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

I can see you guys totally don't get it. There are absolutely no assumptions about consciousness involved - only that fact that we know it exists, in every person. It forms in the developing mind, in the developing brain, somewhere either in the womb or possibly later, I don't know.

Steph: "This observer-"function" - how come it doesn't simply cease to exist, once your brain goes to mush?"

It does! It dies when you die, since it IS you. Or rather it's what makes you you and not somebody else. Just goes kaput! And Pffft - it's gone forever never to exist again.

Why do you think something has to continue on? That's the religious baggage, the magic idea that you find impossible to accept. What Im trying to get across is that NOTHING continues. Nothing is carried through. Something completely new comes into existence, a shiny new baby awareness, just like all the billions of others, but just as has already happened once, it somehow is you. Whatever made this you you - why can't it happen again, and again, and again? Maybe it has happened dozens or thousands of times already, and will continue to, until there is no more life in the universe. It's already happened at least once that you're aware of, so you know it happens. I'm just saying why do we assume it only happens once? We don't know that it does. THIS is all I'm saying.

Ok, look I'll give you the benefit of the doubt since you have demonstrated credible views and thinking in previous posts.

Can you explain to me in one paragraph as precisely as possible, your theory on "reincarnation". I am getting conflicting signals here on what your idea actually entails. I am not going to go so far as accuse you of pulling a DiMeglio here but I am confused nonetheless.

I am sorry if this is terribly frustrating for you but I can not even appraise your idea if I can't see it!

(Note - this is an edit I tried to do on my previous post, but it came up separate, so I'll let it stand here. After having a few years to let it all marinate I seem to have found a somewhat different way to explain it.):

Why do you think something has to continue on? That's the religious baggage, the magic idea that you find impossible to accept. What Im trying to get across is that NOTHING continues. Nothing is carried through. Something completely new comes into existence, a shiny new baby awareness, just like all the billions of others, but just as has already happened once, it somehow is you. Whatever made this you you - why can't it happen again, and again, and again? Maybe it has happened dozens or thousands of times already, and will continue to, until there is no more life in the universe. It's already happened at least once that you're aware of, so you know it happens. I'm just saying why do we assume it only happens once? We don't know that it does. THIS is all I'm saying.

Ok, so you are saying that the only continuity that you would experience between this life and the "next" is our subjective experience. Just as when I go to deep sleep, my consciousness is shutoff and then turned on when I wake up. Something like that continuity but without the added anchor of the intact memories from the previous tract of conscious experience during yesterday.

I have had thoughts like this before. In fact, it could be that we are "reincarnated" with every average clock cycle that our brain goes. A conscious being dies with every moment, only to be replaced with another with the same memories.

Am I even close to your idea or am I just tooting my own horn here?

Yes!! You're definitely on to it now. Have you ever done meditation? Know about the idea of the observer, which is the part capable of observing your thoughts feelings or memories without being attached to any of them? That would be the part I'm referring to, or perhaps it's actually something even deeper in the unconscious morass of which the observer is a somewhat conscious aspect. I don't remember if LaBerge talked about the observer in ETWOLD or not, but I think that's where I picked up the idea of it for the first time. And if he did talk about it, then I'm deeply ashamed that I remembered the concept when I made this thread but not the term Observer or the way of describing it which comes from buddhist meditation.

I am acquainted with it somewhat. Can't say I necessarily agree with the idea that there is or indeed can even be an observer that is truly detached from thoughts, feelings or memories. It could just be that the "observer" is just at a higher meta level of cognition and is just another element in our subjective experience rather than the artificer.

I have experienced what you describe during previous experimentations with meditation; it is a most peculiar sensation and makes the belief of a disembodied spirit more excusable than it would have been otherwise.

One issue I always have with such ideas of reincarnation is why should there be a reopening of your subjective experience after death? Think about it for a moment: with every clock cycle of our brain, your consciousness blinks out and into existence. If it was true that there is a true continuity of subjective experience independent of any temporal arrangement of matter, why is it that after the first blink, my tract of subjective experience does not switch to another substrate that is suitable to house it? If subjective experience really operated like this, I would expect it to be far more sporadic and inconsistent then it appears to be.

It seems to be more plausible that the particular tract of experience is localised to the particular substrate that created it, the brain. Once the brain ceases to operate, the pattern dissipates. If the brain decomposes to a sufficient extent, the pattern can no longer be recoverable and that particular track of subjective experience will never run again.

Far more pessimistic and conservative theory for sure but I find it more probable.

I actually agree with everything you said except for this: "I have experienced what you describe during previous experimentations with meditation; it is a most peculiar sensation and makes the belief of a disembodied spirit more excusable than it would have been otherwise." and this: "… a reopening of your subjective experience after death?"

What I'm talking about definitely does not involve anything like a disembodied spirit or a reopening of the same anything. To call it a re-opening implies that something is still carrying over.

I think what might help is to think about just the sheer incredible multiplicity of awareness-es winking on and off all the time - any given day there are thousands of lives born and extinguished. Every single day. The vast majority of them are not you - in fact of all of them, only one is. Think about that. Do you really believe it's because of some spiritual quality or some disembodied spirit that that sense of this one being you exists? I don't. I think it's pretty much random. And I think you do too. Why in the hell, with all the billions of them that were born in the time you were, was one of them you? Why did you even come into existence at all? You didn't have to. It could easily just have been all those others, with no you EVER. But for some reason that we aren't capable of understanding (or apparently of even talking about effectively) each one is subjectively somebody, and one of them is subjectively you. And one me.

And yet to each of the others, the same is true. Only one is him. Or her. Why? What causes that subjectivity? I agree with you (not sure if you said this directly, but you implied it) that the sense of awareness, like everything about consciousness, is probably some kind of illusion. An emergent property of thought in the growing brain. But who is experiencing the illusion? You are, whatever that means. If it's an illusion, then so be it. But why couldn't the same illusion happen again and again and again? The illusion of you?

I'm trying to say that nothing has to 'carry over'. If we are good atheists, we don't believe this awareness 'came from anywhere' anyway to begin with, right? It was created as the mind grew to a state of cognition compatible with conscious awareness. We don't know exactly at what stage the spark of pure awareness comes into being, the sense that you are in there looking out (and by this I don't mean to imply a spirit housed in a body, just a mind with a sense of self in its most basic primitive form). We don't know how or why it happens, but we do know it happens. Each of us knows it happened once anyway. Whatever mysterious process causes a sensate little awareness to envelop in each embryo for some reason builds in that subjectivity in each one. It seems to be the most central and basic element of consciousness, at least that we know of. We can't experience anything deeper. You can strip away thoughts, feelings and memories, and it's still there. The you who sees through your eyes and yours only.

Billions of these 'yous' are born every decade. We assume that every one of them is a unique and totally different you. All he's and she's then, from your perspective, but of course from their own perspective, each is a me. Countless little budding me's. And since we have absolutely no understanding of how this happens, how this little sense of being a Me develops in each one, we have no idea if that sense of me is something that can happen again and again, or if it only happens once.

I'm saying, that, since it IS some kind of illusion, and since the same illusion develops in every mind, it's basically meaningless to say that "you can't ever live again".

What I think is so hard for people to grasp is that I'm not talking about any kind of continuity, It seems no matter how many times I say that it's still what everyone (most anyway) think of. But I'm saying try to think about how each little me develops the sense of 'me'ness. It's completely imponderable really. I doubt science will ever be able to explain it. Falling asleep and waking up is a decent analogy, but of course it's much different, because no matter how deep in sleep you are your mind is still functioning and that spark of awareness is always there, it exists in every dream no matter how bodiless or void-ish they may be. It might wink out in a coma state, I don't know. But I suspect it remains to some extent, at least some aspect of it. But when you die of course it goes completely. It sings Daisy, slower and slower, and goes offline completely. (And of course, when you wake up you can remember previous days).

Now, we do know that countless trillions of new me's will shoot off like popcorn afterwards - this is happening constantly. We have no idea whatsoever why one of the countless trillions that came before was 'you' - hell, we can't even define what we mean by 'you'. But somehow we know it did. Whatever constitutes that sense of subjective 'me'ness happened.

