Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II

Subject: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Oct 00 - 06:11 PM

Okay, here we go. All former Napoleon's, Cleopatra's, Sitting Bulls, etc., please log on here. And then there are those, like myself, who were just one of the Indians...

Little Hawk

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Amos
Date: 07 Oct 00 - 06:27 PM

Sorry about missing the loop -- it's a good idea when you forward to a continuation thread to put a link to it at the end of thread A, as well as a link back at the top of thread B. Here's the last post:

Date: 07-Oct-00 - 06:22 PM

There is a fairly simple mechanism in the way the human mind deals with certain extremes of experience in which one's own persona seems untenable, because it has failed, or is being badly overwhelmed by someone else, and that is to take on a more successful peronality. This is emotionally kind of unhealthy in the long run but it provides a way out in the short term. And very often what happens is one takes up a winning personality of which one has some impressions from recent experience -- such as a violent father, or, just as easily, a dominant leader.

This leads to all kinds of personal problems, so it is not a recommended solution to stress, but it is a pretty basic impulse when things get unbearable. And I propose that it is not uncommon for someone delving in to the subject of past identities to not want to get too close to those that were highly painful (the peons, foot-soldiers, starving children and battered women, whipped slaves and disemboweled bystanders).

It would seem natural to come up with a more tolerable overlay.

But this tendency no more invalidates the premise of past lives than the complexities of of molecular motion invalidates the theories of thermal energy transfer. You just gotta take the variables into account.

There are some people -- usually the young and creative of any age -- to whom the alternative proposition -- that they are solely composed of molecules and electronic surges, with no true qualitative difference to account for their awareness, intuition, ability to understand and sense of viewpoint, none of which seems explainable by molecular theory -- is the most ridiculous and superstitious proposition that could possibly be entertained by anyone with half a heart. It is unfortunate how strong our culture bends in the direction of that class of explanation, though.

A

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Ely
Date: 07 Oct 00 - 06:28 PM

I still don't know what I think but it's certainly very interesting. Even the conflict is interesting (funny that we didn't get it on the ghost stories thread).

That's not true. I think I don't have an answer. I know what I think, I'm just inconclusive.

Well, if my cabin etc. was a past-life memory, I definitely wasn't a king of anything. Just some old guy from Tennessee.

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: hesperis
Date: 07 Oct 00 - 09:13 PM

I am putting in a link to the first thread..............BS: more weirdness--past lives

I just like to do that.

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: hesperis
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 10:53 AM

Amos - that last paragraph was beautifully said.

I find it very easy to believe in past lives for that reason. We aren't just clumps of molecules right now, why would we ever be just clumps of molecules no matter what form we take. If science can measure intelligence with IQ tests, why can't it measure other qualitative things? (Or can it, and I missed that?) I've heard some 'scientists' say that life itself hasn't been proven to exist, because it can't be replicated by science. That is just absurd.

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Skeptic
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 03:16 PM

Amos

I think I missed the logic on the part about the tendency to come up with a tolerable overlay. The leap from that to the complexities of molecular motion to some sort of validation of the past life experiences isn't clear.

You also seem to maintain that being young and creative and impatient with the current scientific explanations of how the mind works is somehow tied to validation of reincarnation.

Hesperis,

Why aren't we just clumps of molecules? Or quarks or superstrings? Superstring theory is far more complex, esoteric, creative or whatever than something as simple as reincarnation.

BTW, science doesn't measure IQ with intelligence tests (if you mean the Stanford Benet kind). Schools do. There's a whole body of evidence that the Stanford test is basically a waste of effort and energy. There are test s that seem to be predictive but they don't lend themselves to mass testing and one number results.

John

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 04:31 PM

...now I KNOW there ain't no such thing as reincarnation, 'cause I remember a beer commercial what said:

"You only go around once in life, so you gotta grab for all the gusto you can get!"

and we all know that the folks who peddle beer would never mislead us.

