable form, but expect another post soon (could be a few days). I'll probably start yet another thread for it too since this one has gotten so messy (though I expect more mess there too).

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

Well, there is as much evidence to support this as there is evidence to support other theorys of reincarnation, which is nada. There really is no right or wrong way to go about this, as it can't be proven, or disproven. But you can't really say your theory is not wrong, just call it a theory and try supporting it because it's what you believe is right. Nobody can take it away from you, your beliefs are yours alone.

For Xagaria



I'm starting to wonder if karma actually exists. A guy at work told me about his story. They are having a hard tmem getting money to get food and pay the bills, he was thinking of staying home, but he came to work and she phoned him and told him she won alot of money, so it was good that he came to work, of course this really makes no sense but i told him "but she would have won that money even if you had stayed home". I'm on the fence about karma, while that was really not a karma story but really, does something happen to people because of karma, or was it going to happen regardless? i'm wondering if karma is just something people wanna say to an event that happens to them when they really need it or don't need it To me it was going to happen anyway, so where does the karma come into play? good deeds, bad deeds, this will still happen.

OK real quick....

You're absolutely right... there is absolutely positively no way this idea could ever be proven or even investigated... how would scientists go about gathering data? You'd pretty much have to wait till a baby grows old enough that it learns to talk, then ask it "Are you YOURSELF?" ----

So, like any religious or spiritual system, it cannot ever be proved or disproved. Really I;m not even saying that this definitely happens, my whole concept is just that IT COULD HAPPEN. Or that it seems just as likely to happen as not. So 50% chance.

And about karma... the kind that carries over into other lives... this idea necessitates a soul or spirit that lives on when the body dies. So it has absolutely no application to this idea of reincarnation (wish I had a better word for it without any religious/ spiritual connotations).

Here's part of what occurred to me today (after sleeping on this idea)...


Aether. Remember that theory? Way back when people couldn't conceive of how energy could possibly travel through the empty vacuum of space... "common sense" told them that it would need a medium of some kind to move through, just like on earth where it's always traveling through either air, fluid or solid matter. (Common sense.... which once postulated that of course the earth is flat etc). So people invented this substance that must permeate all of the universe called Aether... an invisible, intangible, undetectable fluid or atmosphere that MUST be there if their theory of how energy travels was correct. Lo and behold, that theory was wrong... energy indeed proved more than capable of traveling through the vacuum of space.

Aether is the root of the word ethereal -- meaning insubstantial, invisible, undetectable... ie the nature of the ethereal spirit or soul. And I think these ideas about spirit and soul were invented for pretty much the same reason as aether was invented... because common sense of the time was unable to understand how something could happen without it.

Somebody... I think it was Tommo... said I just came up with this idea because I'm afraid of death. Bingo! Of course... fear of death is exactly why every religion and spiritual belief system was invented in the first place. And yes, it's undoubtedly the driving force behind my speculations.

Soooo.... people fearing their own mortality come up with many theories about how they can live on eternally in some other realm or transfer into other bodies here on earth after they die. Hmmmm... how could this happen?

And keep in mind... the term for SOUL was first recorded in ancient Greece, and what they actually meant by it was the thinking part... the rational part... ie the MIND. The best of human thought clearly realized that this part must die when the body dies, ergo the church confiscated the term soul and said "no... no... it's not the mind... it's something ELSE... an ethereal part of you (they used a different word of course... the Aether theory wasn't around yet, but the IDEA of invisible, incorporeal and undetectable things was there) that remains when the body dies, that goes to an ethereal place where it lives happily ever after... or else it inserts itself into another body and lives here on earth in that way.

See.... people thought some ethereal medium was needed... because they thought that what 'goes on' or 'lives forever' must include the memories or the personality or carry your karma. And how could any of these things happen if the mind (the I) dies when the body dies? Of course they can't. So the ethereal soul was invented to carry this baggage.

