Believe in Rebirth- still up to date?

[Al Hakim]

Would anybody of you be so kind as to find fault with the below theory?

The soul and metempsychosis
Reincarnationists believe in the transmigration of a soul from one living object into another after his death. While rebirth is a well-believed phenomenon in Buddhism, it is still difficult to discuss it in modern western ideologies. How can a modern druid who lives in a sphere of physics and chemistry believe in rebirth? You may have noticed that I used the terms transmigration and rebirth as synonyms. That was correct as I did not intend to adhere by the definitions as given by the world religions of Hinduism or Buddhism. Both religions include a certain level of moral well-behaviour to determine in which existence you will have your rebirth.
I would rather follow the scientific path which means: Is a rebirth of a soul possible with – or despite – modern science?
It firstly requires the definition of the “soul”. There are numerous philosophical papers of what the soul is. I understand the soul as the psychological equivalent to the biological DNA. While the DNA encrypts the biological structure of a being, the soul does the same with the set of personal characteristics, preferred behaviours and probable reactions. It is a blueprint of one’s personality. If you cloned such a soul you would receive a person who would come to similar decisions in situations of choice as the original.
What is the difference between the soul and a thought?
It is good to have the computer as an example nowadays. The thought is an electrical flickering in our brain to reestablish the potential balance in a nervous cell. That balance was “disturbed” before by actively shifting ions along the cell membrane. Therefore, the thought resembles the action of a computer. It gives a pattern of on-off-signals (flow of electricity – no flow), or in figures 1 or 0. It also means the complete deletion of information once the computer has been switched off. In humans: When a person dies, the electrical micro-activity will die down, too. Any thought that was not saved beforehand - by telling to other persons, or writing down – will be gone. Thus, thoughts can die out.
But as the DNA of mammals that have died out thousands of years ago can be read again, I believe that the soul will be preserved, too. And such is my theory:
1. A dying individual releases a cloud of energy – his soul. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can be transformed, i.e. changed from one form to another, but cannot be created or destroyed. So that soul will stay in its environment for a while but not be annihilated. I understand the soul as a pattern, a structure and set of conditions that might allow to build up an identically thinking person.
2. The cloud of energy will not last forever but be bound soon. It usually will be attracted by humans because they are the only ones who can read the “program”. Therefore, I consider it unlikely to be reborn as an insect because every piece of information needs an appropriate reader.
3. The binding process needs a willing receiver. The energy cloud can only be incorporated in individuals who are willing to allow that. Strong minds have no chance. But those who are still searching (“open”) can attract a soul: Infants, or young people. I would like to claim that those persons who felt inspired by something “out of the blue”, or suddenly developed strange political ideas had a contracted such a wandering soul.
4. What happens when a soul hits an appropriate individual? Since every person has developed his own personality it cannot be taken over by a “foreign” will. But if the soul’s pattern match that of the new host the host can try to combine both ideologies. As a result the living individual may change his opinion about certain affairs, or react differently in some situations.
5. What happens to souls that are not attracted by an adequate host?
I believe that there is a certain time-frame for a soul to be incorporated into another human being. I think that the energy of the cloud will become weaker over the weeks or months. The energy is not lost but used to keep the information coherent. If this energy level falls below a certain level it becomes susceptible to magnetic power of stones (or other non-human realms). By this way nature cleanses the world from uselessly floating energy without wasting it. However, the primordial information will be deleted. In other words: Souls can disappear.

[Karl]

I was going to bed, but then I saw this thread...

1. A dying individual releases a cloud of energy – his soul. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can be transformed, i.e. changed from one form to another, but cannot be created or destroyed. So that soul will stay in its environment for a while but not be annihilated. I understand the soul as a pattern, a structure and set of conditions that might allow to build up an identically thinking person.

Personally I see the soul as a pattern, a system similar to a computer program where certain inputs are interpreted in a specific way and result in a certain output. (ie; if you do something to me it will elicit a different response to doing the same thing to another)
I will gladly accept that this pattern could be considered an energy, whilst you are living I assume it would be held within the synaptic pathways of the brain. However when you say it is released in a cloud of energy I cannot imagine an environment in which it could exist; do you mean it would float through the air in some way?