Bill D....who can't remember ever being anything except what I am..(I guess the powers that may be figure that one time thru is plenty for cantankerous curmudgeons)

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: khandu
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 04:50 PM

i am khandu. i was khandu. i shall ever be khandu.

khandu

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 05:22 PM

Hail, khandu. Good to hear from you again!

Little Hawk

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Amos
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 08:32 PM

I think I missed the logic on the part about the tendency to come up with a tolerable overlay. The leap from that to the complexities of molecular motion to some sort of validation of the past life experiences isn't clear.

There was no leap from one to the other. The tendency to find a confrontable substitute for unpleasant perceptions is one of the reasons, in my opinion, that you find distortions in the statistical distributions of identities over time, and people discovering they were sugar-plum fairies and Princess Rhonda in past lives; no-one wants to remember being Anne Boleyn or even Anne Boleyn's scullery maid.

The molecules vs. something more discussion is a separate part of the subject; sorry I didn't bridge more clearly over to it. There are certain qualitative experiences which a being has day in and day out which, as far as we know, no synthesis of molecules can offer. Chief among these is perception (as opposed to responses to stimuli in any string if relays); another is awareness of own awareness, which the best any artificial device can do is make a very poor imitation of; a third is creative ability (not just random combinatorial swaps with a number generator behind it); a fourth is the ability to intend. A fifth, which will probably be much more controversial, is the ability to view from places outside one's physical zone of connections

You also seem to maintain that being young and creative and impatient with the current scientific explanations of how the mind works is somehow tied to validation of reincarnation. That would be a silly assertion indeed. What I actually said was that the "young and creative of any age" tend to reject the notion they are nothing but fancy mud with an accidental lightning strike thrown in. In other words they are more certain of their own spiritual natures than people who are tired and worn down into apathetic resignation. Those who are young and creative in person, regardless of their physical age, also tend to be better at seeing through limitations, being aware of possibility, and breaking out of traps, because they are less pinned-in by stacks of old agreements, bales of old pain and galleries of images of disapproving oppressive people shaking their fingers and reminding them to learn their "place" in life.

This has nothing to do with chronological age, except by coincidence; it is a function of qualities that some people think of as youthful, but it is an independant variable.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Mbo
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 09:30 PM

I'm gonna break
I'm gonna break my
I'm gonna break my rusty cage
And run....

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: hesperis
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 11:40 PM

Glad to hear that, Mbo! Finally!

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Mbo
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 11:47 PM

I was only quoting Soundgarden! Just wishful thinking, anyway. The cage I'm locked in just got a whole lot rustier today.

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Amos
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 12:11 AM

Why believe in rust, Mbo? :>)

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Mbo
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 12:16 AM

Because RUST NEVER SLEEPS

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Barbara
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 12:38 AM

Why blame rust when you could blame entropy?

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 12:44 AM

What does Neil Young know?...he founded a center for the terminally screwed, didn't he?

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Skeptic
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 10:03 AM

Amos,

Thanks for the clarification. Thinking outside the box should be a requirement. Having spent a couple of years as a substitute teacher, mostly in a "model" school, the tragedy is that staying inside the book is where schools seem to be going.

Caveat, however. The mere fact of creative thinking, thinking outside the box et al, doesn't. IMHO, grant any special status to those ideas.

On another thread I got into cynicism versus skepticism. (and people confusing the two). You seem to be headed in the same direction.

Yet, it comes back to how you validate what you believe. My problem with past lives is that the preponderance of evidence doesn't appear to support the thesis. Supporters evidence tends to be of the "so how do you explain that" type. The answer would be the same answer I'd give to a holocaust revisionist when they come up with "see, these things prove it was a fake". Yes, you have 10 incidents that support your point of view, I have 25,000 that don't. Doesn't necessarily mean the revisionist is wrong but it certainly is indicative. So it becomes a very low level probability.

I would make the same argument for other "out of the box" beliefs. Ignoring eveidence that doesn't fit the "mold" is the other extreme of "I know what I know"

Which brings up a final alternate hypothesis for the "why" o f beliefs.

