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Past life?
vinlyn
Colorado...for now Veteran
Interesting news item about an American child with a supposed past life.
5
Comments
That's interesting @vinlyn, thanks...
I have an open mind regarding these sorts of things but one thing that always comes to mind is "memory" where is memory stored ? Is it physical ie stored in the neuropathways of the brain and else where in/on the body? Or a past subjective experience ie in ones consciousness/mind ?
Do we buddhists believed in that there are levels of the mind? depending on brain frequencies? i.e. beta, alpha, theta etc. or we just take the mind as one.
Cool story.
Body isn't even as physical as we imagine. So why can't there be memory of a past life.
It's possible for sure.
Mind and brain are not equivalent.
Brain is like a link in the chain of mind's unfolding. So I find no contradiction in observing separate or distinct brain waves (although really, they are very difficult to tell apart, and in general make up a much larger symphony/chorus of brain activity).
Mind > brain+body+experience because mind is common to all beings, whereas brain is only common to some.
Very cool
Here's a "in a nutshell" (possibly wacky) theory of sorts regarding "memory"
Triggered sensations that react to stimuli which in turn firing up neurotransmitters which create the subjective mental image of a past experience...
Then top this up with the following rambling thoughts:
Say for example, if every subatomic particle is coated with consciousness's karmic imprint and our bodies over time are broken down and 'recycled' (the new me/us is just old recycled subatomic particles) and if by chance one happens to get a big dose of subatomic particles from one particular source (for some strange reason these particular SPs decide to hang out together instead of dispersing and going their separate ways)...And due to ones karmic imprint(that which goes for one life to the next) these Sps gradually come together like pieces of a puzzle...This would account for the past life "memories" some people (SPs) are experiencing...
Wow the mind gets blown away just attempting to think about it...So I'll stop there....:
As a non-scientist I accept no responsibility whatsoever for the inaccuracy of the contents of this theory that quite possibly has more holes in it than a colander...
In the long run does it really "matter" .....
@Shoshin that was really cool, thanks for writing that up.
It reminds me of cellular monoliths (such as our bodies) are only possible with many small individual cells. Each one is not the entire body, but "we move better together"
so the karmic boomerang / karmic gravity "suspends" particles coated in consciousness together ... kinda a nice way to reason about it.
now, where's the balance point?
Don't ask me ...I'm just a bundle of vibrating karmic energy held together by karmic glue and in a constant state of flux...How would I
But you could try there...............
I went for a walk this afternoon and as I walked past a house someone had left their wetsuit and a float outside (looked like they were in a rush) anyhow as the eye consciousness contacted the red float (It was a floatation device similar to what lifeguards use) a sensation was felt and a memory popped into my head of mucking around in the surf with a similar device when I was living in Sydney at Coogee beach...
Most of the time I don't really take much notice of the sensations unless they are quite strong...On my walk this afternoon I was in a fluctuating bundle of karmic energy mood, allowing the senses and their doors free range...It's possible that was why the awareness of the eye consciousness making contact with an object and the sensation was felt doing its memory thing with the neurotransmitters... But I could well be wrong....
This “news-item” is an advertorial for this book.
http://www.jimbtucker.com/return-to-life.html
Jim Tucker is the successor of Ian Stevenson.
He is in the business of collecting and selling this kind of “amazing stories”.
“For more than a decade, Jim Tucker has traveled the country meeting families, hearing stories like these, and trying to determine if the children’s memories are valid.”
I’m curious how many cases he investigated and what percentage he could dismiss himself without being too critical about it.
Particularly weird in this case is that Marty Martin died in 1964.
The kid is ten years old; so there are a few decades missing?
Does God exist? prove it.
Does God NOT exist? Prove it.
Discussion on feasibility is pointless.
They also say that conscious awareness is not in the realms of space/time. A billion years would be no different to one day. Like going to sleep and waking up. You have no recollection
Biocomputers are not merely sci-fi visions. Data can be stored in human molecules, and not only in the brain.
It is supposed that the fantasy literature is based largely in the shared memory of the humankind. For instance, Neanderthals being the basis of trolls and goblins. And there is that reasonable explanation of the Eden myth.
That’s the problem of lacking falsifiability.
A wild idea is impossible to disprove if for every observation that poses a problem, there’s another wild idea that will explain it away.
The discussion on rebirth is eternal.
It will not be disproven (because it is constructed in a way that leaves no room for falsification).
It will not be proven (because it isn’t true).
Just like when you look at the night sky and wonder what it all about. Why are we here?
I don't think our minds can ever understand. It is beyond concept.
So you acknowledge it can't be disproved, and then you say it isn't true? I think your logic needs some attention.
An idea that can’t be disproven - not because it is true but because of how it is constructed - is extremely weak.
@SpinyNorman
Saw THIS today on FB.
While it seems to have some preliminary logic, applied thought will conclude it ain't necessarily so....
FSM looks like a Cthulhu monster of H. P. Lovecraft...
The whole evolution from 1-celled organisms is stored in the DNA of every cell of a human body. So there can be memories of past lives, too?
