Rebirth?
By "rebirth", I mean something along the lines of "getting caught up in consciousness/life/world again." Setting aside religious ideas for now.
The notion of any post death existence is generally scoffed at by Western materialist types, but is it really so absurd? We know, verifiably, from us presently being alive, that we have in at least one case become 'caught up' in a particular body/world/life (which is near incomprehensibly absurd and mystical in-itself! Existing is so utterly bizzare). When this body dies and we cease to be, is this not the very same 'non-state' or 'non-condition' that begot this birth as this body leading this life in the first place? Why would a 'return' to non-condition at our death therefore be permanent? When we know with absolute certainty, because of our presently conditioned state (we are conscious beings leading lives), that non-condition is not eternal. Why would 'I' stay dead? What's the difference between pre and post-birth non-condition in that pre-birth non-condition is impermanent (we presently exist), but post death is eternal? Or to put it another way, prior to my birth there was nothing, and yet my lifetime followed. Post death there will be nothing, and yet this nothing is now eternal?
To be clear I am not talking about my eternal ego or soul being reincarnated (as say, a duckling). The idea here is of getting 'caught up' in life in some way again. It already happened once. If the pre-birth and post-death condition are the same, then why would life not again come forth?
The notion of any post death existence is generally scoffed at by Western materialist types, but is it really so absurd? We know, verifiably, from us presently being alive, that we have in at least one case become 'caught up' in a particular body/world/life (which is near incomprehensibly absurd and mystical in-itself! Existing is so utterly bizzare). When this body dies and we cease to be, is this not the very same 'non-state' or 'non-condition' that begot this birth as this body leading this life in the first place? Why would a 'return' to non-condition at our death therefore be permanent? When we know with absolute certainty, because of our presently conditioned state (we are conscious beings leading lives), that non-condition is not eternal. Why would 'I' stay dead? What's the difference between pre and post-birth non-condition in that pre-birth non-condition is impermanent (we presently exist), but post death is eternal? Or to put it another way, prior to my birth there was nothing, and yet my lifetime followed. Post death there will be nothing, and yet this nothing is now eternal?
To be clear I am not talking about my eternal ego or soul being reincarnated (as say, a duckling). The idea here is of getting 'caught up' in life in some way again. It already happened once. If the pre-birth and post-death condition are the same, then why would life not again come forth?
Comments (318)
Anything is possible...except stuff that has been established as impossible.
But if whatever comes next is as unavailable to us...as whatever may have come before...
...it really amounts to a big "so what?...right?
Yes. ;-)
You don't exist as a person, as something conscious, etc. prior to conception, by the way.
Yes, because there isn't a shred of credible evidence in its favour. Only fools take seriously such presumed possibilities. It falls under the same group as a million and one other such presumed possibilities. Why spend your time on this particular one, as opposed to, say, one involving spaghetti?
What about clinically dead patients who have full knowledge of what transpired during their intermission?
There is no such thing as a "presumed possibility."
Unless a thing is established as impossible...by definition, it is possible.
And yet here we are, consciously perceiving and feeling. And when we die and it is the very same 'not-existing' as prior to our coming into being that is in place again, why would not "consciously perceiving and feeling" once again arise?
Why are pre-birth and post-death non-being differing in their 'results'? Why are we treating pre-birth non-consciousness as non-eternal, but post death non-consciousness is treated as eternal/timeless?
Mind body interactions seem problematic but they seem least problematic if everything is mental in some sense such as on the Idealism position.
I think coming into existence as a conscious entity from nothing and ending up as one specific person at one specific location is puzzling. "Why am I me?" is a common question.
How do you know this?
What do you consider credible evidence? It seems you are making a value judgement by using the word credible.
The OP is an attempt to give a shred of credibility in its favour.
You have direct knowledge of your own present existence. Our autobiographical memories are not eternal (i.e. we have earliest memories), so presumably there was a "time" in which there was no conscious experience present (which we can refer to as non-being, non-condition, non-existence). And yet from non-condition, we are now living and leading these lives. We can poetically say from non-existence, conscious experience has arisen. And so at my death (a cessation of all conditions and states), why would not once again conscious experience arise? Why would there not again be this presence of life?
It's as if the materialist forgets that even though prior to his birth he did not exist, he is living right now. We know directly that consciousness has presented itself, where (presumably) there was non-consciousness prior. And so at death, when consciousness ceases (presumably), why would the very same thing, that we presume has already happened once, not occur again?
I'm a Western materialist type and I can only make sense of rebirth in a few ways:
Literally as zombies: reviving the body before major cell damage has occurred in the brain. If the brain is gone, so is anything that makes "you" you.
Metaphorically as our actions: living on through the ripple effects of my deeds in the world and my impact on the people around me.
Semi-literally on the atomic level: the atoms that have made my body will continue to exist and be building blocks for all sorts of things at least until the end of the known universe.
It's going to rise again, but it's not going to have anything to do with you as a person. You as a person cease to exist at death.
Quoting Inyenzi
They don't in the sense that you don't exist at either point.
Quoting Inyenzi
You don't have pre-birth non-consciousness. You don't exist at that point. You're not something that can have or fail to have any properties at that point.
Just the same way we know any and everything we know. Based on observation of the world.
Yes. It is utterly bizarre to exist at all.
You can't observe someone else's consciousness.
There are lots of things you can't observe that can exist. I think skepticism about mental states is problematic.
For example imagine someone has been victim of crime but they can't prove it. You just have to have some faith in humanity that a majority of self reports are not lies. The same goes for mental health or biographical reports and other memories. You could be skeptical about so much that people can't directly prove and you can't directly observe.
But this skepticism is usually selective. People will believe personal accounts that they judge to be plausible by a personal or metaphysical standard. So then people will accept lies based on this plausibility criteria but will reject truths on the same criteria.
You observe it from a third-person perspective, exactly as you observe every single other thing in the world that's not yourself.
I think the big bang and evolution narrative have made it seem more plausible for some people.
But consciousness is still a big mystery as well as why anything exist at all.
You can trace your DNA to a material lineage of causes but cannot do the same with consciousness.. Consciousness is like an arbitrary phenomena that it is hard to find a causal explanation for. It could be something that exists in a separate dimension or something
Quoting Terrapin Station
Victim to one of the classic blunders.
That blunder being?
If someone is having a dream I cannot observe that.
I can only interpret peoples behaviour to infer what conscious state they might be undergoing.
We have to rely on analogy to form beliefs about the similarity between our mental states and anyone else's.
Whereas with a body we can look closer and closer into the body to see intricate machinery, cell structures, DNA and can even scan for atomic forms. The privacy of mind is an unbridgeable gap at the moment.
You're confusing observing something first-person with observing it third-person. Which is why I just pointed out the distinction. We observe someone having a dream with neuroimaging equipment, via their behavior, etc.
For example it could be like CD which you can slot into different computers. Your mind could inhabit different bodies.
It could be like a radio receiving a signal.
It could be like the telephone or internet where you can communicate with someone but they are not actually in the device.
I think the link between mind and body does not entail complete dependence.
CDs aren't different than the physical item that you slot into your computer. So you're confusing yourself by not having that part clear.
Observing someone or something is always first person. I can observe an elephant and you can observe an elephant in the external world. But I can also observe an elephant in a dream and you have access to that. But they both require a first person perspective/perceiver.
You cannot see someones dream or consciousness in their brain so you cannot judge whether that conscious preexisted their birth or exists after bodily death.
Wow. No. Didn't they teach you this distinction in school? First person is when you are the thing in question. Third person is when it's something other than yourself.
The issue is not about whether something is physical or not but about whether (A) can be detached from (B.)
People can mistake what is transmitted into an object, for that object.
No properties can be detached from the material stuff/relations/processes in question. That was the point. Properties are simply identical to some particular material stuff/relations/processes.
You are always present in your experiences.
The third person is a Literary device.
We simple have no access to anyone else's immediate mental states other than speculation through analogy and interpretation through language.
I am not sure what you mean. We do not see consciousness in a brain yet we know we are conscious. I am not sure what properties you have found that relate to consciousness that could not be detached?
It seems your position must rely on something like the idea that neurons are identical to mental experiences. Which I find implausible because brains and experiences do not share any properties.
The first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. So when a body is destroyed the same amount of energy remains in other forms. So it depends on what one claims is being lost on death. For a materialist that would have to be something like functionality. But I do not view consciousness as a function.
Confusing how experience works with what's experienced.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I'm guessing, by the way, that you just now looked up the first person/third person distinction on Wikipedia.
That certainly has nothing to do with what you just quoted from me above it, does it? Was I even specifically talking about consciousness there? You brought up a broader idea. I was commenting on that. Follow the conversation if you're going to participate in it.
You think I'm going to just take your word for that?
Quoting Frank Apisa
Of course there is such a thing, and establishment is irrelevant except in relation to a demonstration. That doesn't determine whether or not something is impossible, it only shows it. You have no idea what you're talking about.
No, it's a judgement, but values have nothing to do with it. An example of credible evidence would be the science supporting the claim that Earth isn't flat. An example of incredible evidence would be some chump just pointing out that some people say some stuff about supposed extraordinary events which could easily be made up, and there being no way of knowing the claim to be true.
If people can't get to grips with a basic epistemological standard, then they're simply no good at philosophy and should find another hobby.
Well it fails. It might convince a few idiots, but I'm certainly not one of them.
Have a nice day.
I find this interesting. Obviously the bacteria and the finger nails and the electrons in my body are not what makes me conscious but are similar to the internet i use on a daily basis in that they have continual contact with my body. Other than my central nervous system, what is it that makes me or you conscious beings. If i wasn't a christian i would probably believe each person was a subset of a giant universe wide conscious and each person makes decisions based on the subset that they are given.
Unless one establishes that "X" is impossible...by definition it is possible.
If you cannot see that...that is your problem...and the problem with your argument.
That sounds like something written by a not especially bright 5 year old.
I know exactly what I am talking about.
All Frank Apisa said was that there are basically mathematical principles that no one can argue with.
If i say truth is not equal to A (hypothetical situation) then it would follow from the information given that any other variable other than A is a possibility.
"if something is not impossible then there is a chance it can happen even if it is unlikely.
This is basic math.
There are several obvious things wrong with what you just said.
1. It made no mention of what I was objecting to in the quote, perhaps because you were oblivious to what I was objecting to, even though I spelled it out.
2. It doesn't address the problematic wording I was taking issue with.
3. You confuse mathematics and logic.
4. You miss the point.
5. You preach to the choir.
Next time think more critically instead of rashly jumping to someone's defence.
There is a close link between logic and discrete mathematics and boolean algebra.
As for the rest i guess i need to go back through and see what was said.
I see what your saying about presumed possibility. If i point my finger at myself then i would be a fool to say i'm not pointing my finger at myself. I'm sorry about that.
You should have done that to begin with. I don't know why people bother to quote other people if they don't address anything in the quote. It was crystal clear that I was objecting to his mindless and unhelpful repetition: a problem that he is known for, and for which he is perhaps the worst offender. The first thing he said in reply to me was literally a copy and paste of what he said previously.
i agree i should have read it to begin with.
Quoting S
What you really do not like, S...is being shown how wrong-headed so many of your comments are.
Tough.
It was a point based on a distinction which, if he was more consistent and cared to apply critical thinking skills, he would agree with, but he cares more about repeating himself like someone with brain damage.
It's possible that something is impossible without being known to be so. It's possible that something has been demonstrated or established to be impossible without being known to be so. I was just making that clear with my more careful wording. We presume that something is possible unless shown otherwise. As someone who goes around ranting about agnosticism and what we do not know, you'd think he might be sympathetic to that, but as usual his giant ego prevents him from making any concession here. As usual, his line of attack is one of the weakest possible lines of attack, which is to just repeat himself and to name call.
Thank you, C.
As you noted, the only point I was making was that unless one can establish something as possible...it is, at a minimum, POSSIBLE.
It does not mean it is likely. It is possible.
In any case, the likelihood of most of the things being discussed here cannot be determined.
S has trouble getting that.
I will continue to say it until you get it...
...or stop asserting things that defy it.
I noted that there is no such thing as a "presumed possibility."
Unless a thing is established as impossible...by definition, it is possible.
I am correct in that.
You want to assert one of your pieces of nonsense...mostly because you want to call other people "fools."
You seem to be the fool.
I will just continue to disregard what you mindlessly repeat, occasionally calling you out for it.
If only!
But you are not disregarding it at all.
You are regarding it quite seriously.
Okay...so we keep discussing it whenever you make one of your unsustainable assertions.
Values have everything to do with it. The idea your beliefs have nothing to do with your values is simply derisible.
Science does not prove the earth is not flat, evidence does. You do not need science to validate claims. How often in a conversation do you demand people validate a claim with science. Never?
People cannot prove the claims they make about the contents of their experience nor can science.
You have made such a simplistic and facile notion of evidence that only trivial claims could past muster.
It is clear that your notion of evidence is maximally bias and prejudice.
People tend to ask for evidence based on prejudice.
Personal testimony is NOT certain evidence. That's why there's currently a lot of debate about how much eye witness testimony should count in courts.
If something is not established as impossible (an establishment which would seem to itself be impossible except in the case of logical contradictions) it is, by definition, not possible, but possible merely logically and as far as we know. For something to be considered to be possible (on the basis that it is possible as far as we know) just is to presume that it is possible.
None of this means that we have any reason to be of the opinion that it really is possible, much less actual.
But in the case of rebirth, there is a source of evidence, namely, children who claim to remember their previous lives. This has been researched by interviews and cross-checking of such claims, which has produced fairly consistent body of data.
Typically these cases comprise apparent recollections by children who, soon after they learn to speak, begin to talk of their past-life identities and experiences. Often they manifest as the child rejecting the family they've been born into, i.e. 'you're not my family, my family name is [x] and I live in [y]' and so forth. These apparent memories gradually fade and are usually lost altogether by the age of 8. They are also much more likely (but not exclusively) to be found in cultural traditions that are accepting of previous lives (such as Indian and Chinese cultures).