2. The cloud of energy will not last forever but be bound soon. It usually will be attracted by humans because they are the only ones who can read the “program”. Therefore, I consider it unlikely to be reborn as an insect because every piece of information needs an appropriate reader.

Sensible to me, if a 'human' pattern of energy is seeking to 'even itself out' (like lightening looking for earth) it would fill another human head most perfectly, and less so the genetically further you are from a human.

3. The binding process needs a willing receiver. The energy cloud can only be incorporated in individuals who are willing to allow that. Strong minds have no chance. But those who are still searching (“open”) can attract a soul: Infants, or young people. I would like to claim that those persons who felt inspired by something “out of the blue”, or suddenly developed strange political ideas had a contracted such a wandering soul.

If a soul pattern is somethign that forms as you grown and go through life there will be less 'space' for a soul in the head of someone who has formulated their pattern, leaving the younger people more suseptable to being influenced by an existing pattern.

4. What happens when a soul hits an appropriate individual? Since every person has developed his own personality it cannot be taken over by a “foreign” will. But if the soul’s pattern match that of the new host the host can try to combine both ideologies. As a result the living individual may change his opinion about certain affairs, or react differently in some situations.

Hmm, so if two patterns are similar they can merge, perhaps similar to upgrading from Program 4.9 to Program 5.0, where more of it is the same sort of thing anyway?

5. What happens to souls that are not attracted by an adequate host?
I believe that there is a certain time-frame for a soul to be incorporated into another human being. I think that the energy of the cloud will become weaker over the weeks or months. The energy is not lost but used to keep the information coherent. If this energy level falls below a certain level it becomes susceptible to magnetic power of stones (or other non-human realms). By this way nature cleanses the world from uselessly floating energy without wasting it. However, the primordial information will be deleted. In other words: Souls can disappear.

Or maybe 'reabsorbed'? If - IF - there is a way in which the patterns of a soul can exist free of an earthy body then (because eveything in nature is birthing and dying) there would be a lot of pattern generally in the environment, like static charge building up and earthing all over the place. Taking the metaphor of electricity further if you release a certain amount of charge into an environment it will either suddenly earth if it has access to a conductor (newborn host) or slowly dissipate into the air as background charge (into the trees and rocks and soil).

[Karl]

But the biggest issue with what you say is that I cannot concieve a medium in which the soul pattern can carry from one to another.

As I understand it the nature of who I am comes from two parts; Nature - my genetics as inherited from mother and father; and Nurture - every experience I have had since the moment of my birth. The pattern of my soul is imparted to me from the souls of every person I have contacted and learned from (good or bad). As I live I will in turn influence others, and the parts of me that influence others will endure that way. It seems a very fragmented way of looking at it when I write it down, but in the same way noses can be carried down the family so too I think can souls.

[Arcanum]

What if the soul and body never change....in a serial universe.

Big Bag ---> Life ---> Big Crunch ---> Big Bang ---> Nth Life ---> Big Crunch --->

[Al Hakim]

But the biggest issue with what you say is that I cannot concieve a medium in which the soul pattern can carry from one to another.

Karl,
we are not living in a black hole. Thus, I could imagine a soul travelling via air like sound or keep existing as an electromagnetical cloud for a while.

As I understand it the nature of who I am comes from two parts; Nature - my genetics as inherited from mother and father; and Nurture - every experience I have had since the moment of my birth. The pattern of my soul is imparted to me from the souls of every person I have contacted and learned from (good or bad).

That depends on the answer of what the soul is. But I agree that we are partly a product of genes, nurture and social life. Scientificly it is still under discussion which of the parts has the biggest weight. But at the end of our life we will have formed a certain pattern of understanding - i.e. how we explain our world - and build up a soul. That also implies that the individual soul changes throughout the decades of life. But it does not matter, as in any interruption - death - the actual state of the soul may survive. It is like the computer software, version 1 until version 5.

What if the soul and body never change....in a serial universe.

Arcanum,
we all know that our present body will rot sooner or later. That means there will be a change - whereever the story will go on.