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If you answer yes:
1) Do you think there are more or less souls than there are living things on the earth suitable for reincarnation?
2) In other words, would there be a "queue" a soul would have to wait in before getting back in the game?
3) What do you think is the ratio of souls to suitable vehicles for "incarnation"?

I've just never really taken the idea seriously so if these are dumb questions sorry.

Reincarnation is a holdover from Jainism and the Buddha is on record stating that it falls outside the domain of knowable truths. In short there is no way to prove that it is true nor that it is untrue. It's one of those things that doesn't affect our lives no matter what else happens. So I tend not to pay it any heed.

If you answer yes:
1) Do you think there are more or less souls than there are living things on the earth suitable for reincarnation?
2) In other words, would there be a "queue" a soul would have to wait in before getting back in the game?
3) What do you think is the ratio of souls to suitable vehicles for "incarnation"?

I've just never really taken the idea seriously so if these are dumb questions sorry.

When does 'you' stop becoming you, before you die, when you undergo certain events?

1. You were beamed planetside by Scotty, but the transporter failed to vaporize you shipside.

2. Three quarters of your brain is spliced with one quarter of another person's brain.

3. Your neurons are all replaced with electronic versions which seem to function like your neurons.

4. Someone else exists on this planet with a brain almost exactly (but not quite) like yours from a molecular standpoint, implying very similar memories, etc.

What does it mean to be you, anyway?

Yes, many people have problem with reincarnation because they associate the totality of their existence with their physical body and that's understood because this is how they've been conditioned by the mainstream science.

There is a good down-to-Earth thought experiment that would probably help them think more about who they really are:
1) Imagine you get totally drunk before going to sleep
2) Imagine waking up barely remembering who you are and going to the mirror
3) Imagine seeing a different body than the one you've anticipated in the reflection (or a body of the opposite gender for better contrast)
4) Imagine getting confused, saying "WTF?" and not recognizing your own voice.

Notice how it would still be "you" going through this whole experience while not having anything left from the body you thought you previously had.

If there's nobody at the wheel, the human/automaton must always act according to some program, and this is known to be problematic. The person's overarching operating system or algorithm would be faced with the Halting Problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem). It would sometimes crash and therefore have to be periodically rebooted... by something else! But by what? Reset circuitry is not foolproof either -- it's still part of the system. What if that gets stuck in an infinite loop and the whole thing has to be rebooted? There could be a long chain of reset circuits, and they all get stuck in a recursive loop! Therefore, at the end of the chain, there still has to be something else -- some conscious being that is capable of breaking the loop by being illogical.

Really, there is no separation between the atoms of your body/brain and the atoms of the air next to it. For our brains to be able to make sense of the world, they make such arbitrary distinctions.

I don't but I used to in a previous life.

Isn't that kinda like "I'm not gay, but my boyfriend is"?

You've probably heard of the Observer effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_%28physics%29). The only explanation that I can think of for the above is that the 'mind' is the observer looking at our brain. Perhaps neurons are really amplifiers that listen to a mind that exists on a quantum level?

Try to move the atoms in your hand in a coherent direction to do something.

Now try to do the same with the atoms of air next to your elbow.

That's the distinction, and it is not arbitrary.

It's amazing. Something you said actually made sense. I suppose it had to happen some time.

There was never a point where one could clearly draw a line saying these cells are one person and the cells before it were another. Any choice of such a boundary would be arbitrary, unless you can provide some non-arbitrary reason for one.

How do you define the "I" that is controlling your body?

If you say anything the "I" can control is part of the body, isn't that circular logic? You are getting around the problem of defining the body by assuming you can define part of the body ("I") as well as define what is and isnt under control.

If for instance your hand causes something to move, how do you not consider that to be controlling the moved object?

Can't tell if serious...the observer effect has nothing to do with humans.

Consider a thermometer in a cup of water. This thermometer is "observing" the temperature of the water. However, the temperature of the water is different now that the thermometer is interacting with the water. What would the temperature be without the thermometer in there? We can't know, because you have to measure something to know, and thus affect the system. This is essentially what the observer effect with regards to quantum physics means. It has nothing to do with consciousness or the mind-body problem.

I only meant that if we didn't have something that we call 'I', then presumably we could be modelled like a computer. But, as you pointed out we can do something special that Turing machines can't: we can alter our own programming.

In the end, assuming an infinite universe, our consciousness will pop up again. It may as well be through reincarnation.

In an infinite universe, one  can imagine some individual out there with the exact same brain structure as yours, right down to every synapse, and thus every memory, which means they would feel like what it is to be you. But does that mean you get to experience their life going forward?

