Probabilities of reincarnation?

[kopyk]

Reincarnation might exist, or it might not. The later would give us the situation the demon spoke of in Nietzsche`s writings, about having to relive the same life again & again. If we`re to be impartial about things, its 50/50% if reincarnation exists or not. Either it does, or it doesn`t. I, for one, can`t imagine any other possibilities so it`s either/or. Assuming it does exist, what other probabilities are we faced with?
Reincarnating into this same universe, or not. By another universe I mean one with different laws of physics.

Reincarnating into the same timeline of the same universe, or not. Quantum mechanics would`ve it that even if `the laws of physics are unchanged, there are multiple potential parallel dimensions of this universe. Is there any reason to believe multiple universes can exist at once? Perhaps this universe has to live its full lifespan before any othe universe comes into being. But one may be able to skip that if reincarnation goes forward or backwards in time.

Reincarnating backwards, forwards or smoothly in time. We`ll differentiate forwards in time from smoothly by how forward jumps from the point of death till some future point (for example a decade), while if smooth, you`d reincarnate instantly after your death. So if you died in in year 2000 8:00 pm, you`ll reincarnate at that exact same time too.

However, aren`t we faced with the possibility it might not be the time of our deaths that determined when we will reincarnate? Perhaps it is at the midpoint between our death & birth at which we reincarnate? So if you were born in 2010, died in 2020 you`d reincarnate in 2015. Or one might reincarnate after one`s birth, so whoever was born immediatelty after you, you would reincarnate as. It doesn`t have to be physical birth btw, because as the abortion debate shows there`s so much controversy surrounding all of that. If there`s a soul (which reincarnation needs) then there might be some point where the soul "merges" with the body (or perhaps the soul manifests itself physically, who knows) so we can speculate that instead of physical birth in this paragraph.

What about location? Is one as likely to reincarnate here as one is to reincarnate somewhere else in the universe, assuming other intelligent lifeforms exist out there? What about one`s birth place & place of death? Is there any reason to think one would reincarnate at the same places one died or was born? or that there might be some midpoint thing again, for example if one was born in London & died in Paris, one would reincarnate somewhere between them? Or, one might reincarnate anywhere but at the exact point where one was born, died, or just have been throughout one`s life. Or one may be limited to reincarnating anywhere one has been to throughout one`s life.

Could one possibly be reincarnated as a lower lifeform, like an animal? I have a hard time seeing myself with much weaker cognitive faculties; it just seems like that wouldn`t even be me.
What about the death method - should one prefer cremation or burning to death over preserving the body? One could speculate the soul has an easier to time moving on when the body is destroyed, but couldn`t it just as easily be the other way around?
If one reincarnates into another, totally different world, some would imagine that to be hell, some would imagine it to be heaven. But these are extreme worlds. Wouldn`t it be more likely for sth in between to be where one ends up?

Is there a reason to believe there might be different "soul types"? If so, then it might not be a coincidence that one has the biological mother & father one has. Perhaps this explains why some reject implants too. I know there`re scientific reasons for that but if we knew more about reincarnation then that might be scientific too after all & be connected to genes, etc. If such soul types exist, are some types inherently given to reincarnating in particular ways over the others?

There`s also the chances there`s some luck involved to. So, if one wanted to change universes one would have to try a few times before succeeding.

Is there any reason at all to assume that humans, or perhaps other beings affect the reincarnation probabilities in any way, shape or form? For example, some conspiracy theorists would have it that conspirators have access to magic, & one application of magic would ofc be to manipulate reincarnation. Our planet, if life is viewed from a dramatic, literary, genre-based, etc perspective, does appear far more sinister & "conspiratorial" then, say, a world which only has pristine nature, innocence, & natural cycles every year, with no "history/metanarratives" & no top secret informations. OTOH, couldn`t our world appearing like so all just be a coincidence, or, if there`s a creator (of the universe), be a a prank/red herring? The same could be applied to those who claim those who live virtuously are heaven-bound in the afterlife, couldn`t it just as easily be the opposite, that is, the vicious going to heaven, or no correlation at all that is purely random where people end up? Could simply desiring to reincarnating in one way over another give one the power to do so?

