The implications of reincarnation open the door to some very many questions that cannot be tested in a manner consistent with the Scientific Method. (ie. a falsifiable hypothesis) — Rocco Rosano

was reincarnation ever supposed to be testable by science? because from what Eastern philosophy i have read, it certainly doesn’t seem like it to me, seems like a bit of a way to just sweep the discussion under the rug and hope no one lifts it up ever again — anyways

What is it we are discussing? Is it simply that some person says they remember the past life (or lives)? Is this person some form of "host" to an energy form that has the capacity to replicate all the processes that would be necessary to perform these various functions? What are our base assumptions? — Rocco Rosano

the general and overall idea at least within Hinduism pertaining to reincarnation, is that the body is nothing more than a shell that houses an eternal and immutable force of sorts (the atmān) that never perishes once the body dissolves and ceases functioning, the atmān is also the director of the entire body, and without it there is no life within the body from the senses to the rational intellect. implicit assumptions i guess would be the existence of the non-physical and us being more than the brain-body dichotomy, also apparently upon reincarnating into another body, to avoid clinging and attaching to your old lives, memories etc. this is all supposed to be washed away and forgotten as this soul inhabits another body, people recalling past lives and the like could either be exceptions to this function, delusional, or… it could genuinely be something, it’s supposed to be exceedingly rare. (i honestly haven’t cared to look into it too much) the conscious memory that one carries with this life is supposed to perish alongside the body. what is left over from these reincarnations are known as karma vasanas which apparently influence your behavior(s) in the next life, iirc this is where Ian Stevenson (reincarnation researcher) took particular interest, because he thought it had the ability to explain different phobias and even random talents from people that seemingly had no obvious explanation for it.

as far as i have read, the atmān is by default non-spatiotemporal naturally if there is no beginning and it is eternal, this puts it out of the reach of science, the closest thing we can get to any sort of “evidence” are testimonies from people who allege to recall past lives, this is obviously inextricably of a subjective nature and is therefore not testable or able to be codified into a sort of hypothesis which science seeks out to do because subjectivity is of an experiential and private nature, this is what opens it up to skepticism and eye-brown raising, as a lot of things are in these types of matters it seems like it is a matter of faith or a sort of knowledge that you come to by practicing different rituals and forms of meditation to come to an understanding of this concept. (purportedly by said practitioners) forcing the Western physicalist paradigm within this framework such as talking about the conservation of energy or the first law of thermodynamics etc is not what was taught in Buddhist and Hinduist schools of thought alike. that’s pretty much all i got.

I draw no conclusions from altered states, however profound they may seem, because I see no reason to. As for "purpose", I suppose the attractive nature of such states could lead me to seek them again. — Janus

You and me both on the seeking them again part… :joke:

I certainly wouldn't want to infer any general human purpose on account of them, if that was what you were alluding to. — Janus

I didn’t mean like a universal purpose that you may come up with that seems to make sense within that experience, I meant the actual nature of such “profound” experiences being able to be had in the first place, do you think it says anything, or is it just a feature of consciousness in a way? (that’s what i meant by removed from the actual substance of the experience)

We're stuck playing tennis in our heads between 'object' and 'subject' with an invisible, or non-existent, ball called 'metaphysics'. There is no clear winner and it just might be that there actually isn't even a game being played at all. — I like sushi

There definitely is not one for the Advaitin, or a sternly committed monist.

I have had what seemed like profound experiences when under the influence of hallucinogens, when listening to music, during sex and also when writing, when painting and when playing piano, both when under the influence of hallucinogens and when not under their influence. I've had even profounder experiences (although very brief in duration) when mediating. I draw no conclusions from those experiences. — Janus

Why not if you don’t mind sharing? Healthy skepticism? Unreliably replicable? Since humans are able to have these “profound” experiences, do you think that says anything or holds any merit about human nature/purpose, removed from the actual substance of the experience itself?

If panpsychism is real, and I can't see why it's not, then consciousness is eternal. — Thunderballs

I’m pretty partial to this line of thought as well. If consciousness is intrinsic and all permeating, then it is the “grounds” for the rest of reality which you would simply come back to, and perhaps take form in another way… the mechanism and how this would exactly happen is definitely beyond me.

Who needs to ask you? I believe the President said you should have a booster. Your immunity is waning and you are a menace to mankind. Who knows how many people you are going to kill. You are an obedient lemming aren't you? What else will you do, if asked to? Take opioids? The FDA approved them. Has killed 10s of thousands of people. — MondoR

i had thought this was an exercise of satire, has this thread really dragged out all of the closet conspiracists? is that the reason for this many pages?