Well, this experience, this consciousnesses exists at this moment. What is preventing it from existing in the future?

Nothing, I suppose.

But my point is: imagine there are exactly two of you in this Universe. Each of you feels the exact same thing do to the exact same brain wiring and environment. You feel like him. He feels like you. But let's presume that your lives split off into different experiences going forward. For example, you burn your finger on the stove, and he meets a beautiful woman. At this point, it should become clear that you weren't him, nor were you really experiencing his life.

Any Turing Machine can alter its own programming. Lisp is an example. Also, a program which simulates biologically plausible neural networks (such as the Integrate and Fire method), and uses STDP (Spiked-Timing-Dependent-Plasticity) is a Turing Machine compatible program which is perpetually modifying its own behavior.

Another example is a program which employs a population of genetic programs which undergo constant evolution. See Karl Sims' genetic art. The proof lies in the utter lack of a procedural style among the program's output. It's behavior is modified by interaction with the environment. See here: http://www.karlsims.com/genetic-images.html

OK OK, I was wrong about the reprogramming part. However, intelligent machines still need to deal with things like the "Halting problem".

AFAIK it takes a life-form to overcome that.

Nice link! I've only skimmed it but I think I get the general idea. The observers are basically "playing god" and arbitrarily deciding which GA's make the fittest (or prettiest) pictures.

The algorithms evolve, but the initial programming still has to come from somewhere. The determination of fitness also has to come from somewhere.

A few things puzzle me:
By programming computers, we create the framework for artificial evolution, but where does our programming come from?

Why do they need to deal with the "Halting Problem"?


Why does a life-form even need to deal with it, and how does it deal with it?

I'm not sure, but for me it intuitively seems that if we didn't have any built-in mechanism to make illogical decisions, we'd be permanently "chasing our tails" and unable to snap out of a particular chain of thought whenever a problem is logically undecidable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undecidable_problem).

Machines don't really 'need' to deal with that but it's pretty much the definition of a crash and humans don't want to wait forever.

Machines don't really 'need' to deal with that but it's pretty much the definition of a crash and humans don't want to wait forever.

Kinda they do. For example, with the ethernet protocol, if there's a packet collision between two computers, each will back off a random amount of time before resending. This is because if there was a fixed backoff strategy, the collision would quite possibly be repeated several times.

Edit: ug. Should have read the very next post before replying...

Wrong question.

All there is is the fundamental reality, "god" if you want. Consciousness is probably a better word. The world is a manifestation in consciousness, which is aware of all things.

You are not "you" or the body or the mind. You are consciousness, which is aware of the body/mind/experience.

The confusion comes from the ego. What this means is that the mind of your average human has this idea inside it that "I am this body" (or something similar) and simultaneously holds the idea that this is a true thought. As a consequence, this neural network/learning machine that is the human brain, behaves AS IF IT IS A BODY. This is all a deterministic process. Obviously a brain will behave according to what it believes.

The result is a phenomenon where every action that the body takes and every thought that it has is associated with the belief that "I" am the doer of this deed or "I" am the thinker of this thought. This then reinforces the belief that "I am this body". This is the ego. It is an illusion.

Consciousness is simply aware of this illusion; it is aware of the experience of believing you are a body. In an enlightened being, it is aware of it's true self as the fundamental reality.

There is no reincarnation. Each human is really just a manifestation of the same fundamental reality. A vessel thought which god experiences itself.

You equate God with man? Heresy! Burn him! :D

John 17:

"That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me."

Also, I think the biblical god tried to tell the people they were god when he told Moses his name was "I AM".

Exodus 3:

God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘"I AM" has sent me to you.’”

However this has been treated as heresy and subversion for this longest time. The Jews have gone as far as barring people from saying the verse as intended.

Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh (often contracted in English as "I AM") is one of the Seven Names of God accorded special care by medieval Jewish tradition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_that_I_Am

Enki is a god in Sumerian mythology, later known as Ea in Akkadian and Babylonian mythology.

1)Enki lives in a paradise until he eats a bad plant against the warnings of the other gods.

2)Enki was responsible for fashioning the first man from clay.

3)Enki was responsible for introducing multiple languages.

4)Enki was responsible for saving humanity from a great flood


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enki

I believe that the real you (or in my case, me) is some kind of metaphysical observer stuck inside an automaton. The automaton is obviously human, but without you in there, it would be a philosophical zombie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie) -- an empty shell that eats, breathes, claims to feel pain, ages, maybe even evolves, but there's nobody at the wheel.

