Rebirth

[Blake]

Is this your only chance at life? Can you explain the state of your mind as being as the sum of genetics, upbringing and chaos alone? Or is there something more?
What feels true to you (and maybe always has)?

By feeling, I mean; a gut feeling, just what feels true.
By rational, I mean; a process of investigating the evidence, both direct experience and scientific.

[Krill]

I hope so. At the rate I'm going I don't deserve another one.

[SlowwHand]

You get one shot.

[notyoueither]

This isn't going to end well.

[Aeson]

If it is, I don't remember the last go around... so it's not "me".

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Aeson
If it is, I don't remember the last go around... so it's not "me".

Yes, I partialy agree.
As the mechanism of rebirth seems to involve forgetting all the things of your past (unless evoked, for example, by hypnosis or other tchniques), the self that I have after rebirth seems to be a completely other me than the me I have today.

It seems to be well possible that in my next life I end up as a stupid woman who quits school early and only defines herself by the men she marries (or has affairs with).
Or to express it in other words, my self after rebirth could well be completely different from the self I had before death (even maybe being completely opposite to it).

So even with such a system of rebirths in place, you loose a lot when you die.

[Blake]

Obviously rebirth with no connection to this life is meaningless.

So this is rebirth in the sense of;

The way I conduct myself (body and mind) in this life, has some effect on my body and mind in my next life just as the way I conduct myself now has some effect on the state of my body and mind in the future of this life.

The proverbial example, is a suicide victim who just keeps committing suicide life after life after life, because they never "rise above" the mental-atmosphere of depression, they keep seeking the easy way out again and again and again.
If they didn't commit suicide and persevered, pushed through the depressed mental weather, they would then be much less likely to become suicidal in their next life, because they wouldn't have died with a deeply depressed state of mind.

Rebirth only makes sense, with the idea of "no clean slate". Clean slate rebirth is identical to no rebirth.

In many ways; the question is as simple as:
Were you born with a mind which was a clean slate? Have you been conditioned entirely by this life and this life alone? Does that feel right?

edit: But rebirth is also indistinguishable from "mad god theory", where a mad god gives everyone dirty slates - sort of like big G planting fake evidence for evolution. Occam's razor seems to favor rebirth over mad god, however, as does any worldview which promotes self-improvement.

[LotC]

Ever since I was old enough to contemplate this question, I've had the inescapable feeling that as long as there is consciousness, I will perceive it. I don't think it's a separate, discrete, individual thing. It just seems that way as long as we're stuck in the meatsack.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Blake
Obviously rebirth with no connection to this life is meaningless.

It's not meaningless. It would mean a lot... just no one would understand what or why.

The way I conduct myself (body and mind) in this life, has some effect on my body and mind in my next life just as the way I conduct myself now has some effect on the state of my body and mind in the future of this life.

The life you have now cannot be described in regards to the life you lived previously (if any)... the life you will have next (if any) is unknown... so any correlation you draw between them, or even any claim that they existed/will exist, is baseless conjecture.

The proverbial example, is a suicide victim who just keeps committing suicide life after life after life, because they never "rise above" the mental-atmosphere of depression, they keep seeking the easy way out again and again and again.

This is what is so dangerous with these sorts of conjectures. You start blaming victims for what happens to them based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever.

Rebirth only makes sense, with the idea of "no clean slate". Clean slate rebirth is identical to no rebirth.

Rebirth only makes sense if you can show some evidence that it actually happens.

When dealing with baseless conjecture, there's nothing to base the "sense" of rebirth with a slate dictated by your past vs. the "sense" of rebirth with a clean slate. There simply are no rules that can be derived from the evidence, since there is no evidence.

If we want to suppose rebirth happens, it's just as likely that what you do in one life affects the other inversely. Or that what you do in one life affects someone else, and what they do affects you. Or that between trips you stop at some ephemeral casino and get $500 worth of karma chips to bet on a cosmic roulette wheel, and that determines your fate in the next life. They're all equally baseless conjecture.

[BeBMan]

Re: Rebirth

Originally posted by Blake
By feeling, I mean; a gut feeling, just what feels true.

Truthiness

[Nikolai]

In my belief there are no rebirths in this world. I will be reborn in the new one God is going to make in the end of time though.

[Darius871]

Re: Rebirth

Originally posted by Blake
Is this your only chance at life? Can you explain the state of your mind as being as the sum of genetics, upbringing and chaos alone? Or is there something more?
What feels true to you (and maybe always has)?

By feeling, I mean; a gut feeling, just what feels true.
By rational, I mean; a process of investigating the evidence, both direct experience and scientific.

What difference does it make?

[Dinner]

There are no bananas on 48" pizzas!

[Nikolai]

It could be.

[BeBMan]

Resurrection of hot Cylon models