Reincarnation And Evolution

[TrueFreedom]

I've sometimes wondered whether or not plants and stars have a form of consciousness, especially considering intermediate life-forms like sea-squirts and snails that photosynthesize. I would like learn more about Gaia theory and the history of the Gaia hypothesis.

I've wondered the same thing. This isn't exactly what you were talking about, but we just had a tree taken out of our yard and I've been crying about it for two days. Now I want to clarify that I don't think the tree was sentient, but there is a presence missing from the yard now. I feel a loss. Maybe I'm just too sensitive?

I'm sorry for your loss, {{Mudhoney}}.

[Ouroboros]

I've sometimes wondered whether or not plants and stars have a form of consciousness, especially considering intermediate life-forms like sea-squirts and snails that photosynthesize. I would like learn more about Gaia theory and the history of the Gaia hypothesis.

Awareness and consciousness must come in different levels. We can see that with animals and people with different levels of intellects, etc. And on top of that, the potential of consciousness (notice "potential of", not that "it is") must be innate in the structure of cosmos, otherwise it couldn't emerge. And we can't say what kind of combination of matter or forces is necessary for this emerge, so ... you might be right.

[Mudhoney]

I've sometimes wondered whether or not plants and stars have a form of consciousness, especially considering intermediate life-forms like sea-squirts and snails that photosynthesize. I would like learn more about Gaia theory and the history of the Gaia hypothesis.

I've wondered the same thing. This isn't exactly what you were talking about, but we just had a tree taken out of our yard and I've been crying about it for two days. Now I want to clarify that I don't think the tree was sentient, but there is a presence missing from the yard now. I feel a loss. Maybe I'm just too sensitive?

I'm sorry for your loss, {{Mudhoney}}.

Thank you.

[Mudhoney]

I may ask a question such as, "We now have 7 billion humans who are ostensibly in need of souls. Back when we had a million, or a billion, where were all these souls and what were they doing while waiting for more people to be born?" The apologist may provide any answer they wish, as there is no evidence for or against any such position. Perhaps the souls inhabited beings on other planets; maybe a soul isn't "born" until a human body is born. Maybe there is a finite number of souls, maybe not. Maybe animals and early Man have/had souls, maybe not. Each proposed answer poses a new set of problems.

Let's consider the hypothesis that reincarnation functions like bubbles on the surface of a stream. Each bubble you see is unique from the other currently existing bubbles and all those that came before and that will come after, but the components that give rise to the bubbles (water molecules, air molecules, and the conditions for bubble formation) are shared among all bubbles. This means that any given bubble some where along the stream will contain molecules from any number of previous bubbles. The individual is unique but still connected through this process.

 

Now, since morality is key to many reincarnation beliefs, how does morality come into play in this model? Each generation as a whole influences and creates the conditions for the birth of future generations. We just make a simple, egoistic mistake of thinking that future birth is our own.

 

At least that is how it would seem to operate to me.

 

This expands my concept of reincarnation significantly.

[Voice]

Right now I'm exploring reincarnation. I'm okay with the concept, but there is a basic problem I keep sticking on. At what point during the evolutionary process were souls introduced? With the emergence of homo sapiens? Before?

 

For those of you who believe in reincarnation, what are your thoughts? Or even for those of you who do not believe, have you heard of this being explained anywhere?

 

You're looking at souls the way christians do, as something limited to humanity or its relatives. If you can accept that animals could have souls (I refer to soul as sentience, self awareness, an unwillingness to die in corporeal form), try thinking of plant life and fathom the nature of sentience again. From there think down to cells themselves, individuals working in communities. If you can say these have any form of sentience, you can ask, could I be reincarnated as something like that?

Sometimes I think you have to be a person before you can be a dog.

[Voice]

I try to stay out of this area, but the spirit led me to comment.

 

Though not every detail is known yet, there is solid evidence for evolution. Everything else regarding details about the existence of a soul and how it might behave is all guessing. That's why there are so many theories out there that nobody can agree upon - they all are, by necessity, just made up.

 

While the idea of reincarnation is fascinating, its proponents seem to have endless and contradictory theories of how it actually works. I studied the concept several years ago and found that, like Christianity, there were too many contradictions and unanswered questions. I may ask a question such as, "We now have 7 billion humans who are ostensibly in need of souls. Back when we had a million, or a billion, where were all these souls and what were they doing while waiting for more people to be born?" The apologist may provide any answer they wish, as there is no evidence for or against any such position. Perhaps the souls inhabited beings on other planets; maybe a soul isn't "born" until a human body is born. Maybe there is a finite number of souls, maybe not. Maybe animals and early Man have/had souls, maybe not. Each proposed answer poses a new set of problems. Another very basic question for me is, if you don't remember past lives, what value is it to "know" that your birthmark is there because of a sword wound when "you" were a Viking? One guess is as good or bad as another.