If there's nobody at the wheel, the human/automaton must always act according to some program, and this is known to be problematic. The person's overarching operating system or algorithm would be faced with the Halting Problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem). It would sometimes crash and therefore have to be periodically rebooted... by something else! But by what? Reset circuitry is not foolproof either -- it's still part of the system. What if that gets stuck in an infinite loop and the whole thing has to be rebooted? There could be a long chain of reset circuits, and they all get stuck in a recursive loop! Therefore, at the end of the chain, there still has to be something else -- some conscious being that is capable of breaking the loop by being illogical.

Thus we can safely reject Physicalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism) and continue searching for that "something else", which is you.

If we look into Kurt Goedel's (http://www.perrymarshall.com/articles/religion/godels-incompleteness-theorem/) work and his incredible understanding of the language of mathematics, we begin to understand the limits of science. For whatever model of reality we work with, 1) there must be something outside of the model, 2) that something can't be explained inside the model. The link ^^ goes for the god/deity angle to explain that something, but with a little bit of effort I think it can equally be interpreted as the real you.

I find it fascinating that depending on how you look at the world, you can be either infinitely small or infinitely big. If you trust your senses and take their inputs as gospel, then you're just a tiny little consciousness, stuck inside a biological being, crawling on a mediocre planet, in a generic solar system, in some galaxy floating around in a vast universe. But if you don't trust the empirical evidence of your senses, you are the only thing you really know exists, and the entire universe is just a bit of imagination housed in your mind.

Reincarnation?
First there would have to be 'death' -- that purported phenomenon that happens to lots of other people, assuming that we take the empirical evidence of our senses as gospel. It's pretty obvious that everyone else dies, but how do you know you're not just imagining everyone else? Perhaps death is what happens to your body when 'you' head for the exits?

There would have to be 'birth'. As far as I'm concerned, my birth was an infinitely long time ago. I don't even know if it really happened. Maybe I've always existed? It seems preposterous that something could 'create' me, let alone a mundane biological mechanism with blood and guts everywhere!

There would have to be something that survives biological death, and gets "plugged back into the Matrix" at some time around birth or gestation. However, in addition to that, those 2 entities would have to be somehow connected. Overall I think the jury is still out on that.

Everyone is the same thing. The chair your sitting on is just as much of you as your arm. Everything in the universe is made of things in the universe, meaning we all are one... Interesting to think about.

I believe in reincarnation in that sense, as we are all the same thing. Its kind of like all living things are the universe seeing itself in different perspectives.

So your toilet won't flush. What action do you take? How is this action related to your philosophy?

Yeh that is some nice stuff bitcoincoinbitcoinbit. Summerians is some really interesting stuff suprizingly we neve get taught about these people in schoolwe get taught about the egyptians the romans the greeks but not summerians  ??? These people laid the foundation of civilization. Schools laws farming you name it.  This is where the first real societies were formed  as we know them today plus a whole frigin other heap 0f basics like structuring the concept of time into minutes seconds and hours etc. and brewing beer .. Oh of course they also believed in aliens or at least mention them and describe them. And they laid the groundworks for the bible 2 thousand years later, In fact i think that Abraham was from the land or area of summer.
I guess that why it is never taught in class.

Absolutely fascinating read! Definitly some interesting things to think about.

The Jewish Talmud claims there are over 18,000 worlds.

Thanks! I'm still thinking about the Halting problem and the rejection of Physicalism, though. My reasoning might have been a bit weak -- some counterarguments:
-our human 'OS' has evolved to get so many interrupts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrupt) from our chaotic environment that we never get stuck on anything for too long.
-we are creatures of habit and we do get stuck in loops. It's just that we don't care, or we just can't see them from the inside.
- (I read on someone's blog but lost the link) even if we had a 'magic' interrupt/reset circuit, it would create paradoxical possibilities and we would still need additional tiers to break free.

So my back-up argument is: qualia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia) ;D We somehow feel all those feelings, smell various smells, see what we see, hear what we hear, taste what we taste, and so on, even though none of those things exist outside of our minds. Our complete inability to objectively communicate any of those things hints at a non-physical basis for them.

David Chalmers gets mentioned so many times, and I engage in conversations about his work to various people, so I have no idea if we've discussed him before. Have you read him (and his 1996 book)?

Not yet, but I've been thinking about getting round to it sometime. :D

If you answer yes:
1) Do you think there are more or less souls than there are living things on the earth suitable for reincarnation?
2) In other words, would there be a "queue" a soul would have to wait in before getting back in the game?
3) What do you think is the ratio of souls to suitable vehicles for "incarnation"?

I've just never really taken the idea seriously so if these are dumb questions sorry.