Finally found it... I have seen a TV document of epigenetics. The things you do may directly affect into your grandchildren. And DNA carries memories of other past lives, too?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/ghostgenes.shtml
Everything I have been taught and learned from observation about how the universe works tells me memories do not survive the destruction of the neuron paths that are what memories actually are.
Everything I have been taught and learned about the Dharma tells me it's irrelevant, because "I" am not a few scattered memories, anyway. Inheriting a tiny part of someone else who died in the past does not make them reborn, any more than inheriting some dna makes my father, reborn. I am unique in this lifetime.
Everyone is unique and every reborn is unique?
I'm not clear why that is "particularly weird". Not saying it is or isn't, just not sure what you're getting at.
I don't understand this post. No one has mentioned god/God in this thread.
Could you explain.
Thank you.
Yes. There's a huge difference between the stork and "creation science".
While the stork fable has a basis in ancient mythology, I doubt almost anyone believes it in the modern world. It was, back in the early days of modern society something to tell children, rather than tell them what was known as the truth about sex.
Valid or not, many people believe in "creation science".
One would expect a rebirth approximately around (but definitely after) the death.
Hanging around for forty years in some intermediate state is quite long, I guess.
Okay, I see.
While I'm not arguing the point, why? **If **there is such a thing as rebirth, we certainly don't know how it works, so I don't necessarily see why time is a factor. Or could there have been a rebirth in between. Or, who is to say that time is linear as we humans experience it?
Perhaps he had lived another life in those forty years, that he didn't remember. Perhaps as some other creature that doesn't have the memory of a human.
Sure. My point was:
Discussing whether the account of this 'reincarnation' is credible/true or not, is akin to the constant debate of whether God exists or not.
neither side can provide adequate evidence to prove their stance.
Both sides' arguments can never be 100% solid.
.....is what I was getting at.
Interesting story! Thanks for sharing.
Ah, okay.
But to be frank, I would estimate that more than half the posts in this forum cannot be supported by "adequate evidence".
I think we just like to chat.
I find these stories interesting. My kids in their younger years have made comments about countries and lifestyles they never would have known of, including names in languages they are not familiar with and so on. Do I have evidence? No, but I could tell it wasn't a case of them remembering something from a story and applying it to their own lives. They were quite emotional about what they said, yet at the same time confused about why they had these memories. Things they would have had no way of knowing at the ages they were.
@zenff why do you assume that a person who died in the 60s and a kid who was born around 2005 had such a gap? How do we know rebirth works in linear fashion? Even keeping with linear time, how do we know the boy wasn't born and died in between the 60s and 2005? Not everyone lives a life of 70+ years.
In any case, evidenciary support or lack thereof doesn't bother me. There are plenty of things we have no evidence of that we either believe in, or choose not to believe in.
@ vinlyn
Too often, evidence is just favorably matching the dreams of others to our own.
Beyond those dreams, an egoless chaos beckons.
Hello friends!!!
Sometimes I have weird feelings about some stuff, like I have lived there before. It usually happens with japanese stuff (like temples, etc) and also german-ish stuff.
It really feels like I was there before (not like a Dejavu), like I've lived there or had some deep contact with it. It could be some deep memories of past lives, maybe? 
Woah... deja vu
Definition of deja vu = reading this forum for more than 6 months.
I think you are muddling up personal disbelief with a philosophical argument.
A hypothesis that can be neither proven or disproven (like a god, rebirth) is necessarily weaker than a hypothesis that can be either proven or disproven.
The 'weakness' is important because when we want airplanes to stay up in the air, we don't want to manufacture an aircraft that can't be proven or disprove to fly, we want one that CAN be proven or disproven.
When it comes to religion and philosophy, heck, most of our 'hypotheses' such as the 4NT are the 'weaker' kind, but in this context, where we aren't flying airplanes, it's more acceptable.
The only Buddhist school I know of that categorically rejects rebirth is Secular Buddhism.
Some schools don't view it as relevant to daily practice, and others do. People have their own personal beliefs and disbeliefs, their assumptions and their opinions. In all cases attachment to views can be a hindrance.
I think Scientists are now agreeing that life on other planets/galaxies is not only possible, but probable... now this really makes the concept of catching glimpses of a previous life interesting.
Can we liken the brain to the hardware and the mind to software? Does that make sense?
That explains my dreams of being a squid-like tentacled soldier patrolling the ice mountains at the top of our water world under the red sun and triple moon.
No, that really IS what you look like. The rest of the time you're dreaming you're a normal human being....
The butterfly effect?
Well done....
I think it is relevant.
People who don’t believe in rebirth have - I would think – a different sense of urgency.
Like it says in the evening chant:
If I don't live the Dharma in this life, I never will.
I like that idea. The only problem with it is more and more of what we know as 'the mind' is being located in the physical tissue of the brain.
At first that sounded bleak and uninspiring. Oh here we go, those materialist scientists at it again. But think . . . even if it is the work of neurons, what a splendid, elegant, profound thing that is. "Material" might not be just this 'dead' inert stuff after all.