The reason this presents the opportunity for empirical analysis is that such purported previous life memories can then be validated against documentary and other records, which is what the researchers of this field of study have done. The general kinds of trends are as follows:
* talk about alleged past-life memories begins at the age of 2-5 and ceases at the age of 5-8;
* alleged memories are narrated repeatedly and with strong emphasis;
* social roles and professional occupations of the alleged previous personality are acted out in play;
* mention of the cause of (often violent) death in previous life;
* exhibition of emotional conflict due to ambiguity of family or gender;
* display of unlearned skills (including foreign language skills) as well as propositional knowledge (of names, places, persons, etc.) not plausibly acquired in the present life;
* unusual behaviour and idiosyncratic traits corresponding to the previous personality such as phobias, aversions, obsessions, and penchants;
* birthmarks, differing in etiological features such as size, shape and colour from conventional birthmarks and other relevant birth anomalies, sometimes significantly corresponding to wounds involved in the death of the previous personality.
Caveat: the matter is subject to strong cultural taboos in Western society, for obvious reasons - such beliefs having been declared anathema in the early Christian church and also challenging current scientific understanding of the nature of mind.
As one of the best-known researchers in the field noted 'in the West, people ask me, "why do you study these stories? Everyone knows they must be made up." In the East, people ask me, "why do you study these stories? Everyone knows they happen all the time".
Some things we can establish as impossible.
We can establish that a triangle cannot have 5 angles. The moment a figure has more than (or less than) three angles...it no longer is a triangle.
We can establish that a sphere cannot have any angles. The moment is has any angles it no longer is a sphere.
But whatever is not established as impossible is, by definition...POSSIBLE.
There is no need of it being presumed...because unless it has been established as impossible...it simply IS possible.
It is a trivial thing...almost a tautology.
I do not understand the arguments against it.
How many of those supposed "studies" have been done...and by how many researchers?
I find it unusual in the example link...that the kids remembered previous lives right there in their neighborhoods...where their supposed remembrances were able to be "checked and verified."
The main researcher was a Professor Ian Stevenson, who held a privately-endowed chair at the University of Virginia (died 2007). He described more than 2500 cases over thirty odd years. There have been some other researchers but overall it’s, shall we say, not regarded as a ‘proper’ research topic.
Summarise the important parts of the article. Why should it be believed that they're "recalling" previous lives rather than making them up?
Oh, okay, I see you've given a lengthy post instead of a summation. First there was far too little information presented, now there's far too much.
Quoting Wayfarer
Have you done your due diligence on this guy, though? I doubt it.
I reject more or less everything you just angrily spurted at me and stand by my prior claims. There is a wealth of scientific evidence that has been amassed to make the claim that Earth is not flat credible, and my values and desires would not change that situation in any way. The very idea that it would is ludicrous.
I got one of his books out of the library once, and read some of it.
One of the things he said in the article I linked was ‘the will not to believe is as strong as the will to believe.’
Quoting S
which would be....?
You are wrong.
If a thing is not established as impossible...IT IS AT LEAST POSSIBLE. I am not asking you to prove it is impossible. I am saying that until it is established as impossible...it is possible. That has to do with the meaning of words...not with any facts about existence.
But apparently you are going to insist...so insist.
That's certainly not what I meant by due diligence.
Quoting Wayfarer
Which would be, for example, your choice of phrasing. You spin it as though he is a victim of a scientific community that is unfairly set against him, ignores his good work, and maligns his good character.
That sounds a lot like spin. The language is loaded, and, coming from an outside perspective, it looks really fishy. Again, are we, as an audience to what you're saying, supposed to uncritically lap this up? Because it has the opposite effect on me. For me, it sends up red flags. It makes me question whether it was not in fact the case that he has been rightly discredited, and you just do not like that. It looks like you're trying hard to sell him to us, but I have strong doubts about the quality of the product that you're trying to sell us. My concern is that this product is a cheap knockoff, and that the feedback which you're telling us to not take all too seriously is in fact a damning indictment, and something to be taken very seriously.
It certainly looks like spin to me.
Quoting Wayfarer
What is your intent behind mentioning these irrelevancies, though? That's a rhetorical question, because I don't trust your ability to answer that question. They are irrelevancies because it's possible that he could be completely wrong and rightly discredited in spite of also being ignored and often maligned. My answer to that question which you can't be trusted to answer is that you are fallaciously appealing to our emotions in the hope of swaying our opinion in his favour and against the wider scientific community. In short, it is indeed spin. That's an apt name for it.
Then don't ask it.
Rhetorical question.
I'll point out a paradox in this rebirth issue.
As a practising tradition reincarnation/rebirth is part of Buddhism where some unfortunate children are chosen as reincarnated bodhisattvas and made into monks at an age where they can't consent. Note that Buddhism doesn't endorse the idea of a soul and so the question ''what is being reincarnated?''
Abrahamic religions believe in souls giving it a sound basis to believe in rebirth and yet they don't support such a belief.
Could the answer to the OP's question lie in the resolution of the above paradox?
Why do you need "scientific" evidence to prove the earth is not flat? If you travel around the globe on a boat you will find it is not flat. Why does evidence have to be classed as "Scientific"?
This is a problem because hidden mental states are not the kind of things science can validate.
To demand that evidence be scientific is ignoring the limitations of the scientific methodology. The prejudice comes because people accept a lot of claims without evidence such is if I told you I had cornflakes for breakfast or that I dreamed I was flying a plane. They only start to reject personal testimony when they don't like the content.
At the extreme are the consciousness deniers who have decided all conscious states are problematic and try to eliminate them.
Do [i]not[/I] ask me loaded questions which do not accurately represent any claim that I have made. If you're too incompetent to accurately represent what I've said in your own words, then stick to mine.
You are wasting both of our time by doing this.
I wasn't using certain in that sense of the word. I meant it in the sense of some but not all.
Personal testimony can be fallible but that does not make it all false, logically. We rely on successful inter human communication to get through life.
Initially You claimed you needed credible evidence and then used scientific evidence as a source of credible evidence and personal testimony as made up stuff.
As far as I am aware you have not used an example of credible evidence that could include personal testimony.
I think the reason we find some personal testimony compelling is because of current norms and from analogy to ones own experience. But this involves bias
The earth was known to be round for thousands of years based on observations by clever thinkers. It didn't need a truck load of scientific evidence. You used they example of a much ridiculed claim in a discussion about afterlife claims which is a case of "poisoning the well" or guilt by association.
Democritus posited an atomic theory of matter thousands of years before any evidence could validate it.
No one has claimed that it's all false. Why are you addressing claims that no one here has made?
There's a basic and well-known standard for this. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It makes a lot of sense, and is a must-have for any epistemological standard worth it's salt. The claim that you've lived past lives should not be treated as on par with the claim that you had cereal for breakfast this morning, and the reasons why they shouldn't be treated as such should be obvious. If you do not see the reasons as obvious, then what does that say about your critical thinking skills? Just think of the logical consequences.
No. I'm going to say this one last time. Do not attempt to paraphrase what I've said, because you are proving too incompetent to do so accurately.
I see now.
Still, it's not even close to sufficient evidence. At most, in such extraordinary cases, it may be a reason to investigate further, but even that has its limits.
Like, if someone claims to have seen a murder happen. Sure, the police will investigate, but when not a single shred of corroborating evidence turns up, they'll stop and probably assume the witness was mistaken somehow.
Quoting S
You started your "debate" being completely dismissive with no good reason. You already dismissed all the claims made in this area without a specific reason using no case as an example.
Then you brought in science disproving the flat earth as your example of credible evidence.
Then you said
Quoting S
Most personal experiences we have had or have cannot be proven to be true. We can make up anything. Plausible lies are still lies. If I lie and say I had cornflakes for breakfast that sounds credible but it is only credible if I am not lying.
It is a big struggle in the area of mental health and cognitive disorders to overcome prejudices, the idea people are making things up or exaggerating. I don't think anyone can be an arbiter on the absurdity of personal claims. I think you have to have well argued reasons to reject these claims.
You don't have to believe any claims if you don't want to but personal belief does not relate to whether something is a fact.
You genuinely believe that I did that with no good reason? I literally gave the good reason in the first sentence: there isn't a shred of credible evidence in its favour. And our subsequent discussion hasn't changed that one bit. Testimony of extraordinary events is not [i]credible[/I] evidence, and if you have the required critical thinking skills, then you should already know why that is without me having to explain it.
The problem is that you can't provide corroborating evidence for private mental events.
A pre-life or afterlife account is usually only observed by the individual and is not a report of publicly observable phenomenon.
I am skeptical of afterlife claims myself but I don't reject them outright because I don;'t reject personal testimony without strong reason and I know how difficult it is to convince people of personal and mental events in the case of historical abuse and mental illness.
Also I think the mysterious nature of consciousness and the mental offers significant scope for afterlife possibility.
What was the good reason?
There are many different types of pre-life, after death, near death accounts etc I wouldn't lump them altogether. Near death experiences tend to be taken seriously but theorists tend to try and explain in terms of types of neural/biochemical activity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._Ayer
"In 1988, one year before his death, Ayer wrote an article entitled, "What I saw when I was dead",[15] describing an unusual near-death experience. Of the experience, Ayer first said that it "slightly weakened my conviction that my genuine death ... will be the end of me, though I continue to hope that it will be."[16] However, a few days later he revised this, saying "what I should have said is that my experiences have weakened, not my belief that there is no life after death, but my inflexible attitude towards that belief""
I predicted such a dumbfounded response, so I went back and edited my reply:
[I]I literally gave the good reason in the first sentence: there isn't a shred of credible evidence in its favour. And our subsequent discussion hasn't changed that one bit. Testimony of extraordinary events is not credible evidence, and if you have the required critical thinking skills, then you should already know why that is without me having to explain it.[/i]
Quoting Andrew4Handel
What is that supposed to be? Are you just nitpicking at my use of the phrase "take seriously", taking it out of context and applying your own meaning? Because that's how it looks. In future, if you're not sure, just ask for a clarification. Your ability to remain on point and to accurately interpret and represent what I've said leaves much to be desired. I've really had to put my foot down and browbeat you into trying again and again until you gradually get closer to what I'm getting at. You're hard work.
What I meant by "take seriously", is something more than, "That sounds utterly implausible, fantastical, and extraordinary, and nothing in my own experience, or science, or logic, backs it up as something for which there is anything approaching sufficient credible evidence. But I suppose one can presume that it's a logical possibility, provided the lack of any knowledge of a contradiction".
Otherwise we'd have to take seriously all manner of ridiculous claims, as though they're all on par. No, I'll take them seriously in a different sense. I'll take them seriously in the sense that you seriously need to pull your socks up if that's what you think is an acceptable epistemological standard.
There's a different set of evidentiary expectations for ordinary events and extraordinary ones. If someone says, I was thinking about making a sandwich, you can believe them, cause it's a totally ordinary thing that I would say most people think about fairly often. If you say, I had a vision of my past life, that's not ordinary.
Same with cornflakes. I can believe you, because there's no reason to doubt that possibility. If you say you ate dragon eggs and unicorn flanks, I'd have reason to doubt you.
Additionally, the claim that you had a vision of a past life, if true and not a delusion, simultaneously makes a claim about the way the world outside of your mind is and works, thus making it not purely a mental phenomenon.
Philosophy isn't for everyone. Some people here might be better suited to a different sort of forum, one without such rigorous intellectual standards.
It does not follow that a claim about a mental state entails a claim about what we consider to be the external world. There have always been thinkers that view consciousness as primary.
The afterlife could refer to another dimension or purely mental realm but anyway, as it is, we do not know what the relationship between mind and a material or external world is.
No claims about mental states content make assertions about brain mechanisms which is what is being correlated with mental states. If I say I have a headache I am not saying anything specific or technical about the workings of my brain.
Quoting NKBJ
What makes you claim something is an extraordinary event? Existence itself is extraordinary.
Maybe you mean common mundane events.
If we saw ghosts floating around every day that would be considered an ordinary event. The problem is you cannot see other peoples experiences so they cannot provide the same kind of evidence required in science.
You do realize that if rebirth doesn't extend beyond my personal belief in it, then it's not real?
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Sure, things are relative. We should all spend more time thinking about how extraordinary it is that we exist in this vast, cold, amazing universe.
And yet, it's just blatantly ridiculous to claim you can't tell the difference between claims of eating cornflakes and of eating dragon eggs. That's just being disingenuous on your part. Don't pretend things cause you want to make your argument stick.
Yes, and that sort of approach has wider implications in philosophy. It is deeply immoral, is it not? Intellectual honesty is right up there as a fundamental value. What's worse than knowingly trying to sell us snake oil, or coming up with intellectually dishonest post hoc rationalisations, trying to drag us down to his level of nonsense?
My dude, think of it in the context of Schrödinger's cat.
Until you open the box and see, it's all on the table.
That said, if something was impossible, it would be so obviously impossible that it would be inconceivable to thought and at the very least no one would argue otherwise.
I agree. It's not only dishonest to us (and a waste of our time), but to themselves. They think they're getting away with something, but in reality they're just undermining their whole theory by trying to base it on such fake argumentation.
Your example is flawed because dragon eggs do exist. Komodo dragons lay eggs.
Trying to make something sound implausible is a silly tactic in my opinion. Reality is stranger than fiction. The internet, telephones and helicopters would have seemed implausible in the past.
The problem with trying to make something sound implausible is that you have to use words based on phenomena that do exist.
Nevertheless like I said not all afterlife claims are fantastical they can be quite mundane. You are begging the questioning by already assuming afterlife claims are going to be absurd.
That doesn't follow. Science itself is usually based on theories some of which turn out to be true. You can have an accurate belief that can be later validated by public or personal evidence.
You can have private mental states that are just in your mind like a headache that no one else has access to. You don't have to prove to someone one else that your mental states exist or are valid.
I am talking about private experiences and not personal beliefs anyway.
However we do have the phenomena of memory. We remember tons of things that happened in the past and no longer exist except in our memories and beliefs.