Overall, with all these considerations to take into account, if one wanted to be reincarnated in an universe totally different from this one, is there a reason to favor one way of dying over another? One location to die in than another? One time to die then another? Outside of these, are there any other factors that should be taken into account? I know only a little about probability theory & I know one of the main questions is the treatment of priors. Bayesian decides on priors before? & there are multiple other approaches to probability but perhaps that might not be relevant to this thread. I was hoping one of you have the insight to determine if it has.

A final question, are multiple lives, at least for the individual, inevitable simply because he can imagine it? Is sth bound to happen, given enough time, as long as one can imagine it? Fantasy comes from the unconscious, perhaps the unconscious is simply what is far removed from us in space, time & other dimensions. Going by that, our fantasies of all these other worlds could be interpreted as these worlds "calling" to us or "echoing/reverberating" thru to us, yes? The downside of this, ofc, is that one will experience all the boredom one has ever imagined as well as the worst of tortures one has imagined... unless there`s some "rule" or whatever that locks out these, but one can imagine a time when this rule won`t exist anymore too, so....

[kopyk]

William. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. However, let's say we simply won't ever find evidence, thus it comes down to probability. This makes sense, for how could you possibly gather indubitable evidence on the afterlife? As you say, it might be 2%, 80%, etc. We can't say 100% or 0% tho, as we don't know for sure, neither against or for. The average of everything from & including 1% to & including 99% is 50/50%.

idk about a soul living in multiple bodies, seems bizarre to me.

as for bayes, what about other approaches?: http://www.the16types.info/vbulletin...raw-data/page2

edit:

the russell teapot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot, unlike reincarnation could theoretically be verified w/ epistemically objective methods like seeing thru telescopes & sending probes, but reincarnation may still metaphysically objectively exist, yes? Before we didn't know of UV rays, but now have epistemically objective verification. Wouldn't reincarnation depend on epistemic subjectivity to know for sure?

rationale austhink.com/rationale2.0/ib/exercises/tok/objective_subjective.htm:

Roughly speaking, 'objective' means 'independent of the individual', and 'subjective' means 'pertaining to the individual, or peculiar to a particular personal perspective on the world'.

We apply these terms in two very different ways:
Firstly, we use the terms to talk about two ways that things exist. We do this to make metaphysical claims - claims about what is real or has being, or in what sense something exists.
Metaphysically objective things exist independently of being experienced.
Metaphysically subjective things are those whose existence depends on their being experienced.

Secondly, we can apply these terms to talk about two different kinds of knowledge. When we do this we're making epistemological claims - claims about how we know things.
Epistemically objective statements have a truth value decided by public methods.
Epistemically subjective statements have a truth value decided by reference to individual perspectives.

[Pookie]

Either it is or isnt, in some ways, is adequate representation of odds. However, in this case, there might be variables or options not added into the equation. For instance, nothing happens after death or heaven or hell. If all are mutually exclusive and equally possible (in this case, the absence of evidence does allow for equally possible), its one in four, more than 50/50.

In my opinion, the variety of the unknown and the infinite variations found in the universe of just about anything leads my probabilities to the land of 1 out of infinity, moreso than 50/50. The same with every option. Odds are, everything everyone has ever thought about the afterlife, is wrong.

[kopyk]

heaven & hell I count as being under the 50% that says sth happens after death, opposing nothing aka eternal return.

[kopyk]

Here`s another dilemma. Say you had sth you wished to share with your potential future or smooth reincarnation in same universe, on same timeline. However, sharing it would entail some practical effort, which ideally one would want to skip, but in this scenario, one cannot eat & have cake. Rationally, should one go thru the effort? After all, it is possible one reincarnates in future or smooth senses, in same universe, on same timeline. But then again, there might be a rule which says youĺl reincarnate into ANY timeline but this one. Should one go thru the effort despite this possibility simply because of the sheer chance of one reincarnating in future or smooth senses, in same universe, on same timeline?