Is it even worth it to engage with these people? — Xtrix

Usually not. To come to a belief like this requires a ton of indoctrination and confirmation bias, not to mention that you can find an echo chamber for just about any topic online nowadays so it’s a constant reinforcing and regurgitation of the same views and “evidence” for their view over and over again. They’ll move the goalposts for just about anything and will maintain their arguments by any means necessary.

There’s a saying that goes “I can’t reason you out of something that you didn’t reason yourself into first.” And I find myself calling back to that quote to check myself, and other people if I am arguing with them.

redacted

I would honestly say the closest thing that could be called an “objective” moral (at least in the U.S, as far as I know) is the condemnation of pedophilia at large. People often abandon their restraint and celebrate their deaths in prison (which is usually delivered by another criminal that could’ve done a similar heinous crime such as murder, but pedophilia is the thing that REALLY grinds even the most morally bankrupt of people it seems like)

The pursuit of “higher” (whatever that may entail) states of consciousness to broaden perception and/or worldview through intentionally altering or introducing one’s self to altered mind states using things like meditation, yoga, music, and/or psychedelics (which are notorious for giving people experiences that are considered ineffable and spiritual in nature.)

So your eliminative materialist model is generated by neurons in your brain, like some sort of 'woo'? — Olivier5

I double took when I read it myself. The lack of self-awareness is so worrying.

Racism is an invented concept by individuals and society in order to cope with the "fear of the unknown", but through biased and fallacy-heavy reasoning aimed it at different looking people. It's the Dunning-Kruger process of intellect that formed it, not intelligence or intellect when used properly. — Christoffer

very eloquently put

Not interested in your passive - aggressive schtick. — Banno

embarrassingly ironic.

wut — 180 Proof

very happy to see that i wasn’t the only one who didn’t get it either :sweat:

There are different kinds of animism. — frank

such as?

what is it that is reincarnated? — Banno

The answer is, your consciousness, viz., whatever it is that makes you, you, for example, your memories and your experiences. Do we know how that's possible? No. Do we know the mechanism? No. Do we understand any of the physics of such a process? It's doubtful. — Sam26

i think it would be better off if you just leave it as whatever makes someone themselves, but if one’s self is tied to their memories and experiences (and rightfully so? i guess?) i do see an issue with how is one reincarnated if they cannot recall their past lives without specific mystical intervention? (which could be wishful thinking as well, but highly trivial since there’s so many cases!)

i think a less problematic explanation is that it is your consciousness that moves on into another body, and then it adapts or transforms to whatever body it may inhabit, and accrues a “self” for that particular body in the mean time

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindstream

“Citta-saṃtāna (Sanskrit), literally "the stream of mind", is the stream of succeeding moments of mind or awareness. It provides a continuity of the personality in the absence of a permanently abiding "self" (ātman), which Buddhism denies. The mindstream provides a continuity from one life to another, akin to the flame of a candle which may be passed from one candle to another“

i don’t understand “a continuity of the personality” at all though..

The mind is the self. I am my mind I am my self. So if Buddhists deny the self, then they are either denying the mind, or playing fast and loose with language. — Bartricks

i could be very well misinterpreting it, but i think it may just be the loose language angle. the concept is called Anattā, which seems to be the antithesis of the Hindu concept Atmān. (they do believe in a permanent soul/self/essence)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anattā

it puzzled me the first time i came across it, because if the self is perpetual and forever tumultuous, what exactly is reincarnating or moving on then?

It is the mind, not our consciousness, that is the object of reincarnation. There has to be something that lives a life and that has lived other lives. Two lives can be radically different, yet lived by the same mind. It's the mind that is that thing. That's why two lives that have no conscious states in common can still be lived by one and the same mind. — Bartricks

sounds similar to the Buddhist’s conception of reincarnation, where there is no permanent “self” (like personality, phobias, talent) that returns in another body, but instead the mind (and/or consciousness) transfers itself into another body plainly through a “mind-stream” and the mind redecorates and reforms itself through lived experience, which may or may not juxtapose their past lives.

Warranted criticism is not "belittling", you fuckin' half-wit. :snicker: — 180 Proof

And if you continue to send me private messages to harass me I will report you to the moderators. — 3017amen

I have asked you more than ten times to respond to a question about something you wrote, which you have wriggled away from like a weasel from fire, refusing to respond. So I won't ask. I will simply observe that when you imply that religion is akin to a "natural/physical science," you're simply making clear that you do not know what religion is, you do not know what science is, that in short you do not know what you're talking about nor are interested in knowing. And your persistent evasion reveals itself as an ultimately vicious pathology. So I'll leave you for now, as the weasel you have revealed yourself as. — tim wood

these three are at one another’s throats again...

What we empirically experience is not 'material stuff' but merely qualities of experience. Someone, somewhere, sometime, decided to call these qualities 'material' but there's no actual reason to do so. And as far as I know, nobody has ever given a reason to do so.