For one, Stevenson used a translator, and Stevenson's publisher at first backed out because of accusations that the translator was dishonest. Stevenson admitted that the translator was dishonest in some matters.
So that's just a purposeful fallacy of equivocation. And frankly, committing fallacies on purpose is is just as immoral and a waste of everyone's time as being disingenuous about what you believe.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Please don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say they are absurd, I said they are extraordinary, because ordinarily people don't make such claims. Furthermore, the absurdity of such claims stems from the lack of a single shred of corroborating evidence.
So what was your inaccurate diversion on Dragon eggs about?
In which case it would, and always would have, extended beyond just your belief.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Ideas exist. The idea of an afterlife or previous lives exist. So does the idea of a unicorn. That is different from the thing in itself existing.
I mean, is that all you're out to prove? That there are people who believe in an afterlife? Yes, that's true. So what? Doesn't mean or follow that an afterlife exists.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
It's also intellectual dishonesty to insist I repeat myself when I was perfectly clear and you chose to reply with a fallacy. Go back and reread it and then present me with a valid response.
It is your problem that you were ambiguous. If you want to give an example of something absurd you probably should check that it doesn't exist.
You illustrated the problem of trying to think of something absurd when such a rich variety of strange phenomena already exist.
You and S seem to be making the assumption that we all agree on what is absurd.
I have been talking about mental states and whether they have to extend into the external world.
Whether or not a mental state is accurate or an illusion or just a false belief is a classical philosophical problem.
I don't think you can just assume mental states have a relationship to some kind of metaphysically secure external reality. We are not obliged to make metaphysical commitments about the nature of our mental states.
Nope. If I say "leprechaun" and you interpret "person afflicted with dwarfism," or I say "ghost" and you interpret "semblance or trace" then you're just purposefully misreading me, which is simply not my problem.
I mean, I could play that silly game too and interpret:
Quoting Andrew4Handel
as
rich: having great monetary value
variety: a kind or sort, like chocolate is a variety of ice cream
strange: alienated or bizarre
phenomena: a remarkable or exceptional person.
I really hope you see how that would be absurd, dishonest, and just entirely unphilosophical.
Well, in that case, anyone's belief about the afterlife is not evidence for the afterlife.
It is not my fault that you gave a poor example to make a claim.
Why can't you come up with something that we can all agree is implausible?
I don't see why mythical dragons are implausible anyway. They are only a dinosaur/reptile like creature that lays eggs. Even given the principle of charity I don't find your example compelling.
That is not a claim I have made. We are clearly not going to agree on what constitutes good evidence.
Yes, that's clearly a problem he has. It's most obvious in how he has replied to you, but he did it with me also, asking me irrelevant questions as though I had a burden to answer them, as though they're representative of claims that I've made, when they were actually just straw men he decided to attack in place of my actual claims. It is quite annoying to have someone twist your words, especially when it is almost certainly deliberate, as in his replies to you. That dragon egg response was just embarrassing.
I'm not sure of the extent that he's doing this deliberately or whether it's more of an unconscious psychological thing, where he just can't let go, and feels a need to keep pushing on with this ridiculous attempt at a defence, but it doesn't do him any favours.
I'm not quite sure either, but I do know it's sucked all the interest out of this thread for now.
There just aren't enough reports with enough accuracy to make past life memories plausible over unspecified random mechanisms associating categories with grammatical english strings. I've read a few of these reports, and I've never seen anything in them that can't be explained by either the Barnum effect or random chance. You also have huge priming effects in a lot of them; kids have their memories 'jogged' by context in the studies (as Stevenson notes), but the 'jogging' is a priming effect which can trigger other priming effects. The reports develop over conversations, usually, and are not sufficiently controlled to establish the presence of any causal mechanism. Nevermind, y'know, literally remembering things from before the formation of the subject's brain.
Kids' memories about things besides past lives, about mundane events, are a lot stronger. Of course, one can always say past lives have a mystical quality of being remembered from beyond the veil, which reduces their information specificity and scope, but really that reduction of specificity and scope is precisely what one expects when this is randomness in huge, filtered for effect size (in the sense of only 'strong' reports of past lives are present and attributed causal mechanism, such conditioning invalidates actual scientific papers all the time) observational studies having non-specified causal structures during inference for hypothesis support.
Edit: and before you rejoinder with 'mind!=brain', I'm not saying that. I'm saying 'mind => brain' and using the Moorean shift.
Got it?
If it were as simple as you suggest, there would be no data.
Seriously? The existence of data on a topic gives validity to conclusions made from the data? It doesn't.
For example as far as we know it is possible that there is a planet where all the cartoon characters ever created on Earth reside, and that they are psychic beings who projected images of themselves into the minds of their "creators' on Earth. But given the nature of nature such a thing might not be physically possible at all.
Janus...
...until a thing is established as impossible...it is possible.
That is what the language means with those two words.
Anything that has not been established as IMPOSSIBLE...until established as impossible...
...IS POSSIBLE.
Stevenson accumulated case information from the early 1980's until his death in 2007. Ultimately he collated around 2,700 cases where children were interviewed, and then the claims they made about their purported previous lives were cross-checked against documentary evidence, place-names, family histories and every other source of available data. During this period, Stevenson also rejected very many cases where he felt he was being gamed or that relatives were putting words in the child's mouth and so on.
One of his books on the research was called 'Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect' which mainly concerned apparent links between previous-death causes of mortality, and birthmarks and deformities in the child.
[quote=Jesse Bering]A Turkish boy whose face was congenitally underdeveloped on the right side said he remembered the life of a man who died from a shotgun blast at point-blank range. A Burmese girl born without her lower right leg had talked about the life of a girl run over by a train. On the back of the head of a little boy in Thailand was a small, round puckered birthmark, and at the front was a larger, irregular birthmark, resembling the entry and exit wounds of a bullet; Stevenson had already confirmed the details of the boy’s statements about the life of a man who’d been shot in the head from behind with a rifle, so that seemed to fit. And a child in India who said he remembered the life of boy who’d lost the fingers of his right hand in a fodder-chopping machine mishap was born with boneless stubs for fingers on his right hand only. This type of “unilateral brachydactyly” is so rare, Stevenson pointed out, that he couldn’t find a single medical publication of another case.[/quote]
I think there's too much data presented in these cases to all be written off as coincidence or conspiracy. Also it should be noted that Stevenson never said that these cases amounted to proof of the veracity of past-life memories, only that it was suggestive of it.
You could interpret it that way, being 'suggestive' of it. But notice that being suggestive does not mean that belief in what is suggested is warranted! The data may be consistent with remembering past lives, but it is also consistent with chance. Also notice no causal mechanism is ascribed to 'remembering past lives', one blurs their eyes and thinks that such a scientific hypothesis has been suggested, but there are plenty of ways that it could happen, and the data provides evidence for none of them because it is consistent with all of them.
It's very easy to fit this to a narrative, but the narrative does not need a specified causal mechanism to make sense. It only requires us to understand the flow of ideas in the narrative. Such an understanding is not a scientific hypothesis, it's not any scientific hypothesis, it's a gigantic disjunction which rules out nothing and thereby supports nothing.
In order for those details in the story to provide information about the past life, the coincidence of events is not sufficient. One event has to be more likely given the other, and that minimal criterion for informativeness has never been established. Even this does not establish any causal mechanism, only correlation (or more precisely a reduction in relative entropy/increased specificity).
One concludes, say, obesity is a risk factor for heart disease because having any heart disease is more likely given being obese. Such reasoning is completely absent here, in this apparently knock-down example (as you have presented it) demonstrating that past lives are indeed remembered.
But apparently, you seek to collapse the distance between possibility/consistency and justification/causality, all the while paying lip service to the virtue of epistemological humility.
If Stevenson spent most of his life studying these reports and could only conclude the strongest examples are merely suggestive of his thesis, I wonder how this counts as evidence for typical 'past-life remembrance' candidates not being due to more mundane causes. Obviously, it does not, and even for Stevenson the absence of effect dominates.
You're paying lipservice to scientific thought when it suits you, it's an old game of snake oil and equivocation. I hope you're not buying.
Well said mr Drake.
I think that's a very disappointing and rather prejudiced response on your part, although I do understand the prejudices that invariably attend this topic. But Stevenson went to great lengths to observe scientific protocols in the same way he would have done had been studying epidemiology or genetics. Furthermore, the cases comprise many ascertainable facts which can't simply be explained away as coincidence.
This was the procedure for literally thousands of cases. So I don't think chance or coincidence amounts to an explanation. But I do understand how controversial this research is; I discussed this very article with a self-appointed 'Zen master' on another forum, and he said 'all a coincidence'. (Significant that he was American, not Asian, I thought at the time. ;-)
So, do I believe Stevenson's research? I don't think you can explain away the convergence of facts but then I'm not pre-disposed against the idea, like most people are. Perhaps these children aren't actually 'the same person' as the so-called previous life at all; perhaps there's some psychic or extra-somatic medium, like Jung's collective unconscious, through which memories and experiences can be transmitted, and the newborn child somehow acquires them in which case no person is literally 'reincarnated'. But I think just writing it off as chance or coincidence doesn't come to terms with the data.
I think that is based on a common misinterpretation of the Kalama Sutta:
[quote=Thanissaro Bhikhu] Although this discourse is often cited as the Buddha's carte blanche for following one's own sense of right and wrong, it actually says something much more rigorous than that. Traditions are not to be followed simply because they are traditions. Reports (such as historical accounts or news) are not to be followed simply because the source seems reliable. One's own preferences are not to be followed simply because they seem logical or resonate with one's feelings. Instead, any view or belief must be tested by the results it yields when put into practice; and — to guard against the possibility of any bias or limitations in one's understanding of those results — they must further be checked against the experience of people who are wise. The ability to question and test one's beliefs in an appropriate way is called appropriate attention. The ability to recognize and choose wise people as mentors is called having admirable friends. According to Iti 16-17, these are, respectively, the most important internal and external factors for attaining the goal of the practice. [/quote]
So, experience plays a part, but also, the goal of the path is not generally within our experience (otherwise there'd be no need of a path!)
So, any view or belief must be tested against your experience?
So, how do you test your view or belief as to who is wise if not against your own experience?
So, regarding the cartoon example I gave: are you saying that we can prove such a thing is impossible, or are you saying that it is actually, as opposed to merely logically, possible that such a planet exists? If the latter, then how could you know that?
Note that I am not saying that we know that such a planet is actually impossible; the point is that we don't know that such a planet is actually possible either. So, it is only so far as we know that such a thing might be possible.
Yes, but bear in mind (and this is getting way off topic), the 'philosophy of experience' in Buddhism (which is the subject of the texts known as abhidharma) is different in Buddhism than in modern empirical or analytic philosophy. This is because it addresses the first-person nature of experience and close analysis and insight into the factors that condition experience. In Buddhism, it is assumed that the experience of the ordinary person ('uninstructed worldling') is conditioned by the 'three poisons' of craving, hatred and delusion; whereas 'the Buddha' and the 'aryas' (noble disciples) are by definition no longer subject to those - accordingly, they provide a standard of wisdom and conduct to aspire to.
I would say they are not that "by definition" at all, but by report. How do you know those reports are accurate?
I have met people I would count as highly intelligent who believed that Osho was the greatest spiritual figure of the 20th century. I have also met such people who believed Bubba Free John was the greatest spiritual figure. Osho belittled Bubba Free John and the latter belittled Osho in return. No doubt similar things went on in the time of Gautama with other contenders who are now lost to history. Now his "enlightenment" is romantically shrouded in the mists of history, and it does not seem so outrageous to claim that he was enlightened as it would to claim that of a contemporary.
I know you won't be swayed by rational considerations because your faith, or your emotional need to believe, is too strong. Hopefully it is the former and your faith is based solidly on your own experience, in which case you don't need to rationally justify it to anyone, because that would be mistake. It would be a mistake based on a kind of category error because your faith is (ideally) a vital, practiced interpretation of your own experience, is relevant only to that experience and no other, and is thus not something that can be inter-subjectively corroborated, such that any unbiased person must agree with you. That is the nature of religious faith: it is a purely personal matter for which no corroboration is possible, or necessary.
I think when you finally get this you will become much more relaxed about your faith, you will come to realize that it is for you and you alone, and you will cease to feel the futile need to proselytize.
Also, I don't think this is "off-topic" at all. Belief in rebirth should be on account of one's own experience, not on any account from others. If I vividly remembered my past 5,000 incarnations (as Gautama is reputed to have done) then I would perhaps believe in rebirth myself. But I have absolutely no sense whatsoever that I have ever lived another life. I have had many experiences I would consider "numinous" and profoundly ecstatic. Three of the most intensely beautiful came when I was meditating, not when I was tripping. The tripping experiences actually pale by comparison. But from all that I draw no conclusions. Christian mystics typically don't believe in past lives; they believe the soul is "one-off", immortal and unique.
Cuts both ways, you know.
Quoting Janus
I'm not proselytizing although I don't share the same distrust of anything religious that you habitually exhibit.
Quoting Janus
Actually, there is an undercurrent of such beliefs in Christian culture. Origen considered something called 'metempsychosis' and the pre-existence of souls, influenced by neoPlatonism. But his ideas on the matter were declared anathema by the early Church - that is one of the reasons that reincarnation is a cultural taboo.
What does that mean? I have provisional,(that is 'subject to change in light of further experience') faith in what I have experienced, but I don't expect others to count that as evidence for anything.
Quoting Wayfarer
I don't distrust what might be called religious experience (my own experience that is); I distrust human institutions, where the reputed experiences, as well as the presumed implications of those experiences, of someone believed to be enlightened is inevitably fossilized into dogma. Your view of what I say does not seem at all balanced or accurate, and you don't seem to have attempted to provide any argument for the relevance or soundness of your view.