I am an honest (or good or whatever) person. I don't believe untrue (or bad, etc...) things. I believe in reincarnation (or Esp or Smurfs or whatever). therefore reincarnation (or whatever) is true.

Except that what comes first isn't the facts pro or con but the fundamental idea that what I believe has to be true.

I'm still thinking about the "more than molecules" idea as I find most of the things you listed to be areas taht do need a lot of study.

Regards

John

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Amos
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 10:00 PM

I wrote a long answer to this, and sent it in. And came back an hour or so later to find it vanished! Weird, huh? Just kidding.

The prepnderance of the evidence, as you refer to it, is problematical in either direction. The variables are :

(1) people's ability to see memories well without altering them

(2) the unbounded suggestibility of people below a certain state of mental strength, leading to an unlimited set of possible "seeings" that are really just reactions

(3) the ridiculousness of trying to place human thought under the standards of repeatability of condition by which molecules are held to perform in clinical situations, given the fundamental and qualitative differences in their natures

(4) the inability to characterize the difference between synthetic and actual pictures in "memory" (they do act differently but very little work has been done on this issue)

(5) the complexities of putting human beings into situations which call on their abilities but which offer no admiration, acknowledgement or positive feedback (something about which molecules are notoriously indifferent). People tend to withdraw into themselves when challenged. Bricks don't care.

This is probably not because bricks have a higher self esteem; more likely, it is because bricks are unconscious.

A

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Wolfgang
Date: 11 Oct 00 - 09:30 AM

Just an addendum, in my view even more weird, but I'm sure Little Hawk could 'explain' it in a Jungian everything's connected with everything type of theory:

There's also hypnotic progression. Some therapists progress their clients to future lifes and they (the clients; or in this case, perhaps better: the (very) patients) come back loaded with memories of their future lives.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Ringer
Date: 11 Oct 00 - 09:50 AM

But not with memories of who won the 2.30 at Doncaster on 11th October 2001, I presume.

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 11 Oct 00 - 10:00 AM

Wolfgang I don't need to go to a therapist to figure out what my future life will be. It is quite obvious to me that I will be coming back (open-back that is) as a Vega Fairbanks Whyte Laydie banjo.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: alison
Date: 12 Oct 00 - 10:04 AM

not past lives.. but weird.....

I used to have regular "weird" dreams... still do but not so often.....

yesterday my 5 year old came into my bed... "Mummy I've had a bad dream"... so I asked her what it was.... she told me in exact detail of an identical dream I had maybe 13 years ago..... places, things that happened, descriptions all perfect....

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Past Lives/Weirdness, Part II
From: Skeptic
Date: 12 Oct 00 - 10:51 AM

Amos

"3) the ridiculousness of trying to place human thought under the standards of repeatability of condition by which molecules are held to perform in clinical situations, given the fundamental and qualitative differences in their natures"

Why is this riduculous? Unless you are talking about specifics rather than underlying structures of how the brain functions, memories are stored, etc. thought is to the physical structure of the brain as music theory, notes and instruments are to a song. I have a fairly high level of certainity that thought occurs through the mechanism of the brain.

You seem to imply (apologies if I missed it) the existence of "mind" or "spirit" as being necessary to deal with thought. That seems unnecessary. I would also argue that what the differnces in the nature of though is qualitative, not fundamental. Chaos Theory could accont for the qualitative differences. (Though I haven't seen it specifically related to same. It just seems intuitive).

There seems to be an underlying "feel" that skeptics, the scientific method, et al, are trying to make the entire human condition deterministic. There are people that are. However, I would argue that those who extropolate from the material nature of thought to some deterministic, absolute logical, causal model, are in the same class as ESP, past lives and all the rest. Dressing up a theory with the trappings of science doesn't make it so. And using this group as an example of what science is all about begs the question.

Not aimimg this at you, but it seems to be a common theme running through this (and other) threads. If ther's going to be substantive discussion, each neds to understand where the other stands.

Regards John