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Transmigration of the soul

Lark

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Reincarnation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Transmigration of the soul or reincarnation, anyone interested or believe in this?

I've got to say that its mainly a literary interest for me, it does in some ways in the buddhist belief reflect a state of being which I would describe as purgatory, ie being unable to break a cycle of death and rebirth and experience the after life, however the buddhists suggest that there is no personal survival in death, so that once you die, if you succeed in breaking the cycle you cease to be altogether so I dont know how that is reconciled.

PKD's treatment of it is not the only one I'm familiar with, there was another in which the souls of deceased holocaust victims where reborn into Aryan bodies after a Nazi victory in WW2 which was interesting aswell and based upon a Hindu idea that suffering in a present life is caused either by trauma or wrong doing in another.

It also interests me the manner in which a sould is conceptualised, in any case these spiritual accounts describe the soul as being something which is you and a body just something which you temporarily possess, athiestic and agnostic accounts seem to turn that on its head, the body IS you and you either do not or may not possess a transcendent soul.
 

InsatiableCuriosity

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...athiestic and agnostic accounts seem to turn that on its head, the body IS you and you either do not or may not possess a transcendent soul.

This is more and more being questioned by science as studies like the Intention Experiment are researched. The energies we have at subatomic level are shown to hang around for a short while after the body, animal and plant too (which belies the exclusive humans' only having a soul belief), ceases to live.

In the 1960s Australian Nobel Physicist Sir John Eccles conducted experiments that showed sub-atomic electrical charges in 3 of the 5 laminae of the cerebral cortex interacted with some unknown energy external to the human body.

All major religions talk of the power of group prayer. I wonder if religion is not just man's attempts to explain and control the vast and inexplicable mysteries of something so great we cannot comprehend it???

The Scientific Team | The Intention Experiment
 

Pixelholic

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well all atoms have an electrical charge so I don't know why humans and animals having it would prove a soul. When a body dies the atoms don't cease to exist.

I guess my point is, until there is definitive proof of a soul then I'm not going to concern myself with it.

Though technically reincarnation does exist... just not a continuation of consciousness.

And there's no evidence for dualism either.

The intention website just looks like a call for prayer without calling it prayer. They don't have a list of any of their credentials and there's no sign of peer review at all. It seems like they'd have a hard time controlling for placebo effect and other things, the experiment itself seems to be flawed and unfalsifiable.
 

Tiltyred

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I have such mixed feelings about this that I don't think I'll ever resolve it in my own mind. I was raised Christian and to believe in the power of prayer, especially group prayer, and I believe I have seen things result from prayer. But then I think about things that I am pretty firmly convinced are pure bullshit, like people convinced that if enough of them concentrate hard enough, they can move a building. My first thought is "too many acid hits, shame about that."

So as for the soul thing, it hurts to think we don't have a soul because it hurts to think this is all there is, when life is so beautiful (even if it sucks -- just in general the fact of living is beautiful and I feel it's a gift). For it to entirely vanish after just this short little stay seems pointless. But then I feel sure this is a matter of perspective, and the individual soul is an illusion to begin with, and everything has Buddha nature. I think everything is divine. But if everything is divine, nothing is.

So I don't know. But these ideas are like some beautiful jewel that you can just keep turning over and over in your mind, enjoying the facets, so they're always a pleasure to talk about. Depending on what facet is showing itself to me on any given day, I'll be convinced of its truth for however long I have a glimpse of it, until the next thing reveals itself.
 

Totenkindly

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So as for the soul thing, it hurts to think we don't have a soul because it hurts to think this is all there is, when life is so beautiful (even if it sucks -- just in general the fact of living is beautiful and I feel it's a gift). For it to entirely vanish after just this short little stay seems pointless.

Or you could look at life as even more precious, because it is but fleeting, and once something is gone, it's gone.

So you stop worrying about eternal bliss and focus more on making your actions count in this life.

....So many ways to spin it around.
And no way to show that one is definitively correct...

But these ideas are like some beautiful jewel that you can just keep turning over and over in your mind, enjoying the facets, so they're always a pleasure to talk about. Depending on what facet is showing itself to me on any given day, I'll be convinced of its truth for however long I have a glimpse of it, until the next thing reveals itself.