Quoting Wayfarer
I have read fairly extensively in Christian mystical literature, and I cannot think of any example of any of the authors talking about rebirth or reincarnation. The Platonic notion of rebirth probably came from Indian influence. There is certainly some documentary evidence of intercultural influence. The fact that this idea hung around in the underground of Western thought is not surprising, the West has always had its sub-cultures it seems. The irony is that I agree with you that rebirth may be a taboo largely because of Christian dogma, (it also becomes a good candidate, in view of its being a taboo notion, to become a central article of belief of some dissident sub-culture), and yet you criticize me for distrusting organized religion. I don't believe any idea should be taboo, but the mere fact that some ideas may be taboo does not provide any argument in favour of them, or indeed against them.
Edit: I predict you won't respond to this post.
If a thing was clearly impossible, it wouldn't be debated - you couldn't think of it as possible, as it would be clearly and obviously impossible.
If you can conceive of it being possible, that alone shows it is possible.
Which is why Schrödinger's cat is equally dead and alive until examined.
If I said 2 + 2 = 4 in base ten...and you said..."Oh, no it doesn't"...do you actually think I would do more than just repeat it?
Either a thing is ESTABLISHED as impossible...or (until it is established as impossible) IT IS POSSIBLE.
That is what the what the wording means.
All I can do is repeat it.
But, if you insist on something more: Open your goddam mind and see the truth.
Okay?
YES, Janus...I am saying that until you actually establish that it is impossible (which I doubt anyone could actually do)...IT IS POSSIBLE.
That is a given.
Well...until you do establish that it is impossible...
...IT IS POSSIBLE.
That is what the word means.
Just to prove to you that my rejection of these reports 'suggesting' that remembrance from past lives is not based on blind prejudice, or scientific orthodoxy, or whatever irrelevant standard you're trying to portray me as holding, let's go through the above report.
Great, already that the memory began with an elicitation from an external source. Moreover, it was part of a conversation which was recorded afterwards. This immediately means you can't distinguish conversational priming effects from those which arise from remembrance of past lives.
Did the girl believe that her brother was 'mentally challenged' or that he was just 'stupid'? The '(mentally challenged)' bit is obviously some post processing of the report, we don't know if the girl actually remembered the brother as being an idiot or being mentally challenged or disabled in some non-specified way. This lack of specification allows the collator of the reports to substitute in 'mentally challenged' for 'dumb' in a just-so story. More formally, this is spending many 'researcher degrees of freedom' to tailor the post-processed (not original!) account to other things. On your standard, you would interpret low IQ, clumsiness, dyspraxia, any developmental disability effecting the mind, as equally being vindicated by the child saying she had a 'dumb' family member. But these details really matter. They matter because someone who had these specific memories with specified relationships in them would be having a typical event of memory; a young girl will probably know in what sense someone is 'dumb', but all we have here is that dumb was mapped to 'mentally challenged' during the post-processing of the report, with a vague status on precisely how much elicitation the mother treated the daughter too. You can only 'weasel out' of this with the stipulation that past life memories are qualitatively different from memories... IE they are not actually memories in the usual sense of the term.
This matters. A lot. You can give 'psychic readings' to people where you say Barnum statements and elicit specified responses, often people will remember you saying the elicited response rather than the Barnum statement. The report will say that 'The psychic predicted so many specific things about me!' and the person given the reading will have that memory, but the causal mechanism was one of elicitation rather than memory in a vacuum.
Herath is a unisex name, given that we do not know the degree of elicitation here, we cannot associate 'Herath' with 'bald father' accurately (also 'bald father', in a town with a Buddhist history, how specific!). We should have the same response to 'bald father called Herath' to 'mother with long brown hair called Herath', and it does not matter for the truthiness of the story which is which. But it absolutely does matter for the purposes of ascribing cause; the two are exchangeable for the purposes of the narrative validity, but are not exchangeable in terms of connection to a memory. You'd be saying the same thing for both, but they're different reports which would have been fit to the facts differently.
A marketplace near a stupa makes a lot of sense, they're going to be central features of a town.
Yes, surely the memory averaged over the contents of male relatives, rather than being rather specific upon elicitation like usual memories. This is a retrojection of memory validity which just wasn't there, and has no causal mechanism associated with it. If you could tell me why it makes sense for 'ancestral memories' to sometimes average over male heritage lines and sometimes not I'd love to know.
The same goes for having dogs in the backyard being fed meat, this is common. The same goes for coconuts on the ground in marketplaces...
Anyway, the minimal criterion for one thing X being an indicator of another Y is that X is more probable (or less probable) given Y. One needs to assume that the relationship between the events in the town and the events the girl came up with are one of memory in order to assign that one is more probable given the hypothesis of memory. This goes in completely the wrong direction, what you should do when reviewing such reports is to ask the question "How likely is the scenario envisaged given how likely the scenario is to happen?'.
And when we ask 'how likely is the scenario to happen', the scenario needs to be highly specified, and not fit to the facts on an interpretive basis (which is what was done during the 'search' for the events of the memory).
Moreover, you also need to look over all possible remembrance events, if most are filtered out due to evidential standards, but some are left in without a pre-specified standard of validity (not which 'seem hardest to explain), you still have the problem of why are there so few reports which meet a higher evidential standard. Is the mechanism for generating the reports with a lower evidential standard substantially different for the mechanism generating the reports with a higher evidential standard? Or are they post selected for demonstrative purposes (which is what is being done here!)
If I took all the obese people in the world and looked at their chance of heart disease, I would vastly over-estimate the chance of heart disease in the general population if I did not take into account the fact that I have filtered the population. The same thing happens here, the reports of higher evidential standard say nothing about those which have a typical evidential standard; IE, most reports of such things are so easy to recognise as incredibly flawed that they are immediately removed from the study. To put it in plain words, the fact of the matter is that even if you grant that the memories considered in the higher evidential standard group are more likely to be remembrance of past lives than the ones in the lower evidential standard group, most reports of past lives are still too flawed to use as evidence.
And what is the standard for the ones in the higher evidential standard group? Not just the quality of elicitation, surely, one also wishes to check if they are true. Now, when they are true, we have a tiny subset of reports which purportedly describe real events. We now need to ask the question: does the probability of the real event increase when the event is described or elicited? But of course, since this pre-selection by coincidence of report with real events has happened, one can never ask this question of the data. The very criterion with which you would establish a mechanism of past life remembrance is excluded through the filtration of the study to the ones with a 'higher evidential standard'; which apparently is literally just the events elicited/described by the remember happened somewhere at some time under some interpretation (researcher degrees of freedom).
You might say that they happened in place X in way Y, but one needs to aggregate over the reports to get the real picture of what is going on. The relevance here is that things which happened in place X in way Y and were described as happening in some way related to X and some way related to Y is not the same criterion of validity as events X happening in way Y in the report (also note the priming/elicitation memory confusion here, it interacts!). The 'in some way' matters, as this is an inherent part of the filtration procedure; it has so many 'researcher degrees of freedom' that some fit is bound to happen for some reports. It is a mismatch inherent in the selection procedure for validity, you spend all the information you have on establishing the coincidence of real event with described event, not the conditional report validity (which is the minimal criterion for informativeness of X on Y... which is required for X to be memories of Y)
You might say I'm being too cautious, I would not hold up my beliefs in every-day life to this standard. And you're right, but the every-day is every-day, we need to have higher standards of evidential validity when considering questions as big as 'can we remember past lives?'.
So despite me going through all that effort to show you why the report is not particularly strong support for remembering past lives, you don't care, and supplant your own prejudice that I'm just having an auto-immune response to woo.
I am having an auto-immune response to woo, but this comes from a place of considered analysis rather than revulsion. Which I'm sure you'd realise if you were interested in actually being open minded on the issue.
I had composed a very long response to your post, but I thought better of it. There's strong resistance to his claims, because, as I said, it's culturally taboo on two grounds - cultural and scientific - and I don't want to become the PSI advocate here. PSI research generally is highly fraught and pretty spiteful.
But Stevenson's magnum opus is almost 3,000 pages, it's full of tabular data about carefully-researched claims such as the one you dissected above. A three-year-old boy in Lebanon recalled having been killed in battle in his former life. He accurately reported how much money the person he had been had in his pockets at the time of his death and identified various personal articles when taken to that person’s home. A two-year-old boy in Turkey claimed he had frozen to death after an airplane crash in his previous life. The person’s family believed the man had died instantly in the crash, but when consulted, a Turkish Airlines official confirmed the man had indeed died from freezing. A two-year-old girl in Thailand remembered living in a monastery in her previous life. When taken there, she knew her way around, recognized a number of monastics, and even detailed what had changed about the buildings in the time since she had lived there. In many such cases, the location of a birthmark on the child’s body is said to correlate with an injury sustained at the time of death in a prior life.
2,700 cases, right? So we could go through all of these and show how every one of them was just coincidence and confabulation and wishful thinking, but I just don't think so. If you read the Wikipedia entry on Stevenson you will come away satisfied that he's a gullible fraud. So I'm not saying that *you* are prejudiced - it's simply the nature of the topic, it's a taboo subject. Ought not to be talking about it all. Over and out.
Sounds like a plan.
I don't see how any of this makes sense unless you assume there is some "essence" of a person.
i.e. that which makes you YOU, as a unique individual - and this essence cannot be physical, not even partly physical.
But it seems to me that many of the things that make me ME, are physical: memories and conditioned responses seem to be neural patterns. My sex (male) is related to my y-chromosome, and the testosterone that influenced my physical and emotional development. These made me what I am and continue to influence how I evolve.
Can some part of me live on (or again)? Sure- the molecules of my decaying body can fertilize a cornfield, but that isn't what I consider ME.
On what basis? Cause it seems like a large number?
Apparently 1.1% of the world's population is estimated to have schizophrenia. Over half are thought to hear voices.
1.1% of at least 7 billion is 77,000,000, and half of that is 38,500,000.
Am I supposed to think that all those people who hear voices are hearing real voices, just because it's such a large number of people?
Good point, not to mention that the number people hearing voices greatly surpasses the numbers of this research. That should be a red flag right there.
It is not as far as we know, but regardless if we know.
Our knowledge as to the aforementioned example, neither gives or takes away from its possibility.
Such a planet may not be, but that does not make it impossible, that makes it currently unavailable.
Like I told you, the impossible is inconceivable, it is void. If you can think of it as possible, it is possible, and exists - somehow, somewhere.
Here's a quaint little example: You are dead right now. And by your standard, that is as far we know.
But consider, that reaching death is like reaching the end of the movie - it's already there, before you reach it. And your death being already established, not only makes it possible that you are already dead - but more or less true.
You're dead and you're alive at the same time.
Something that should be possible only as far as we know, yet would appear to be possible regardless.
Now on the off chance, that it is not so - then everything is only possible as far as we know.
And either, the world is impossible but we think it is possible because we dwell in it, or what we know and think holds verity and what we know and think of as possible - is actually possible.
Your choice.
Show me any reasoning why the elicited description is more likely given the actual occurrence, or vice versa, without having to use memory of past lives as an explanatory assumption. You are supposed to establish that it is a memory of a past life, and to do that you need to show that the description was caused by the event or influenced it (or was influenced by it) in a manner which provides information. Not just having similar content to it after post processing for similarity.
I wouldn't quite go that far, he's surely looked at lots of reports. It's just that the design for their collation and verification will never allow you to establish the effect they're supposed to establish. If you want to argue this point, you probably need to look at the epistemology issues surrounding the interpretation of testimonial data for confirming hypotheses as @Sam26 does in his Near Death Experience threads.
You're ignoring the fact that something might be, just on account of the way things are, impossible even though we could never know that with absolute certainty. Rebirth, to use the example of this thread, might be impossible due to the nature of the Cosmos. But take careful note, I am not saying that rebirth is logically impossible, it obviously is not since it involves no contradiction; I am saying that what is logically possible may have absolutely no bearing on what is actually possible. I am also not saying that rebirth is impossible just that it might be.
That something might be impossible does not imply that it must be possible, but rather that, just as it might be impossible, it also might be possible. The "might be" refers only epistemologically, not ontologically. Ontologically speaking something is either possible or it is not, just as is the case with logical possibility and impossibility. but the domains of logical possibility and impossibility and ontological possibility and impossibility do not necessarily coincide; they may or they may not, we simply cannot know.
That depends on how you define rebirth. If it is memories, then yes. but if it is 'attitude' then it is reasonable to think that someone else is born, somewhere in the continuum of time, with the same precepts as a person when they die, and so the latter could be considered a continuation of the same spirit. I dont see any necessary requirement for that to be after the first persons death, or before, or even in fact in a human body. It's a just a different way at looking at the progression that people make in their lives across the six main factors of reaction: fight/flight, freeze/fawn, and love/hate. Also there is a good model from MIT:
This kind of construct is obviously a simplificaiton, but it illustrates the kind of 'attitudes' that Im talking about.
You're addressing me as if I did this research or am responsible for it, which I obviously wasn't. I'm simply presenting information about the research conducted by this individual.
Again, to reiterate: his method was to locate children who claimed to have memories of a previous life. This typically appeared as a child asserting that they were a different person or belonged to a different family, often with great insistence. Such subjects would be interviewed by the researcher who would attempt to ascertain as many facts as possible from the child's account of what he or she purportedly remembered - what their occupation was, where they lived, the names of their relatives, and the manner of their death. Then the researcher would attempt to establish the identity of the purported previous life, and attempt to validate the facts in the account against other sources. These would include eyewitness testimony, newspaper reports, death certificates, and the like. As mentioned in previous posts, in many of these cases the individuals concerned appeared to possess specific knowledge for which there was no apparent other explanation than their direct memory of it; that forms the basis of the research.
According to Stevenson, he trained his team to observe the same kinds of protocols and procedures that would be followed in any other of the social sciences. (He had previously been a psychiatrist.)
Quoting fdrake
Which is why Stevenson's literature always said the studies suggested the possibility of reincarnation. He didn't claim to have proven it. But, as he presented a large amount of data, then in a thread on the subject the existence of that information ought to be acknowledged. As I said at the outset, this was in response to the typical (and eye-rolling) claims that there could never be 'any evidence' of such claims, when there is. Sure, Stevenson might have been a dupe, as the sceptics say, but in light of the amount of evidence he assembled I for one am not persuaded that this is the case.