And it will happen every time an new embryo comes into existence. The only question is, will all of them be other-than-you? Or might one of the new ones be a completely new you?

Ok, That's all I got. Wiped out now. But Im glad to see I'm finding some new ways to look at it and explain it.

Hach - my husband is the best!



How it all began with this topic, husband and me, from another thread:

Originally Posted by StephL

As far as I know - the Buddhists claim there is no continuity in consciousness anyway - not even from second to second. How they can then come to the weird idea that after death then suddenly there is continuity in that never-ending discontinuity and with karma-seeds coming into some sort of causal fruition over to your next incarnation - I simply cannot follow that "logic".
Oh dear - I found out lately that my husband is a closet Buddhist, but he likes to ignore this conundrum, can't explain it to me, but is ardently of the opinion, that all my objections wouldn't apply, since I wouldn't understand it properly.
But - he's unable to even express it in words so that it makes sense to his own ears - he just believes, all the rest would be so wise and precious, that I shouldn't think, I can so easily call bullshit on karma and reincarnation. And it would anyways only be peripheral. Weell.
Got something to do much closer to home than I expected - I wonder if I wanted to even know that - I thought he only meditates. Do I write to my own husband now - quoting texts and showing him, that I indeed can? Can call bullshit, I mean. Gosh - I guess, I will sort of have to...
I'll report next door then - but we had a discussion yesterday which left me flabbergasted - he didn't shy away from several clear fallacies - even right-out dishonest tactics like changing the goalposts all the time, trying to change the topic and and. Wow! Well - I can't un-know that now...

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Are you sure you need to kill off your hubby's beliefs? It will undoubtedly go very much like your attempts to talk sense into a certain Creationist who made things very active for a brief while around here (and now it's died down once again). You may think from time to time that you're getting through, only to find out soon that you didn't at all. And it may very well end your marriage or make it unhappy for one or both of you. Challenging someone's core-most beliefs is not a thing to be taken lightly - I've seen it rip apart old friendships even when both parties laughingly assured themselves and everyone else that there was no way that could ever happen - 'after all, we're all adults here, right?' Some things you need to just accept in someone you love - you can't force them to change and trying is a relationship-killer more often than not.

Originally Posted by StephL

Yeah - I'll see, you're right of course, it might be dangerous in principle.
Right now we're both laughing at it - I showed him my post - now he says, he actually doesn't really believe in reincarnation anyway, and I should go ahead.
But that I should stop, once he would desperately cling on to his meditation mat, chanting and catatonically drawing mandalas on the floor.

If he told me he believed in something "spiritual" of any kind - that would make at least internal sense - but he keeps at the same time claiming, he would be a staunch materialist. That's sort of exasperating me - you can't have it both ways, now can you?
Oh well - obviously you can - the mind is a wondrous thing indeed..

Don't worry - but sweet of you to actually do worry - but don't, we're gonna survive that - I can take it, if he stays like that - I love him! And he knows me well enough to not be surprisable by something like this.
But I'll try - seems he's done some reorganizing over the night already.
And he said to greet you sweetly!

I didn't even need to start out with collecting stuff to show him, that he can't have it both ways - he's been on the net himself and on this mission. That's what makes all the difference - just listening to me didn't work, unsurprisingly - the will needs to be there and one needs to do it for oneself, not while in a confrontational exchange. Self-defence is a mighty beast and almost instinctive.

And he agrees with me meanwhile - you need the supernatural to invoke reincarnation - he says he's not completely rid of the idea, but at least he is aware now of the discrepancy. And he brought along a lot of sources, which he looked into - including "the Dawkins of Buddhism" as he called him, that's this Stephen Batchelor.
But first off a classical definition, one that he finds unconvincing:
REBIRTH - Bhikkhu Bodhi
One more, same author:
Dhamma Without Rebirth?

Now said "Dawkins" - author of "Buddhism without Beliefs":
A Difficult Pill: The Problem with Stephen Batchelor and Buddhism
An interview with him:
BG 175: The Buddhist Atheist » Buddhist Geeks

Here the "opposing" view - also interview:
BG 179: An Evidence-Based Spirituality for the 21st Century » Buddhist Geeks

A debate:
https://tabmemfree.appspot.com/blank...le_favicon.ico

Another anti-reincarnation thingy:
Buddhists Against Reincarnation

Now he's not yet sure, if he's also such a Buddhist atheist - or if he might not anyway be inclined to the supernatural, but at least knowingly.
Soo - that didn't go in any way and whatsoever similarly to "debating" a Creationist - I didn't even have to do something - shaking up my husband's foundations that fine evening has indeed lead to him getting quite active on his own to sort out his head and beliefs - I'm proud of him!! Ah - but would I have married a block-head? NOPE!!
There are indeed people on this planet who are able to admit to having been wrong and willing to even find out themselves and then willing to work out, what that means to them personally! Might take him a while longer, but I'm sure he'll come out with something at least internally consistent, and hopefully, but also highly probably the rational variant. As can be seen in the quotes - my problem was this cognitive dissonance he had, believing in reincarnation and at the same time claiming to be a staunch rationalist materialist.
Hurraaah - mission got accomplished - and he did it for me!!

Darkmatters I just got to say that your idea makes totall sense and I believe that anyone are able to see that too. IF, one is willing to actually give it the amount of thought that it require, depending on how flexible one's thoughts will be that is. The reason why I post here in the first place, is that since you have this idea of incarnation. I just thought that might be very interested in listening to this lecture by Alan Watts. Your idea might be even more clear to you since this is the exactly same thing he is talking about.
Enjoy!

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Mods, I'm adding to my old thread , so don't accuse me of necro-ing, ok??!!

Aaaah, shucks! : D

Steph - indeed, I agree you can't have it both ways. Did your husband's idea rely on something magical or religious? If so then it's different from what this thread is about, because my idea has no 2 ways about it. I's strictly rational. If you still persist in thinking there's something magical about it, then would you do me the favor of pointing out what it is?

I think maybe it's just the word reincarnation - those people who have remained rigidly opposed to what I'm talking about seem unable to understand that reincarnation is not necessarily a religious or magical term. We've all been incarnated (made flesh) once - we can all agree on that right? It happened - and if you're atheistic you don't think it was through some kind of magic, right? What's stopping one of the countless billions of new lives that will form in the future from also being you?

Well - my consciousness arose from that sperm and egg thingy and it was totally brand new - never was any_of_it there before - and once my brain goes to mush, all_of_consciousness_StephL will be terminated. It's an emergent property/phenomenon of a nervous system, and what stays is that bit, which makes it into other people's heads as memories. That's my view in a nutshell.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

We've all been incarnated (made flesh) once - we can all agree on that right?

Nope - I've not been "incarnated" - I've not been there at all before "I" emerged from my nervous system's workings.
I've not been made flesh - flesh made me.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

What's stopping one of the countless billions of new lives that will form in the future from also being you?

Lack of mechanism.
How would you imagine this something_of_you makes it into the next body, how could that work? Why only one specific body at a time?



My husband had exactly the same idea, which you have - that something_of_you can get reborn without that being a supernatural happening.
By reading the above linked sources - he changed his mind about that.
Did you check up on those?
Because you know - all that I said to him in real life didn't work on him, so I doubt it might work on you - but maybe these sources will!
No disrespect of course - husband's a highly intelligent man and mathematician, and he managed to hold that view up to now.

By the way - this whole affair hasn't killed off his "spirituality" now - not even if he comes to drop the rebirth concept.
Quite the opposite - he didn't actually read Buddhist stuff for a longish while and now he's freshly enthused about some aspects - meditation cushion is at the ready again, and he wants me to read certain stuff and show me how wise this and that is.
Also how some of it concurs with modern neuroscientific findings and has aspects of what Thomas Metzinger, my favourite philosopher says. I'll take a look and expect him to be correct.

I'm fine with all that, even if he'll come to accommodate for the supernatural - just happy this cognitive dissonance has disappeared.
Reminds me of Xanous and his Christian Atheism, actually.

