BS: Another reincarnation story.

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: freda underhill
Date: 06 Jan 06 - 09:56 PM

I believe in reincarnation, but have never had any good reason to support that belief. I was interested in a statement on this thread that reincarnation has never been proven - of course it hasn't, how can it ever be proved, except by sopmeone who can time travel or something. The first link on this thread (about the young boy who believed he was a pilot in a previous life) is hard to answer.

I read a book years ago called Across Time and Death: A Mother's Search for Her Past Life Children (Cockell 1993), which I found pretty compelling. But I have just found this link which pretty much discredits the arguments in the book - A Case of Reincarnation -- Reexamined

It is pretty easy to take any story and analyse it an discredit it, using certain lines of logic. Analysts who do this are credited with having a "rejection mentality". Just as some people may be gullible and have a predisposition to believe certain things, so others have a predisposition NOT to believe.

It is important to remember that opinions have no bearing on whether an event has occurred or not.

therefore, while reincarnation may not have been proven, for me it has also not been disproven.

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: freda underhill
Date: 06 Jan 06 - 10:03 PM

I read recently that one in every 18 people has a third nipple. This suprised me - that means I may know several people with a third nipple. It seems like an even greater proportion of people in Britain believe in reincarnation.

Facts and Figures of Reincarnation Belief in Europe

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jan 06 - 10:05 PM

The guy who was running a stained glass studio? They aren;t usually in scholarly literature AFAIK.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: bobad
Date: 06 Jan 06 - 10:08 PM

"Mr. Benedict has been closely involved in the mechanics of cellular communication and research dealing with the relationship of light to life called Quantum Biology. This research is providing dramatic new perspectives on how biological systems work. Mr. Benedict has found that living cells can respond very quickly to light stimulation resulting in, among other things, high speed healing. He is a researcher, inventor and lecturer who holds six U.S. patents."

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: freda underhill
Date: 06 Jan 06 - 10:23 PM

Ian Stevenson, M.D. is Director, Division of Personality Studies and Carlson Professor of Psychiatry, both a part of the Department of Psychiatric Medicine, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia. He is a researcher in the study of reincarnation as well as being the leading scientist studying children who claim to remember previous lives.

he has written a number of books including Unlearned Language:
New Studies in Xenoglossy. This book examines two cases where people speak a language that he or she has not learned normally, in childhood or later. The major part of the book is devoted to lengthy reports of the two cases. Transcripts of tape recordings provide evidence that the subjects could speak the foreign language intelligently and were not just repeating a few phrases of a language that they may have learned casually in some other way. The results of extensive inquiries into the possibility that either subject might have learned normally in early life the foreign language he spoke in childhood were negative in each case.

another book by Stephenson, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, examines cases when children remember past lives, call out for relatives (in their past life) by name, and recognize their old past-life neighborhoods. Stevenson has always been careful to say his work is only "suggestive of reincarnation".

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Jan 06 - 10:32 PM

60 virgins, Bill? To which religion do you plan to adhere? *G*

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Pied Piper
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 07:31 AM

There is an autistic UK adult (I forget his name) that was able to learn to speak Icelandic in one day.
Now I know Icelandic and English related languages but still it's pretty impressive.
I think the problem is underestimating the potential of the neocortex of certain individuals.
For every square centimetre of the neocortex a baby will make 30,000 new synaptic connections per second for 4 years.
This should not surprise us; in that period babies turn themselves into walking and talking individuals with personalities.

PP

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 10:32 AM

The truth is that a much larger number oif people over the history of the race have believed in reincarnation in one for m or another than have believed in the one-life model. The personal experiences that are pointed to in the references above, and the many many more reports in the literature, indicate that the one-life model simply doesn't account for the anomalies reported. As the saying goes, if there is one white crow, then it is no longer true that all crows are black.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: bobad
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 11:05 AM

For a scientific take on the NDE :

http://leda.lycaeum.org/Documents/The_Ketamine_Model_of_the_Near_Death_Experience.9264.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 11:06 AM

"...the one-life model simply doesn't account for the anomalies..."

not in the simplistic terms usually employed, it doesn't. A basic explanation of electricity "doesn't account for" ball lightning, either, but that's no reason to propose some metaphysical entity appearing as a manifestation of heat & light. The reincarnation theory creates more questions than it answers.

Do you hear that muffled rustling? That's William of Ockham mumbling, "Didn't anyone LISTEN?"