The other point that ought to be noticed is the number of responses which assume that this research could not be true, and that there must be something wrong with the methodology or the researcher. From a philosophical perspective, that is the point: simply as a hypothetical, what would it say if such things were found to be true?
Quoting Relativist
If you were a process philosopher, then you might analogise the possibility of rebirth as being more like a coherent stream of consciousness, than an essence. In fact that's close to the Buddhist attitude, which is that there is no person or singular self-existent entity which transmigrates from one life to another. Instead it's conceptualised in terms of the terminology of the 'citta-santana' (sometimes translated as 'mind-stream') which is the moment-to-moment continuum (Sanskrit: sa?t?na) of sense impressions and mental phenomena, which is also described as continuing from one life to another .
It was on this basis that Buddhist philosophers developed the concept of the ?l?yavijñ?na, or 'storehouse consciousness', which has been compared to Jung's concept of the collective unconscious (details here.)
I don't see how you can escape the essence issue if we are to regard this as an individual person (such as ME) being re-born. Whatever it is that is reborn is not ME unless it has all the necessary and sufficient properties that individuates me.
And I might add, every being's self-perception gives rise to the sense of 'me'. I guess that this sense is fundamentally the same in every being - what is different in each, is the unique memories and experiences that are associated with it.
Starting with that, if my memories are not being reimplanted into a reborn body, then (in my estimation) it's not me. For that matter, if my identity were implanted in a female, and my thought processes were then influenced by estrogen instead of testosterone, that also would not be me.
This seems to mean that could only be a pure haeccity (a bare identity devoid of any the above worldly properties) that is reborn. And if that were the case, it seems completely irrelevant because it omits all the things that I feel make me ME.
The principle is extended in other ways - that there are no atoms (enduring and division-less particles) and no deity (enduring and changeless being). As has been noted by scholars, this has similarities with Heraclitus' dictum of being 'never being able to step in the same river twice'.
Of course, reconciling that with rebirth seems at first glance highly paradoxical. But the Buddha insists that there is no unitary 'self' that 'goes' from birth to birth. Actually the Buddha says little or almost nothing about rebirth as such; it is simply that causes always give rise to consequences, and that unless that process is seen through and put an end to, then those will continue to occur endlessly (which is the meaning of 'samsara' i.e. 'endlessly wandering').
I sometimes find a certain kind double-speak in the Buddhist view. After all in cultures like Tibet, there are established protocols for determining the re-birth of eminent religious leaders (including the Dalai Lama) involving oracles, divination and tests of the child's memory. But even so, on dogmatic grounds, Buddhists will never admit that there is 'a soul that has been reborn'. Again, they will depict in terms of a 'mind-stream', but in practice, it seems very much like 'a soul' to me.
Under this paradigm, the parts that are actually me (which is transient), are just hitching a ride on something that is eternal - so even if this were true, it seems to lack all significance to anyone's life.
If "little to nothing" is actually said about rebirth by Gautama then it would seem that it is not really a part of truly Buddhist doctrine at all, but a later add-on designed to appease the sense of attachment to life itself.
Well, the ultimate aim of Buddhism - being a religion - is to realise 'the deathless'. That is one of the meanings or implications of Nirvana, and what puts an end to the cycle of samsara.
Quoting Janus
Indeed! But it's not that different in Christian philosophy - you could argue that this is the meaning of such Biblical verses as 'he who saves his own life will loose it, he who looses his life for My sake will be saved'. (Matt: 16:25)
In any case, as you've noted, belief in 'many lives' is generally anathema in Christianity, but not so in Eastern religions. So I suppose it could be argued that the implications of Stevenson's research would tend to support the latter - although, as he noted, reports of such cases are far more frequent in those cultures which do accept it than in Western cultures.
Perhaps the cycle of samsara is best understood as being encapsulated within a single life, and putting an end to it as assenting, surrendering, fully and unconditionally to the reality of our own deaths. Something like this was the ideal of the Stoics, Epicurus, Spinoza and Nietzsche just to name a few examples from the history of philosophy.
Exactly. One does not just spontaneously burst into existence out of absolute nothingness. There are prior causes and conditions within an already existing "something" that bring about and sustain ones being. And if we know it has happened once, why is so absurd to think it has already happened prior? Or wont happen again? Or that perhaps there is just an ongoing presence of 'being' in some form?
An analogy for rebirth in this sense would be like a flame passing from one candle to the next. Although there is no internal essence to the flame that continues from moment to moment, or candle to candle, from the perspective of the flame there is an ongoing presence of continuous burning.
If what can happen once?
Thats like trying to say whether light is a particle or a wave. As Wittgenstein, and the Vedas say in fact, is all which really exists is language. The language provides a model of the ultimately unknowable, and it can never be any more than that, a model. The usefulness of a model is its actionable power. Many people have found the transmigration of souls a useful model, so the model has good actionable power. Its absolute truth is just as indeterminate as everything else.
But isn't that why, or at least part of the reason why, he's been discredited? Because he deviates from the high standards of the scientific method? Isn't that why his research isn't considered authoritative, but is only peddled as such by those with the agenda of giving an appearance of credibility to claims of past lives?
The problem is that a thing that might be impossible...IS POSSIBLE.
That is the meaning of the word.
Until it is actually established as impossible...IT IS POSSIBLE.
You are intelligent enough to see this. Why are you refusing to see it?
And yet it does. It denotes that something is partly possible and partly impossible.
Which would mean that it must be in some form impossible and in some form possible.
But both the 'impossibility' and 'possibility' pertain to the 'whole of possibility'.
Which is like a coinflip - until the coin lands, the result is equally heads and tails.
And until it lands on heads, you cannot deny tails - tails is fully possible.
But either one, relies on either one being possible. So possibility is a prerequisite.
The truly impossible lies outside of that realm; as I noted, it is inconceivable and not an option.
Just to be clear, I'm saying that 'possible as far as we know' is not distinct from 'possible', but a part of.
Which is to say, that something must be to might be - and this applies to all things; i.e an apple must be in some way blue, to might be blue.
Of course.
Quoting Janus
Conflating two principles there. The questions that the 'poison arrow' parable were concerned with were speculations about whether the world had a beginning or not, whether the self is identical with the body, whether the Tathagata exists after death, and so on. But the question of whether or not there was a life beyond was not one of those questions. Those who believed that there was not, were classified as nihilists. Karma was said to be inescapable, so the implication is that one cannot escape it simply by dying.
It always is on a topic like this. No one acquires these sort of beliefs disinterestedly.
Aye.
:up: That about covers it. :smile:
Tautologies are funny that way--they tend to be inherently truthful.
Everything is possible except the impossible.
Or, only the possible is possible.
Or, the impossible is impossible.
Well, whatcha gonna do? It is what it is.
Herpaderp! :smile: :up:
And then there are those who think merely establishing the possibility of X is sufficient to believe in X, when in reality there is a vast gulf between those things that could theoretically be true and those things that are true/we can know to be true.
Well, you know what they say: there's nowt so queer as folk! :smile:
I've tried to show you the differences between what is logically possible and impossible, what is possible and impossible as far as we know and what may or may not be possible, ontologically speaking.
In the case of the first we can say that we know something is impossible if it defies laws of the excluded middle or non-contradiction. These kinds of things are impossible by definition, and anything else is logically possible.
In the case of the second, is included pretty much everything else. We know that what we observe to be actual is possible, obviously. And on the other side, we may have very good reasons to believe that something is impossible, but we can never prove that so it remains open as to whether it really is impossible.
Speaking purely logically this openness means that it is possible, as you have been asserting and I have agreed with that. Something may indeed be known to be logically possible and hence it is possible that it is also ontologically possible, but we don't know that, and can't know that for sure until it is observed to be actual.
Now, if you think there is something wrong with my reasoning regarding all this, then address that and explain what you think is wrong. But don't just keep coming back with repetitions of capitalized insistence about the MEANING OF THE WORDS. I have already acknowledged that meaning of the words has determinative logical and epistemological provenance. But the meaning of the words has no determinative ontological provenance; in the ontological domain what is is what is, and what is impossible is impossible, regardless of whether or not we know, or even could know, it.
All those questions are inherently connected, in one way or another, to the question of rebirth, though.
One might acquire them by recalling a past life.
And pigs might fly.
I agree with that, but whatever is acquired there could never provide a really good reason for anyone else to believe anything. Also, you should always hold open the possibility that what you believe is a memory is not in fact a memory at all; so I would say that at best such an experience might provide good grounds for holding a more open attitude towards the possibility. On the other hand, what people are convinced by is their own concern, provided they don't try to inflict their beliefs on others, and insist that they agree.
Have you ever remembered a past life, though, or even had a strong feeling that you have lived before?. I have never had the slightest inkling that I have lived before, and I believe I am by no means closed to the possibility, even though I don't consider it to be very important in the scheme of things.
No need to dispute you in any way at this point.
You agree with me. Unless a thing is established as impossible...it is possible.
We are in agreement.
As for a discussion of what "is"...and what "is not" in the REALITY of existence...as Casey Stengel might say, "Include me out."
Yes, of course. It's not a voluntary matter. I can't believe what I find unconvincing, and I find weakly supported claims unconvincing. I can't just flip a switch and instantaneously believe such nonsense.
As this is a philosophy forum, I think the point is not to convince others of our beliefs, but to explore their nature, to expose their underlying assumptions and to consider why we think the way we do. As I'm not wedded to a secular~scientific philosophy, then I don't have the same underlying inhibitions about the subject that are quite understandable in those who do (as, for them, it's a threat to the underlying worldview.)
A couple of resources - John Michael Greer, A Few Notes on Reincarnation.
Bhikkhu Analayo - Rebirth in Early Buddhism and Current Research.
Oh dear, how disappointing; I was hoping to exclude you in. :joke:
So, I am fairly well versed in all the theories of reincarnation, rebirth, karma, and so on. I also practiced consistent meditation for probably about 18-20 years. So, none of what you say is new to me at all. The one thing I have definitely come not to accept is any notion of spiritual authority, beyond the possibility of becoming adept at inducing altered states in oneself, and perhaps being able to facilitate others in achieving those states. I don't at all discount the experiences that come in altered states, but I refuse to draw any conclusions from them, because I don't think they provide sufficient evidence to warrant doing so.
If you said you did, it would mean you did have such a memory or memories, given that you answered honestly. I was merely asking out of curiosity, but of course you are under no obligation to answer the question.
You say your attitude is different to many others with the implication seeming to be that you see more than they do. You're not "wedded to a secular-scienfitifc worldview" with the implication seemingly being that the "others" are. I don't believe I am wedded to such a view. The problem is that you seem to assume that others have "underlying inhibitions" rather than simply healthy skepticism, and it comes across as patronizing when you say that these 'inhibitions" are "quite understandable" because they feel their worldview to be "'threatened".
I don't think this characterization is generally accurate (it might be in some instances) any more than the counter claim that those who believe in some form of afterlife do so because they are threatened by the notion of death. That also might be true in some instances, but it is dangerous to generalize. It is really down to the individual because only they can know (even if it might be so that they often, or even most often, don't) what their real motives are for believing whatever they believe.
See, and this is the most irritating thing about Buddhists. All the preaching about being humble and reassessing beliefs, yadayadayada, but then there's this underlying current of "but, of course, I have insights that are beyond you and your 'logic' and only accessible to true believers."
Relativists and Buddhists are the least inclined to actually question the foundations of their own theories.
Not what I meant. I mean that commitment to a secular~scientific view rules out such beliefs and prevents consideration of them.
What I mean is, if you're not attached to such an attitude, then such ideas as these may not appear as threatening or offensive as the plainly do to many of those here. I'm not saying that out of a sense of superiority to others but because I really do understand how outlandish the idea is, from their viewpoint. It's a sensitive and difficult topic. That's what I meant.
You seem to be of the mind that no one with an enlightened view could disagree with you about the evidence in favour of belief in rebirth. Perhaps I am wrong and you are not saying that, but it certainly does not seem like it, to me at least.
Not everybody who disagrees with you is attached to that attitude, me for example. I do not feel threatened or find it offensive to some sensibility I have, I just find it unconvincing.
I would go so far as to say its only a minority of people who disagree with you in this that are doing so as a knee jerk reaction to the idea itself. You show prejudice here, judging those who disagree as biased or otherwise incapable of thinking rationally about the issue, where you actually do not have any evidence thats the case at all.
I think irony is making an appearance here, as it seems like the one that is letting bias and personal sensibility inform their view is in fact you.
I have a suggestion. Put aside the research, no one seems convinced by it anyway. Put aside the scientific reference and address the issue as a matter of pure philosophy. Begin this discussion anew with your own philosophical argument, and discuss that. After all, If the idea cannot stand up to philosophical scrutiny, people are certainly not going to put much stock into it standing up to scientific scrutiny either. Make your case philosophically, and once you have convinced people of that perhaps the science part can be re-introduced with a bit more strength to it.
I dont think that. The notion of possibility or impossibility only exists in the model, which itself is defined by language, not what is real nor not. Sometimes the notions are validated by empirical observation, and sometimes not, but whatever the case, the notions only exist as real in the language. What is observed may validate the model, and we find that which we observe as appearing real, but all we can know is (i) the appearance of reality, and (ii) the models we use to describe that which appears to be real. We may be able to filter some errors in perception, but nothing more can be known than that which appears to be real, and the models we use to describe the appearance. One error in perception is to believe that the appearance necessarily has qualities itself such as possibility or impossibility. But it doesn't. Such notions only have meaningfulness in the model.
I’m not saying that others aren’t thinking rationally. I’m saying that adherence to a secular-scientific worldview inhibits consideration of such ideas. This is based on several of the remarks that have been made, to whit, ‘nonsense’, and ‘pigs might fly’. You think I am being uncharitable?
Quoting DingoJones
I have attempted to do that in this thread. But I brought up the reference to this research in response to statements such as:
Quoting S
To show that there is more than a shred of evidence - which, however, was summarily dismissed as being incredible and obviously flawed.
