Thread: reincarnation

So if "you" are reincarnated in the way you describe, is it really fair to call this new person "you?" How would you go about distinguishing you and another reincarnated self from just two completely separate people?

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

I kinda find it odd how you can just die, and not be born again. While it may seem silly, but how are we alive right now? If you can't be born a 2nd time, how can you be born a 1st time to begin with? I'm not into the whole reincarnation thing but it just hit me. Beyond confusing to understand.

Hmmmm.... I don't really see that logic... To me, it seems more logical the other way. If you can be born once, how could you possibly be born again.

I don't like thinking about what happens after life. It is too...weird. I mean what if there is nothing afterwards? Then we would be nothing for the rest of... forever! Our minds just can't comprehend that.

Originally Posted by Mes Tarrant

So if "you" are reincarnated in the way you describe, is it really fair to call this new person "you?" How would you go about distinguishing you and another reincarnated self from just two completely separate people?




Hmmmm.... I don't really see that logic... To me, it seems more logical the other way. If you can be born once, how could you possibly be born again.

Well, if you're not

It doesn't really make sense you can't be born again, why once? what's so good about being alive 1 time only? if you can be born once, why not more then once?

I don't like thinking about what happens after life. It is too...weird. I mean what if there is nothing afterwards? Then we would be nothing for the rest of... forever! Our minds just can't comprehend that.

Then there is nothing, why should it bother us? we were like that before we were born, it will just be like that once we die. We are not ment to be "alive", we are ment to be nothing and that's why we were nothing, and will continue to be nothing.

I understand what your saying about how you dont understand how we cant be born again... and the answer in my opinion is quite simple....

we are made up of cells, we are a lifeform of naturally evolved science, scientifically speaking although of course not neccesarily impossible in medically enhanced situations to clone people,every time we breed the chemical make up and genes are different. your body is just mass, the "me" your reffering to is ur emotions and brain.
With different dna different lifeforms (humans) will develop.. new people will be born... if as u state we come back completely different to who we are now that would be discarding your brain hence disgarding everything that makes you, who you are so that goes on to the question of if we do reincarnate in such a way whats the point? everything that makes us awesome as individuals will be gone anyway.

We are organisms, cute ones with nice cars and big personalitys but we are just a result of natural evolution throughout time. In the eyes of the universe and science we are just statistics, it is in ourselfs that we find true worthiness of the world we create.

But would it be nothingness for us, or would there be visions for another life in the life of someone else. It's hard to explain what i mean.
People get born everyday, so i find it hard to believe we cannot come back. Again, it wont be us, but when i say us i guess you know what i mean. This is like mind boggling to explain, even as best as i can try and make it.

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

But would it be nothingness for us, or would there be visions for another life in the life of someone else. It's hard to explain what i mean.
People get born everyday, so i find it hard to believe we cannot come back. Again, it wont be us, but when i say us i guess you know what i mean. This is like mind boggling to explain, even as best as i can try and make it.

what makes us who we are is our brains... so in order for it to be someone else the "new person" wud have to have a diff brain.. hence completely not us. make sense? lol i agree very difficult subject to put into words

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

But would it be nothingness for us, or would there be visions for another life in the life of someone else. It's hard to explain what i mean.
People get born everyday, so i find it hard to believe we cannot come back. Again, it wont be us, but when i say us i guess you know what i mean. This is like mind boggling to explain, even as best as i can try and make it.

Energy is not destroyed only transfered. You have to remeber that "you" are not a perfect form. In reality all you are is a cellular process that went wacko. You are made of the same thing as a rock, energy. The thing is, "you" is not really "you". "you" is made up of food, your parents, etc. Also remeber every movement you make changes the universe forever. In a sense your actions will still be alive without you having to guide them. We can just relax in our good ol' slumber.

Please organize your thoughts before presenting them.

The only way reincarnation would work is if everything in your brain were zapped into another body.

Which doesn't happen when you die.

If it did, then there would be little kids that were adults.