Qualities exist, what they are called is, as far as I can tell, irrelevant. The real question is: are these qualities true, and real? And that's the problem of universals. If these qualities aren't genuine, nothing is. Because reality exists only in relation to qualities in experience juxtaposed to other qualities. Hence, nominalism is nihilism. Only Platonism (in the broad sense) can make sense of our qualities of experience.

The 'string' upon which these 'pearls' rest. — Dharmi

this is very beautiful.

My metric? — 180 Proof

how do you entrench yourself in the realm of materialism without trickling down into excessive hedonism? materialism may be more “efficient” per say as for the survival of an organism, but it doesn’t explain why im amazed at gazing out into the void of the universe, or the experience of a song that i really like. if it’s just material, why does it ultimately matter? why not focus on biological goals exclusively such as reproduction then?

i don’t think much good philosophy can come from by how “useful” it is in a practical manner.

Yeah, materialism is also the least adequate paradigm ... except for all of the others (i.e. 'immaterialisms' ...) ever tried. — 180 Proof

by what metric?

Isn't ceasing only relative to your exact Universal (coordinate) position? And doesn't that suggest that no thing can actually cease? — synthesis

what do you mean by this?

Who is? And where is this plane? — synthesis

i don’t think any person truly “is” but the concept of God definitely qualifies for it, the plane is what we would define as reality through our human lens, no?

What is being? What is ceasing? — synthesis

ceasing is when life is no longer “animate”

being is nothing but you “are” on this plane of existence

It can be meditation. It can also be death — synthesis

death is ceasing, meditation is being

So what happens when you die is you have an experience. When you stop having an experience, then things stop happening. But there cannot be any transition between the two, otherwise, that would be an experience and so, still happening.... — Pantagruel

aren’t experiences filtered through our senses though? if death shuts down the brain (which is the analytical centerpiece of all sensory input) how is it still an experience? you don’t keep dying?

Until it would be an Ocazio-Cortez using exactly similar rhetoric talking to the BLM or some Black block.

Then it's TOTALLY DIFFERENT!!! :grin: — ssu

how isn’t it? shouldn’t the president be held to a higher standard? you’re a leader of a country versus an organization..

Thinking is time.

Therefore imagining is time. If you wish to do without time, do without thinking. — synthesis

sounds very like meditation?

AS for the discussion of "real" I say what science says about it speaks far more than anything philosophy brings to the table. I think when discussing reality or the world philosophy is useless as my lived experience remains unchanged regardless of the argument for the world or lack of it. — Darkneos

good ol’ religion of science!

what made you land here then?

It is hard to imagine my computer, books, desk, chair, etc. as animated. Effectively we are living in a dead world when we are separate from nature. — Athena

the hippie says since everything is nothing but frequencies and vibrations or energy slowed down, everything is alive in its own way even if it can’t be expressed in what we consider or acknowledge as “alive”

may be bullshit, but it’s pretty!

You die and immediately from the perspective of your individual mind you'll get reborn into the same life as now and as you always have lived. — Gorback

can you clarify what you mean by this?

The main point I was making was how I disregard puritanical views. — Jack Cummins

and rightfully so, very archaic.

That's an interesting point of view, can you explain please? You are saying that if someone with a vivid imagination creates their own stimulation in their mind, that's ok; but if someone without such a good imagination uses the interwebs to dial up some visual stimulation, that's "concerning." Can you say why, and exactly what the concern is? Let's assume that the performers and production crew are all consenting adults and are compensated fairly. — fishfry

there are some studies that show porn may pose a myriad of issues to the human brain. a cursory Google will show you these things, here’s a quotation from the top article.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/neurosciencenews.com/neuroscience-pornography-brain-15354/amp/

“Porn use has been correlated with erosion of the prefrontal cortex — the region of the brain that houses executive functions like morality, willpower and impulse control. To better understand the role of this structure in behaviour, it’s important to know that it remains underdeveloped during childhood. This is why children struggle to regulate their emotions and impulses. Damage to the prefrontal cortex in adulthood is termed hypofrontality, which predisposes an individual to behave compulsively and make poor decisions.