But apparently I’m the one here exhibiting ‘bias and prejudice’, right?
The word "inhibit" has a negative connotation. It rightly restrains thinking of a lower intellectual standard. That's a good thing, not a bad thing. The claims have been considered, assessed, and justifiably rejected. My use of the phrase "pigs might fly" has been quoted a few times on this forum as though I've said something wrong, but what's actually wrong with that reply, given what it was replying to? I think it was an appropriate response. You said that one might acquire beliefs by recalling a past life, which is roughly on par with saying things like aliens might exist, or a ghost might be haunting my house, or indeed that pigs might fly. I loosely refer to these sort of claims as nonsense. I don't think that that's such a big deal. It's crude terminology, but who cares? I'm not a language snob.
Quoting Wayfarer
I never denied that there was a shred of evidence, so providing a shred of evidence does nothing. My claim was about credible evidence, and you haven't convinced those members who adhere to a higher epistemological standard that the evidence you've brought up is credible. It has been picked apart and discarded. Have you seriously considered the logical consequences of adopting a lower epistemological standard? In light of the logical consequences, I am unwilling to lower my epistemological standard. There is good reason not to do so. It would open the floodgates to all kinds of claims which you yourself would probably judge to be ridiculous and implausible.
Quoting Wayfarer
Right.
You are saying that they have come to the conclusion that your “rebirth” idea is nonsense because of their own bias or lack of consideration. If they have done so, that would be irrational.
Therefore, you are calling them irrational, incapable of giving your idea a fair shake.
You are not accepting that they could have given your idea full rational consideration and found it to be unconvincing and non-sensical.
You did not make a philosophical argument in the OP, you asked a series of questions, made some suggestions but didnt really make a case. Then when you were met with skepticism you brought in the research, which is very weak and unconvincing to people.
So, instead of dismissing the responses as irrational and summary dismissal Im suggesting you accept that the science just isnt convincing and instead make an actual philosophical argument.
Yes, I believe that is the case. It seems to me that you are projecting here. At the very least, you are no more open to your view being wrong than they are that your view is right.
You said it outright.
Quoting DingoJones
Judge for yourself. In this matter there is a strong prejudice against the very notion. That is un-arguable.
I have not been attempting to convince anyone in this thread, and now I’m being criticised for failure to try and convince.
Once more, and for the last time - Stevenson presents volumes of testimonial and documentary evidence for children who claim to recall past lives. But it doesn’t matter what evidence is presented, if only a fool would believe such a thing, right? :smile:
Yes, if you miss out one really important word. Did you do that deliberately? Because it's hard to miss.
And this has been critically assessed and justifiably rejected as insufficient. You don't like that, apparently. But you'd have to actually make the case for a lower standard.
I don't think you understand how "secular-scientific views" work. Of course we can and do consider possibilities of rebirth and even illogic. There's a huge difference, however, between considering and accepting or believing in these things.
But again, that's the continual Buddhist mistake--the assumption that just because I don't agree with you, that I haven't considered, or do not understand your position.
So what are you saying?
Are you actually implying that anything we humans cannot determine...CANNOT be classified as possible?
We do not know if there are any sentient beings on any planet circling the nearest 5 stars to Sol. Absolutely no idea whatsoever.
But it is POSSIBLE there are sentient beings on one of those planets.
It also is POSSIBLE there are no sentient beings on any of them. In fact, it is POSSIBLE there are no life forms of any sort...down to the lowest single cell life...on any of those planets.
You are confusing "possible" with "what is."
For whatever reason you do not want to concede this point.
Bad sportsmanship in a philosophical discussion.
It hasn’t. It’s not as if the cases were re-examined and alternative explanations found for them. If was mainly simply ignored by mainstream science, for the reasons I’ve indicated. Most people will simply be content with the conclusion that the research must have been faulty.
Now that only Earth could provide such conditions seems very unlikely, but is itself not impossible, from a logical and epistemological perspective, although it too may be impossible from an ontological perspective. The point is, we just don't know.
You're testing my patience and I had decided to stop responding to your nonsensical unargued assertions, so stop being a fuckwit and asking me to concede a point when it has not been demonstrated to be incorrect. You don't even seem to have understood what I have been saying, much less to have refuted it.
Of course I do. And the reason I say that rebirth theories are rejected a priori on such grounds, is that it requires the existence of some psychic medium for the transmission of memories totally outside the ken of current science.
Stevenson’s research was just such an attempt. Others are claiming that these efforts ‘were discredited’ without saying by whom, or how. They reject the idea in advance on the grounds that belief in rebirth is like belief in ghosts or other such nonsense. Pointing this out, however, is evidence of bias and prejudice, and of not understanding science.
Perhaps.
But if I may ask, have you considered that they are amenable, and they are being discredited for other reasons? Just like how alternating currents were?
Please don't condescend to tell me what I do or don't understand. Where I came into this thread, I noted that 'evidence of rebirth' is the only post-mortem theory for which there can be evidence, save NDE's. Both are based on individual testimony - on what people say they recall. There can't be any other evidence in such cases.
Quoting Janus
You think that if you were going to conduct a multi-year research project on just this phenomenon that you wouldn't notice this? Stevenson makes a point of saying that many, many cases were rejected on just such grounds - that whenever he thought that there was a possibility of fraud, deception or suggestion, then he would shelve the case. But in those remaining, there were many instances of children recalling specific items of information that could not plausibly have been ascertained by another means.
I know there are cogent criticisms of Stevenson, and I acknowledge the possibility that he may have exhibited confirmation bias. But from my reading he tried to act as a conscientious scientist and to observe the same protocols and practices as a scientist engaged in any other comparable research. But even despite the criticisms that can be made, many of the cases present compelling evidence for the proposition that these children really did recall previous lives.
This is my very last post in this thread and on this subject. I know it's a controversial and even an offensive topic, but I have tried to play it with a straight bat. Once and for all, over and out.
I can't rule that possibility out altogether, but I don't see much evidence in favour of believing it to be so. As far as i know the conflict between Edison and Tesla over alternating versus direct currents was driven, at least on Edison's side, by pecuniary interests, so I'm not convinced there is an instructive analogy to be found there.
Well...that was a rather jerk-off way of handling that.
We aren't in disagreement.
You acknowledge that any of those things are possible...based mostly on the fact that they have not been established as impossible.
That is what I have been saying.
You have been raving on about bullshit that really does not impact on the veracity of what I said...even if you are logically correct in your non-rebuttal rebuttal...which I think you ae not.
Anyway...not sure why you are being such a dick, but it is something you ought really to deal with.
Oh...and you ought to sort out that mistake you are making about the reality/possibility...if it is a mistake. If instead it is just your way of refusing to acknowledge you are wrong...the problem for you magnifies.
Yes, but that is the problem, so if you understand that, then why do you criticize science for not allowing the kind of evidence it cannot rigorously test?
Quoting Wayfarer
Actually it's not even controversial that such "theories" lie outside the purview of science, at least as it is currently understood. I also doubt anyone finds it offensive. I think you are projecting your own demons here.
Then why are you continuing to disagree?
I'm not. I'm saying we agree.
You seem confused.
Sounds to me that if I asserted that 2 + 2 = 4 in base ten...you would disagree in some way...albeit subtle.
That gives me too much power.
Ease back a bit.
Of course I wouldn't disagree, but in any case it's irrelevant to what I have been saying. You have not provided a single argument against anything I have said, and yet you continue to act as if you disagree, while saying that you agree. And then you accuse me of being confused!
I can only conclude that you don't understand what I have been arguing. If you did understand then you could lay it out in your own words, and then go on to show what you think is wrong with the reasoning there, if indeed you do think there is something wrong.
It's not me who needs to "ease back a bit". :roll:
But consider how UFO data, of which there is an overabundance, was never shared with the public with the supposition that it would panic the public.
All the while however, it was extensively funded and studied - under strict secrecy.
And even though there are many credible witnesses, like those of the Phoenix Lights, it is still being publicly debunked.
So, the topic of Rebirth and Past Life Memory Regression may be in the same boat.
And maybe, the big boys just don't want to share - because it's going to raise a lot of uncomfortable questions and remarks, that may lead to something of a Bolshevik Revolution of Theology.
I won't say that's the case, but it seems sketchy either way that it's not a subject more seriously examined.
Surely, neither would I, if I didn't extensively look in to it.
So as you've already mentioned - experience is key.
It reminds me of a story about a man who tried to point out the stars in broad daylight, when all he had to do was simply wait for the night and people would see them all on their own.
And yet you keep on insisting:
Quoting Wayfarer
But still maintain:
Quoting Wayfarer
And:
Quoting Wayfarer
On the one hand you want to reject science and a scientific worldview on the basis that it cannot encompass all of your voodoo. On the other you wish to maintain that dismissing supernatural phenomena is not scientific. You're not being consistent or clear about your position.
But then, I guess when you adhere to a worldview that embraces illogic, you can choose to say anything even contradictory stuff. Kinda like Trump. Are you Trump, Wayfarer?
Nah, just joking.
Nice!
When shall come the night; our very own "cloud of unknowing"?
Blast! You guessed! But at least you now know the most important man in the world will waste time talking to the likes of you.
Isn't he just saying that secular-scientific thought is denying scientific progress, by limiting itself?
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Wayfarer
Seems pretty straightforward.
Self-important, maybe.
And he's off his rocker, so ya never know :P
You cannot both claim that science rules out the possibility of rebirth and that doing so in unscientific. Either you claim that the scientists who do so are being unscientific, or that your theory goes beyond science. You can't have it both ways.
Why not?
Quoting NKBJ
That's the claim; malpractice.
So, for any issue where other answers are possible - such as "maybe" as well as "yes" or "no", offering just one of many possible examples - you have no answer. Binary thinking - "Answer yes or no!" - doesn't help here, I suspect?
Wayfarer is not just claiming malpractice though. Wayfarer wants to simultaneously claim malpractice and that rebirth and such things are beyond the practice/scope/ability of science at all.
I figured he meant beyond the scope of conventional science, considering he presented a scientific study himself.
Quoting Wayfarer
Is my interpretation incorrect @Wayfarer?
Which would be contentious enough, but he literally said:
Quoting Wayfarer
As I said logical possibility is one kind of possibility, epistemological possibility and ontological or physical possibility are others. If you accept only logical possibility then you will indeed rule out "maybes" as Frank Apisa seems to (insofar as I can determine what his position actually is, since he says he agrees with me and acts as though he doesn't).
So, if you say that if something has not been proven to be impossible it therefore must be possible, that is binary thinking, and you are ruling out the "maybe"; the possibility that it is in actuality impossible even though we cannot prove it.
It is impossible to prove that something is impossible except in the case of logical contradictions. So if the position that insists that if something is not proven impossible it must be possible is saying anything more than that it must be logically possible, or epistemologically possible (as far as we know) it must be saying that it is actually or physically possible. This rules out the possibility (the maybe) that it could be actually or physically (given the nature of things) impossible.
I hope that makes what I have been saying more clear.
No, I'm not saying that. More binary thinking? :wink: If something has not been proven impossible, it may just be because we couldn't/didn't find the right evidence. Or it could be that there's something to it after all. We should allow for either of those, I think? [Or anything in between, if there is an 'in between'. :smile: ]
I actually don't believe that it is possible to prove that anything is impossible except in the logical context or within a restricted context. For an example of the latter it is currently impossible for me to levitate or walk through walls. I can prove that by trying to do it. Can I prove that it will always be impossible? No. Can I prove that it is simply physically impossible? No. Can I prove that it is physically possible? No.
I had wanted to finish with this topic, but I have to address this point.
When I say 'scientific secular philosophy', it's a rather less confrontational, or more polite, way of saying 'scientific materialism'. When I use that term, a lot of people take it as a pejorative or an accusation. But scientific materialism of various types is the default attitude of the secular, Western world.
So what I'm saying is that in the scientific materialist view, there's no means to account for children having past life memories. According to it, 'memory' is something encoded in brain matter. So there's simply no way to account for memories being recalled from a previous life, because there's no known means by which such complex information could be transmitted.
If, however, you're not materialist, then at least in principle you might be open to the possibility that there some means (as yet unknown to science) by which memories are transmitted. And as I've never accepted the attitude of scientific materialism, then that possibility doesn't strike me as outlandish. At the very least, it doesn't undermine my overall philosophy.
Hope that is sufficiently clear.
Clear as mud.
There is no such thing as "maybe" in this equation...because anything that is "maybe possible" IS POSSIBLE.
YES, Janus...unless one can establish something as IMPOSSIBLE...it is POSSIBLE.
The nonsense that "maybe possible" exists as an alternative to POSSIBLE is an absurdity.
Eventually you will see that...or perhaps you already do. In which case, eventually you will acknowledge that.
So...
...it remain POSSIBLE that you may be able to walk through walls.
You are confusing "what is"...with POSSIBLE.
Get off it. You are too intelligent to continue this farce.
That right there is the unjustified prejudice you've been accused of all along. How the hell do you suppose science ever arrives at new 'means' (gravity, nuclear forces, electromagnetism, bacteria, ecology...) without being "open to the possibility that there some means (as yet unknown to science)"? Do you suppose that Science just determined what could and could not exists as a 'means' right at the very beginning of the whole project and won't change after that?
Science is perfectly open to the idea of means as yet unknown to science, that's how it discovers new thing for Christ's sake!
What it's not open to is adopting new 'means' as part of its world-view just because they could be the case. Could be isn't good enough because too many things could be the case and we're left with no means to choose between them, so science, quite rationally, uses approaches like Occam's razor to choose between all the things that could be the case. If the phenomena can be explained using forces which we already have good evidence for, then that is the prevailing theory until such time as the evidence is such that it can no longer be thus sustained.
Stevenson's evidence can be explained using only forces that we already have good reason to believe exist (psychology, mainly), so we don't accept his theory.
It's not prejudice, it's not closed-mindedness, it's just rational methods of thinking.
So why do you think this kind of research is regarded as ‘fringe’ or ‘alternative’. Do you think that investigation of children who claim to recall their previous lives is legitimate science? Do you think it would be generally understood as legitimate science?