Originally Posted by StephL

Well - my consciousness arose from that sperm and egg thingy and it was totally brand new - never was any_of_it there before - and once my brain goes to mush, all_of_consciousness_StephL will be terminated. It's an emergent property of a nervous system

Ok, so you completely agree with me so far. No part of your mind, or a soul, or anything else lives on or goes on or in any way can possibly continue when you die.

Check.

Nor does any of it "live again" in any way, "reform", or come back into being in any way shape or form.

Incidentlally, I really wasn't asking you to explain it, I wanted you to really ponder the process itself, but I'm afraid you only wrote off that rather dismissive statement off the very top of your head. The part I wanted to you think about is later than the sperm/egg collusion - it's during the development of the mind itself, at whatever point that awareness comes into existence.

Now please indulge me just a little bit farther - I'm going to see if I can walk you through the tricky part where I think everybody gets lost. And please, don't think of this as me arguing with you, because we're in total agreement. and please, get absolutely any ideas of anything religious or magical out of your head, I think those are screwing you up. There's none of that in this concept at all. As many times as I've said this, you keep going that way. It's clear you aren't grasping it yet.

Of all the countless little developing brains with their developing minds, each gets its own little awareness inside it. Happens hundreds of times every day, right? How come one of them - THAT one - became you? Why didn't it become somebody else? This is the really mysterious part. And I think this is the key to getting people to understand.

We have absolutely no idea why that one became you, or this one became me. Or that other one became LouaiB. And I'm not talking about names, or identities, or anything so surface as that. Just the fact that somehow, that one little meat calculator grew YOU inside of it, rather than somebody else.

You can't explain it. Scientists can't explain it. It's one of the great mysteries of life.

Ok, so we know that for some unexplainable reason, you grew inside that one particular brain. And of course when that brain dies, you will die with it. That mind winks out like a light bulb and with it goes that particular awareness.

Now please try to completely eliminate any idea of it living on, or transferring or anything like that. Awarenesses can't do that - they're only as you said an emergent property of thought. But one grows inside every little brain at some point in its development. One of them became StephL. You don't know why or how, but it did. Well, with all the countless ones developing every day, who's to say one of them won't have the subjective property of YOU being in there? I don't mean StephL of course - it would be a completely new person (or animal). Totally new identity. No memories, no baggage, because it never existed before, It's completely fresh and new, just as the StephL awareness was before it. A totally new you. You would not be aware of ever having existed before, because really you didn't.

Hmmm.. maybe what's making it so hard to understand is the continued use of the word you. I guess it tends to make people think that I'm somehow talking about the SAME person, the same identity, or the same awareness that existed before. I'm absolutely not, It's essential that you grasp this in order to understand. It's only the fact of being inside a brain, in a body. Subjectivity. Interiority - access to the thoughts and feelings coursing through that brain.

Ok, I honestly don't think I can explain it any better than that. If you still don't understand, then maybe you have some ideological blockage that resists such ideas on whatever grounds, such as you think science says it's impossible (science cannot possibly ever study any such thing, barring the development of entirely new and amazing technology). Or maybe you've fallen into argument mode and you refuse to lose this one (What, Steph hard-headed and obstinate? Never!! ). And I'm sure you think I've fallen into argument mode or have some ideology that makes me immune to logic on this issue, but I can assure you neither is true. I just had a weird thought one day and suddenly I could see this. It was so amazingly simple and so obviously possible (remember I'm not saying it definitely happens, just that it's as likely as not) that I wanted to try to share it, and have been running into this frustrating wall of incomprehension in most quarters. Sigh. But at least trying to explain it is helping me to think deeper into it and come up with ever better ways. Maybe one day I'll have the breakthrough or maybe some really smart person will see this thread and can explain it much better than I can. It really sucks to have this amazing thought, and not to be able to share it with almost anybody.

I'll read the links you provided - though I'm betting all they preclude is any kind of religious or magical idea of reincarnation.

Uups - something is weird here - I thought my post was the last one, and been editing into it right up to now - so maybe you didn't see that yet.
What I put in among other details is quoting these two lines of yours and commenting on them.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Ok, so you completely agree with me so far. No part of your mind, or a soul, or anything else lives on or goes on or in any way can possibly continue when you die.

Check.

Nor does any of it "live again" in any way, "reform", or come back into being in any way shape or form.

Incidentlally, I really wasn't asking you to explain it, I wanted you to really ponder the process itself, but I'm afraid you only wrote off that rather dismissive statement off the very top of your head. The part I wanted to you think about is later than the sperm/egg collusion - it's during the development of the mind itself, at whatever point that awareness comes into existence.

Now please indulge me just a little bit farther - I'm going to see if I can walk you through the tricky part where I think everybody gets lost. And please, don't think of this as me arguing with you, because we're in total agreement. and please, get absolutely any ideas of anything religious or magical out of your head, I think those are screwing you up. There's none of that in this concept at all. As many times as I've said this, you keep going that way. It's clear you aren't grasping it yet.

What I don't grasp, is for what end you use that term at all. Let me see, if I can find pointers in what you write, which might be shining a light on the matter. Superficially seen, what you wrote would make the term completely superfluous.

Of all the countless little developing brains with their developing minds, each gets its own little awareness inside it. Happens hundreds of times every day, right? How come one of them - THAT one - became you? Why didn't it become somebody else? This is the really mysterious part. And I think this is the key to getting people to understand.

We have absolutely no idea why that one became you, or this one became me. Or that other one became LouaiB. And I'm not talking about names, or identities, or anything so surface as that. Just the fact that somehow, that one little meat calculator grew YOU inside of it, rather than somebody else.

You can't explain it. Scientists can't explain it. It's one of the great mysteries of life.

Ok, so we know that for some unexplainable reason, you grew inside that one particular brain. And of course when that brain dies, you will die with it. That mind winks out like a light bulb and with it goes that particular awareness.

Okay - this "getting an awareness" might be a pointer - my body doesn't "get" an awareness, which somehow has StephL characteristics, I am my body. Without this specific body - no StephL characteristics. Also I don't "grow" inside my body as if I was somehow planted as a StephL seed. I am my brain. I also can't see this mystery you are invoking. Asking why my consciousness is "me" is like asking why I have brown hair - it's a property of my body like any other.

Now please try to completely eliminate any idea of it living on, or transferring or anything like that. Awarenesses can't do that - they're only as you said an emergent property of thought. But one grows inside every little brain at some point in its development. One of them became StephL. You don't know why or how, but it did. Well, with all the countless ones developing every day, who's to say one of them won't have the subjective property of YOU being in there? I don't mean StephL of course - it would be a completely new person (or animal). Totally new identity. No memories, no baggage, because it never existed before, It's completely fresh and new, just as the StephL awareness was before it. A totally new you. You would not be aware of ever having existed before, because really you didn't.

What is this supposed to mean? What is this "subjective property"? Why a totally new "me" - why not a totally new somebody else?

Hmmm.. maybe what's making it so hard to understand is the continued use of the word you. I guess it tends to make people think that I'm somehow talking about the SAME person, the same identity, or the same awareness that existed before. I'm absolutely not, It's essential that you grasp this in order to understand. It's only the fact of being inside a brain, in a body. Subjectivity. Interiority - access to the thoughts and feelings coursing through that brain.

Look - that in that case it really wouldn't be "me" at all, and the term would be empty. Again - I have to try and understand, why you would use the term at all. What sounds as if it might be a hint at the difference in our thinking is this "being inside a brain", instead of being a brain. What is being inside my brain in your view, which could then later on be in another brain? And in that case - how would "it" get there?

Ok, I honestly don't think I can explain it any better than that. If you still don't understand, then maybe you have some ideological blockage that resists such ideas on whatever grounds, such as you think science says it's impossible (science cannot possibly ever study any such thing, barring the development of entirely new and amazing technology). Or maybe you've fallen into argument mode and you refuse to lose this one (What, Steph hard-headed and obstinate? Never!! ). And I'm sure you think I've fallen into argument mode or have some ideology that makes me immune to logic on this issue, but I can assure you neither is true. I just had a weird thought one day and suddenly I could see this. It was so amazingly simple and so obviously possible (remember I'm not saying it definitely happens, just that it's as likely as not) that I wanted to try to share it, and have been running into this frustrating wall of incomprehension in most quarters. Sigh. But at least trying to explain it is helping me to think deeper into it and come up with ever better ways. Maybe one day I'll have the breakthrough or maybe some really smart person will see this thread and can explain it much better than I can. It really sucks to have this amazing thought, and not to be able to share it with almost anybody.

