h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Read something interesting about reincarnaton, about how scientists are seriously considering it because the detail some children can remember their previous lives, without even knowing anything about the person and knowing stuff they never could have found out.

Apparently your spirit is reincarnated 500 years after it died in most cases, and you can't remember anything of your previous life.
In special circumstances (dramatic death, 'unfinished business', typical poltergheist style thing) you can come back within a few years or a couple of generations later.(or so the theory goes)
Then the person may be able to remember their past life but only between the ages of 3-7 and once they reach puberty, none can remember anything.

I was thinking about this, and thinking about, well if my spirit had a body 500 years ago, so about 1488(give or take a few) I would have died
and I was wondering who I was and who I would have been.

Then it struck me that obviously I have gained nothing from my previous life, if there was one, so what is the point of life.

Hello SuperSam,

An interesting thought. Reincarnation has often interested me - though mainly from a speculative viewpoint.

If we take this theory as given, however, then you will certainly have gained from your previous life. The ages 3-7 are extremely developmental and having memories, or notions perhaps, of a past life are bound to make some sort of impression on your present incarnation.

Regarding the point of life in general, I feel relatively confident that there isn't one. Despite that, there is certainly many a reason to continue living. Death looks quite dull, being one of them of course. Oh and not forgetting, regardless of life being pointless cosmically speaking, it can still be a rather pleasurable experience.

I have to say, I rather like it, infact. I get to read, and listen to music, and see my brothers and sisters, and get on the tube during rush hour, and work until i'm too arthritic to type (retirement age is to be put up to 75 in 20 years!), moan about the absence of a plumber when he was due 7 hours ago, stub my toe, etc.

I hope you're well?

Discus.
ps. Know any good plumbers?

Hi,

thanks for your reply.
I was thinking that I have learned nothing from any previous lives I have had, Homo sapiens have been around for 400,000 years, so I must have been reincarnated around 800 times, what is there that I haven't done already? Where is there I haven't been? I must have made loads of mistakes, yet here I am making the same ones all over again. I guess you're right, but i can't help thinking that this is just pointless exercise. I mean everything that defines me is to do with my experiences and memories and thoughts, I think the way I do because of the way my brain has been moulded by my life, environment and genes. If I was reincarnated I would have none of this, so your 'spirit' is basically an empty shell and it has nothing and means nothing, but if that is the case, why is the spirit needed for reincarnation, why is it needed for life?


SuperSam

P.S.If you still have a plumbing problem and live in London I hear Pimlico Plumbers are a good outfit.

Some would argue that the spirit is life. The spirit is manifested within a body, with a brain etc.

I personally agree with you. Though I would take it one step further and argue that there isn't such a thing as a spirit. A spirit implies some sort of nature that can be abstracted from your experiences. I think this type of thinking is flawed in a number of ways, but mainly because if we can abstract something from our experiences, it ceases to be perceivable (we cannot experience it), hense it is unproovable.

The existence of a spirit can therefore be no more than a hypothesis which fits certain phenomena. Much like a scientific hypothesis, such as newtons law, which offers merely an explanation of what we experience.

I think people are inclined towards it because it allows us to transcend our mortality - after we die, something lives on. Often there is a fear that because we and everything we perceive is impermenant, we can never acheive anything. The question that needs to be put to that fear is "what then does the spirit acheive?"

These fears have been increased since the 17th century because of the rise of objectivism. Especially in the sciences. It robs life of its meaning because it encourages us to take an impassioned stance on events.

I think you might be interested in phenomenology. It is a branch of philosophy that pretty much turns this view on its head! The best introduction to it that i have found is in a book called "Satre" by Neil Levy.

The book is actually an explanation of Satre's existentialism, which is based on phenomenology. All the same, i'd sincerely recommend it to you, as existentialism is very interesting as well!

Interesting that you mention Pimlico Plumbers, as I used to be a kitchen designer and have actually worked with them on a number of occaisions!

Yours,

Discus.

do you mean "Sartre"? thats all I can find. ill add it to my wish list, thanks for the recommendation. Googled phenomenology, got lots of long winded stuff, think I get the gist of it.
is this the kind of thing?
1. Phenomenologists tend to oppose the acceptance of unobservable matters and grand systems erected in speculative thinking;

2. Phenomenologists tend to oppose naturalism (also called objectivism and positivism), which is the worldview growing from modern natural science and technology that has been spreading from Northern Europe since the Renaissance;

3. Positively speaking, phenomenologists tend to justify cognition (and some also evaluation and action) with reference to what Edmund Husserl called Evidenz, which is awareness of a matter itself as disclosed in the most clear, distinct, and adequate way for something of its kind;

4. Phenomenologists tend to believe that not only objects in the natural and cultural worlds, but also ideal objects, such as numbers, and even conscious life itself can be made evident and thus known;

5. Phenomenologists tend to hold that inquiry ought to focus upon what might be called "encountering" as it is directed at objects and, correlatively, upon "objects as they are encountered" (this terminology is not widely shared, but the emphasis on a dual problematics and the reflective approach it requires is);

6. Phenomenologists tend to recognize the role of description in universal, a priori, or "eidetic" terms as prior to explanation by means of causes, purposes, or grounds; and

7. Phenomenologists tend to debate whether or not what Husserl calls the transcendental phenomenological epochê and reduction is useful or even possible.

I'll check it out.

SuperSam

Gosh yes, that is long winded! It's the right stuff, but it's far more exciting than it reads! I'm studying it at the moment at university and i have to say, i'm finding it all rather uplifting...

Hope you're well.

Discus.