Reincarnation Mathematically/Physically Possible?

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Has anyone else thought about reincarnation (for lack of a better word)? Does anyone have a physical explanation that differs from a mathematical one?

Also, side note: Is anyone interested in quantum consciousness?

Last edited by bizboy1 on 31 Mar 2012, 4:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

When someone determines the weight and mass of a soul, this may be explainable. Till then, I think it's more of a belief/faith thing.

My belief is that when you die, your soul slips into the body of a baby born at the exact moment your old body died.
But your soul has no memory, so you don't remember a thing of your past lives.

I know nothing about physics. But if our universe is an infinite set of finite universes, and if we assume that consciousness is derived from a unique finite set of biological processes, then it doesn't seem too far out there. My argument is similar to how if you have a monkey in front of a type writer for an infinite amount of time, then he will eventually write Shakespeare's works.

But I'm more interested in an argument from a physics standpoint.

Sort of.

The atoms that make up your body will, eventually, be present in other living creatures. In a way, you will continue on.

I suppose it is possible (although VERY unlikely) for all the same atoms to eventually create an exact copy of you in the future as well, and if it is perfectly exact then this copy should also have your personality (assuming the same general life experiences).

Yes. Yes. I don't know anything about math but i agree about the universe being infinite, as well as completely spiritually interconnected, on levels/dimensions we are not fully aware of, but some people are (psychics,mentally ill, some autistics, etc).

I believe because we are interconnected and the universe and nature runs in cycles of life and death, so do our lives and spirits...

The concept of re-incarnation hinges on the concept that the self continues to exist as an entity independent of the body after death, in the form of a "soul", and that the body is simply a glove the soul fits into.

There is no evidence for a soul as an actual physical entity. However if one were to understand a soul much in the way they might understand a program, or story, or any collection of information, then one can reasonably envision a re-incarnation of sorts being possible.

Programs and stories are intangible entities comprised of a collection of information. Stores usually exist in written form, that is how their information is contained. However the story can continue to exist when book is tossed into the fire if a record of it is stored in the human mind.
One simply must know the order the information is arranged in.

The same thing is true of the human mind. Our brain is a collection of information. We have brain cells which are wired up and function in a particular way, emitting particular signals, and this is what makes us who we are. All of our past experiencing, our personality, and so on, is reflected by the way our brain is organized and functions.

Re-incarnating a person is technically a matter of properly arranging the information. So conceptually it's not impossible. It does not violate any of the laws of the universe. However we certainly don't have the technology to implement this, let alone the technology to fully understand the order in which the information needs to be arranged.

But if we could, is this you?
It looks like you. It acts like you. It thinks like you, and maybe we have been able to instill it with all of the memories you have. But if we were to put this "copy" of you next to you as you are now, you would perceive each other as two individual people unless we were to network your brains.

In fact, taking you and your brain, if we were to replace one brain cell with a synthetic neuron that acted exactly as the biological one, you wouldn't notice. In fact we could replace a few hundred and you wouldn't notice. In fact, you wouldn't even notice if we severed the two halves of your brain, upon which they operate independent of each other.

We could even take out half of your brain and replace it with a synthetic half that mimics the original and...you wouldn't notice. You would feel no different than you previously did.

What if we kept doing this, replacing your brain cells with synthetic ones. When do you notice you aren't you? The answer is, even though at the beginning we have a biological mass of neurons, and in the end we have some synthetic mass of neurons, and even though side by side they perceive each other as independent people, in the scenario of replacing one with the other, you never notice. You have the illusion of continuity of self in the case of neuron replacement.
If you died and at some point in the future, someone recreates you by creating a brain, synthetic or otherwise, that was an exact copy of your own, that copy would have a sense of continuity of self. But is it you as in you?

I will leave you to ponder that.

reincarnation sounds like a violation of the second law of thermodynamics.

ruveyn

How so?

How can one restore the brain content of a brain that is rotted out. It would like going from extreme disorder to order. We can't buck entropy.

ruveyn

This is true, however purely on a physical level I don't think that would apply.

No, this is a combinatorial/counting argument. If we assume there are an infinite number of universes like ours, with an infinite number of big bangs, then since all matter consists of elementary particles, the brain can reorganize itself into the same consciousness (assuming consciousness is derived purely from the material world). I call it reincarnation for lack of a better name.

I believe no "soul" dies, though the form the "soul" takes does.

[Moved from Computers, Math, Science, and Technology to Politics, Philosophy, and Religion]

Doing so alone would not be a violation of the second law. We reconstruct information all the time. You might be envisioning actually reconstructing a brain from the atoms which it was composed of. Provided you could collect all of them and had a viable way to manipulate them to where they needed to go, this does not entail a violation of the second law because you are doing the manipulating.

Reversing time to put everything back where it was, on the other hand, is a violation of the second law.

edgar cayce had a lot to say on the matter. his Association for Research and Enlightenment [virginia beach, VA] is a repository of his writings, for anybody who cares to google him. another interesting one is the late robert monroe, whose Monroe Institute is a repository of his writings as well as a new age laboratory/campus.