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I have not read through this whole discussion but based on the topic title am reminded:

• a realized teacher once said that he came to the realization one day that "life will not turn out". In the sense, his hopes and dreams will not materialize. He found that curiously freeing. He said that going forward this really put him in the present moment and eradicated most of his thinking about the past and future.

@Buddha-Dude said:
I have found that in my studies of the stars and universe, that physics (something The Buddha knew a fair amount about) is somehow to me beginning to pinpoint something that makes sense. Quantum Entangle and Quantum Signatures. Both related and could answer that long begging question of what gets reincarnated.

The more i read the more convinced i have become that our Quantum Signature is what is reborn into a suitable host. If you are a stream winner then clearly your Quantum signature is more complex yet simplified due to the attachments you've let go of. So in a comical sense a squirrel who has learned NOT to cross the street when the car is coming, probably has written into it's Q.S. that which it's learned. That increases it's "volume" or complexity of the Q.S.! So it can't really return as a squirrel but perhaps and cat, dog or whatever.

Buddha challenged us to find the soul. We won't find it because quantum is at a level that we can't quite detect YET. Does this makes sense to anyone?

Yes, what you wrote make sense, but is it accurate?

The Buddha didn't teach that there was a soul to find, and teachings on the emptiness of phenomena, and the mechanics of rebirth would wait till the Mahayana.

AS far as the Buddha and physics are concerned, who actually knew anything about what we call physics in 500bce? The Buddha set out to find the cause of birth, old age, sickness and death. This led him to the truth of suffering, it's cause, it's cessation and the path of cessation.

Rebirth is a function of karma and very subtle level of consciousness that acts as a karmic storehouse. It's all in the Mahayana. This level of consciousness could be the same thing as these quantum signatures you describe, but are they? I don't think it matters, because knowing it, won't hasten enlightenment.

Physics and Buddhism teach different things. Similarities are coincidental.

@marcitko said:
I've been toying with the idea that companies should be responsible for the packaging waste they produce. I don't know how that would work in practice. It would be impossible to require them to gather back all of the waste. So, would one possible solution be for them to have to pay a fee based on the packaging they are using? This would a) motivate them to use less harmful packaging and less packaging and b) make products with more harmful packaging and more packaging more expensive so consumers would buy less of them. I don't know, just noodling.

In economics this is known as a negative externality. Basically its when a company or individual can gain the profits of its work, product, etc. while putting some of its costs onto others. Its a major point of failure in a market system that relies on price mechanisms.

I've been toying with the idea that companies should be responsible for the packaging waste they produce. I don't know how that would work in practice. It would be impossible to require them to gather back all of the waste. So, would one possible solution be for them to have to pay a fee based on the packaging they are using? This would a) motivate them to use less harmful packaging and less packaging and b) make products with more harmful packaging and more packaging more expensive so consumers would buy less of them. I don't know, just noodling.

@Jeroen said:
So I thought I would do a little reading about mythology, and I came across a passage of how our being is sheltered by a soul, which brought to my mind that what speaks to us about stories with a mythic quality resonates in us with the soul that shelters us and directs us.

Which is a very spiritual quality, it seems at the moment I cannot escape it.

I guess that depends on if what you were reading is correct.

Is there a "soul" at all? From a Buddhist POV, you should examine where this so-called soul can be found. If the soul is supposed to take an active role in your lives, we should be able to find it. I cannot. Can you?

A girlfriend said to me, “as long as you are respecting your own life and that of other conscious beings, being kind and trying to be a better person you are still being spiritual”. And I kind of agree with her, these are spiritual values, not societal values.