 

Get ready for a thorough wrist slapping by Antler.

 

Lol

 

The increasing number of souls on the planet argument stems from a 4D perspective, where time moves from past to future. A 5D perspective, as it's been described to me by the most convicted reincarnationists I've met, describes (space)time as a 2D plane where souls may choose where/when to go. In this model, one could reincarnate in our past, in our present.

I'm not a reincartionist, but it's damned cool to think about. What would it be like to reincarnate as your own pet?

 

As Florduh points out, it's not a tangible science. There don't have to be too many rules.

My most reliable sources are not flaky people who aren't grounded in any aspects of life or who regurgitate standard reincarnation doctrine, but people who have experienced profound events worth consideration. One was a woman I knew who lived as a care-free, doped up party hound until she was pronounced dead after a motorcycle accident. She came back with a unique belief system she didn't have before, which included talk of rivers of souls, of different kinds of souls, troubled souls, evolved helpers, clusters of souls reincarnating together. Most importantly, with diverse, interwoven details, she described the process of choosing from possible lives to be born into. She was the one who tipped the scale for me and turned my ears to the concept of reincarnation.

[florduh]

Referring to such speculative hypotheses as theories makes be cringe.

You are correct. It was a sloppy use of a common figure of speech and in no way meant to describe a scientific theory, which is a different animal. I should be more precise.

[LifeCycle]

This stuff is intriguing to me.

 

Cool topic, thanks for posting.

[Mudhoney]

Right now I'm exploring reincarnation. I'm okay with the concept, but there is a basic problem I keep sticking on. At what point during the evolutionary process were souls introduced? With the emergence of homo sapiens? Before?

 

For those of you who believe in reincarnation, what are your thoughts? Or even for those of you who do not believe, have you heard of this being explained anywhere?

 

You're looking at souls the way christians do, as something limited to humanity or its relatives. If you can accept that animals could have souls (I refer to soul as sentience, self awareness, an unwillingness to die in corporeal form), try thinking of plant life and fathom the nature of sentience again. From there think down to cells themselves, individuals working in communities. If you can say these have any form of sentience, you can ask, could I be reincarnated as something like that?

Sometimes I think you have to be a person before you can be a dog.

 

You're right, I am thinking like a xtian...the indoctrination runs deep. Since posting on this subject, I have already expanded my concept of reincarnation and the soul. I've been too narrow in my thinking. Thank you for your input.

[LifeCycle]

The entire problem with reincarnation and karma to me is who's judging the system? Who or what determines a person gets to move up the ladder or gets repaid for good deeds?

 

It all goes right back to a deity.

[TrueFreedom]

The entire problem with reincarnation and karma to me is who's judging the system? Who or what determines a person gets to move up the ladder or gets repaid for good deeds?

 

It all goes right back to a deity.

 

Perhaps it's an inside job. Perhaps you ARE the deity, or part of the deity. And perhaps it's not a person who moves but just parts of what once made up that person.

[mcdaddy]

The entire problem with reincarnation and karma to me is who's judging the system? Who or what determines a person gets to move up the ladder or gets repaid for good deeds?

 

It all goes right back to a deity.

 

Perhaps it's an inside job. Perhaps you ARE the deity, or part of the deity. And perhaps it's not a person who moves but just parts of what once made up that person.

 

turtles

[florduh]

Perhaps it's an inside job. Perhaps you ARE the deity, or part of the deity. And perhaps it's not a person who moves but just parts of what once made up that person.

 

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Just guesses. Why work so hard to justify an extraordinary claim?

[TrueFreedom]

Perhaps it's an inside job. Perhaps you ARE the deity, or part of the deity. And perhaps it's not a person who moves but just parts of what once made up that person.

 

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Just guesses. Why work so hard to justify an extraordinary claim?

 

Perhaps I'm not working hard or trying to prove anything. I wish that I could motivate myself to put some hard work into meditation though...

[florduh]

Perhaps it's an inside job. Perhaps you ARE the deity, or part of the deity. And perhaps it's not a person who moves but just parts of what once made up that person.

 

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Just guesses. Why work so hard to justify an extraordinary claim?

 

Perhaps I'm not working hard or trying to prove anything. I wish that I could motivate myself to put some hard work into meditation though...

