Reincarnation

[Sriram]

But you went beyond that, saying 'Hi...so...with all the evidence has anyone started accepting reincarnation as fact....yet??!!  Why not?!' then mistaking scepticism for cynicism and criticising those who don't accept the weak evidence for reincarnation. If you'd stuck to the line that such things should be investigated then fine.

 I have not seen you agreeing to the idea of investigating such phenomena!!!

[Sriram]

Let us know when such people propose some tentative explanatory model.  That is what a 'serious' researcher would be doing, seeking an underlying explanation, not just cataloguing curious cases.  We already have sufficient explanatory model to account for bizarre claims in terms of the unreliability of witness testimony generally - people can lie, people can be confused, people can have false memories, people are chock full of biases and prejudices and we have had to learn this the hard way such that blind trials for instance is now the norm for testing new pharmaceuticals. As things stand this is a far more plausible explanation for outlandish personal claims than some root and branch revision of the entirety of our understandings of space, time, matter, information and life.

There you go...that is your problem. Confirmation bias. Not wanting to learn anything new or out of your comfort zone.

You are  paranoid about revising the entire understanding of space, matter...blah blah.  I have already explained that reincarnation or NDE's do not call for any revision of understanding of the material world.  They are fine as they are.  Integrating the two ideas is a different and subsequent matter. 

[Maeght]

 I have not seen you agreeing to the idea of investigating such phenomena!!!

I have in the past, but have you seen me say we shouldn't investigate them and should just dismiss them as you seem to imagine?

[Sriram]

I have in the past, but have you seen me say we shouldn't investigate them and should just dismiss them as you seem to imagine?

Ok..then. You agree that these phenomena should be investigated. Fine.

[torridon]

There you go...that is your problem. Confirmation bias. Not wanting to learn anything new or out of your comfort zone.

Absolutely not, you aren't paying attention. I am pointing out the value of the Precautionary Principle.  This has given us the modern world. We don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.  That is not confirmation bias, it is wisdom learned through experience.

[torridon]

You are  paranoid about revising the entire understanding of space, matter...blah blah.  I have already explained that reincarnation or NDE's do not call for any revision of understanding of the material world.  They are fine as they are.  Integrating the two ideas is a different and subsequent matter.

Quite untrue; taking such phenomena seriously at face value rewrites pretty much all that we have learned about life - for instance that dead people or disembodied people can see and hear, or that information can pass through a vacuum.  Such claims are no way consistent with knowledge gained to date through life sciences

[Udayana]

Quite untrue; taking such phenomena seriously at face value rewrites pretty much all that we have learned about life - for instance that dead people or disembodied people can see and hear, or that information can pass through a vacuum.  Such claims are no way consistent with knowledge gained to date through life sciences

Are the researchers making such claims? They are recording peoples impressions, thoughts and memories. Clearly, they might be introducing bias or speculation around that data, but the data recorded is, at the least, interesting and will eventually be of some use. 

[torridon]

Are the researchers making such claims? They are recording peoples impressions, thoughts and memories. Clearly, they might be introducing bias or speculation around that data, but the data recorded is, at the least, interesting and will eventually be of some use.

The claim that out of body experiences involving seeing and hearing are 'real' implies that seeing and hearing, which we regard as phenomena of embodied experience, are, or can be, disembodied phenomena requiring no biological systems of perception after all, which would raise the obvious question of why we have them in the first place.  I'm not sure which if any researchers are making the claims, but the implication is there to be challenged.

[Nearly Sane]

Are the researchers making such claims? They are recording peoples impressions, thoughts and memories. Clearly, they might be introducing bias or speculation around that data, but the data recorded is, at the least, interesting and will eventually be of some use.

Yes, I think that in the case of NDEs there is enough anecdotal data that as a set of events it can be investigated. It's clear that if we were to take the experiences of some individuals at 'face value' then it would be a huge challenge to how we currently model the world. The investigations though only need to take place into the phenemenon, not with an assumption that the face value experience is true.


My take is that any investigations of claims of reincarnation are much harder to cart out in any sensible fashion, since there is little chance of doing the type of controlled experimentation that has been attempted for NDEs.

[Sriram]

Quite untrue; taking such phenomena seriously at face value rewrites pretty much all that we have learned about life - for instance that dead people or disembodied people can see and hear, or that information can pass through a vacuum.  Such claims are no way consistent with knowledge gained to date through life sciences

Why?  All that science has so far discovered is how the natural world works. The mechanisms in other words. Nothing more.

