Reincarnation Mathematically/Physically Possible?

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there is a hypnotist whose name escapes me now, who makes quite a good living hypnotically regressing people to previous incarnations as well as to the in-between state between lifetimes, where in one of the higher cosmic schools spirits get to temporarily indwell within lower lifeforms for educational purposes. he wrote two books about it, and my old fartness cannot remember the titles of those, either i have 'em both but i cannot find them in my mess

Ah dang those sound like books worth reading out of pure curosity I have a lot of while books in my collection the wildest is about celtic druidism.

Well, all I said there was based on the assumptions:

1) There is a non-zero probability of reincarnation, because if I gained consciousness once, I just might gain it again.
2) The universe is infinite, or there is an infinite amount of universes.

That's actually a lot like yours, I actually used it to help convey my point better, but this is what I meant. Reminds me of the infinite monkey theorem, anything that can happen is bound to happen given an infinite amount of time. If my assumptions are false, well then, I couldn't be so sure about it. And I'm not sure about them being true anyway so... there you go.



That consciousness problem reminds me of why would I never use a teleporting device if there ever is one. How would I know my consciousness gets preserved at the other side?

Ugh, I almost need a cigarrette right now.

Since zero implies infinity, any nothingness in physics implies infinity in physics (watch out for the trap of relativities, as in "zero motion compared to what?", as even concepts of rotations run into trouble, and temperatures have fleeting & mysterious "limits").

"Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same" by Karl Löwith, sounds like a fun book, but the price keeps going up, and does "the Same" accept any possible as possible perturbations?

Then as a part self-quote:
It was said of Siger of Brabant (1235?-?1281):
"Led like Vico and Nietzsche by the fascination of logic, Siger played with the dismal doctrine of eternal recurrence: since (he argued) all earthly events are ultimately determined by stellar combinations, and the number of these possible combinations is finite, each combination must be exactly repeated again and again in an infinity of time, and must bring in its train the same effects as before; 'the same species' will return, 'the same opinions, laws, religions.'" "The Age of Faith" by Will Durant (1950), page 957.

Top this off with transcendental (non-algebraic) numbers, with Cantor Sets, and get ready for every variating permutation also repeated for infinity, whether in terms of time or temperature. If infinity is denied, zero is also denied.

I try to monitor "Persinger quantum" with google to keep up on his & related "conscious/quantum" models, but IMO neurological brain events are big and crude compared to very small and fine quantum events (the other stuff is more like "random" thermodynamic model phenomena that's not the strangely true "quantum" (where statistical mechanics starts to follow different rules from the classical)). Perform the trick of controlling a crookes radiometer with your thoughts changing your face temperature, then since all explanations using statistical mechanics are somewhat flawed in the explanations of Crookes radiometer (Einstein also failed here), blame quantum mechanical phenomena???

Tadzio

How does zero imply infinity? I'm confused.

This is also at the heart of the question of whether you could 'transport' a person Star Trek style - yes and no; you could have an exact likeness assembled at the other side but there's no way of knowing that it is or isn't them and much the same they'd likely have no way of knowing.

They would be the same person but just different atoms.

But are they the same instance of conciousness? There's a real good chance that putting yourself in a transporter is sending yourself to nonexistance when the switch is flipped.

True, but then also you should come back. At least that's what I think. I like the idea that our body is a receiver of consciousness. So if the receiver is shut off and turned back on immediately it shouldn't be that bad. The problem is how the hell are they gonna scan and replicate the trillions and trillions of atoms/cells. It would suck if you spawned without a head or the machine broke or the data was wiped!

Interesting take. What would that make it (consiousness) though?


Errr yeah, you'd be in Barney.

