Discussion Thoughts on reincarnation?

[SpottedPanda]

Personally I don't believe it exists, and I wouldn't want it. There'd be no real point killing myself if I did believe it, because to a degree I could just alter my state of mind and my circumstances to live a different life, without the burden of learning to talk and use the toilet again

 

[cyberlordsumit]

scientifically, reincarnation and all is just plain bullshit. you are just a web of memories supported by Basic human nature. that makes your consciousness unique which you call soul.. basically death = abyssal nothingness

 

[esse_est_percipi]

A psychiatrist told me if I kill myself before I'm supposed to actually die, I would come back. I don't know how she says this is true. She just said she knows it for sure.

Emotional blackmail and psychological manipulation, typical of a psychiatrist on a power trip.
Moreover, why should there be a time when we're 'supposed' to actually die? If determinism is true then the way things happen is the way things were meant to happen, irrespective of any prejudice anyone may hold about ctb.
Why shouldn't ctb be the time when some people are just supposed to die? Why would it be the case that any death apart from ctb is the time anyone is meant to die?

 

[Wayfaerer]

Want to? I wouldn't like my odds if it were a roll of the dice. If I were to be born in the netherlands or denmark? Sure! Anywhere else outside of the first world and I'm sure I wouldn't like that. I'm very confident that reincarnation does not happen, as our own subjectivity is necessarily dependent on our specific brains.

 

[VIBRITANNIA]

i would hate to be reincarnated. one of my main reasons for ctb'ing is because i don't want to exist anymore. not only that, if i were to be incarnated, i would unlearn all of the lessons i've learned in this life, and would make the same mistakes over and over again.

 

[Wayfaerer]

Nope. Once is enough. I don't want another life. Enough of this. Don't want to repeat. For me life is suffering. If there is not life after death then there is no suffering and that is good.

I fear that your avatar might be more than figurative, if you catch my meaning.

 

[esse_est_percipi]

our own subjectivity is necessarily dependent on our specific brains.

There certainly appears to be at least a correlation between brain states and conscious experiences.
But I'm not sure that rules out reincarnation completely.
Reincarnation isn't necessarily about the exact same self (which is an illusion in buddhism) or consciousness being born into another thing, but has more to do with a process of energy transference tied to the law of karma, as far as I know.

So it could go something like this: there is a process of conscious awareness/subjectivity from the point of view of a creature (c1). That subjectivity is certainly connected to the brain of the creature, but we don't know how exactly. Could be identical with brain states, could be an epiphenomenon, could be psychophysical parallelism. When the creature dies, the energy which made up that process of conscious awareness gets transferred (how? mystery) to a different creature (c2) at the point of its birth at some other point in time, and the process of conscious awareness begins again. (c2) doesn't remember 'being' (c1) because the specific neuronal structures which constituted the experiences and memories of (c1) no longer exist (just like with one and the same creature, it might completely forget about all its childhood experiences, but that doesn't mean that it didn't have those experiences, or that its current conscious experiences are not causally connected to the earlier childhood experiences).
I don't see a logical contradiction here.

I get what you were saying with your original point, i.e. if 'I' am the sum total of my brain states, then 'I' can't reincarnate, since any other being wouldn't have the exact same brain states (i.e. the neurons, chemicals, molecules, atoms would be different ones), so they wouldn't be 'me'.

But, neither could I be identical with the sum total of any particular set of brain states, since neurons, chemicals and molecules in the brain are constantly dying, regenerating, rearranging themselves etc.
The 'mind' can at most only be the product of ever-changing but causally connected structures and interrelations in the brain, the product of processes.

So, conscious experience/subjectivity can only be a process too, and there is no a priori logical reason why it couldn't be connected, in ways relevant to reincarnation, to other conscious experiences/neuronal structures at other spacetime locations.

I probably haven't explained this very well and it might not even make much sense.
I do like this quote by Voltaire though:

"It is not more surprising to be born twice than once. Everything in nature is resurrection."

 

[SterileMoth]

I've wondered if an alternate "version" of reincarnation exists, playing along the Mandela effect, that when you die you get pushed into a sister dimension, with slight differences. With that logic though, I wonder how many times I'd have to ctb before I got a version of life where I don't want to launch myself off a cliff anymore.

 

[cyberlordsumit]

There certainly appears to be at least a correlation between brain states and conscious experiences.
But I'm not sure that rules out reincarnation completely.
Reincarnation isn't necessarily about the exact same self (which is an illusion in buddhism) or consciousness being born into another thing, but has more to do with a process of energy transference tied to the law of karma, as far as I know.

So it could go something like this: there is a process of conscious awareness/subjectivity from the point of view of a creature (c1). That subjectivity is certainly connected to the brain of the creature, but we don't know how exactly. Could be identical with brain states, could be an epiphenomenon, could be psychophysical parallelism. When the creature dies, the energy which made up that process of conscious awareness gets transferred (how? mystery) to a different creature (c2) at the point of its birth at some other point in time, and the process of conscious awareness begins again. (c2) doesn't remember 'being' (c1) because the specific neuronal structures which constituted the experiences and memories of (c1) no longer exist (just like with one and the same creature, it might completely forget about all its childhood experiences, but that doesn't mean that it didn't have those experiences, or that its current conscious experiences are not causally connected to the earlier childhood experiences).
I don't see a logical contradiction here.

I get what you were saying with your original point, i.e. if 'I' am the sum total of my brain states, then 'I' can't reincarnate, since any other being wouldn't have the exact same brain states (i.e. the neurons, chemicals, molecules, atoms would be different ones), so they wouldn't be 'me'.