What we might find through investigations into NDE's and reincarnations and other such phenomena is that there are other aspects of reality that somehow mesh into the natural world.  That is all it is!   

Only some people like yourself who have formed a material world view based entirely on scientific discoveries, are bound to feel that some dramatic shift is taking place.

There are today billions of people all over the world who are very comfortable with what science has discovered and also with spiritual/religious philosophies.  They may not understand how it all fits in but they don't see any conflict between the two.

You don't want such phenomena to be true.....so it is safer to keep them at bay.    You are troubled because you perceive a conflict between scientific discoveries and such new exotic areas of investigation. You are not ready to change your world view if so called for in the future. 

[Sriram]

Yes, I think that in the case of NDEs there is enough anecdotal data that as a set of events it can be investigated. It's clear that if we were to take the experiences of some individuals at 'face value' then it would be a huge challenge to how we currently model the world. The investigations though only need to take place into the phenemenon, not with an assumption that the face value experience is true.


My take is that any investigations of claims of reincarnation are much harder to cart out in any sensible fashion, since there is little chance of doing the type of controlled experimentation that has been attempted for NDEs.

Yes...it is not easy to investigate these areas. But that is the challenge. I am sure suitable methods will evolve as people keep trying.

[torridon]

You don't want such phenomena to be true.....so it is safer to keep them at bay.    You are troubled because you perceive a conflict between scientific discoveries and such new exotic areas of investigation. You are not ready to change your world view if so called for in the future.

This just suggests you dismiss the logic of my arguments by projecting a cultural stereotype on top of my posts, this allowing for easy dismissal without serious engagement with the ideas.  Deal with the reasoning not some strawman cultural issue.

[Sriram]

This just suggests you dismiss the logic of my arguments by projecting a cultural stereotype on top of my posts, this allowing for easy dismissal without serious engagement with the ideas.  Deal with the reasoning not some strawman cultural issue.

Do you have any objections to research investigations into such areas as NDE's or reincarnation?!

[ekim]

Do you have any objections to research investigations into such areas as NDE's or reincarnation?!

As a matter of interest, this is an extract from a Wikipedia item on parapsychology:
"Two universities in the United States currently have academic parapsychology laboratories. The Division of Perceptual Studies, a unit at the University of Virginia's Department of Psychiatric Medicine, studies the possibility of survival of consciousness after bodily death, near-death experiences, and out-of-body experiences. Gary Schwartz at the University of Arizona's Veritas Laboratory conducted laboratory investigations of mediums, criticized by scientific skeptics. Several private institutions, including the Institute of Noetic Sciences, conduct and promote parapsychological research.

Over the last two decades some new sources of funding for parapsychology in Europe have seen a "substantial increase in European parapsychological research so that the center of gravity for the field has swung from the United States to Europe".  Of all nations the United Kingdom has the largest number of active parapsychologists.  In the UK, researchers work in conventional psychology departments, and also do studies in mainstream psychology to "boost their credibility and show that their methods are sound". It is thought that this approach could account for the relative strength of parapsychology in Britain.

As of 2007, parapsychology research is represented in some 30 different countries  and a number of universities worldwide continue academic parapsychology programs. Among these are the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the University of Edinburgh; the Parapsychology Research Group at Liverpool Hope University (this closed in April 2011); the SOPHIA Project at the University of Arizona; the Consciousness and Transpersonal Psychology Research Unit of Liverpool John Moores University; the Center for the Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes at the University of Northampton;and the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London."

[Enki]

Perhaps the most foremost and detailed research studies on NDEs was the Aware Project by Dr Sam Parnia.

The results of these studies are summarised here:

https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2014/10/07-worlds-largest-near-death-experiences-study.page


A detailed examination of the project and what it might mean is presented here:

http://neardth.com/aware-parnia.php


And a much more critical one here:

https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2014/10/aware-study-results-finally-published-does-not-prove-life-after-death/



Jim Tucker's research(mentioned by Sriram) into the idea of reincarnation was a continuation of his mentor and colleague, Prof. Ian Stevenson's work. Stevenson collected around 3000 case studies of children whose testimonies seemed to suggest remembrance of past lives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Stevenson#Reincarnation_research

For me, the most interesting parts of the Wiki article are contained within the sections:
Overview, Reception and Xenoglossy, which all relate to various case studies of Stevenson.