I like the gem analogy. It suggests that views are just different ways of viewing the whole, which we cannot see all of simultaneously -- part of it is always hidden from view when we take one perspective in order to study it.

I would like to say I have a soul.
But the most I can say is that I have a body.
 

Pixelholic

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Or you could look at life as even more precious, because it is but fleeting, and once something is gone, it's gone.

So you stop worrying about eternal bliss and focus more on making your actions count in this life.

This, also think of all the ways that you could have not existed, it's practically a statistical impossibility that you exist, yet here you are.
 

Tiltyred

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Whatever actually happens or doesn't happen, I've never been worried about. Sometimes curious but never worried.
 

Totenkindly

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This, also think of all the ways that you could have not existed, it's practically a statistical impossibility that you exist, yet here you are.

It's only a statistical improbability if you specify that "you" exactly as you are had to exist. It's not a statistical improbability that some being you would self-identify as "you" existed, because there are countless permutations of who "you" might have been.

Not much different than the "shared birthday" puzzler; in a room of 50 people or so, at least two will have identical birthdays, but it only works if you don't define which of the 365 birthdays it has to be.

So in terms of suggesting a miracle happened, no, it doesn't.
But in terms of suggesting that "you" are truly unique and precious, yes, you are.
 

Feops

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I think the notion of a soul is a result of a very strong human desire to survive, so to conceptualize ourselves as fundamentally immortal is comforting. I don't like the idea of karma stretching across multiple lifetimes, as if current suffering can be justified somehow in ways we cannot reconcile.

I do think we are immortal in the sense that matter and energy are perpetually recycled. Heck, the "me" of a decade ago might be more or less gone by now, regenerated over the years and strung together with an illusion of memory. I'm not sure if it's comforting or disturbing that the past me might be dead in a sense.
 

Moiety

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Or you could look at life as even more precious, because it is but fleeting, and once something is gone, it's gone.

So you stop worrying about eternal bliss and focus more on making your actions count in this life.

QFT!
 

Tiltyred

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What has me thinking that permanent death could be possible is the fact that we're polluting the planet to such an extent that we could actually kill it and not be able to live here anymore, and this is the only place that supports our life forms, so if we kill our planet and we die as a result, you gonna tell me the entire earth transmigrates or reincarnates or goes to heaven or hell? Where I have the problem is in saying any of these options apply to humans but to nothing else.
 

Lark

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well all atoms have an electrical charge so I don't know why humans and animals having it would prove a soul. When a body dies the atoms don't cease to exist.

I guess my point is, until there is definitive proof of a soul then I'm not going to concern myself with it.

Though technically reincarnation does exist... just not a continuation of consciousness.

And there's no evidence for dualism either.

The intention website just looks like a call for prayer without calling it prayer. They don't have a list of any of their credentials and there's no sign of peer review at all. It seems like they'd have a hard time controlling for placebo effect and other things, the experiment itself seems to be flawed and unfalsifiable.

Yeah, you just summed up athiesm in that last line but whatever.
 

Lark

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What has me thinking that permanent death could be possible is the fact that we're polluting the planet to such an extent that we could actually kill it and not be able to live here anymore, and this is the only place that supports our life forms, so if we kill our planet and we die as a result, you gonna tell me the entire earth transmigrates or reincarnates or goes to heaven or hell? Where I have the problem is in saying any of these options apply to humans but to nothing else.

You know that's interesting, I suppose that complete extinction as a consequence of despoiling the world could be akin to the end of times described in most world religions.
 

Lark

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I think the notion of a soul is a result of a very strong human desire to survive, so to conceptualize ourselves as fundamentally immortal is comforting. I don't like the idea of karma stretching across multiple lifetimes, as if current suffering can be justified somehow in ways we cannot reconcile.

I do think we are immortal in the sense that matter and energy are perpetually recycled. Heck, the "me" of a decade ago might be more or less gone by now, regenerated over the years and strung together with an illusion of memory. I'm not sure if it's comforting or disturbing that the past me might be dead in a sense.

But surely that is the case? What you're saying about your past self, its true even if you consider a single life time, the you that exists is not, for instance, you aged ten or you aged five, those versions of your self are effectively deceased but for pictures or memories.
 

Pixelholic

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Yeah, you just summed up athiesm in that last line but whatever.

Sure if I made an unfalsifiable claim such as "there is no god" or "there is no consciousness beyond death" but I didn't.