Stevenson was scientifically trained and believed he was acting in accordance with scientific standards, yet there are many who dispute that such an area of research is a suitable field for scientific analysis, and generally his work is regarded as fringe and was not seriously considered by his academic peers.
Quoting Isaac
That is not so. The subjects in these studies were purported to know facts that they had no means of knowing according to psychology or any other science.
Quoting Isaac
Isn’t than an ironic statement, in light of the above?
Agreed.
Quoting Janus
So, surely we must conclude that anything we believe possible - not probable or likely, only possible - remains so until more evidence clarifies matters?
The research isn't fringe or alternative. Scientists research the testimony of children for all sorts of reasons. My own field, psychology, is greatly constituted from testimony. It's not the research that is regarded as fringe, it's the theory, an important difference. Without the theory, his research is just a collection of stories children told him and some historical facts. Typically in these cases one would perform some basic statistical analysis to see if the coincidence is statistically significant, then if they are, a cohort/control trial would try to determine if the comparison between theory-selected groups and randomly selected groups was statistically significant. I hand this kind of work over to actual statisticians because its often complicated.
Stevenson (as far as I can tell) hasn't even passed the first hurdle, whether the coincidence he's noticed is statistically significant. But let's assume he has, because that's where the interesting part is philosophically.
He then has to come up with a theory to explain that coincidence. It's this theory which is 'legitimate' science or not. The theory that they recall their past lives because we have souls which carry memories and exist in some unknown realm, passed on by some unknown mechanism postulates the existence of some really huge forces. But almost anything could explain this phenomena. We could be avatars in a computer game. We might be long-lived aliens, transferred from body to body. We might 'pick up' memories like radio waves...
So we need some means of choosing which of these alternatives we are going to investigate using our cohort/control trials. We could choose our favourite to investigate first, we could choose the one that's most popular. But neither of these are reasonable choices (they have no underlying justification). One method of choosing which does have some underlying justification is Occam's razor. "Let's see if all this can be explained by what we already know first". The justification fir this is that a phenomena explained by what we already know is slightly more likely to be the case (afterall, we already know its prerequisites are in place).
So first we should presume that this some psychological phenomenon, and test for that first. All the while that theory remains un refuted (ie it has not been rejected at a statistical significance) then it is reasonable to act as if it were the case.
None of this prevents you from selecting a theory for your own reasons. Maybe this one comforts you. As long as its not completely refuted by the evidence, it's reasonable for to hold it. But it is more reasonable for scientists to hold the theories they do because they also have a reason for choosing the test hypothesis.
Right! Thanks. Glad we got to the bottom of that, then.
It has, in this very discussion. It doesn't exactly require a team of scientists and a lab. It's not the kind of claim which requires a thorough examination. There are obvious alternative explanations which have been pointed out to you, which haven't been justifiably ruled out, but which you seem to have ruled out nevertheless, or seem to be deliberately ignoring. If "mainstream" or rather [I]proper[/I] science has not dedicated a great deal of time on this "research", there's probably a good reason for that. But you're predisposed against it. You already have a favoured explanation, an explanation which you find emotionally appealing, and you're sticking to it. You explain away reasonable criticism as bias, which you put down to the subject being a taboo, which is pretty ridiculous. I put it to you that that is just your rationalisation, nothing more.
But they [I]are[/I] like those sort of claims! How are they not? They are both not subject to the scientific method, as Janus rightly pointed out. In both cases, one could point to incredibly weak evidence, like a relatively high number of personal testimonies. In both cases, more plausible alternative explanations can't be ruled out. So what's the supposed difference?
Once again, if you want the testimonial evidence to be accepted as credible or sufficient, then you need to make the case for a lower epistemological standard. [I]That's a must[/I]. As things stand, it's not suggestive of your favoured explanation over others. That would only be possible with a less reasonable standard, where one can indulge in special pleading, where you subject your favoured claims to a different standard than those relating to ghosts and the like, which you want to disassociate yourself with.
Yes, and subjects can appear to know facts that they appear have had no means of knowing, for perfectly normal reasons (such as coincidence and acquiring knowledge deceptively), so it is rational to want to rule them out first before even testing hypotheses which introduce new forces.
The accusation I brought you up on wasn't about the quality of his evidence, it was about the theory proposed to explain it.
That's a pretty clear indication of your own bias. You've already accepted that they're [i]recalling[/I] things, even though that's just one possible explanation, and the least plausible, given the lack of scientific evidence in its favour. It's more plausible that there was interference invalidating the results. In other words, the children were simply trained to say the right things at the right time.
Quoting Wayfarer
For sake of clarity, it is compelling only to those with lesser critical thinking skills or who willingly adopt a lower epistemological standard.
Well, I'm not sure what definition of materialism you're working with, but if you give it a moment's consideration, you may realize that it's compatible with accepting that things like rebirth and souls could exist. It would merely assume that these are heretofore undiscovered/not understood matters.
In other words, they would say, that once what is thought to be supernatural has been proven to exist, it must be considered natural.
The traditional opposition of materialism to idealism or religion stems from the lack of proof for the claims of the latter, not because the former is dogmatically unable to understand or accept them.
I'm working with the definition of materialism that is commonly accepted by the majority of working academics and scientists. This holds that the basis of individuals and personality and memory is molecular in nature, and can only be transmitted by genetic means. But if you agree that such things could exist, and simply haven't been discovered yet, then really we have no argument.
Quoting S
That's not the case. There are thousands of cases, and in many of them, there is testimony concerning specific items of information for which there is no explanation as to how the individual concerned could know. All you're saying is that it is accepted that Stevenson's research has been discredited - you know it must have been, right? There's no way it could have been true, right?
Quoting S
Testimonies corroborated by other evidence, including documentary evidence and so on. And in these cases, testimonies are central.
The 'alternative explanation' can only be that these cases didn't remember any such things, and Stevenson was duped into accepting falsehoods presumably by his own confirmation bias and sloppy research methods.
Quoting Isaac
Stevenson's theory was simply that the evidence suggested the children did indeed recall things from a previous life. He didn't propose any theory as to how this occurred which remains an open question.
The courts seem to do it.
Logically and epistemologically speaking, yes. I am holding open the possibility that at least some things which we cannot prove to be impossible, actually are impossible simply due to the nature of things, in other words that at least some things may simply be ontologically or physically impossible. This seems obvious to me, and I am genuinely perplexed that others seem to be having difficulties with it, even though no one seems to be able to explain what the problem is.
Haha, yeah, that's a real charitable interpretation of all that I'm saying, Wayfarer. Good job. :lol: :up:
Of course there are other explanations! Why are you taking it for granted that the situations are not set up? Because you think this Stevenson is an honourable guy? Because you think that it's impossible that he could have been duped? Because it would throw a spanner into the works, and you really can't bare to accept that?
Quoting Wayfarer
Saying that testimonies are central is just to say that incredibly weak evidence is central. And what documentary evidence? You mean historical facts which could have easily been passed on to the children? Coincidental birth marks which could easily be exploited for personal gain? Yeah, those sort of things are a smoking gun. You got me there. Damn. Must have been past lives.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, exactly. So you do acknowledge the alternative explanation. The [i]more plausible[/I] alternative explanation. No need for scare quotes.
You're acting just like one of those people who think that magic tricks by magicians are real. They almost automatically rule out the most obvious explanation, and then come up with rationalisations. "But it's on TV!", "But he's built a career out of it!", "But he's an expert, and he seems really genuine!", and so on, and so forth. They're almost always fans, kind of like how you are. You are an admirer of Stevenson's work, yes? Jump to his defence? Own a book by him, perhaps?
The courts! Thank you for bringing that up. How do you think that the courts would respond to attempts to allow testimony of alleged past lives into admission?
Quoting S
I believe so. Quoting S
It’s not impossible, but he was not a dupe. He went to great lengths to rule out fraud. At the very least, the kinds of information he collated rule out anything but extremely sophisticated fraud or auto-suggestion.
On a side note - do you know where the expression ‘the devil’s advocate’ originated?
Your most welcome my good friend. I don't know how they would respond to attempts to allow testimony of alleged past lives into admission, that is up to judge, lawyer, and jury.
But . . . courts certainly permit: "a relatively high number of personal testimonies" . . . "Testimonies corroborated by other evidence, including documentary evidence and so on. And in these cases, testimonies are central."
Funny you should bring that up. In a court of law it has been shown over and over and over that eye witness accounts are very unreliable. Laughably unreliable. Almost anything, even a strong argument, carries more weight.
If this research relies on that, and cannot corroborate the theory with real experiments and other methods of testing then that should be a red flag. Skepticism and more intense scrutiny are do, not acceptance of the theory.
Others have done so, and done a better job of it. You haven't presented anything which could be counted as evidence for recollections of past lives [i]over alternative explanations[/I], which is pretty damn important, don't you think? I'm pretty sure the scientific method doesn't permit arbitrarily picking a theory over others because it is more emotionally appealing.
Quoting Wayfarer
You don't make a name for yourself like that without putting a lot of effort in. But that certainly doesn't count for much, if anything. Uri Geller and Darren Brown are good examples to bring up. How do you think a conversation with one of their fans would go? It would kind of resemble the way that you're replying here, don't you think?
You must at least have an inkling. You're just withholding your thinking because it suits your agenda, which is to attack what I say.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Bravo! You successfully singled out something I said and took it out of context to score a point. We're talking about extraordinary claims here, obviously. Do I have to make that clear every single time?
But what ‘alternative explanations’ could there be, other than Stevenson being wrong and the witnesses lying? If someone says he remembers something that he could not have known by any means other than actually remembering it, then what ‘alternative explanation’ would cover it?
Stevenson, again, held a privately endowed chair at a University. He was by no means a sideshow psychic.
You're working with a very narrow definition of materialism, trying to ascribe this to scientists generally, all in order to make strawpersons of them so you can condescendingly pooh-pooh them.
Scientist currently believe that genes and the molecular structure of the brain are what creates consciousness, because there is no proven account of anything else. That's how science works.
That the court system is extremely unscientific is obvious. Nevertheless, it regularly permits eye witness accounts that are very unreliable. "Laughably unreliable". And because of this there is cross examination, so that, as you say: "Almost anything, even a strong argument, carries more weight."
Oh, and by the bye, his Wiki page alone suggests that a number of scientists took him seriously as an academic, but ultimately rejected his conclusions. So, your absurd claim that scientists and philosophers are unable to understand or open their minds to such phenomena is just that: absurd.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Stevenson#Criticism
Exactly, and in the case of this Stevenson fellow the cross examination resulted in a rational rejection of the testimony and the research that depended on it.
If he is right, then he needs to come back with more and better evidence, and prove his theory just like everyone has too. This is how scientific consensus works
Why would you do that? You haven't ruled that out. I don't need an alternative to the alternative.
Quoting Wayfarer
You haven't given any examples of that. If you disagree, then explain how you [i]reasonably[/I] ruled out the possibility that it was known simply through being told.
Quoting Wayfarer
Ooooh, impressive! :roll:
Ayn Rand was a philosopher, and the author of a best selling book! William Lane Craig is a professor, and has a PhD!
Not demonstrable on the basis of anything I’ve said. There is an obvious conflict between such beliefs and scientific materialism.
I've read the Wiki page. Note this paragraph:
So, well aware of the criticisms, but again, I don't find it persuasive, in light of the volume of data.
Quoting NKBJ
Aha! You win the lucky door prize. In actual fact, I think there is a new consensus emerging against this very idea, but the fact that you state it so baldly is very helpful, thank you. So let's just reflect on that before considering what that might be.
Quoting DingoJones
Who is it that said 'science progresses one funeral at a time', and why did he say it?
That comes as no surprise. That's why what he says can't be trusted, and that's why we'd have to look into the matter ourselves. Well, not all of what he says can't be trusted, but the certainly the spin.
You're dissembling, S. All you've said from the very beginning of this thread is, 'I don't care what "evidence" this Stevenson says he's got, we know that this reincarnation stuff is bullshit. And we know it, because science says it couldn't be true, so it's not scientific to believe such things'. Is that a fair paraphrase?
This is the crack in the egg, you know.
I do not know, but presumably he was speaking to its fallibility. Thats true, scientific consensus can and has been wrong....then through science corrected. Thats why science is such a powerful tool/method, it is self correcting.
When no one believed Darwin, he just showed them more evidence until others were forced to accept it. Thats what this Stevenson dude needs to do, and hasnt. If the facts are in his side he will be vindicated. So far that hasnt been shown yet you remain convinced...the charges laid to you on this matter remain accurate.
Funnily enough, no. That was an amusingly ridiculous twist on what I said. But, as amusing as that was, it is an evasion nevertheless. To remain on point, you must explain why I would need an alternative to the alternative I've already given. If I have to, I'll answer it for you. Here goes. I don't need an alternative to the alternative I've already given. That you just don't like the alternative I've given and have responded with red herrings is not a valid response.
What do you mean? I have no agenda . . . and I have I attacked what you say? I had no intention of that.
Quoting S
I scored a point? Yay!!!
But, extraordinary claims are made in court too. So, if such ridiculous unscientific testimony is permitted there, where people are sentenced to life, and sometimes to death, why is it inappropriate to permit it here?
Quoting Wayfarer
And there you go contradicting yourself again.
Quoting Wayfarer
The size of a pile of trash doesn't magically turn the trash into gold.
Alright, fine. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
And, out of those small number of cases where it has been admitted, how has it fared?
Also, I've already accepted that it is evidence, the issue is one of strength or credibility of evidence. I shouldn't have to keep clarifying this.
Well said. :grin:
Well, he can't, because he's dead (unless, of course.....)
But in all honesty - how do you think you would go trying to raise a grant for this kind of research? I think it would be a career-killer in almost any university, wouldn't it?
Quoting S
hmmm, let's see:
Quoting S
Quoting S
(On first introduction of Stevenson)
Quoting S
Quoting S
So I think you've made your point perfectly clearly. And I respect it: as I've said from the outset, I get why you or anyone wouldn't want to acknowledge these stories could be true. It's a taboo subject in Western culture, and there are solid reasons for that.