That's the beauty and simplicity of the idea I propose... and you wanna talk Occam's Razor? Heh... I actually thought of it in exactly those terms today ironically. Slash away the superfluous idea of a soul.. it's not needed at all! Elegance and simplicity itself... here;s the idea in a nutshell:


You die. Then you're born again - as a completely different person.


That simple. Nothing 'carries through' with you.. there's no baggage claim, no customs, no memories and no personality traits... you're an entirely different person, you have no clue that you ever 'lived before'... because really you didn't. That was somebody else. Only the AWARENESS is yours. And it's not yours because it remembers anything either... it's such a pure kernel of simplicity... all it is really is the subjective sense that this person is you. You're in there.

Wow... I wasn't going to write all this here!!! These are most of the thoughts I was going to 'get in order' better before posting... but now I spilled it. Good... it's still a bit messy, but I got it out before I forgot anything... hope there isn't anything I left out. If there is I'll add it.

Oh yeah.. there is more. Heh...

All the popular religions and spiritual belief systems I'm aware of (I hardly consider myself highly knowledgeable about them though) add on a 'morality clause'. Essentially they say "When you DO die, you'll be either rewarded if you were good or punished if you were bad". Ok, maybe not all of them have this, but I'd say the majority do. This is one of the telltales that flashes a red light for rationalists... it implies that there's somebody keeping score, tallying up your scorecard and referees deciding on your stats. All this sounds too much like a boogeyman story for us to swallow. I'm not saying positive and negative reinforcement are necessarily a BAD thing... but when it's done this way it makes the whole cookie too hard to swallow for a rationalist. It's another part of the mythology that means you have to put your blinders on and ignore logic in order to keep your faith.

Maybe some people need that kind of reward/ punishment system to keep them in line, but I don't think it's all that effective really. We know that atheists and non-spiritual people are often good people, and devoutly religious or spiritual people can just as easily do horrible things at times. So maybe we don't need such a moralistic system hammered into our heads? Morality should definitely be taught and demonstrated by example to children. And most o us have a conscience that troubles us when we do wrong and we feel good when we help others etc (well, some don't seem to have this). This is karma as described by Don Juan Matus in the Castaneda books... the kind of karma that doesn't carry over to a next life or anything, it's simply emotional traces either good or bad left by things you do or experience. It affects us on a daily basis... and in our dreams. Perhaps this is reward/ punishment enough for educated and rational people? Not perfect obviously, but then neither is the religious/spiritual reward and punishment system.

Wow... didn't mean to spend so long on that completely tangential point!!

Implications.... since it seems quite likely to me that reincarnation of the kind I've been describing just happens to all of us... then we need not turn to a religious or spiritual belief system to allay that fear of mortality. If this idea could be "gotten out there" -- and explained in a way that people can grasp -- people would be able to 'let go' of their convulsive (fear-inspired) grasping at their chosen religious or spiritual beliefs and no longer need to adhere to the dogmas and turn a blind eye on passages in holy books that are riddled with obvious fallacies. They'd be able to believe they would live again and again... and ALSO accept all the new ideas presented by science without having to fear that one of them will suddenly destroy their faith.

Ok... that's all I can think of. For now.

If it wasn't evident already, I'm backing away from this thread, as the ignorance and mysticism grows thicker. Those who wish for a deeper understanding will read/listen, contemplate, and meditate on the teachings of those who have some credibility on this subject.

Mysticism? From MOI?!!

Mysticism is exactly what I'm removing from the equation. Ignorance I can't deny, because whenever we talk about what happens after we die, we're all totally ignorant and just making guesses in the dark. But I'll freely admit that... will you?

Yes, many people have devoted their lives to pondering these mysteries... but usually under the aegis of one belief system or another, and their thinking reflects only that belief system.

I'm sorry to see you go Taosaur, but it does say right at the top of the thread non-religious and non-spiritual, so I assume anybody with religious or spiritual beliefs would dislike this thread. Thanks for indulging me as much as you have.