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 11:12 AM

I demur, Bill D; it requires a simple, single postulate: that the seat of self is different from the body, and is capable of lifetimes in series.

This single postulate implies a lot of things, you're right. But so did, for example, Copernicus' rejection of the terra-centric model. A lot of things that had been comfortably answered were thrown into disarray by Copernicus and, about 80 years later, Galileo Galilei. It upset those married to the existing paradigm, to the extent, as you know, that G. was hauled before the Inquisition and required to recant his assertions.

Nevertheless, it moves.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 12:39 PM

...and a simple, single postulate is good to illustrate the logical truth "From false premises, anything follows." Copernicus' theory was testable, but was, as you note, resisted until ways were devised to demonstrate and support it.

There are so many ways to explain the 'notion' of past lives with REAL data, that propping it up with recounting of coincidences, interesting stories and wishful thinking requires a pretty elaborate bit of Gerrymandering of the logical landscape.

So VERY many ideas are put forth these days prefaced by, "I believe that..." and then defended by reference to almost any collection of vaguely supportive affirmations by others who also believe.
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"Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities."        Aristotle
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"Results! Why man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work"   - Thomas Alva Edison

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Religion (n) - The awe in which we hold our ignorance.
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"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned."

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Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 12:51 PM

"I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome." —George W. Bush

Just had to throw that in, Bill. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 12:56 PM

LOL,Ebbie...yeah, that says a lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 01:07 PM

Bill,

Dismissing such a wide range of experiences as "mere vignettes" ignores the statistically significant volume of data.

Testability? Here's a test from those who practice traumatic incident reduction as a therapeutic approach. Conditions resolve when such "past life" experiences are addressed, and persist unresolved when they are ignored.

This of course does not mean that past lives are "real" -- just that they play a role in the psychosomatic vectors of unwanted physical and emotional syndromes.

And if you want to trade aphorisms, I recall Sherlock Holmes saying something about the improbable being necessary when all other explanations are ruled out; something like that, anyway.

Anyway, I think we are both coming from positions of opinion, really. I can't put a lot of words down here that will change yours. It is the nature of conviction to define our experiences in keeping with its mandates.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 01:47 PM

*smile*..well, I think Sherlock had a point, only you & I 'might' differ about the way we decide when " ...all other explanations are ruled out..."

Indeed...I will easily concede that in therapy, concepts can be employed, (metaphorically, I would hope) that do not necessarily pass a 'reality litmus test'!

Yeah, we obviously do approach certain issues from different ummmm...directions, but I don't quite like lumping it all together as "opinon".....Galileo's "it still moves" says pretty clearly that some opinions remain flatly wrong, no matter how fervently they are held, or by whom. The corollary is that "not all opinions can be RIGHT simultaneously" unless you allow unlimited equivocation about personal definitions. (I wish I had a $ for every time someone has said "well, it's true for ME!")(and another $ for every time I bit my tongue and didn't try to explain it..*grin*)

ah, well....I take comfort in my 'personal' interpretation of Yogi Berra's aphorism..."If folks are gonna stay away in droves, you can't make 'em!"

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: freda underhill
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 01:54 PM

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,

        Before we too into the Dust descend;

        Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,

        Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and---sans End!

      
       Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare,

        And those that after a TO-MORROW stare,

        A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries

        "Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There!"


        Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd

        Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust

        Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn

        Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.



        Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise

        To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;

        One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;

        The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.



        Myself when young did eagerly frequent

        Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument

        About it and about: but evermore

        Came out by the same Door as in I went.

                        

Omar Khayyam (1048-1122)

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 02:09 PM

Wal, Occam's razor is a beautiful thing, but paradigms shift when the count of anomalies grows too large or cannot be readily blocked out.

The good Doctor Harvey, he who first documented the pumping motion of the heart and the circulatory system's general anatomy, was up against a deeply embedded model of circulation that traced its origins all the way back to Galen, who had been the primary authority on medical models since the 2d century A.D. Galen's model of tides and humours looks antiquated and superstitious today... but for 1400 years, it had explained medical problems and served as a robust model. Harvey's research flew in the face of this entrenched paradigm, and the furor that arose from it was quite a tumult. If Harvey had not been an aristocrat and established at court he might well have been ridden out of town on a rail, like Ignaz Semmelweiss, who also suggested an effective improved model that went against the teaching of Galen's version of humours.


Your argument on behalf of testability is admirable. I would be curious to hear what kind of a test case you think would serve to elucidate the postulate of a non-material component to life organisms.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 02:28 PM

I wish I had your faith, Bill. ;-) Life would be so much simpler.

Mind you, I did have your faith until I hit about my mid-20's. Life was simpler then. I was mostly concerned about when I was going to meet "Miss Right".

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 02:59 PM

Well, Bill did meet Miss Right, (bless 'em both) so he doesn't have that worry.

However, Bill, you say : "The corollary is that "not all opinions can be RIGHT simultaneously" unless you allow unlimited equivocation about personal definitions."

Wouldn't you agree that the opinion of someone who has experienced something may be of greater worth than the opinion of someone who has not?

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 03:07 PM

It makes sense to me. It is also a given that one of the first reactions of thehuman system to that which lies beyond experience is to make nothing of it as quick as possible.

There is a story, and I do not know if it apocryphal or not, that the first Spanish seamen to arrive in the Carribean islands rowed ashore in a longboat; the indigenous people welcomed them, but wondered where they had come from; they had never seen a ship, a large sailing craft, and even though the Spanish vessel was plainly anchored off shore, it too three days for the locals to come around to seeing it was there.

A good story, whether accurate or not! :)

It has been said that the world can be divided into those who have been outside their bodies, and those who have not. Those who have not have a natural effort to make into a solid that which communicates with them; receiving communications from something non-material would rattle their cages a bit much. COnversely there is a natural effort from those who have been outside their bodies and are to some degree conscious of that fact, to try and make the apparent solidity of those who communicate tot hem into a nothingness such as they are. The theory is that communication wants to achieve a perfect duplication at the other end of the line. IF you are "being" a solid object you will not feel understood by an immaterial agent; and vice versa.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 04:38 PM

I know not what course others may take; but for my part, give me ambiguity or give me something else.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 04:49 PM

People always seem to assume that only the stuff they can see is real. I understand perfectly well how they feel, but they could still be wrong about it. Who sees everything? And who sees everything that they DO see with perfect clarity? I know I don't. I doubt that the scientific community...or the religious community...do either. The world will always contain mysteries which are beyond grasp or proof, but CAN be experienced.

There will always be real stuff out there that no one can prove empirically to anyone else. The fact that there is also plenty of stuff in people's heads that's entirely false does not necessarily invalidate ALL the various stuff that YOU can't prove yet (assuming you happen to be one of those who delights in being "realistic" and skeptical about most things you consider "unscientific" or unusual).

Still, you can have fun annoying other people by trying to discredit everything you can't prove, I suppose...

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: most people would far rather be "right" than be happy.

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 05:25 PM

The trouble is when "being right" means making others "wrong", much unhappiness ensues, and very little actual rightness!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 05:50 PM

Exactly.

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 05:53 PM

Ebbie...."... the opinion of someone who has experienced something may be of greater worth than the opinion of someone who has not?"

well, that's a nice generality! Indeed it is often true! But can't you cite cases where 'experience' was deceptive in various ways? Just simple things like interviewing 14 witnesses to a car accident will show that memories are slippery and impressionability in common. It has almost been proven that those kids in the day-care molestation case a few years ago were LED to false memories by eager investigators. Why is it so hard to believe that stuff we WANT to believe can work the same way? (no, that doesn't prove it did in all cases)

Psychologists doing tests can stimulate areas of the brain with electrodes and 'cause' memories of various sorts...(usually pain, color...etc..in simple tests like that)...
--------------------------------------------------

Little Hawk...as to "Still, you can have fun annoying other people by trying to discredit everything you can't prove, I suppose..."....that may be how some do it, but...I hope that's not all you think of MY attempts to shed light on our experiences and the thought patterns involved.

There are a couple of things going on in my explorations...one is that I like testing and clarifying my own mind and seeing what I can do with these ideas...as honestly as I can do it. (and I don't doubt YOUR honesty in your reporting). The problem is that people who believe various things that can't be 'proven' scientifically view the world in different ways and make decisions differently than those who approach with more scepticism.....so what? Well, Muslim suicide bombers are an extreme example of the BAD route that unfounded beliefs can take, while Aunt Josie's notion that she saw the ghost of her father is pretty benign (unless 'he' tells her to do awkward things!)

You and Amos and others have beliefs based at least partly on certain 'experiences'...and for the most part, it affects me very little, just as my scepticism doesn't sway YOU in your assurance...but there are so very many 'beliefs' that people hold that DO affect themselves and others negatively, (cult religions that eat the family savings, fake seances, governments run according to astrological predictions....even folks who laughingly pay attention to the paper in their Fortune cookies), that it is really hard to separate the benign from the serious.
..
   It is so difficult in discussions like this that last for years ..in different formats with different hot buttons..to keep focus on specific points and precise definitions and show each other what we mean and how we mean it without getting away from neutral, non-judgemental bantering and verging on personal criticism. I 'try' to watch myself, as I seldom let my view of a position affect my view of a person....(well, 97.0217% of the time *grin*) (don't YOU suspect that some expressions of Bluegrass musicians from Chicago are fueled by serious problems, despite disclaimers?)

short answer...I think the debate and the issues are important. Knowing how we think and the implications OF our patterns in relevant to the species as a whole. Nothing I say in this little forum is gonna change the world, but that butterfly in Brazil 'might' eventually help ease tensions in Israel, hmmmmm? Can't 'prove' it won't

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 06:16 PM

No, Bill, I wasn't aiming it at you. I don't find your comments to be mean-spirited. I do find that with some skeptics, but not in your case.

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 06:19 PM

"It is so difficult in discussions like this that last for years ..in different formats with different hot buttons..to keep focus on specific points and precise definitions and show each other what we mean and how we mean it without getting away from neutral, non-judgemental bantering and verging on personal criticism." Bill D

Indeed. If and when we keep the discussion focused on experiences or the lack of them (Notice that I call it a "lack"! *G*), and beliefs and doubts and skepticisms and openness (See? I can't help it!) it's fun as well as informational. I enjoy it a lot.

But back to the discussion: A few years back I became aware that when two people or 50 people are looking at something, they are not necessarily seeing the same thing. And they may never know it. How often does one describe what one is seeing?

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 06:34 PM

It is interesting to try and say what you see and ONLY what you directly see, ratyher than adding all your assumptions. If I look at my monitor, for example, I am inclined to say I see "a monitor from Apple" whereas the core fact is that I see a monitor with a logo on it shaped like an Apple. The rest is our endless additives at play, and you are absolutely right that mostly what we say is a mix of "ground truth", directly observed, extrapolations, surmises, assumptions based on past experiences and so on.

Part of this is just the smokey obfuscation of semantics. A lot of words have been twisted away from their definitions in order to slant communication one way or another -- "liberal" is a quick example.

You can get to feeling a lot better if you just shift gears and focus on the solid direct and actually present for a while instead.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: freda underhill
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 07:43 AM

In 1978, Thomas Sawyer was an avowed agnostic until his pickup truck fell on him and crushed his chest flat. He was clinically dead for 15 minutes,and this is how he describes what happened during that time.. Thomas Sawyer's near-death experience

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 10:22 AM

For sheer volume of purely anecdotal material, but sometimes persuasive, see http://www.open-sesame.com/memorybank.html.

Fun reading, at least.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 11:03 AM

freda and Amos, thanks for the links!

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 12:28 PM

??? Thomas Sawyer was already referred to back in January. Is this new information?

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 12:32 PM

in fact, he was included in Partridge's link back in 2004.

I guess one can just re-read this whole thread to refresh the memory of what has been said about the topic.

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: GUEST,Partridge
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 02:27 PM

So much has happened since 2004. My link then and the one I did as guest(by mistake) to refresh in 2006, I hope has given people something to think about.

I no longer have faith in the afterlife, I know. I look forward to it, I just hope that when I move on I've done what I was here to do.
I think that the answer to everything is love.

love
Pat xxx

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 03:06 PM

The answer to my rising health insurance rates is LOVE? Who woulda guessed? (Do I have to love Kaiser Permanante?)

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: John O'L
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 03:42 PM

"The answer to my rising health insurance rates is LOVE?"

I think the idea is that the general rise in the cost of health insurance is related to the general decline in the incidence of love.

I doubt if there will be any empirical evidence forthcoming.

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 04:32 PM

*sigh*...I'm afraid you're right, John

Subject: RE: BS: Another reincarnation story.
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 04:37 PM

Love is not easy to capture in empirical terms, I reckon. Maybe because it comes in too many flavors.


A