Quoting NKBJ
I thought for a moment there you might have understood what I was driving at, but regrettably not.
Quite. But the same can be said of the critics.
I was reading an essay in Aeon about research in epigenetics:
This apparently is being validated in numerous studies. It overturns what had been a pretty hard and fast dogma in neo-Darwinian orthodoxy, namely, that 'acquired characteristics' (let alone memories!) can't be inherited. But now it appears that they might be. So if there's some way that 'memories can be transmitted between generations', then at least there's an analogy or metaphor for the possibility of this past-life memory phenomenon.
And don't think that I'm just going to stop pointing out that your last several replies to me have been blatant red herrings.
And, why is it 'taboo'? I mean - serious question. Not just trying to score points or annoy you. I think we would both agree that such beliefs are taboo in mainstream Western cultural discourse. So the question is, why?
The problem is that you have no way to assess the likelihood that there is a genuine case.
That just goes to show that you've hardly been paying any attention to what I've been saying. Do you have any recollection of what I've actually said? I have made clear my acceptance of the possibility a number of times. You even quoted my response to that. Remember, "pigs might fly"? The obvious hint being that mere possibility is woefully insufficient, and that the possibility of extraordinary events you're biased towards can be met with the possibility of extraordinary events which you react to with irrational disdain, even though they're roughly on par. It's an effective tactic for bringing out double standards. No one [i]likes[/I] their precious trash being compared to flying pigs, ghosts, the flying spaghetti monster, and so on. But what's brilliant is that it doesn't matter whether they like it or not, because it ain't about that. It's about logic.
And strength of belief counts for nothing. Come on, Wayfarer. You should know that. Emphasising that you "really do believe" doesn't mean jack.
I don't see the connection.
Quoting Wayfarer
You're conflating our growing understanding of how DNA, RNA, certain viruses in our cells, and possibly even the good bacteria in your entire body, all contribute to how your body works, including your brain. We've known for a long time now that certain environmental stimuli can activate, deactivate, and alter any of those components for generations to come. It has nothing to do with spirits or souls.
:wink:
And why is it that you give this one farfetched possibility special treatment? Also, you really should put the word "memories" in scare quotes, like BBC News did when they reported on this. That article was written by a professional, who goes by professional standards. A health and science reporter working for BBC News has to abide by high journalistic standards to do with accuracy and impartiality, whereas you don't seem to care a great deal about that sort of thing. You seem more like a Fox News type, given your style of writing here in this discussion.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25156510
You mean, other than the documented cases being discussed? My judgement is that there are too many corroborations in those cases to be dismissed as coincidence. You might disagree, which is perfectly OK.
Quoting S
It means you don't want to acknowledge what you've said. When I read it back to you, you sidestep it.
Quoting NKBJ
The Buddhist view of re-birth is that there is no 'spirit or soul' in the first place - and yet they accept the veracity of past-life memories. I think the idea that there is a means by which memories can be transmitted between generations provides an at least in-principle analogy for the means by which it could occur.
Furthermore, the very fact of epigenetics and transferred memories is changing the very notion of what 'inheritance' amounts to. It used to be completely ruled out, but experimental evidence has forced changes. As you say, this is how science works. And as in physics, biology is become less and less focused on so-called 'fundamental particles', however conceived, that are the purported grounds of agency. In other words, the hold of materialism is weakening. Of course it's a long way from anything like belief that there could really be past-life memories, but it's perhaps not as remote as it might have been a few generations ago.
I don't disagree if by that you mean that I believe there are not "too many corroborations in those cases to be dismissed as coincidence"; I disagree in the sense that I don't believe that whether or not there are sufficient corroborations such that they ought not be dismissed as coincidence could be adequately assessed by anyone other than the one who spoke with the children and other testifiers and compiled the data. I mean he would be in the best position to judge, provided he was not biased in some way; and even then i don't see how he could definitely know it.
If for example, it was being claimed that children knew things they could not possibly have known by "normal" means, then those purported facts that purportedly could not be known by normal means would need to be established as well-documented facts and not merely hearsay. And then it would need to be established that the parents and children could not possibly have had any "normal" access to those facts. All of that is nothing more nor less than what scientific rigour demands. I doubt it would be possible to establish all that, which means that this could not count as a scientifically rigorous study, for the simple reason that it relies too much on hearsay and anecdote.
The additional point is that I can't see how it could possibly matter whether we are reincarnated or not, if we have no way of definitely knowing one way or the other, and even then...! As I said before, if I had an experience of remembering past lives that was vivid and compelling enough I might come to believe in rebirth, but I would never expect this to be sufficient evidence for anyone else to believe and I can't see how that belief would change what I do in this life in any case, because the simple fact of reincarnation would not tell me anything about what I ought to do, or how I ought to live; that would require further items of faith or vivid and compelling experiences. And I could never rule out the possibility that I might be under some kind of illusion or delusion.
The other thing which no one seems to have mentioned here, is that even if such stories were accepted as veracious, a better explanation might be that the children were somehow accessing some kind of collective memory.
I've acknowledged what I've said. I haven't acknowledged your uncharitable characterisation of it, for obvious reasons. And besides, what's wrong with sidestepping a sidestep? You've completely sidetracked the discussion we were having about the alternative explanation you don't like. You know, the one you don't like because it isn't as magical. But then you don't like explanations which are too obviously magical, either. You're picky. It has to be magical, but subtle enough to be bullshitted into appearing more credible than things like flying pigs and ghosts.
Exactly. With this in mind, the question is why Wayfarer is trying to sell this as something that it's not, and why he is giving special treatment to one farfetched possibility over others, and why he is coming up with this bullshit rationalisation about it being a taboo subject. And the best explanation for that seems to be that he is biased.
Actually, he has mentioned the conflict with "mainstream" science a few times, which is basically an admission that it's not proper science. (It fails the high standards).
That’s what the research comprises, though. Stevenson's program ran from the early 1980'2 until his death in 2007. He did a lot of field trips and interviewed thousands of subjects. He was well aware of the scope for fraud, wishful thinking and deception, and tried to prevent those factors distorting his cases. The examples I've mentioned above are but four out of a much larger set.
Quoting S
What is the alternative explanation? Isn't it that Stevenson was wrong/misled/duped?
Yes, basically. I asked you how you can reasonably rule that out. You evaded that question. And bear in mind that reason isn't the same as faith. Having faith in Stevenson or those he interviewed is not a valid response.
I've acknowledged that the possibility of past-life memories doesn't conflict with my philosophy. If that amounts to 'bias' then so be it.
But the really salient post in all this was this one:
Quoting NKBJ
That is exactly what I mean by 'scientific materialism', and why it conflicts with such beliefs. (Note also that the ontological conclusion about 'genes and molecular structures' is presented as being 'how science works', when it's actually a metaphysical statement based on a methodical postulate, although I don't expect this to be understood.)
Quoting S
OK - I don't believe Stevenson was duped or mislead. Obviously, the consensus on the Wikipedia page is that 'scientists believe' that he was so duped. But I don't agree. Furthermore, the only thing that would come close to evidence for that claim, would be to re-investigate all the cases, and demonstrate that all of the many pieces of evidence were the consequence of confirmation bias and wishful thinking. And I don't believe anyone will do that. They will console themselves with the simple belief, that it simply must have been the case.
And that, I swear, is my last word, for at least the next two days, as I have other duties pressing, and really can't repeating the same thing over and over.
He can be aware of fraud, wishful thinking and deception while still drawing the wrong conclusions about the data based on confirmation bias, or even his own wishful thinking. Those are not mutually exclusive. People are aware of wishful thinking yet still succumb to it, as with bias and many other things so your counter argument holds no water.
You keep going back to this, but that's missing the point. I'm not taking issue with the possibility. I'm taking issue, as have others, with claims of yours like that the evidence is suggestive of past lives. I'm taking issue whenever your wording is impartial, inaccurate, begging the question, or an instance of loaded language. I'm taking issue in how you've responded to my claim about the credibility of the evidence. I'm taking issue, as are others, about your faulty reasoning, like when you appeal to high numbers. You claim you know about the scientific method, yet you make a very basic error like that. Did you not know about this:
But even that is more in line with the scientific method than what you're talking about. At least an example of induction by simple enumeration could consist in actually seeing[/I] hundreds of white swans before concluding that all swans are white. That [i]actual seeing is a stronger form of evidence than hearing testimony about white swans.
It's shocking that you're continuing to address that straw man of my claim, in spite of your doing so having been exposed as fallacious, and in spite of this discussion being a public record of what has been said, meaning that anyone here can go back and check for themselves. Page 1, near the top of the page, third reply to the opening post, first sentence.
He says he "tried to prevent those factors distorting his cases" but how do we know this is so? We rely on his word, no? Bias could cause him to deceive even himself. The important thing about scientific studies is that they should be able to be precisely repeated, which allows others to check the results, which is obviously not possible in this case.
Sure, roger all that. And read up on the replication crisis. The point is, were he reporting asthma, or moles, nobody would think twice about it, but as the claims are regarded as extraordinary, then [s]the goalposts are shifted[/s] much higher standards are demanded.
Also if a study indicates some conclusion, then some plausible mechanism for said conclusion which is consistent with other accepted scientific findings and theories will strengthen the plausibility of the conclusion. For example think about the epidemiological studies that indicate that smoking increases the risk of lung and other cancers.
The same kind of thing happens in other areas of PSI (parapsychology) research. I recall a statement by a leading sceptic - one of the "professional debunkers" - who acknowledged that the statistical support for remote viewing would be accepted were it for some everyday kind of claim, but because of the 'extraordinary' nature of this claim, that 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence'. And then the whole argument becomes one about statistics, and what might constitute 'extraordinary evidence', not about the actual subject matter. But then, the whole area of PSI research and the professional debunkers is extremely nasty and quite often vitriolic. So, I think the philosophical question is - why is that? Why is it that evidence of anything like psychic phenomena or past-life memories provokes such vitriol? I think the answer to that question, which really is the philosophical question, is pretty clear, as I said - that it does appear to undermine the consensus attitude of scientific materialism by which a lot of people make decisions on what is and isn't to be accepted.
Just to be clear I don't by any means insist or even assume that we just die and cease to exist; I have suspended judgement on all that, but I definitely try to avoid indulging in wishful thinking because I can't see any value in it. I think whichever way you look at it what is important is this life and how you able to live it; and that is the important thing; to really live it.
Anyway, sermon over...
In the Buddhist view of life, the inevitability of re-birth is never regarded as an unambiguously good thing. (The exception is schools such as Pure Land, in which re-birth in the 'land of bliss' is said to be certain through faith in Amitabha's vow.) But often in Buddhist literature, the mere fact of re-birth is not viewed with any kind of elation. (Likewise, the existence of paranormal powers, 'siddhi', are regarded as a dangerous distraction from the path - even if they're understood to be real.)
I suppose my attitude is to be able to regard such matters with neither dread nor fascination - that, I think, is a 'middle way' kind of attitude. And I agree with your sentiment about 'really living' but in the hustle of day-to-day life I find it's often hard to be sure if I'm really doing that.
By the way, there's a 1999 interview with Stevenson here. The book that is mentioned, Old Souls, was the first thing I read about him.
Of course they are, and rightly so. We've been over this. If you claim otherwise, then as I've said multiple times now, you have a burden of justification. And you just won't be able to reasonably meet that burden. The logical consequences would work against you. When confronted with the logical consequences of applying the same standard as ordinary claims across the board, it seems you'd go for special pleading in order to exclude those logical consequences which you'd find objectionable, given how you've reacted to my earlier mentioning of flying pigs, ghosts, and the like. You don't want to include them. They aren't your cup of tea, like past lives are. But that's not being reasonable. Special pleading is an informal logical fallacy.
Good God, I hate speculation, but I love to speculate. :kiss:
Quoting Janus
I'm sorry, I can't be bothered to decipher the nuances of types-of-impossibility. Our position here is simple, and I think it can be expressed clearly:
We begin with a list of possibilities, many with little or no accompanying evidence. When we discover that one of them is impossible, we strike it from the list. The concepts remaining in the list are possible, as far as we know, and as far as the evidence takes us. The arrival of new evidence will (obviously) be followed by whatever reassessments are necessary and appropriate.
Doesn't that about cover it? :chin: :smile:
I rather think that science has no belief about "what creates consciousness", as there is (as yet) insufficient evidence to reach a conclusion. There are plenty of theories, and plenty of work going on to extend, and maybe even justify, these theories. That is how science works.
I think this is the core of our problems, in this topic, and in many others too. We insist - and why not? :smile: - on discussing matters that aren't cut and dried. There isn't as much evidence as we would like. There are lots of unknowns, and some of them are difficult or impossible to overcome. That's life. We need to get past these obstructions, perhaps by getting better at handling these uncertain matters?
Whew! That's a relief.
You are just repeating the same contradictory stuff over and over. You want to claim science is inherently inadequate, but somehow also claim that it supports your view. Any time someone here refutes your position on the former, you flee to the latter and vice versa. That's called being a moving target and it's bad philosophy.
Blunt. Beautifully blunt. I like it. :grin:
What perplexes me is anyone who cannot see that if one has not established a thing as IMPOSSIBLE...it is at very least...POSSIBLE.
You continue to confuse what actually MAY BE...with what is possible.
If there are no life forms of any sort on any of the planets circling the nearest 5 stars to Sol...
...it is impossible for there to be any sentient life on any of those planets.
That is a given.
But right now...here...if the question is, "Is it possible that there are sentient beings living on one of the planets circling the nearest 5 stars to Sol?...
...the answer is absolutely YES.
It is possible. Just as sure as it is POSSIBLE there are no sentient life forms on any of those planets.
The possibility has nothing to do with the Reality. It has to do with establishing the reality.,
But...apparently you cannot see that...or cannot acknowledge that.
Way it goes.
That's fine; you are under no obligation to do that.
Quoting Pattern-chaser
Apparently for you it does. :smile:
I do my best :blush: