Reincarnation

[Bart]

Personally I do not have any recollection of past lives.
Also It is clear that not all who believe they were Napoleon could have been him. Suggestion and wishfull thinking goes a long way.

Bu than the case histories coming from India, sometimes make me think.
http://www.scientificexploration.org/jo ... sricha.pdf
http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2009/08/sci ... stevenson/

It makes me wonder, how do you solve this. It touches close to the concept of migrating souls and is there a soul anyway. If we can prove one case, would that prove anything.

Anyhoo, just wondering what you think.

(P.s. I know this is the skeptical druid, do your worst. It's the reason I posted it here)

[DJ Droood]

Also It is clear that not all who believe they were Napoleon could have been him.

Yea? Is there a law that says you can only reincarnate into one new "host"? Perhaps Napoleon had so much "soul stuff" that he has to reincarnate into 50 lesser modern people.

Anyhoo, just wondering what you think.

Here is what I think...there are probable only about 2 or 3 thousand unique souls :

in 2000, a Molecular Biology and Evolution paper suggested a transplanting model or a 'long bottleneck' to account for the limited genetic variation, rather than a catastrophic environmental change.[8] This would be consistent with suggestions that in sub-Saharan Africa numbers could have dropped at times as low as 2,000, for perhaps as long as 100,000 years, before numbers began to expand again in the Late Stone Age.[9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population ... eck#Humans


Although the population has expanded exponentially, we are really just a few thousand different souls, sort of spread out amongst a few billion hosts, with an "illusion" of uniqueness. When we run into a "soul mate", it is probably just another little fraction of us....when we die, our share of the soul gets divided up amongst our off-spring...if we have no off-spring, we are subsumed into the consciousness of our next closest (biological) soul fragment. Perhaps some new souls are created or lost over generations, but they are rare, like genetic mutations.

Where did souls come from? Perhaps a tribe (?) of monkeys was hit by lightning after eating fly agaric...or something....more studies need to be done...

[LoneWalker]

So does that mean DJ Droood that if a soul is merged it can't afterwards unmerge? - since before this possible bottleneck there were more than 20,000 souls and how about the neanderthals did they have souls? I'm not sure you're theory holds water - now how about some evidence for it?

@Bart - generally you can't prove much with case studies, I suggest collecting some volunteers giving them some random information and instructions on what to do with it then killing them and waiting to see if their reincarnated souls appear in new bodies to present this information to you, you'll also have to come up with a control group.


A serious response to the question - the case studies are interesting but I would say a lot of the people were rather closely connected and suggestion from the family around them were not ruled out. I don't think this is something science is currently going to provide much of an answer to.

[DJ Droood]

So does that mean DJ Droood that if a soul is merged it can't afterwards unmerge? - since before this possible bottleneck there were more than 20,000 souls and how about the neanderthals did they have souls? I'm not sure you're theory holds water - now how about some evidence for it?

All human souls previous to the bottleneck were "fused" into the 2000 or so bottleneck souls....souls could theoretically be fused again, but since the last Ice Age, there has been an expansion of hosts, so soul-fusion has not been necessary...perhaps one day in a future bottleneck....yes, Neanderthals had souls (all living creatures do, but they stay within their species), and some of them probably came over into the human population during the "Getting It On" Epoch. My theory holds a lot of water...maybe too much water....my evidence is my "feelings" and I've decided to take a page from the theist book and leave it up to you to disprove whatever theories I come up with...it is my own reality, which is just as good, if not better, than any other reality.

[Al Hakim]

Bu than the case histories coming from India, sometimes make me think.

It makes me wonder, how do you solve this. It touches close to the concept of migrating souls and is there a soul anyway. If we can prove one case, would that prove anything.

Hi Bart,

Personally I tend to not trust the quoted sources. The Indian investigation was based on interviews. It is fairly known that people often do not recall the truth but a "constructed reality" which they believe - or want to believe -true. It all depends on the setting and design of the study. If you were believer in reincarnation would it not be easy for me to convince you that you are a reborn person if you - by accident - suffer from the same genetic defect?
Al Hakim

[LoneWalker]

@ DJ Drood if souls merged and now we have bits of souls isn't this heading towards the collective unconscious rather than direct reincarnation?
While I'm glad your reality is so nice if you're not going to offer even anecdotal evidence there's nothing to base discussion on so it gets very circular

[DJ Droood]

@ DJ Drood if souls merged and now we have bits of souls isn't this heading towards the collective unconscious rather than direct reincarnation?

possibly.

While I'm glad your reality is so nice if you're not going to offer even anecdotal evidence there's nothing to base discussion on so it gets very circular

I imagine I could keep it going like this for another 2000 years.

[Bart]

But than you would also have the Dalai Lama and all the Budhah's who claim that they are uniquely reincarnated and will fade out of existance at the end of their enlightenment. Can we give the current Lama a message for him to tell us in 20 years (10 years till he dies, kid needs to have some kind of coherent communication = 20 years)

[DJ Droood]

But than you would also have the Dalai Lama and all the Budhah's who claim that they are uniquely reincarnated and will fade out of existance at the end of their enlightenment. Can we give the current Lama a message for him to tell us in 20 years (10 years till he dies, kid needs to have some kind of coherent communication = 20 years)

It was reported somewhere, by some Greek chap, that the Celts would lend each other money with a promise of repayment in the next life....computer, find me the quote...

"They lent sums of money to each other which are repayable in the next world, so firmly are they convinced that the souls of men are immortal."

- Valerius Maximus -

[Huathe]

Check these links out.

http://reluctant-messenger.com/reincarnation-proof.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Steven ... n_research

[Bart]

The problem with asking kids about past life is their lively imagination. My youngest sees ghosts everywhere and leopards in south africa where no one else sees them.
Proving something like this is difficult. I remember a colleague who believed children remembered past lifes because they sometimes spoke strange languages. Unfortunately this was only true within communities who believed in it and were focussed on it. Than if a kids starts babbling and it sounds french, the kid was wisked of to french classes. And surely it started speaking french. To me, that is chicken and eg.

[Huathe]

Bart,

You are probably right. Separating a past life memory, if any, would be difficult due to a kids active imagination. You have a good point here.