I'm really sorry to say - but I can't see it, I do not know, what you are getting at.

I'll read the links you provided - though I'm betting all they preclude is any kind of religious or magical idea of reincarnation.

Yes - please do that!!
I feel the same frustration, which I felt with my husband - the exact same one. And after he had pondered these sources - the matter was resolved.
So that's more or less all that I can do - ask you to please do that and hope, it might help us along here.

Siggggggggghhhh…. Hooo boy. I don't know if I have the fortitude to try this again tonight. But I'm very glad to see that you're trying. Awww screw it - I'm going to go ahead and try it one more time!

Originally Posted by StephL

Okay - this "getting an awareness" might be a pointer - my body doesn't "get" an awareness, which somehow has StephL characteristics, I am my body. Without this specific body - no StephL characteristics.

Hmmm… with this paragraph I was trying to help you understand the awareness I'm talking about. When I say "you" it's this awareness I'm talking about, the central-most, most basic point of sensation in your mind, the last part that would still be left if you could strip away all conscious thought, all emotions, all memories, any sense of your human identity (your name, the fact that you're female, that you're human, etc). If you can imagine your mind being essentially completely blank, as I imagine it must be at birth, or even in the womb. Though of course this is complicated by the fact that the brain itself isn't very developed yet, so we don't really know if a fetus has even this most rudimentary sense of being alive. It might not come into existence until a few weeks or months after birth, I can't say. Ot it might be there from even before birth.

It isn't your body, it exists inside your brain, or I suppose if you want to say your entire nervous system, then that's probably accurate. I keep referring to it being inside the brain, most likely because that's where "you" seem to exist - behind the eyes and between the ears, and also of course because that's where the brain is and so hence the mind as well. Though if you're more comfortable with thinking of the mind, or the sense of self, as existing all throughout the nervous system, then I see no reason why not. In fact, 'sense of self' might be a good term for this awareness I'm trying to describe. And just as I think it must the the absolute first sensation a person ever has, I also believe it's undoubtedly the last sensation before death as well, as the mind shuts down in stages. This is what I was trying to illustrate earlier when I mentioned HAL being shut down from 2001: A Space Oddyssey, when he was singing Daisy slower and slower. I assume you've seen it? "I can feel it Dave - my mind is shutting down. I'm frightened Dave". Having this scene in your mind might help you to understand this innermost, simplest part of the mind I'm after. It's the idiot, unthinking, unemotional, staring, zombie, vegetable (not literally of course, it's a metaphor, or a meat-a-phor if you will lol) part of the mind that knows only one thing - "I am". It doesn't know "I am a woman" or "I am hungry", only "I AM" It is the I in I am. (Though when I'm talking about yours I refer to it as you for reasons that should be clear). It's still there even if you go blind, deaf, and incapable of feeling, tasting, or smelling. Just simple dumb, brute existence.

Originally Posted by StephL

Also I don't "grow" inside my body as if I was somehow planted as a StephL seed. I am my brain. I also can't see this mystery you are invoking. Asking why my consciousness is "me" is like asking why I have brown hair - it's a property of my body like any other.

Well, your brain is inside your body, right, not to be finished growing until around age 25, and your mind is far from complete at birth - so it's definitely growing. I think of the mind as being inside the brain since thought is simply a function of the brain after all. And I think of the awareness as being inside the mind, though I can see where you might object to that idea. This awareness is a part of your mind - some unconscious thought process that is a function of the brain. It's such a simple kernel of thought or sensation (or whatever it is) that I doubt there's any real sense of it growing - most likely when the brain and the developing mind reach a point at which they can support this little subprogram we know as the "sense of self" or the "awareness" then it just suddenly is operational in an instant. Just sort of pops into being.

Originally Posted by StephL

What is this supposed to mean? What is this "subjective property"?

By subjective property what I mean is the sense of existing in a body. Or if it suits you better, of being a body. A particular body.

Subjectivity - the 'subject' is the I. An Object is something that is not I. Another person, or a thing, is objective to you because you don't have immediate subjective (internal) access to its experience. Taking another person for instance - you see another person's body and you just have to infer that it also has a mind inside it and feelings, like you already know you do because you experience them directly. But you don't experience another person's feelings or thoughts directly, you can only watch their body language and facial expressions and listen to what they say and from these clues you can infer that they also have a subjective internal experience within that body. But it's alien to you, you can never experience it in the same immediate, internal way you experience your own thoughts and feelings. And you can also infer that they cannot experience YOUR feelings and thought immediately and internally the way you do.

It's this immediate, internal experience, this immediate access to only the thoughts and feeling within that one body that I'm referring to as 'subjectivity', or as the I, or sometimes as 'you' (depending on the context). I'm trying, in many different ways, to get you to understand this subjective experience that exists within your body, within your brain and within your mind. The reason I mention each of these (body, brain, mind) in succession is because it is none of these things. It is internal to all of them. It's a thought process of some kind. I apologize for so much repetition, but I keep thinking if I can say it just the right way one time you'll suddenly have that "aha!!" moment. Actually I don't imagine it takes much brain complexity for it to come into existence - most likely it's created somewhere in the brainstem itself, or quite near it at least. I imagine even insects have it, though that could be wrong. I have no way to know. Mammals definitely all have it, and reptiles as well. Doubtless fish. I suspect even earthworms have it.

Originally Posted by StephL

Why a totally new "me" - why not a totally new somebody else?

Hmmm… well, really in every sense that matters, it is somebody else. Except for the one that matters the most. Brute existence. In any sense that the religious or magical ideas about reincarnation propose, it isn't you at all. It doesn't have any memory of ever existing before, or any resemblance to who you were (really these ideas are ludicrous and when you get this - if you get it, you'll see that they're completely meaningless). It's a completely new mind, in a completely new brain, new body, totally random person (or animal). Nothing carries over. As for how it "gets in there", well, we've discussed already how he sense of self "gets in there" - it's a subprocess of the mind, probably originating in the brain stem or quite near it. It develops when the brain becomes complex enough to begin to support basic thought processes, or proto-thought. It manages to "get into" everybody somehow, not by coming in from outside or by being transferred somehow. It grows there in utero. And it's absolutely essential to understand, it isn't in any way "the same awareness" that existed in some former 'you'. That idea is also meaningless if you understand this. All it is, is existence. It's in everyone. Staring out constantly through their eyes, hearing through the ears of some body. Each one is "somebody else" to every other existence (or awareness, or I, or You… ), but each is "I" to itself.

Another way to try to apprehend it (this sense of subjectivity I struggle so hard to describe in so many ways) - imagine you're dead. By the materialist definition of death - total non-existence. There is no you - so (to you, though really that phrase has no meaning if you're dead) there is no existence at all. The world does't exist. since you're not there to experience it. So existence is a binary proposition - it's either on or off. And please no word games here - of course I know that to everyone who is alive the world does exist. But for you, when you're not alive, no world exists at all. No universe. Nothing. Another way to say it is that when you're dead, there is no existence. It's only when you're alive that there is existence. For you. So, to follow this line of thought to its logical conclusion, one way to say it is that you are existence - or alternatively that subjectivity is existence, or that awareness is existence. Again, it would be very easy to just play word games here about definitions. If you have the desire to do that, then it means you're not really even trying to grasp this. Or maybe just that your mind is playing passive aggressive games with you. I imagine this is like one of those optical illusions, like the one where depending on how you see it, it's either a young girl or an old crone. I'm sure you've seen it (if not I can find it). When you're seeing a young girl that's literally all you can see, but when suddenly your understanding shifts and you can see the crone, then THAT'S all you can see. And unfortunately I don't know any way to help shift your way of seeing these concepts. It either happens or it never does. And if you can keep thinking about these things when you have some down time maybe you'll be able to shift it at some point.