My position on such things as NDEs and Reincarnation is quite clear. Interesting phenomena should be investigated where posssible, but any results must pass the standard of rigid scientific methodological investigation, otherwise any results and meanings are at the risk of subjective judgement only.

[Sriram]

As a matter of interest, this is an extract from a Wikipedia item on parapsychology:
"Two universities in the United States currently have academic parapsychology laboratories. The Division of Perceptual Studies, a unit at the University of Virginia's Department of Psychiatric Medicine, studies the possibility of survival of consciousness after bodily death, near-death experiences, and out-of-body experiences. Gary Schwartz at the University of Arizona's Veritas Laboratory conducted laboratory investigations of mediums, criticized by scientific skeptics. Several private institutions, including the Institute of Noetic Sciences, conduct and promote parapsychological research.

Over the last two decades some new sources of funding for parapsychology in Europe have seen a "substantial increase in European parapsychological research so that the center of gravity for the field has swung from the United States to Europe".  Of all nations the United Kingdom has the largest number of active parapsychologists.  In the UK, researchers work in conventional psychology departments, and also do studies in mainstream psychology to "boost their credibility and show that their methods are sound". It is thought that this approach could account for the relative strength of parapsychology in Britain.

As of 2007, parapsychology research is represented in some 30 different countries  and a number of universities worldwide continue academic parapsychology programs. Among these are the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the University of Edinburgh; the Parapsychology Research Group at Liverpool Hope University (this closed in April 2011); the SOPHIA Project at the University of Arizona; the Consciousness and Transpersonal Psychology Research Unit of Liverpool John Moores University; the Center for the Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes at the University of Northampton;and the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London."

Yes..ekim. There are lots of professional psychologists and other scientists who are willing to go beyond the boundaries set by the old school scientists. This has been evident for a few decades now. As younger people come into the field their view of the world is unlikely to be as restricted as it has been in the last century. 

And that is true science....trying to understand the world for whatever it really is.   

Religious people tried to restrict our understanding to suit their beliefs...then scientists tried to restrict our understanding to suit their world view.  This goes on. Humans are the same whether religious people or scientists.....unwilling to change. 

[Dicky Underpants]

Are the researchers making such claims? They are recording peoples impressions, thoughts and memories. Clearly, they might be introducing bias or speculation around that data, but the data recorded is, at the least, interesting and will eventually be of some use.

If that is all that researchers are doing, then that is simply basic phenomenology, and so long as the immediate hypothesis used to try to relate people's personal experiences isn't immediately assumed to have mystical implications, then fine. Trouble is, most of the researches done are by people with a mystical agenda. It is however of some interest to find that the memoires of some old colonel wounded on the battle field and who claims that he appeared to be 'out of his body' - or a patient on an operating table likewise - correlate with many of the claims of mystical literature. This doesn't make the mystical claims likely to be true: it just invites explanation as to what are the common causes of such experiences, whatever they may be.

[ippy]

I see we're back to another one of the caged bird trained to pick out pre-written cards bearing the horoscopes of anyone that wishes to pay standard of discussion, only this time the subject happens to be reincarnation? Woo! woo! woo!

Regards ippy.

[torridon]

Do you have any objections to research investigations into such areas as NDE's or reincarnation?!

Not in principle. Studying near death experiences might from a clinical point of view provide us within insights that could improve end of life care.  Likewise study of reincarnation claims might yield useful insights for psychology. 

I don't see how anyone could scientifically investigate reincarnation as opposed to claims of reincarnation, given there is no measurable definition of what is claimed to be reincarnated and we are unlikely to have such in the near future given the whole idea is so alien to everything else we have come to understand about life.  If it is a person that is reincarnated, how do we identify a person ? It's not like we can ask for the birth certificate or the passport of the previous life.  We don't have a strongly scientific workable definition of what a person is. If we were talking about pansychism, or universal consciousness, that would perhaps be less far out, but reincarnation is much more about individuals, something much more complex than matter having a phenomenological aspect.

There are 7 billion people alive today, does your philosophy claim that all of these people are a reincarnated something from a previous life ? How could that work given one generation ago there were only 5 billion persons, two generations ago there were only 3 billion persons, three generations ago there were only 2 billion persons etc and eventually we get down to tiny numbers ?  Where have all the extra souls/spirits/selfs come from to inhabit the current population of the living ?