I mean why would anyone desperately keep stabbing at any possible answers that might justify the belief as a workable mechanism. BTW, I also value meditation - keep at it, just don't expect to see God

[par4dcourse]

Time may have existed, just not for OUR universe.

 

If we are correct about the singularity, what we perceive in our space/time fabric could not possibly have existed according to everything that we have been able to calculate. In another universe or another dimension, our concept of time may be completely irrelevant. I am amazed that we have been able to learn what we have about light and relativity, but physics continue to reveal more mysteries that nobody is likely to explain in our lifetimes.

 

I've been watching a fascinating PBS series "Fabric of the Cosmos." The latest installment included multi-verse theory. The possibility that as big as our universe is, it may be among one of billions forming or disappearing is mind-boggling (and it don't take a lot to boggle mine). Answers a lot of questions, brings up many more.

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

See, the problem is, our brains are illequipped to deal with imagining concepts like infinity, quantum physics, 12 dimensions, and parallel universes.

[Antlerman]

Perhaps it's an inside job. Perhaps you ARE the deity, or part of the deity. And perhaps it's not a person who moves but just parts of what once made up that person.

 

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Just guesses. Why work so hard to justify an extraordinary claim?

 

Perhaps I'm not working hard or trying to prove anything. I wish that I could motivate myself to put some hard work into meditation though...

I mean why would anyone desperately keep stabbing at any possible answers that might justify the belief as a workable mechanism. BTW, I also value meditation - keep at it, just don't expect to see God

As far as 'justifying an extraordinary claim', of course you mean using the tools of empirical science. I agree there is no trying to justify it to satisfy something ill-equipped to look into these things. That's like telling someone to use a telescope to look at a cell, or use a microscope to look at a distant galaxy.

 

BTW, you meditate? For me it is through meditation that questions of what the nature of God is becomes much clearer. Now that's the right tool to look in these areas, not a rationalistic, empiric-analytic science. It becomes readily obvious that the latter is the entirely wrong tool to judge these things. To me, through meditation, these empirical questions of God are non-questions. What is the question is how to talk about it. That's all.

[florduh]

I agree there is no trying to justify it to satisfy something ill-equipped to look into these things.

I'm looking more at the fact nobody can agree on how reincarnation can work around some obvious practical problems of implementation, regardless of any actual proof. It doesn't seem useful to assert that reincarnation is a fact, or at least a deeply held belief, and then try to imagine all kinds of ways that it might work, all kinds of scenarios that make it seem logically possible. It seems to me to mirror the Christian apologists who assert the Bible is the infallible Word of God then go through dozens of mental contortions and logical disasters in order to support their original assertion. It's the opposite process of how things should work. One doesn't normally make an assumption then go about making up ways that assumption could be logically true in any arena other than religion.

[Antlerman]

I agree there is no trying to justify it to satisfy something ill-equipped to look into these things.

I'm looking more at the fact nobody can agree on how reincarnation can work around some obvious practical problems of implementation, regardless of any actual proof.

You expect this to function on the level of physics? If we're dealing with 'energy' or 'consciousness' how do you propose to measure it? With which tool of the empirical sciences? What if the only way to 'see' it is to directly engage it with the mind or spirit itself? What if because it transcends physics that any of these attempts to talk about it will in fact fail because the language we use is simply not up to the task, and you end up with this lack of practical understanding you mention as a result? Does that failing invalidate it, because you can't penetrate it with the wrong tools and set the expectation that you should be able to? You expect that something that transcends definition should be able to be understood using logic and formulas?

 

It doesn't seem useful to assert that reincarnation is a fact, or at least a deeply held belief, and then try to imagine all kinds of ways that it might work, all kinds of scenarios that make it seem logically possible.

Sort of like string theory? Sort of like the theory of relativity?

 

Aside from that, my pet peeve is when I see people try to reduce God to something that empiric-analytic science can prove or disprove. I think they fall prey to the appeal of knowledge through the empirical sciences as the only valid knowledge, and that they must somehow win acceptance of the scientific community in order to be considered legitimate. I think that is a gross fallacy of logic itself. It's just what we see the Christian fundamentalist apologists do, as well as the pseudo-scientific New Agers in their God in Quantum mechanics appeal. It takes something utterly transcendent and reduces it to the most basic, most fundamental aspects of the universe, the physical domain.

 

It reduces God or Spirit to a simple object. It makes God or Spirit an object of study, whereas in reality, it is the Subject. It cannot be penetrated by reason and logic and theories. To make it that, makes it 'not-God', and therefore any and all theories are incorrect. Does that invalidate God? No. It invalidates your ideas. God is not Realized through ideas. It is the subject of love, of being, of Life. It is realized through a spiritual awareness, not logic.