It’s somewhat paradoxical that adult entertainment may revert our brain wiring to a more juvenile state. The much greater irony is that while porn promises to satisfy and provide sexual gratification, it delivers the opposite.“

and a bit deeper dive, a quotation from a more scholarly source dealing with how it may lead to lesser sexual satisfaction with intimate partners:

“When judging the attractiveness of romantic partners, we often to refer to a common standard, one informed by other individuals we encounter (Kenrick & Gutierres, 1980), as well as the media we watch. When males view images of attractive females, and then judge the attractiveness of their own mates, we observe contrast effects—they see their mates as less attractive than those not exposed (Kenrick, Gutierres, & Goldberg, 1989). This same principle might also apply to other aspects of relationships: “Free-spirited, varied sexual encounters in pornography produce a sharp contrast versus the restrictions, commitment, and responsibilities associated with family and relationships and make the latter appear as particularly restricting” (Mundorf et al., 2007, p. 85) to Zillmann and Bryant (1988b) tested these contrast effects by exposing individuals to six hours of non-violent pornographic material over six weeks, measuring satisfaction with their (mostly dating) partners, not only in terms of attractiveness but also with affection, sexual curiosity, and sexual performance. Compared to controls, those exposed expressed substantially less satisfaction on each of these measures. These findings are supported by correlational data connecting pornography to decreased satisfaction with physical intimacy in a relationship (Bridges & Morokoff, 2011; Poulsen, Busby, & Galovan, 2013). Real life, it seems, does not compare favorably with pornography.”


it can desensitize the human brain to regular run-of-the-mill heterosexual (and/or gay) relations and make people search for more extreme forms of porn, like BDSM, gaping, orgies and other forms of hardcore porn in order to achieve pleasure. really similar to a drug, honestly! (this is OFTEN ONLY, overconsumption however) another aspect is that it may delude consumers as to what actually occurs in sex or what sex should be like, (which leads to less sexual satisfaction as stated above) so, really my main concern lies within porn addiction (albeit what qualifies as “addiction” is somewhat nebulous in my opinion)

of course, porn has its own benefits though. it encourages sexual expression, sexual catharsis etc. it isn’t DOOMING. and i find the issue has a lot of conflicting information due to some of it being religion-laced and that it’s a “sin” and all that other nonsense. maybe it’s a huge looming issue (with the NoFap forum/movement with thousands of members) or maybe it’s a case-by-case thing. but i feel like ive dealt with some issues with porn, so i abstain every now and then just to be safe

Also, one should not be "particularly" ashamed of wankification; but that perhaps they should be just a little ashamed? How much shame is required, exactly? I need to know right away. "Asking for a friend." — fishfry

that was more me convincing myself, i don’t feel particularly shameful after masturbation, but i feel a little ashamed because i feel like i should be doing the real thing or i should’ve spent that time doing something else!

This is an odd topic; I've heard that Emanuel Kant believed that masturbation was a violation of "moral duty to the self" or something along those lines, but I'm not sure what his line of logic or reasoning was.

Does anyone have any other opinions on this subject — IvoryBlackBishop

masturbation in itself is nothing to be particularly ashamed of, it’s really the pairing with porn that makes it a concerning matter. another facet is that semen is considered by some spiritualists to be an extremely creative, powerful force that should be retained and channeled rather than released.

I think we might be conflating two concepts here as one. An omniscient being would simply know the choices we would make in advance, regardless of whether or not they were in accordance to the plan we were assigned. — Outlander

exactly. put much more eloquently than i could do.

We can never do what we weren't planned to do — 8livesleft

how do you know we were “planned to do” something from this being? it’s simply all-knowing. that’s exactly where it ends at. you don’t do certain things out of a laid out blueprint of your existence, you do whatever you FEEL you need to do in the present moment, whether that’s eating, going to work etc. there’s no magical being sending thoughts nor controlling you to do things.

Admittedly, I've used a similar argument with regards to the free-will discussion: if God knew all, then all actions are predetermined, therefore free-will becomes irrelevant. — 8livesleft

Omniscience and free will cannot exist in the same universe, omniscience is a claim to knowledge and if you were to know what will happen then it will happen. — CallMeDirac

can you both expand on your respective points for me, please? im not really grasping this. how can’t an omniscient being be a passive observer of these actions taking place? just because the being knows what’s going to happen before it happens wouldn’t mean the action wasn’t done out of the creature’s own accord/self interest? it’s not like God has a joystick for every individual organism and it has a hand in any actions taken by them?

Is everyone gulping down ayahuasca in those places by way of "shamans"? — Nils Loc

not OP, however yes. the general idea is that people take part in these ayahuasca ceremonies, and the shamans serve as a sort of distinguished spiritual guide while you’re in the midst of your psychedelic experience. afterwards some shamans disclose what energy they felt from people who participated and what they should improve on or stop doing in efforts to become a better person based off of how they behaved under the drink.

Maybe we need another catastrophe so we all concentrated on the true meaning of life. — deletedmemberdp

what is the true meaning of life?

I'm a materialist and very opposed to New Age Ken Wilbur "we are all one" stuff. If you commit a crime, that doesn't make me do it or have done it. — Gregory

i pray this is a purposeful misinterpretation, no? because that’s not what “we are all one” means when one is talking about it within a spiritual context.