Originally Posted by StephL

Look - that in that case it really wouldn't be "me" at all, and the term would be empty. Again - I have to try and understand, why you would use the term at all. What sounds as if it might be a hint at the difference in our thinking is this "being inside a brain", instead of being a brain. What is being inside my brain in your view, which could then later on be in another brain? And in that case - how would "it" get there?

I'm very happy that you are really pondering this! I can tell from what you're saying now that you are indeed really trying. And I don't know if trying can cause understanding, but I hope it can get you there. Oh, and I answered the last couple of lines just above. Sorry, I skipped ahead a bit!

Oh, and let me say here - the reason I use terms that might seem wrong is because there are no right terms for these concepts!! None that I know of. Human thought seems to be utterly unable to formulate ideas about nonexistence. We can't find a proper way to say "when you're dead, it's as if the word ceases to exist". No matter how you say it, somebody will always pop in and say "nuh-uh!! This isn't right!! The world doesn't cease to exist just because one person dies!! It goes on!" But in order to grasp what I'm trying to get across, it's essential to understand life from a subjective viewpoint. And from that subjective viewpoint, when you die, there is no longer - ANYTHING! Existence itself is done. I suspect if you can understand this, then you're getting to it. Because what ceases to exist when it seems the entirety of existence ends, is that elusive awareness. Think about it the other way through now - you're not in existence, and then suddenly you are. When your awareness 'goes online', you find you're a struggling little embryo or fetus or baby. This is how you were born. At some point your little embryonic brain became capable of driving the processors that maintain that awareness of existence. It happened once that you know of. I'm just saying we know it happens. It's happened once for every person who ever lived, what we don't know is if it happens again - and there it is once again, language failing my purposes. When I say 'again', I know what it sounds like. But that's not what I mean at all! There just are no words for what I'm trying to say.

Originally Posted by StephL

I'm really sorry to say - but I can't see it, I do not know, what you are getting at.

I'm sorry too. I really want you to understand it!! But alas, it's possible maybe you never will. That makes me sad.

Originally Posted by StephL

Yes - please do that!!
I feel the same frustration, which I felt with my husband - the exact same one. And after he had pondered these sources - the matter was resolved.
So that's more or less all that I can do - ask you to please do that and hope, it might help us along here.

I looked at one of the links, I don't remember offhand which, but it was one of the first few. It was very short, one big paragraph, and under it were several links some of which looked promising. They purported to be about reincarnation with no religious element. But they weren't. They all included the typical Buddhist ideas about karma and your spirit living on after the body dies to emerge into a new host. Very disappointing. I think I might begin a campaign of web searching to try to discover if anyone else has ever posted about this idea. I'm sure I'm not the first to think of it (already several people on the board have said they thought of it too). Somewhere there might be a much more 'lucid' discussion of it. I can only hope.



EDIT:

This might do the trick. Imagine this scenario if you will, bearing in mind of course all that Ive been trying to explain.

You (StephL) are dying. Hey, they say it's the best scene you can get! You really get to ham it up. Your thoughts and emotions and everything fade away layer by layer, until all that's left is that awareness - that sense that the world exists for you. Then it doesn't. You died.

Ok, there's no sense of time passing, but suddenly the world exists again. Though actually it's wrong to use the word 'again', because you have no sense of it ever having existed before. You're now a brand new squirming little embryo or baby - no relation in any way to StephL, no memory of ever having existed before. But the world exists. You're a totally different person.

Screw it. That's the absolute best I can do. If that doesn't do it, then I'm done!!

Hi there!
I'll need a bit more peace and time to answer back - probably later tonight.
Been showing husband our exchange, and somehow in the meantime - he seems to have changed something again. Already before reading.
But he understands you perfectly well, agrees with you, too.
I'm a bit clueless about this all - we even got into a new edition of our "fight" - but when I nail him down on lack of mechanism - he kind of still agrees on there being a lack of something. Now it's a lack of his personal understanding and ability to express himself, not something supernatural any more.
Na well. Going to read your post later and probably try again - but with my dear local Buddhist - we agreed on a pause of the matter.
Yeah - but he is of the opinion you do a great job of explaining, and I am just daft not to grasp it.
Well - maybe.

I'm also going to study the links myself and see if I can not "arm" myself with something useful from there. Something that he might have successfully forgotten about again...

Mechanism for what? The fact that you're looking for a mechanism makes it clear you still think there's something transferring or carrying over. The mechanism is whatever mechanism caused you to be born in the first place - whatever mechanism caused a living awareness to come into existence in each of us. We all have one. That is the only mechanism that's involved.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Siggggggggghhhh…. Hooo boy. I don't know if I have the fortitude to try this again tonight. But I'm very glad to see that you're trying. Awww screw it - I'm going to go ahead and try it one more time!

Hehehee! I'm not sure about the fortitude aspect on my side, either, but I'll also try.

Hmmm… with this paragraph I was trying to help you understand the awareness I'm talking about. When I say "you" it's this awareness I'm talking about, the central-most, most basic point of sensation in your mind, the last part that would still be left if you could strip away all conscious thought, all emotions, all memories, any sense of your human identity (your name, the fact that you're female, that you're human, etc). If you can imagine your mind being essentially completely blank, as I imagine it must be at birth, or even in the womb. Though of course this is complicated by the fact that the brain itself isn't very developed yet, so we don't really know if a fetus has even this most rudimentary sense of being alive. It might not come into existence until a few weeks or months after birth, I can't say. Ot it might be there from even before birth.

It isn't your body, it exists inside your brain, or I suppose if you want to say your entire nervous system, then that's probably accurate. I keep referring to it being inside the brain, most likely because that's where "you" seem to exist - behind the eyes and between the ears, and also of course because that's where the brain is and so hence the mind as well. Though if you're more comfortable with thinking of the mind, or the sense of self, as existing all throughout the nervous system, then I see no reason why not. In fact, 'sense of self' might be a good term for this awareness I'm trying to describe. And just as I think it must the the absolute first sensation a person ever has, I also believe it's undoubtedly the last sensation before death as well, as the mind shuts down in stages. This is what I was trying to illustrate earlier when I mentioned HAL being shut down from 2001: A Space Oddyssey, when he was singing Daisy slower and slower. I assume you've seen it? "I can feel it Dave - my mind is shutting down. I'm frightened Dave". Having this scene in your mind might help you to understand this innermost, simplest part of the mind I'm after. It's the idiot, unthinking, unemotional, staring, zombie, vegetable (not literally of course, it's a metaphor, or a meat-a-phor if you will lol) part of the mind that knows only one thing - "I am". It doesn't know "I am a woman" or "I am hungry", only "I AM" It is the I in I am. (Though when I'm talking about yours I refer to it as you for reasons that should be clear). It's still there even if you go blind, deaf, and incapable of feeling, tasting, or smelling. Just simple dumb, brute existence.

Yepp - here I do agree with you totally it seems to me. I am of the opinion, that even a primitive nervous system, even in primitive animals, brings forth something like this basic sense of self. So I guess, it's starting in the womb. But we'll have to wait for further scientific insight to get some clarity about the boundaries here. I could even imagine, that it's a continuum, which starts out with life in general, maybe in it's most basic state is identical to life as such

Well, your brain is inside your body, right, not to be finished growing until around age 25, and your mind is far from complete at birth - so it's definitely growing. I think of the mind as being inside the brain since thought is simply a function of the brain after all. And I think of the awareness as being inside the mind, though I can see where you might object to that idea. This awareness is a part of your mind - some unconscious thought process that is a function of the brain. It's such a simple kernel of thought or sensation (or whatever it is) that I doubt there's any real sense of it growing - most likely when the brain and the developing mind reach a point at which they can support this little subprogram we know as the "sense of self" or the "awareness" then it just suddenly is operational in an instant. Just sort of pops into being.