Life experiences make you who you are. Without those experiences you are not you. You're a different person.

Even if a soul and reincarnation was real it wouldn't matter. You wouldn't be you. You wouldn't know who you were. The real you would be dead either way.

A soul is defined as you.

Therefore your soul is your brain.

Or rather, the information in it.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

Therefore your soul is your brain.

That is how you define it. Ask any religious person if they define soul as their brain.

I like to think reincarnation is real. But then again when I did a test apparently in my last life I was a very lucky judge, and I don't remember that. So I probably woudn't even know, I'll be a whole new person altogether.

Actually, change of mind, that's depressing!

Originally Posted by Bob Dole

That is how you define it. Ask any religious person if they define soul as their brain.

First ask them what a soul is.

Then you will see that your memory fits the description.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

First ask them what a soul is.

Then you will see that your memory fits the description.

A soul is a different entity. It is not a part of your body in anyway. That’s the definition. Your brain is not your soul. You can redefine it anyway you want, but it is not the definition.

If a soul is a different entity, then why does it affect you at all?

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

If a soul is a different entity, then why does it affect you at all?

I don't believe in it so I cannot answer that. That's just the definition of the word. It’s another way for people to tell themselves they are immortal. They cannot cope with the fact they will no longer exist one day.

I get that, but I always thought people said it was "the thing that made you you"-- Which is your memories.

I think I got what you meant, LucidFlanders.

Matter can't be destroyed so none of the components of the human body disappear even after it has stopped functioning.

If it was possible for a living being with X consciousness to arise once, given an infinite amount of time it should be possible for the same conditions to be met again and a being with the same X consciousness would be born. It would obviously have different memories and personality but being the same consciousness, it would still be you.

The interval between death and "reincarnation" could even be 10^99 billion years, from the point of the view of the consciousness it would be instantaneous.

I can't tell you what the born-and-raised laity of Hinduism and Buddhism think about reincarnation/rebirth, but no serious consideration of it involves a non-physical entity distinct from the body which is ejected from one container and finds its way into another. Reincarnation in general is a way of identifying one's self in larger concerns than the running commentary that accumulates in the mind. In Hinduism, it is the Atman, a kind of core self of which your present form is but one expression. It's like a theatrical role reappearing in many variations--in this one the fey villain has a mustache, whereas last time he was clean-shaven with a broad-brimmed hat, but they are essentially the same, serving the same purpose. We are each an incarnation of our Atman, and our total reality, the sum of all Atmans, is an incarnation of Brahman, the Ultimate Self, the Soul of Being.

In Buddhism, there is not even an Atman. There are instead the Five Skandhas, or aggregates: form, sensation, perception, volition, and consciousness. These elements entangle, interact a while, then return to the ground from which they arose, only to be reunited by the same affinities that forever mutually attract them. What we perceive as a discrete being, a person, can be understood as a stream of aggregates in mutual affinity, an affinity maintained by the habitual activities of this stream of aggregates both within itself and in relation to aggregate-streams surrounding it. To abandon suffering, one identifies with the whole field of aggregates and not its transitory entanglements.

In either case, reincarnation or rebirth is not a way of preserving the superficial activity we each habitually mistake for what we are, but a way of setting it aside, or accepting its comings and goings with equanimity. Even for those who delve no farther into these teachings than, "I cannot escape the consequences of my actions" and "These others are the same as me," it provides perspective, freedom for at least a moment's contemplation from the tyranny of looking out for #1.

Originally Posted by Scatterbrain

I think I got what you meant, LucidFlanders.

Matter can't be destroyed so none of the components of the human body disappear even after it has stopped functioning.

If it was possible for a living being with X consciousness to arise once, given an infinite amount of time it should be possible for the same conditions to be met again and a being with the same X consciousness would be born. It would obviously have different memories and personality but being the same consciousness, it would still be you.

The interval between death and "reincarnation" could even be 10^99 billion years, from the point of the view of the consciousness it would be instantaneous.

Yeah, that's what i was talking about. I just could not word it right.