I don't know. I believe consciousness is not derived from materialism alone. That's why I'm so interested in quantum applications/explanation of consciousness. I used to be a materialist/atheist until I had an "enlightenment" from cannabis. A lot of people who study psychedelics believe that the human brain is a receiver of consciousness. After having my experience, listening to Amit Goswami speak, watching DMT: Spiritual Molecule and hearing near death experiences similar to mine, I found this to make sense. Maybe god is consciousness, I don't know. Maybe consciousness is energy, I don't know. I don't know much, but I find existence to be too weird now. Why do we exist as opposed to not existing? I remember trying to prove god didn't exist while high, and I kept going into infinite loops and getting logical inconsistencies or fallacies. To me god is an energy, an intelligent entity; the matrix, the computer, the software, and the programmer (in human terms); something that cannot be explained with logic. It sounds crazy. I wouldn't believe it too. I guess you have to experience it to believe it. I liken my experience to the BSG quote: "To know the face of god is to know madness." You become super aware. You open your third eye!

Make no mistake, I've had my fair share of quite mystical experiences with things like LSD, mushrooms, mescaline, I've tried a lot of other stuff as well. My general take on consciousness tends to say its not the machine, its not energy, but it is product of a reaction between the two. The only thing I don't fully understand is when I've had experiences of things like....I don't know....flashbacks from ancient times? It seems like the profound and religious elements that happen with hallucinogens are the walls between your conscious and subconscious mind breaking down and in a lot of ways I've kind of come to understand that the conscious self that I know is only a tenth of what the subconscious is in depth (for people who've heard half my ramblings that might be saying a lot).

With my most recent such 'assisted' experience though I did kind of get behind my conscious state and see consciousness as a bit of a wave form, ie. the flat line on a heart monitor seems pretty close to it - that the flat line is non consciousness and non-sentience, that consciousness is a disturbance in some kind of flat line where something is getting pulled through (in our case that comes via the needs of the human body). Whether that's just a fascinating way to look at it but still irrelevant to whether its purely a materialistic event or not - I don't know. If such evidence comes or can be tapped that consciousness is a third party I'd love to see it because, being a full materialist is something of an exercise in cynicism/nihilism when it comes to evaluating the ultimate quality of one's own emotions, struggles, quests, searches, etc. and its really something that phrases things like this - its already done, its already over, there's no purpose, and we're essentially death and decay in motion until we become death and decay in full actuality.

This is an interesting topic. I have been interested in NDE's for about a year and watched a few youtube videos about them. The best documentary was the BBC Horizon The Day I Died. It talks about quantum consciousness.

If people physically die but are then brought back to life and remember an experience I think it gives credence to a spiritual side of life. I find it hard to shake the notion that there is an I inside, and I don't reckon that the I is just an illusion.

I believe in infinity, so reckon there will be another experience that I either take part in or have to myself (whatever myself is). I often think what it would be like to be an individual plant cell, or a bird, or a grain of sand. I often wonder if atoms and particles have a consciousness.

I think the most important thing about such studies about NDE's is that they need to be certain that the experience was happening at a time where the person had absolutely no brain activity. Many of the arguments I've seen state that the whole NDE experience is the brain shutting itself down, being deprived of oxygen, having a dual response of both sypathetic and parasympathetic stimulation, etc. etc.. Seems like dispelling that notion would be the most important first step in lending such experiences credibility.

This is so. However, if energy exists to create a newly ordered brain (i.e. a new brain is developing in a foetus), there exists a statistical possibility that the new brain will be identically structured to a brain that previously existed.

I would say that the chances of one such reincarnation are exactly the same as the chances of a large number of monkeys at a large number of typewriters working out a script for Hamlet.

i can't remember if i suggested before, that you google the pam reynolds case- she was a lady [since deceased] who had a brain operation which required that her body temperature be cooled and her heart stopped, so that she wouldn't bleed out during the surgery. during this time [when her monitored cardiac and brain activity was zero], she claims to have left her body, witnessed the surgery in specific detail [she later described to hospital personnel], and visited people who passed before her, on the outskirts of what she thought was heaven, who told her it wasn't yet her time.