[ippy]

Not in principle. Studying near death experiences might from a clinical point of view provide us within insights that could improve end of life care.  Likewise study of reincarnation claims might yield useful insights for psychology. 

I don't see how anyone could scientifically investigate reincarnation as opposed to claims of reincarnation, given there is no measurable definition of what is claimed to be reincarnated and we are unlikely to have such in the near future given the whole idea is so alien to everything else we have come to understand about life.  If it is a person that is reincarnated, how do we identify a person ? It's not like we can ask for the birth certificate or the passport of the previous life.  We don't have a strongly scientific workable definition of what a person is. If we were talking about pansychism, or universal consciousness, that would perhaps be less far out, but reincarnation is much more about individuals, something much more complex than matter having a phenomenological aspect.

There are 7 billion people alive today, does your philosophy claim that all of these people are a reincarnated something from a previous life ? How could that work given one generation ago there were only 5 billion persons, two generations ago there were only 3 billion persons, three generations ago there were only 2 billion persons etc and eventually we get down to tiny numbers ?  Where have all the extra souls/spirits/selfs come from to inhabit the current population of the living ?

Your last paragraph'll give Sriram an exponential headache.

Regards ippy.

[Shaker]

There are 7 billion people alive today, does your philosophy claim that all of these people are a reincarnated something from a previous life ? How could that work given one generation ago there were only 5 billion persons, two generations ago there were only 3 billion persons, three generations ago there were only 2 billion persons etc and eventually we get down to tiny numbers ?  Where have all the extra souls/spirits/selfs come from to inhabit the current population of the living ?

You have beaten me to the punch of a point I've had in mind for the last few days but haven't yet got around to posting.

Google tells me that the thick end of the estimates of the human world population in 1CE was 330 million. As of 2018CE we're nudging up toward 8,000,000,000. (That's nearly eight billion).

What exactly is it that's being "reincarnated" that accounts for the discrepancy in numbers, please?

[BeRational]

The problem with woo is that we can make anything up.

Perhaps there is large pool of souls out there waiting for a body and sometimes they get used again.

I bet you can all think of a woo answer.

Have a go, it's easy.

[Sriram]

Not in principle. Studying near death experiences might from a clinical point of view provide us within insights that could improve end of life care.  Likewise study of reincarnation claims might yield useful insights for psychology. 

I don't see how anyone could scientifically investigate reincarnation as opposed to claims of reincarnation, given there is no measurable definition of what is claimed to be reincarnated and we are unlikely to have such in the near future given the whole idea is so alien to everything else we have come to understand about life.  If it is a person that is reincarnated, how do we identify a person ? It's not like we can ask for the birth certificate or the passport of the previous life.  We don't have a strongly scientific workable definition of what a person is. If we were talking about pansychism, or universal consciousness, that would perhaps be less far out, but reincarnation is much more about individuals, something much more complex than matter having a phenomenological aspect.

There are 7 billion people alive today, does your philosophy claim that all of these people are a reincarnated something from a previous life ? How could that work given one generation ago there were only 5 billion persons, two generations ago there were only 3 billion persons, three generations ago there were only 2 billion persons etc and eventually we get down to tiny numbers ?  Where have all the extra souls/spirits/selfs come from to inhabit the current population of the living ?

Why the population increases if souls reincarnate? This is the same question I myself asked  back in 1973 while discussing the subject with someone. It is one of the first questions many people ask while discussing reincarnation.

The answer is that souls are not just human. Even animals are included in the process, as you are probably well aware. But the point is not to be able to answer all such questions. I am sure there are many questions that have no ready answer....just as in science too.

If researchers like Jim Tucker find that many children have past life memories which are also corroborated through proper investigations, then it is an indication of reincarnation. That is all there is to it. 

The 'Brain of the gaps' explanation doesn't help!

I agree that there are lots of questions. I have many questions too, myself. That does not mean we should refuse to investigate such phenomena or dismiss them outright. That is  clearly a result of spiritual or God phobia that many science enthusiasts appear to suffer from.

[BeRational]

And there we have a woo answer to get over the problem.

It's easy when there is no need for any evidence.

Why don't we all have a go to see just how easy it is to get around difficult questions, when no evidence is required?

[Shaker]

But the point is not to be able to answer all such questions. I am sure there are many questions that have no ready answer....just as in science too.

The general idea in science is that questions are there to be answered, not sat and looked at