Still totally with you. As said - read superficially I didn't really disagree with any of your last post, either - I've just been searching for pointers.
And sense of self is indeed growing, and I have no problem with saying it is growing in my brain/nervous system, either. What I perked up at was more growing as in a seed getting planted, since that is somewhat how I think, reincarnation could be conceptualized. But I see it not as planted, but as emergent from the structure. You did say it like this, though - so I'm still with you.
It feels as if you explain to me your concepts of awareness

By subjective property what I mean is the sense of existing in a body. Or if it suits you better, of being a body. A particular body.

Subjectivity - the 'subject' is the I. An Object is something that is not I. Another person, or a thing, is objective to you because you don't have immediate subjective (internal) access to its experience. Taking another person for instance - you see another person's body and you just have to infer that it also has a mind inside it and feelings, like you already know you do because you experience them directly. But you don't experience another person's feelings or thoughts directly, you can only watch their body language and facial expressions and listen to what they say and from these clues you can infer that they also have a subjective internal experience within that body. But it's alien to you, you can never experience it in the same immediate, internal way you experience your own thoughts and feelings. And you can also infer that they cannot experience YOUR feelings and thought immediately and internally the way you do.

Yepp!

It's this immediate, internal experience, this immediate access to only the thoughts and feeling within that one body that I'm referring to as 'subjectivity', or as the I, or sometimes as 'you' (depending on the context). I'm trying, in many different ways, to get you to understand this subjective experience that exists within your body, within your brain and within your mind. The reason I mention each of these (body, brain, mind) in succession is because it is none of these things. It is internal to all of them. It's a thought process of some kind. I apologize for so much repetition, but I keep thinking if I can say it just the right way one time you'll suddenly have that "aha!!" moment. Actually I don't imagine it takes much brain complexity for it to come into existence - most likely it's created somewhere in the brainstem itself, or quite near it at least. I imagine even insects have it, though that could be wrong. I have no way to know. Mammals definitely all have it, and reptiles as well. Doubtless fish. I suspect even earthworms have it.

And another yepp. What I don't grasp, is why you would see a need or a use for the term re-incarnation. For me this is a one-time process, happening within one body, coming out of nothing and going into nothing without any sort of connection, causally or otherwise, to another person, coming into this world after I have ceased to exist. All that you describe up to now works perfectly well, just like I see it - without that term.

Hmmm… well, really in every sense that matters, it is somebody else. Except for the one that matters the most. Brute existence. In any sense that the religious or magical ideas about reincarnation propose, it isn't you at all. It doesn't have any memory of ever existing before, or any resemblance to who you were (really these ideas are ludicrous and when you get this - if you get it, you'll see that they're completely meaningless). It's a completely new mind, in a completely new brain, new body, totally random person (or animal). Nothing carries over. As for how it "gets in there", well, we've discussed already how he sense of self "gets in there" - it's a subprocess of the mind, probably originating in the brain stem or quite near it. It develops when the brain becomes complex enough to begin to support basic thought processes, or proto-thought. It manages to "get into" everybody somehow, not by coming in from outside or by being transferred somehow. It grows there in utero. And it's absolutely essential to understand, it isn't in any way "the same awareness" that existed in some former 'you'. That idea is also meaningless if you understand this. All it is, is existence. It's in everyone. Staring out constantly through their eyes, hearing through the ears of some body. Each one is "somebody else" to every other existence (or awareness, or I, or You… ), but each is "I" to itself.

Yeah - but why that term then? And why only one reincarnation into one body after mine is gone? How come there is a need for this all?
You said, you suddenly "saw" this. Maybe it's some deficiency of mine to not be able to attach any sort of meaning to "reincarnation" or "rebirth". These terms stem originally from the religious doctrine, we both find ridiculous, but stripped of it - what does remain? Nothing in my view.

Another way to try to apprehend it (this sense of subjectivity I struggle so hard to describe in so many ways) - imagine you're dead. By the materialist definition of death - total non-existence. There is no you - so (to you, though really that phrase has no meaning if you're dead) there is no existence at all. The world does't exist. since you're not there to experience it. So existence is a binary proposition - it's either on or off. And please no word games here - of course I know that to everyone who is alive the world does exist. But for you, when you're not alive, no world exists at all. No universe. Nothing. Another way to say it is that when you're dead, there is no existence. It's only when you're alive that there is existence. For you. So, to follow this line of thought to its logical conclusion, one way to say it is that you are existence - or alternatively that subjectivity is existence, or that awareness is existence. Again, it would be very easy to just play word games here about definitions. If you have the desire to do that, then it means you're not really even trying to grasp this. Or maybe just that your mind is playing passive aggressive games with you. I imagine this is like one of those optical illusions, like the one where depending on how you see it, it's either a young girl or an old crone. I'm sure you've seen it (if not I can find it). When you're seeing a young girl that's literally all you can see, but when suddenly your understanding shifts and you can see the crone, then THAT'S all you can see. And unfortunately I don't know any way to help shift your way of seeing these concepts. It either happens or it never does. And if you can keep thinking about these things when you have some down time maybe you'll be able to shift it at some point.

Well. Again I agree with it all and don't feel like wordgames. I just don't feel the need for the word, we are on about. Of course, I am of the opinion it is an illusion on your side to find meaning in it. All that you write makes perfect sense without it. Yepp - I know I sound like a broken record.

I'm very happy that you are really pondering this! I can tell from what you're saying now that you are indeed really trying. And I don't know if trying can cause understanding, but I hope it can get you there. Oh, and I answered the last couple of lines just above. Sorry, I skipped ahead a bit!

I am trying. My husband brought the following example, maybe it resonates with you, while it fails to do so for me:
If you have a candle burning and go out and somebody puts out the flame and puts it on again - I wouldn't be able to see a difference, when coming home. Is it the same flame? For me it is not - it would be, if somebody held another candle to the flame, then put the first one out and light it again with the second one. And you'd need to take one candle to the other to transfer that flame. Maybe I'm not representing it properly. Then he came along with I should imagine there would be a finite number of possible states of being, and I lost him completely. Since he didn't claim, it would be only a finite quantity of a sort of "don't_know_how_to_call_it" available in the univers. He meant a finite number of different states. I said, well then everybody comes to end up with one of these types, but that would result from some sort of characteristic of the body. I asked him, if he wants to write a post, but he declined.

Oh, and let me say here - the reason I use terms that might seem wrong is because there are no right terms for these concepts!! None that I know of. Human thought seems to be utterly unable to formulate ideas about nonexistence. We can't find a proper way to say "when you're dead, it's as if the word ceases to exist". No matter how you say it, somebody will always pop in and say "nuh-uh!! This isn't right!! The world doesn't cease to exist just because one person dies!! It goes on!" But in order to grasp what I'm trying to get across, it's essential to understand life from a subjective viewpoint. And from that subjective viewpoint, when you die, there is no longer - ANYTHING! Existence itself is done. I suspect if you can understand this, then you're getting to it. Because what ceases to exist when it seems the entirety of existence ends, is that elusive awareness. Think about it the other way through now - you're not in existence, and then suddenly you are. When your awareness 'goes online', you find you're a struggling little embryo or fetus or baby. This is how you were born. At some point your little embryonic brain became capable of driving the processors that maintain that awareness of existence. It happened once that you know of. I'm just saying we know it happens. It's happened once for every person who ever lived, what we don't know is if it happens again - and there it is once again, language failing my purposes. When I say 'again', I know what it sounds like. But that's not what I mean at all! There just are no words for what I'm trying to say.

Heck - why not take non-existence and be done with it? Perfectly sufficient in my view. If you say you are not in existence, that implies there is a you in the first place, not being in a certain state is "being" all the same. A status in need of a subjective reality. I really take non-existence just as that. There is no "I" yet, so it also can't be something, and it can't not be something, either. And it can't go online either, like my computer, it's existing, but in an offline state. Then it goes online. When I disconnect, my pc is still there. The words "I" or "you" are not fitting a situation, where there is nothing. Not even as in I don't exist yet. You can say, I don't exist anymore, because I have been there, and somebody else can sensically say something about meanwhile non-existing me. That "me" they would talk about does have characteristics, even while it's gone, it was once. But before appearing, I'm not even a concept yet to talk about. One can say, if two people are about to make a baby, that's going to be a you/me. I might sit down and write a letter to a hypothetical you, having genes from two people, but it's not a you to talk about, not a you with any real characteristics to talk about, purely hypothetical. I can say in hindsight, that I didn't exist yet, but that's semantically treacherous. Hach - words do indeed seem to fail me...