[Park]

[kopyk]

Another question: we know for sure THIS world exists due to own experience. By experience, we know time moves linearly forward. Based on this, is it more likely that reincarnation happens in future or smooth senses, in same universe, on same timeline? The alternative is that all bets are off upon death. Since death is the great unknown, does it make more sense to assume all bets are off? Or is this another 50/50%?

[Not A Communist Shill]

Based on what we have observed about energy conservation, reincarnation in any meaningful way is impossible: we do not move onto any higher plane or return in some form without something being lost. We may return in some form, but our sentience as we know it goes, making such a comeback meaningless to us.

We should not live our lives on the expectation of something happening that there is zero evidence for.

[marooned]

in the view that makes sense to me, reincarnation is propelled by one's karma, a cosmic force propelling you in certain directions. every action/thought/choice etc. of yours adds to your karma, and it's kind of like your spiritual rudder. unfortunately in each lifetime there's already a lot of momentum built up from the previous lives and so you kind of just have to play a lot of it out (there's a drag force), but you can make for a better direction by adding more "good karma" through your choices/thoughts/acts.

"bad karma" isn't evil but involves acts that get you even more stuck in the cycle of reincarnation (evil acts involve more desire and grasping and so they are the worst), and the consequences are thus experienced as greater suffering (in the current lifetime and/or in future ones). "good karma" moves you towards an exit of the cycle of reincarnation, and so the more good karma accrued, the less suffering for you. it doesn't always work out linearly though. for instance, perhaps you were an evil bastard 10 lifetimes ago, and have been a beacon of benevolence in the ones that followed. the bad karma from your evil lifetime may not come up until a great many rebirths later (probably because of the good karma preceding it and the direction it had set you on), although you may be able to "burn off" some of the bad karma in the meantime (which i wonder if that's just really making compensating course corrections).

i think maybe in this view, after death you float without direction, propelled by everything from your past (you lose your rudder), and that's terrifying. you're desperate to get back to the physical existence just to regain some control and ability to make sense of things again (or whatever the sources for your grasping). how long you float about lost may depend (on what, i'm not sure). perhaps after a dreadful suicide in your last life, you float about in soul shell shock for 100 years before finally "deciding" to be reborn. and many belief systems have other realms you could be reborn in, like hell realms, and so you could blip out of this particular physical realm for millennia even. mainly i think it's all the product of past karma and choices.

and actually, if there are infinite dimensions repeating everywhere with every possibility ever, well, there's little limit to the horrible or wonderful places you could be reborn into. you could pop into any place in the universe, or any dimension. i don't know if you could pop into any time in the past too.

(ps: i don't necessarily believe in any of this.)

[wacey]

Is there even a "you" that could re-incarnate to begin with?

That's the real question.

[wacey]

in the view that makes sense to me, reincarnation is propelled by one's karma, a cosmic force propelling you in certain directions. every action/thought/choice etc. of yours adds to your karma, and it's kind of like your spiritual rudder. unfortunately in each lifetime there's already a lot of momentum built up from the previous lives and so you kind of just have to play a lot of it out (there's a drag force), but you can make for a better direction by adding more "good karma" through your choices/thoughts/acts.

"bad karma" isn't evil but involves acts that get you even more stuck in the cycle of reincarnation (evil acts involve more desire and grasping and so they are the worst), and the consequences are thus experienced as greater suffering (in the current lifetime and/or in future ones). "good karma" moves you towards an exit of the cycle of reincarnation, and so the more good karma accrued, the less suffering for you. it doesn't always work out linearly though. for instance, perhaps you were an evil bastard 10 lifetimes ago, and have been a beacon of benevolence in the ones that followed. the bad karma from your evil lifetime may not come up until a great many rebirths later (probably because of the good karma preceding it and the direction it had set you on), although you may be able to "burn off" some of the bad karma in the meantime (which i wonder if that's just really making compensating course corrections).
e are infinite dimensions repeating everywhere with every possibility ever, well, there's little limit to the horrible or wonderful places you could be reborn into. you could pop into any place in the universe, or any dimension. i don't know if you could pop into any time in the past too.