 

I'll just keep repeating that mantra until the clouds of the logic mind clear to allow Light to penetrate into it.

 

It seems to me to mirror the Christian apologists who assert the Bible is the infallible Word of God then go through dozens of mental contortions and logical disasters in order to support their original assertion.

That's right, for the reasons I just stated. It's fine to speculate, to have some metaphysics, but you have to realize that metaphysics without an actual experience is meaningless. The 'proof' is the experience. The way we talk about it, is at best a loose model that should never, ever be held to as fact. They are always only mental models of something that transcend the mind, unlike physics and the models of the empiric-analytic sciences which are looking at a world beneath, or below, or simpler than the mind. This is why I say you are using the wrong tools! You're looking at things like spirit and God as though they were objects in a physical universe. Wrong set of tools.

 

So, do you practice meditation? I asked, since you brought it up as that you should expect no spiritual experience in the practice. That is actually the correct tool to use to explore this domain of knowledge, BTW. I'm wondering what your experiences have been using this tool? As explorers of knowledge we can compare notes in our research. What experiments have you performed? What were your results? How do they compare with other researchers using similar methods? How do you interpret them? (You see, a scientific approach does apply, just not the methods of empiric-analytic sciences which apply only to examining objects in a physical universe).

 

It's the opposite process of how things should work. One doesn't normally make an assumption then go about making up ways that assumption could be logically true in any arena other than religion.

Tell that to Einstein in the theory of relativity. What you say is not true even in the empiric-analytical sciences! Again however, in the domain of spirit, they are less theories than they are metaphysical models for the mind to try to talk about what transcends it. It's not the same thing as a scientific hypothesis in this way. It begins with experience, and then seeks a way to describe it.

[florduh]

It's fine to speculate, to have some metaphysics, but you have to realize that metaphysics without an actual experience is meaningless. The 'proof' is the experience.

Has anyone actually experienced reincarnation? I thought reincarnation was offered as an explanation for some purported memory anomalies and as an accepted mechanism of a soul's evolution.

 

So, do you practice meditation?

I have used meditation for many years. Like yoga, it can have a spiritual component or not. I find it quite relaxing, stress relieving, and sometimes I find solutions once my mind is cleared of the static.

[Antlerman]

It's fine to speculate, to have some metaphysics, but you have to realize that metaphysics without an actual experience is meaningless. The 'proof' is the experience.

Has anyone actually experienced reincarnation? I thought reincarnation was offered as an explanation for some purported memory anomalies and as an accepted mechanism of a soul's evolution.

I'm speaking outside my own experience on this one, so I would have to say that those report these memories are the ones to look at or listen to what they have to say. Personally I think the way RevR explained it above is how I would see it. Is reincarnation a mechanism of a soul's evolution? Hmmm.. I don't know. I do believe however it happens that our consciousness is in fact evolving, and that towards an eventual enlightenment, but I see this as a whole, with of course those who are more advanced playing a significant role in the movement of the whole, a "downward causation" thing.

 

As far as 'memories', I can see this in some sort of collective consciousness, or perhaps some genetic memory would also possibly play into this, like turtles who know what to do when born to find the ocean from miles away, when they have no benefit of seeing a behavior modeled by an adult. There are many examples of these 'memories' passed on without the benefit of teaching. How is that? And what is the purpose of it? Would such a thing play into this greater evolution of the species as a whole? I wouldn't be surprised at all.

 

When I do speak from experience it is with the spiritual domains. When I speak of 'God', it is not just some speculation of cause and effects sorts of theologies. So what I say about the domains of knowledge, the tools of knowing, it's not some idea or logic argument. It is speaking from a place of direct, first-hand experience. When, through the tool of practicing a self-guided form of Insight meditation this opened to me, the first thing I said was, "There is no way the rational mind can even touch this! All the knowledge I have in all these theories and sciences pales by comparison. It's like getting two brains, laid right on top of each other". Those were my exact words. I completely stand by those today, and then some. The two work together, but they are different domains of knowledge and knowing.

 

So, do you practice meditation?

I have used meditation for many years. Like yoga, it can have a spiritual component or not. I find it quite relaxing, stress relieving, and sometimes I find solutions once my mind is cleared of the static.

That's good of course, and quite familiar to me. Would that everyone practiced at least that to some degree. That's the first door, the first room, the first level, so to speak. Beyond that you enter into the deep, into what I call the field of the gods. And then beyond them, and beyond that, and beyond that, into places of awareness and knowledge that no amount of concepts, beliefs, theologies, theories, ideas, or thoughts can take you. And that reality, is more real than anything we call real in our average every day experience of "normal" reality. This same thing is reported uniformly by all who enter that domain. The gods are mere faces of what is beyond them, and before them, beyond ourselves, and before ourselves.