I'm sorry too. I really want you to understand it!! But alas, it's possible maybe you never will. That makes me sad.

Ah - don't worry. I need not understand everything, including how that concept unfolds in your mind. But I do try. Getting at it in real life and with my husband does frustrate me deeply, though. I really can't see, what's so hard to understand when I say there is no meaning and concept in the term. So I proposed, we stop it and when we come to feel, we might have found new ways of expression, like maybe I might here for example, then we'll go into a third round.
So yeah - I think, it sort of feels similar for you and him as it does for me. I don't feel the need to get to an agreement at all costs with him and you, I don't want to get seriously angry about his stubbornness and failure to understand me. Yepp - it really feels so - and for such a stubbornness on one side, like mine for instance, there's one on the other side as well - namely you and him. Otherwise we wouldn't do this. The old thing - it takes two to tango...

I looked at one of the links, I don't remember offhand which, but it was one of the first few. It was very short, one big paragraph, and under it were several links some of which looked promising. They purported to be about reincarnation with no religious element. But they weren't. They all included the typical Buddhist ideas about karma and your spirit living on after the body dies to emerge into a new host. Very disappointing. I think I might begin a campaign of web searching to try to discover if anyone else has ever posted about this idea. I'm sure I'm not the first to think of it (already several people on the board have said they thought of it too). Somewhere there might be a much more 'lucid' discussion of it. I can only hope.

I didn't yet - but as said, husband says the same about the first two - that it's really coming down to something supernatural with these texts. I'm going to check out this Dawkins of Buddhism later on, see what he has got to say. The first ones were for showing me, what he does not think.

EDIT:

This might do the trick. Imagine this scenario if you will, bearing in mind of course all that Ive been trying to explain.

You (StephL) are dying. Hey, they say it's the best scene you can get! You really get to ham it up. Your thoughts and emotions and everything fade away layer by layer, until all that's left is that awareness - that sense that the world exists for you. Then it doesn't. You died.

Ok, there's no sense of time passing, but suddenly the world exists again. Though actually it's wrong to use the word 'again', because you have no sense of it ever having existed before. You're now a brand new squirming little embryo or baby - no relation in any way to StephL, no memory of ever having existed before. But the world exists. You're a totally different person.

Screw it. That's the absolute best I can do. If that doesn't do it, then I'm done!!

No - it unfortunately doesn't help. You really can't do without "again" - it's the "re-" before incarnation. It's not that there is an "I" which has no sense of having existed before, that's something for somebody to do, having no sense. It isn't possible in my view to conceptualize any of this without the "you again". As said before - I also don't like incarnation, since it implies that something gets into flesh, is made flesh, implying that it was something other than flesh before. I would say - flesh made me and flesh is me, ultimately, I am flesh. Period. As Sageous might add...

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Mechanism for what? The fact that you're looking for a mechanism makes it clear you still think there's something transferring or carrying over. The mechanism is whatever mechanism caused you to be born in the first place - whatever mechanism caused a living awareness to come into existence in each of us. We all have one. That is the only mechanism that's involved.

Mechanism for the "you again".
Okay - need some time to check, if I might find better words to describe what I don't grasp, actually what I am convinced doesn't exist.
But I'm unable to get through to you two - in that we are having the same problem. As said - I hope this Buddhist Atheist will give me something useful there.

Anybody else here, who might be willing and able to help along? Mr. Thinker, are you still with us? Any ideas?

I find it very strange that a scientist would be so absolutely sure of something that hasn't been proved or even suggested in any way. You say you absolutely believe it can't happen - why? What evidence do you have to support that? I'm not being as stubborn as you are really, because what you're saying is "I'm sure it doesn't happen" and all I'm saying is "how can you possibly know?" What you do know is that it happened once. Incarnation. We know it happened once - how can we know it doesn't happen more than once?

And yes, I've been thinking exactly the same as you, that it actually works best to just call it incarnation. But then of course it fails to get across the idea. The fact that human language fails when trying to discuss this indicates how difficult it is to even conceptualize. That's the reason we have so much trouble with it. But I think ,as you seem to, that the awareness is an emergent property that develops in a growing body/mind. Nothing "gets in there" in any way. It forms in there. But somehow it is self aware. And one of them is "you".

When StepL was born, for some unfathomable reason that nobody can explain, it was YOU. And you know what I mean now by you - I'm talking about the subjective awareness that dwells inside that body and has immediate access to its thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations etc. Of all the bodies in the world, nobody can say why you are in that one and not a different one. Or none at all. And yet somehow it happened.

Since we can't explain it, how could you ever possibly PROVE that another awareness that is subjectively YOU won't come into being at some point inside a totally different, completely unrelated little embryo? I mean, if you want to appeal to science, then the logical answer is to say that it can't be proved because, as you said already, we don't understand the mechanism for why of all the bodies in the world, you are in only that one and I am in only this one.

Unless you can explain the mechanism that caused that particular body to become you, then you can't possibly determine whether or not it can happen again in a completely different body. Because the mysterious part - the part we can't explain, is why, or how, that emergent property of thought that we call self awareness is you.

And I'm qute fmailiar with the light metaphor your husband used. I've tried to frame it similarly before - as light from a bulb. But it just falls short because light has nothing like a property of self-awareness… it makes no sense to say "why couldn't the same light come into being later in a different bulb?" - words fail once again. But it does help to illustrate in some ways. In fact light, like thought, arises from electrical current. It makes no sense to talk about "the same electrical current", since electricity is energy that has no physical properties. Is it even 'the same current' from one moment to the next? How about water passing in a river - the patterns remain, though ever-shifting, but it's different water molecules from moment to moment. But self-awareness is something that, while born of electrical current in the brain, somehow maintains a shifting, often fractured sense of continuity, like the ripples in a river. But even though it is fractured at times, it's still 'you' subjectively.

Ok, and with that I give up.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I find it very strange that a scientist would be so absolutely sure of something that hasn't been proved or even suggested in any way. You say you absolutely believe it can't happen - why? What evidence do you have to support that? I'm not being as stubborn as you are really, because what you're saying is "I'm sure it doesn't happen" and all I'm saying is "how can you possibly know?" What you do know is that it happened once. Incarnation. We know it happened once - how can we know it doesn't happen more than once?

Originally Posted by StephL

Okay - need some time to check, if I might find better words to describe what I don't grasp, actually what I am convinced doesn't exist.

What I said, is that I was convinced, it wouldn't exist.
This amounts to the same as to say, I don't believe it, just as you said, it's even a bit stronger - I believe it irrational to believe in it.
But it amounts to the same.

Note that I do not say, I would know this - let alone for sure. And we both know, that these are no word-games, since we engaged in exactly defining such terms over in the Atheism thread.

So - one could say, that I am an "atheist" towards reincarnation. I do not believe it, most definitively I don't.
But I am agnostic for reasons of acknowledging that I can never be sure of anything whatsoever, I can't prove a negative. As I keep mentioning, we could all be in a simulation and then everything is suddenly rendered possible, blablabla - including the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
I do know, that I cannot know.

I am a bit clueless how you could come to conclude, my thinking would be unscientific there - of all things.
You unfortunately make the same mistake virtually all believers make, it's also often on display from Christian apologists:

"But you can't prove there is no God!!" Yes - we know.

You can never prove a negative, that is one of the basic principles of the very scientific method you are invoking.
You're asking for the impossible, for proving a negative in order to have a "justification" to dismiss a belief in reincarnation, that's how it reads to me.

Why would you believe, if not even for keeping up Buddhism's reputation in front of your inner value-determinator, for protecting your philosophy, your philosopher, the perceived worth of your personal experiences? The funny thing is that following these linked sources, Buddha didn't actually clearly even mention this concept. It seems, it has been introduced after Buddha's death - and with supernatural connotation, religiously, the interested needed to check this deeper I guess.