Nah, enlightenment is always available no matter what the karmic imprints.

[marooned]

Nah, enlightenment is always available no matter what the karmic imprints.

how was this saying it wasn't?

eta: i guess i didn't mention enlightenment, because i'm not actually seeking it.

[lkdhf qkb]

Have you guys ever wondered why you got born when you were and as a human? And not in 600 BC or in 2567AD as a dog for example? Do you guys believe in reincarnation?

I had a funny thought: if reincarnation works independently of time, then a reincarnation of myself could theoretically live right now. Given a sufficient number of reincarnations, all living beings on Earth in the past, present, and future are just my own reincarnations. I could be my parents, my children, the chicken I had for lunch...

[Kalinoche buenanoche]

Have you guys ever wondered why you got born when you were and as a human? And not in 600 BC or in 2567AD as a dog for example? Do you guys believe in reincarnation?

I had a funny thought: if reincarnation works independently of time, then a reincarnation of myself could theoretically live right now. Given a sufficient number of reincarnations, all living beings on Earth in the past, present, and future are just my own reincarnations. I could be my parents, my children, the chicken I had for lunch...

There is the idea that depending on the positionality we have adopted in perceived existence, it is possible to entertain such scenarios

Ramesh Balsekar's take on reincarnation:

"P: Not the migration of a specific mind?

R: That is my point because there is nothing to migrate. My point is nothing can get destroyed, so all your hopes and failures and frustrations, they all go, let us say, into the pool of Consciousness all thoughts, all aspirations of all beings. When a new conception happens, what goes from the pool of Consciousness into that conception, nobody knows. It may be that, in a particular case, 70 per cent or 80 per cent of the aspirations and frustrations of one particular life may go into the other life. But it may be one per cent. Nobody can know."

http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses..._balsekar3.htm

[ouronis]

I don't understand how if you're born as a cicada or something your karma from being a cicada can follow you and determine whether you get to be a higher life form or not. Cicadas can't exactly make moral decisions about whether they are going to follow their life purpose

[qaz00]

I don't believe in reincarnation, it just doesn't make sense to have some transcendent part of you transported to other creatures when there's no scientific sign of anything like that happening, almost impossible. People talk about it because by an accident this idea became popular in some ancient times, also we like to think that death is not the end, people stick to theories that make them feel positive about their existence, religions work the same way. I think that something similar to reincarnation is possible, when you die your brain may slowly lose connections between its parts and these parts may develop some partial consciousness for a while, you transform into many smaller simple yous, at some point either you or all these hypothetical persons you split into stop existing as brain activity stops, but they also lose ability to perceive their existence, it's impossible to imagine how it is to become nothing.

[roger557]

I believe it does. I have even remembered, or I have been enlightened to previous incarnations of mine. It could all be imagined, don't know, but I don't think so. A pirate, vampire, a sniper...

Or I prefer to think this, since this time and era is very boring (might get more interesting soon though).

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

You are already everything. Reincarnation is to teach the soul a lesson of what exactly it is like to live as that person if you don't already know deeply and are judging them from a hateful and patronizing truly non-spiritual way. What you hate or can't forgive, you turn into in the next life. Love & Forgiveness... is always the way out of the destuctive cycle of karma.

"to be nothing" - key to Nirvana, no ego- but love- because love is nothing. Like in Tennis. Highest spiritual state- you are just a being of pure love and don't need to reincarnate to anything anymore, because you've already acheived the "highest" state. But that is boring ((it's also literally like an orgasm or a thrilling thing and so it naturally must 'come back down' anyway...)) and most people like the drama and the sex and the Illuminati good/evil tug of war of the Realm of Red.