However, there's no evidence either. There is more evidence that consciousness is a product of a physical brain. So it makes more sense to go with the idea that has more evidence.

It is fun to speculate on consciousness though, especially collective/group consciousness and the possibility of consciousness beyond brain death. And the different competing hypotheses are interesting too.
 

Lark

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Sure if I made an unfalsifiable claim such as "there is no god" or "there is no consciousness beyond death" but I didn't.

However, there's no evidence either. There is more evidence that consciousness is a product of a physical brain. So it makes more sense to go with the idea that has more evidence.

It is fun to speculate on consciousness though, especially collective/group consciousness and the possibility of consciousness beyond brain death. And the different competing hypotheses are interesting too.

OK well while you're going with the one which has more evidence you're engaging in accumulative correlations and cognitive confirmation bias.
 

Pixelholic

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OK well while you're going with the one which has more evidence you're engaging in accumulative correlations and cognitive confirmation bias.

Yeah, I'm alright with that. If it ever gets to a point where it becomes problematic then I'll reassess things.
 

Scott N Denver

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Yes

I've got to say that its mainly a literary interest for me, it does in some ways in the buddhist belief reflect a state of being which I would describe as purgatory, ie being unable to break a cycle of death and rebirth and experience the after life, however the buddhists suggest that there is no personal survival in death, so that once you die, if you succeed in breaking the cycle you cease to be altogether so I dont know how that is reconciled.
Yes, sorta, and no. The Tibetans in particular elaborate on the bardo or "after death" states. Anatman is an interesting idea, and the analogy usually used is "one candle goes out, but before doing so its flame ignites a second candle", the first and second candle are not the same but the flame is transferred nonetheless. Finally, in the analogy the flame is transferred, so just by physically dying once you don't get off the wheel of death and rebirth. Skandhas, karmas, etc, carry over. They just aren't a "permanent entity"

It also interests me the manner in which a sould is conceptualised, in any case these spiritual accounts describe the soul as being something which is you and a body just something which you temporarily possess,
I've usually read that some of the subtle bodies dissolve in each incarnation, just like the physical body, and some don't.


Of course, this is all just stuff I've read, which may or may not actually be true, and its not like I've had any personal experiences about dying...
 

InsatiableCuriosity

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well all atoms have an electrical charge so I don't know why humans and animals having it would prove a soul. When a body dies the atoms don't cease to exist.

I guess my point is, until there is definitive proof of a soul then I'm not going to concern myself with it.

Though technically reincarnation does exist... just not a continuation of consciousness.

And there's no evidence for dualism either.

The intention website just looks like a call for prayer without calling it prayer. They don't have a list of any of their credentials and there's no sign of peer review at all. It seems like they'd have a hard time controlling for placebo effect and other things, the experiment itself seems to be flawed and unfalsifiable.

If you went to each of the websites of each of the institutions from which the scientists in my link hail, you would no doubt find their credentials/pedigree.

It does strike me as ironic however that in a forum of intelligent people (who should be open-minded), the need for such a pedigree would probably have seen many, had they lived in Einstein's times, deny any credibility of his theories??? :shock:
 

Pixelholic

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If you went to each of the websites of each of the institutions from which the scientists in my link hail, you would no doubt find their credentials/pedigree.

It does strike me as ironic however that in a forum of intelligent people (who should be open-minded), the need for such a pedigree would probably have seen many, had they lived in Einstein's times, deny any credibility of his theories??? :shock:

I did go through the links, there wasn't anything resembling any kind of link to any peer review or anything that "proves" scientific credentials. Having a phd on your name really isn't helpful either since there are plenty of places to get that kind of degree easily. So I'm skeptical.

Your last sentence is a little screwy but I get what you're saying. The biggest difference is that most of Einstein's theories are falsifiable and competing theories have often been brought up against them. That's the nature of the scientific method. The lack of a trail of credentials on the sites you linked is only part of the issue, the complete unfalsifiable experiment and conjecture based on it is the other part.

And don't call me closed minded. I'm actually really interested in consciousness and a lot of my thesis work touches on parts of neuroscience dealing with it. There is interesting research being done in the area of consciousness and ideas of group consciousness and dualism (the latter which isn't regarded very well anymore but still hasn't been completely ruled out.)
 
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