 

So when you say if you meditation don't expect to experience the spiritual, I'd say that's probably true before you go deeper as I described. It may or may not take a face of a god, per se, but reality is blow wide open no matter what face you see. And that, is entirely a spiritual experience.

[florduh]

As far as 'memories', I can see this in some sort of collective consciousness, or perhaps some genetic memory would also possibly play into this

 

In the context, this is at least as likely an answer as is reincarnation, and it offers fewer problems. Yet, so many believe in reincarnation. Why?

 

I think the majority of reincarnation believers do claim that reincarnation is the mechanism of soul growth. Why? I think people have an experience or perception that leads them to postulate reincarnation as the explanation much the same as people who claim ghosts, demons or aliens as explanations for their weird experience. Even if I abandon science and logic I still don't see the reason people leap to such conclusions as reasonable or likely even in the context of spiritual, spooky or supernatural. Can't we ever say, "I don't know what that is" rather than inventing an answer that needs a lot of excuses and juggling to keep it afloat?

 

There is no way the rational mind can even touch this! All the knowledge I have in all these theories and sciences pales by comparison.

For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Who hath been his counselor?

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Who hath been his counselor?

"who knows the heart of the Gods" - Ludhul Bel Nimeqi myth I think.

[Antlerman]

As far as 'memories', I can see this in some sort of collective consciousness, or perhaps some genetic memory would also possibly play into this

 

In the context, this is at least as likely an answer as is reincarnation, and it offers fewer problems. Yet, so many believe in reincarnation. Why?

I actually don't know the answer to that. For myself I'm ambivalent about it, in the sense of some individual soul journey sort of thing. I haven't strong feelings about it either way, outside that I don't believe what is our spirit ever dies.

 

I think the majority of reincarnation believers do claim that reincarnation is the mechanism of soul growth. Why? I think people have an experience or perception that leads them to postulate reincarnation as the explanation much the same as people who claim ghosts, demons or aliens as explanations for their weird experience.

If I had some sense of a previous life, I'm sure I would argue differently. Perhaps it is as you say on the same order as believing you experienced a real demon or ghost. The thing is those are not 'false' experiences, but how the mind understands them will vary. I can tell you when I first started going deep in meditation my first thought was, "I can easily see how people who believe in literal gods (mythological thinking), would understand this as literal encounters with the gods." It is a very power, very real, very present experience. But to me I understand the forms as indicative of something beyond them. To a mythological thinker, the forms are the thing itself. It is a literal god, ghost, or demon.

 

So in this context, a sense of a previous life may in fact be something truly deep in the collective unconscious or the transcendent realm. How the mind understands it, how it puts a face on it, is the context of their particular worldview. It is experienced as a previous life, and in reality it is. It is a consciousness that is prior to themselves now. Believe me, I understand what that is to be in that 'stream'. It is eternal. Some people sense or experience that more directly. How they translate and express that is a matter of symbols.

 

Even if I abandon science and logic I still don't see the reason people leap to such conclusions as reasonable or likely even in the context of spiritual, spooky or supernatural. Can't we ever say, "I don't know what that is" rather than inventing an answer that needs a lot of excuses and juggling to keep it afloat?

To be even more clear than I already am, I never ever, ever advocate anyone abandoning science and logic. All I say is that those are appropriate tools for the appropriate job. You never abandon them and violate them. You don't use a hammer to sing. You use your voice and your heart.

 

As far as simply saying "I don't know", the fact is I believe they feel they do. The experience is strong enough, that even if they can't adequately explain it in in rational terms does not then translate them into sticking it on some shelf somewhere in the 'dunno' category. These sorts of life experiences are so powerful, so life-changing, that you stick with it, even if you can't "explain" it. The danger is to devolve into pseudo science in order to justify 'believing'. To me faith is just that. Even if it can't be explained or reasoned, it is something they intuit and beliefs about it are incidental.

 

There is no way the rational mind can even touch this! All the knowledge I have in all these theories and sciences pales by comparison.

For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Who hath been his counselor?

You could use that language. I of course don't see God as a separate person 'out there'. But I certainly get what is meant by Buddha mind, or Christ consciousness. In fact, I would say what most people imagine omniscience to mean is far from it. It's not about knowing details of facts like how an atom works, but rather a timeless mind of infinite awareness of all that is. It is all One. Knowing that, is knowing all things. It is simple, pure, unmediated awareness.