At any time you could just give it all up and become 'whole' again but that's only if the person really wants that. and well that becomes a condundrum because 'they' would never really want that unless the body was severely injured, as the ego always fights for it's own survival even though it's just a small part of your head in the grand scheme of things. You'd also have to go through quite a brutal dark night of the soul process to achieve that and that's also usually avoided by most people because of how negative it is.

and yeah people fear coming back as a bug. To realistically have that fate you'd have to do something astronomically bad though and not feel the guilt either. Genuine guilt is sort of like your own conscience way of stopping evil/immorality/destruction etc. "Feeling the loss of other people felt that you inflicted upon them" and it comes back around to you. but yeah obviously in some people's brains this thing is warped and damaged or just not there to begin with. and due to the meat space living in a "sinful" physical world of karma we have all done things we've needed to be atoned for etc.

if the only reason you're being nice and selfless is so you can be the one that calls the shots (reincaranate as an Idea of Yourself- Godlier than God) on a later date to blow up the world or because you seek power - I would hope a God would easily be able to see through that. If God exists and Knows All- he has eternity under his belt. This is all a drag queen is really doing- they are speeding up the time buffering of that and it's funny and silly and entertaining but also deeply spiritual and wise because it 'shows people' the humorous illusion of the world.

I had a fan fiction idea once of somebody who tricked reincarnation and did incredibly fucked up things just for their own pleasure/excitement and came back as a bug and 're-earned' their status over many years and so they become an ultimate God and do fucked up things and get away with it because they are God now and God doesn't pay a price, God gives prices to others. I mean a truly smart person would know how to fool the laws of reincarnation if it existed anyway. It could temporarily fake empathy, and even be genuine with it it had to be- to unleash a plan further along the line. I mean shit- it's what 'powerful' people do 24/7 in the real world is it not? People could seem to be really nice and sweet to you now in the moment but what is their end goal? The elite always throw out sugary lies and saccharine feel-good statements because they wanna do something so jaw droppingly fucked up at a later date.

[Kalinoche buenanoche]

''Mayfly has the shortest lifespan on Earth — 24 hours or less.''

fancy having wings for a few hours?

[Number 9 large]

I dont believe in reincarnation. The chance of you being born again from the same parents is 0.

People forget that your consciousness comes from the brain. Once our brain stops working, our consciousness as we know it dies. The molecules and atoms of our brain will continue to be part of the universe though.

[roger557]

I dont believe in reincarnation. The chance of you being born again from the same parents is 0.

People forget that your consciousness comes from the brain. Once our brain stops working, our consciousness as we know it dies. The molecules and atoms of our brain will continue to be part of the universe though.

How terrenal your understanding. You don't believe in anything spiritual?

[Number 9 large]

How terrenal your understanding. You don't believe in anything spiritual?

Such as?

[roger557]

Such as?

The existance of the soul, karma, the Akashic field, etc?

[Number 9 large]

The existance of the soul, karma, the Akashic field, etc?

Soul = consciousness which obviously dies as your brain dies.

Karma = the consequences of your actions

Akashic field = law of the conservation of energy

[EUDAEMONIUM]

I don't think there's any point in thinking about reincarnation. I don't think it's worth thinking about life before or after death, your life now is the only one you're living.

I don't like the idea of ego death either. You are born into this life, it's a cosmic role you've been given, you should play it with all your heart and with full commitment.

[VewyScawwyNawcissist]

U are define byother things. Yr body is part of the environment that define u. If ur body gone then u become undefined by it. When u reincarnate what would make u 7 the one Who reincarbated. People change with brain damage and over time 7 choose only parts of Who u are as define by other parts and the choice u make is predetermined by the other parts. A cell splts in two which one is the same cell. Its a river of souls.

[Resonare]

Hopefully 0%.