But, neither could I be identical with the sum total of any particular set of brain states, since neurons, chemicals and molecules in the brain are constantly dying, regenerating, rearranging themselves etc.
The 'mind' can at most only be the product of ever-changing but causally connected structures and interrelations in the brain, the product of processes.

So, conscious experience/subjectivity can only be a process too, and there is no a priori logical reason why it couldn't be connected, in ways relevant to reincarnation, to other conscious experiences/neuronal structures at other spacetime locations.

I probably haven't explained this very well and it might not even make much sense.
I do like this quote by Voltaire though:

"It is not more surprising to be born twice than once. Everything in nature is resurrection."

as i said, this consciousness is just the web of memories and the human brain combined.

Our ego/idea of an individual dies with us. we will never be reincarnated.

 

[esse_est_percipi]

as i said, this consciousness is just the web of memories and the human brain combined.

Our ego/idea of an individual dies with us. we will never be reincarnated.

This doesnt go against anything I said.
If by 'we' you mean a specific individual, you're right.
But this doesn't show that experience can't continue in some form. If the ego is an illusion then experience is fundamentally impersonal.
Consciousness is still a mystery for neuroscience.

 

[DeadButDreaming]

I think it's ridiculous.

 

[esse_est_percipi]

I think it's ridiculous.

I think being born even once is ridiculous.
I guess it doesnt make sense if it's part of some larger learning curve.
How can you learn from previous lives if you don't remember them?

 

[AmDead]

Putting religion and that stuff behind, what are all your opinions on reincarnation? If you were to die, would you want to be reincarnated?

I don't think it's scientifically possible, but if it were to happen, none of us would realize because who remembers their past life?

 

[XYZ]

With my luck, I'm probably gonna come back as myself. Holy shit!!!

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Sometimes I feel like I've already been reincarnated and my experiences now are related to my past life and I'm being punished for it. I was probably an even shittier person back then too if that's true.

 

[esse_est_percipi]

With my luck, I'm probably gonna come back as myself. Holy shit!!!

There's a whole massive thread on this if you want to go down that rabbit hole

Sometimes I feel like I've already been reincarnated and my experiences now are related to my past life and I'm being punished for it. I was probably an even shittier person back then too if that's true.

That's how I sometimes feel.

 

[LenkaX]

I'd appreciate the same nonexistence which there was millions years before I was born.

 

[TimeToBiteTheDust]

Yesterday someone told me that if I ctb I will reincarnate and suffer more than in this life. I don't believe in reincarnation anyway. We exist once but those excuses make me angry.

 

[esse_est_percipi]

Yesterday someone told me that if I ctb I will reincarnate and suffer more than in this life. I don't believe in reincarnation anyway. We exist once but those excuses make me angry.

I hate those kinds of cynical remarks which are pronounced as if they are a fact, but which really function as emotional threats aimed at eliciting fear so the behavior of others can be controlled.
Did you ask them what evidence there is for such a claim?
You should have told them that if they don't ctb they will reincarnate and suffer more than this life, since that claim has just as much evidence as theirs, i.e. zero.

It's just a cynical power play and emotional manipulation.
Ironically, remarks like that push people further towards ctb because it demonstrates just how malevolent the human mind is.

 

[MariV]

omg no way! if i were to have to live again...id kill myself right now!

 

[Sk1n1M1n]

I want to come back as a cat so i can sleep all day.

 

[Kruger]

Putting religion and that stuff behind, what are all your opinions on reincarnation? If you were to die, would you want to be reincarnated?

It's real for sure but I don't want to come back under any circumstances. You get tricked nto coming back because the controllers here need souls to recycle. Check out the work of Wes Penre, he explains how to avoid the reincarnation trap.

 

[Reyki6667]

If that exists, not in this world,with a non abusive family, not with chronic depression laced with undiagnosed adhd,with a fully functional brain.
Well.
Won't happen.
This nature is too harsh.
I suffered too much already and my life is no more than a suffering waste.
Tired if this shit.

 

[Mr2005]

I'd want to be reincarnated as me but I think that's unlikely. I don't find reincarnation as a concept unlikely though, not at all. Rest of my life as me or starting again as someone else? It could be complete nothingness but that's where we came from

 

[TheQ22]

I used to be a camel. Now I've just got the hump.

 

[TheSomebody]

The thing that I don't understand is how population could expand exponentially if souls are reincarnated, it doesn't add up. No, I hope that death is a final cessation of things, for this form of my consciousness.

Just because reincarnation exists does not prevent some souls from being created over time.

 

[TimeToBiteTheDust]

Just because reincarnation exists does not prevent some souls from being created over time.

Some people who believe in reincarnation say that, for example, if you like Egyptian culture it could mean you were Egyptian in the past. Same for music, food.
.

 

[TheQ22]

Some people who believe in reincarnation say that, for example, if you like Egyptian culture it could mean you were Egyptian in the past. Same for music, food.

Oh come on, so if I like Buddy Holly then maybe I was him?

I think we're so desperate to hang on to the idea that life exists forever, we can't face the idea it ends, permanently.

That's just my opinion, but really, I like curries, it doesn't mean I was once Shah Jahan.

 

[TimeToBiteTheDust]

Oh come on, so if I like Buddy Holly then maybe I was him?

I think we're so desperate to hang on to the idea that life exists forever, we can't face the idea it ends, permanently.

That's just my opinion, but really, I like curries, it doesn't mean I was once Shah Jahan.

Totally agree

 

[blacktrain98]

bring me back as one of those snow monkey tbh. just chilling in a hot spring. eating seeds and shit. I don't care about the logic and science, just give me that monkey escapist fantasy.