Why might it have been believed in the first place? It's an all too human reason what justifiably comes to mind first of all, a universal sentiment, even while people tend to deny this as a reason with full on determination. Most believers in an "afterlife" do.
I speak of simply not being able or willing to face your own mortality, the extermination of your existence.
Buddha did say, that you "live on" in your work and in other people's minds. Wise words making sense.

Concerning being scientific and rational:

You are the one with the extraordinary claim - so you are the one to provide evidence, not me.
There is no such valid evidence for reincarnation - so why on earth should I believe in it? Russel's teapot, FSM, invisible unicorn...

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

And yes, I've been thinking exactly the same as you, that it actually works best to just call it incarnation. But then of course it fails to get across the idea. The fact that human language fails when trying to discuss this indicates how difficult it is to even conceptualize. That's the reason we have so much trouble with it.

As I tried to tell you in my prior posts, I think completely different about the term incarnation. It does make no sense as well without a dualistic world-view, and so I think, it is also meaningless and misleading at best. How can you talk about an incarnation of somebody, without implying there is a supernatural plane of being, from which to incarnate? It actually almost implies re-incarnation as well, but not quite. Think about it:
"This life there is so and so's incarnation."
"This body is so and so's dress."
Do you see the analogy? This sort of thinking is classical superstition, and I have no doubts about that.

Especially if nobody seems to be even able to conceptualize it - such a concept is not scientific and not rational. It is not "difficult" - it is "beyond" science and reason. I really don't want to come across unkind or harsh to you, but that's how I see it. And I guess, it looks clear to other people, who don't believe in it as well. Even to most believers it does.
Nope - that just as a remark, not an argument/fallacy a là appeal to majority.

Again - not to forget: I am agnostic towards any- and everything in principle, but it is a background-notion, something not to take into account in terms of what to believe, if there happens to be no convincing evidence.

I did read the sources now. Again - I can recommend that you do as well. Check esp. Stephen Batchelor, he used to be a Tibetan monk, by the way - better also to search for further ones. I was praising my husband for doing this, and for acknowledging that you do indeed need to invoke some sort of "the supernatural" for the concept to make sense, however you conceptualize. I believe he took it back because he does't want to "lose" an argument with me, doesn't want to turn 180° - so now he says, it wouldn't be important to him. But he's not taking part here - that's to be resolved one fine other day. I might be wrong in what I write about him and that's not fair - I'll best leave him out.

Aand - I'll cut this post off here. Sorry, but I feel I can't contribute any further useful thoughts - I would have to continue repeating myself while having lost hope.
I would propose lets go on respecting each other, I really like you - but maybe we could stay peacefully convinced, that the other one got it wrong?

It's really not so important after all is said and done, now is it? Neeext topic!?

Haha well ok, I guess I saw this coming from the beginning. I thank you anyway for at least playing along for some time and helping me to work out new ways of explaining it.

Darkmatters, I hope it is not rude for me to point where I think you are being a bit dogmatic about something. And that is in assuming there is a you being incarnate somewhere othen then your body(forget about the spiritual implications that are obviously implied when saying Incarnate although probably not intentional. I think Steph is right in assuming so, but I think it may pertain more to Darkmatters personal beliefs and not the subject at hand....). Lol, still with me? There is no way of knowing or proving that there is a me or a you in the future. Or somewhere else at this moment. Not if there is not a test that somehow allows me to have your memories for example. That would settle the question once and for all. Btw, would you say that there is a me/you living right now? Or is a me/you going to be born after I died? I suppose if i understand your answer is both, and it's a tricky one indeed.

I would agree with stephL's Scientific assertion that Me is emergent from my nervous system. And You are an emergent property from your nervous system. But that is only because of the sensations that are associated with having a nervous system. I do not think there is any scientific evidence to suggest that consciousness is exclusively a product of the nervous system. If it where so. An egg and a sperm are defined as unconscious. And science should be able to unveil when and where consciousness has a beginning. Science hasn't yet answered that question, hence I say that there is no conclusive scientific evidence that says consciousness is an emergent property solely from the CNS.

I thought you guys might like a nice beautiful ambient to calm things down. Mostly directed to the lovely StephL, there is no reason to stay at arms with your husband. Stay lovely. The tune surely does wonders for me. The video is perfect because it makes me appreciate all that is pure and innocent.


But there are moments where consciousness does actually stop. Death does not count because we can not scientifically prove wether consciousness is or isn't after death. There are reported dreams even in deep sleep. So consciousness doesn't stop there. But some nights there are these pauzes. Or these little naps where there seems simply no consciousness. And you suddenly wake up with a massive memory gap of an hour or more. Or even 5 minutes. You actually mentioend this, Darkmatters. For you subjectively there was no existence between 2 and 4 AM on Saturday. But the world was having a party in your nearest local City. Which consequently implies, I think, that the progression of Time is actually an emergent property of consciousness. A far leap maybe but I think everyone would agree that 2 hours spent unconscious means no time subjectively surpassed. One simply jumps from one moment into the next. That I think progression of time and consciousness are so intimately intertwined explains to me and highlights that StephL's second last post that was chock-full of rational dismissive argments included linear progression of time about 5-6 times. Not entirely unrelated, there are quantum experiments that have been done that suggest time itself is an emergent property of the observer effect. But this experiment uses photons and not conscious entities so it may not be very useful in this dicussion.

...

Philosophy is probably not really my thing. It just make sme feel uncomfortable andnervous Therefore I should probably not even give it a shot. Although I am in for a discussion. Foremost, I do not believe reincarnation is as you say it, Darkmatters. There is only not enough evidence for me to suggest that subjective awareness does not travel forth after my death. Retaining my memories. In your theory, mind comes into the world unaldurated. But what evidence is there to suggest that this is the case and that new-born awareness does not have some memory of a past-life coming into it? I refer to claims albeit extraordinary where kids have been questioned about past-life and have been able to give accurate information on people they have never met as counter-evidence, if true.

Your theory I think in the most simplicit form suggest awareness is an objective phenomenon that is the same for everyone, subjectively. Or as Bill Hicks used to say “Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather.” . If this is so, then I agree.

But my beliefs collide with you presented your theory because I personally do believe in a non-incarnate consciousness and reason that reincarnation might be a possible phenomenon. I believe that consciousness does come into a baby with memories and a sense of self already in place. I wasn't one of those babies that's for sure , I may have delved a bit into solipsism when I was 6 but that's as far as it gets. But my parents shunned those idea in the same way I think they do when a kid tells them about past-life experiences they have had. Thus, the kids quickly learn to supress such memories.

..Anyhow, I sometimes melancholically/poetically refer to my sense of self a disjointed set of memories and experiences. And that is precisely how I think this post of mine must look in the eyes of the observor. I am curious if there is any reponse or Animo for my disjointed set of thoughts. (no way I am pressing delete, this time )

Awesome - thanks for responding Dthoughts, I really appreciate it. I haven't really looked much into past life memories, and the idea runs counter to my own beliefs, though I will agree with you that we don't know what happens after we die or before we're born. One thing I want to clear up though - Steph and I assert exactly the same thing as far as how consciousness comes into being (not sure if you were saying we didn't). And ok, I'll agree that it's probably not just the central nervous system responsible for self-awareness, but the entirety of the organism, the body and the emergent thought patterns.

Haha! I love the Bill Hicks quote - I know it from a Tool song.

No problem. You are very welcome because I really needed the Dopamine boost I get from making these posts. I certainly don't mean to imply any differences between you and Steph. I view both of your opinions as valid so how could I. ^^ I am curious how does consciousness come into being?

Btw, here's a video.. not completely relevant.. quite off-topic.. but around minute 6 it has a very interesting segment that used to blow my mind when i first watched it. It represents my view of what primordial consciousness kind of looks like. Ofcourse, the nervous system makes it very much more complex. But I believe we may be looking at a very basic emergence of consciouness here. No nervous system present. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do because I think it is very impressive. http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_hanc..._life#t-676508