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silverfly's avatar

Is it possible that we are living life again?

Asked by silverfly (4068points) July 1st, 2012

This question is related to this one

Is there any room for discussion whether or not we could potentially be living life again?

I guess this feeds the idea of reincarnation, an idea that I’m not really trying to get into here. I’m simply wondering if it’s possible that we might be living as humans a second, third, or fourth time.

Throw out all obvious responses, think for a few minutes, and give some of your thoughts.

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15 Answers

ETpro's avatar

It doesn’t take much study of the behavior of matter at the quantum level to realize that the impossible is not only possible, but going on all around you. That said, there is a great deal to be gained by maintenance of the null hypothesis till a good, evidence-based reason to abandon it comes along. Reincarnation, astral travel, ghosts, ancient aliens, fortune telling, homeopathic medicine or a ton of other claptrap people love to believe in due to the absolute lack of credible evidence that there is a grain of truth to it.

Mr_Paradox's avatar

this is a question where there is no actual answer that can be discoverd or comprehended by humans.

flutherother's avatar

“Those things which have been shall all be again, and under the same bank in the same land a sudden glare of sunlight on the same spring day shall bring the same daffodil to bloom once more and the same child shall pick it, and not regretted shall be the billion years that fell between. And the same old faces shall be seen again, yet not bereaved of their familiar haunts. And you and I shall in a garden meet again upon an afternoon in summer when the sun stands midway between his zenith and the sea, where we met oft before. For Fate and Chance play but one game together with every move the same, and they play it oft to while eternity away.”

Lord Dunsany

athenasgriffin's avatar

I think it is definitely possible. I understand that all of the reasons that people believe in reincarnation can be refuted. But if we all have a soul, and souls are infinitely complex, then it doesn’t seem like creating a new one for every body that has ever lived is efficient. How do you come up with that degree of complexity in one lifetime?

marinelife's avatar

There are ore human beings on the planet now than at any time in the past. It is unlikely.

antimatter's avatar

O dear Lord I hope not, cant afford another divorce!

wundayatta's avatar

Living life again would not necessarily imply any old understanding, such as reincarnation. It could be that we live life again as riders inside someone else’s soul. We are there, monitoring everything that happens, but unable to do anything. We may even confuse ourselves for being the host.

Our thinking could use the host’s brain, perhaps using unoccupied neurons. Perhaps the host becomes aware of us at times. Schizophrenic people might be particularly aware of carrying one or more free riders from the past. They might experience the free riders as voices. It seems to me there’s more evidence for this theory than there is for reincarnation.

Of course, there is proof of past existences in every cell of our bodies, which all come directly from two original cells passed on by our parents, which come from their parents and on and on ad infinitum. In a very real way, those cells are direct successor cells, carrying reproductions of the exact same genes from generations of past lives. In other words, we carry a reminder of all those past existences inside us, although watered down and mixed up.

In this way, we are living with borrowed lives. We are cells that are living over and over again, in new bodies. We are information from the past being carried forward to the future. Maybe some day, we will be able to plunk this code into a decoder and have it translated into information the brain can understand directly. We will be able to “read” our own past lives. Perhaps even experience them again through the epigenetic code that still resides in those old cells.

So yes, not only is it possible that we a living life again, it is almost certain that we are, and have always been. You just have to expand your way of thinking a little bit and you will understand that we are every life that ever came before us all in one, and each life lives every previous life at the same time as it lives its own life.

Ah sophistry!

marinelife's avatar

Correction: more not ore.

Bill1939's avatar

I’ve said this in response to similar questions. I am willing to believe that a soul emanating from God exists throughout time, as well as before and after time’s existence, but I am also willing to doubt this. Such a soul might manifest materiality multiple times. However, I doubt that my persona existed in prior incarnations or will exist in future ones.

Paradox25's avatar

From what I’ve read about reincarnation during my ten years of investigating paranormal phenomenon especially relating to afterlife matters, spirits, ghosts, automatic writing, cross correspondences, physical mediumship, direct voice mediumship and mental mediumship, I’ve come to my current conclusion that reincarnation is both true and false. I’ll try to explain this below in simple terms.

Apparently there is only a single universal mind, but this mind (some call it the cosmic consciousness) has many different fragments of itself which consists of virtually every personality type imaginable. Information filter barriers (our brains) shuts out our subconsciousness so we are forced to experience life through our senses. Individuality is basically nothing more than an illusion, but was needed so we could have meaningful interactions with other mind fragments.

There appears to be no individual soul that reincarnates into other bodies. Rather we have what is known as a soul group or family. What this means is that this is the section of the universal consciousness grid whose thought vibrational patterns resonate the most with us. Since we basically share our thoughts with the section of the grid that resonates with us the most (sometimes known as our oversoul or greater self) each incarnation from individual fragments of our oversoul would have its thoughts and memories shared with us, and even affect us.

I’ve read alot about cases of alleged reincarnation and mediumship communications, and I’ve never heard of any afterlife entity say that they can’t contact someone anymore because they had ‘reincarnated’. I do have a suspicion that we will see the physical world through another set of eyes again. I don’t believe that an individual spirit reincarnates over and over again though.

BBawlight's avatar

On the question “What is ‘real’?” by whiteliondreams , Kantieta told me something interesting. That DMT is released into the brain when we die which causes our life to ‘flash before our eyes’. The effects of DMT are as though you enter a dreamstate.
So maybe you die, DMT is released, live again, repeat.
That was paraphrased. Sorry, but the PSP doesn’t do links…

Bill1939's avatar

@Paradox25, “a single universal mind” could be called God, and “many different fragments” could be called souls. However, you seem to be inferring that only sentient beings have (or are the products of) souls. However, it may be possible that everything that exists in the physical universe, down to the quantum level, have souls. Any thoughts about this?

Paradox25's avatar

@Bill1939 The terms ‘spirit’ and ‘soul’ seem to have different interpretations depending upon which new age or religious philosophy one goes by. Those two terms seem to be used almost interchangeably to frequently describe the same things. It appears, from what I’ve read, that a ‘soul’ is our greater or real self, the entity that each of our incarnated mind fragments (or egos) help to shape according to the way that each life is lived. ‘Spirit’ would mean each of these individual fragment or ego themselves. It is difficult for me to describe this with words, but both the spirit and the soul relate to Mind, not material. Of course there are different degrees of sentience, and there is some evidence which suggest that even plants can react to our thoughts.

According to quantum theory it is entirely possible that there are different matter systems, similar to our own (in some ways), whose vibrational frequencies are just out of the range of which our senses can detect and perceive. Quantum theory in itself doesn’t prove that our minds survive after this life, or that mind is not generated by a brain function, but it does show how different matter systems (worlds of spirit if you may) could exist without us and our current instruments being able to detect them. There are many big names in science that are open to this possibilty likely having a great deal of truth to it. Fred Wolf, Ron C Pearson, Brian Josephson, Ernst Senkowski, Dr Werhner von Braun along with many others (these are great and respected names in science) are all supportive of what I’m saying here.

I’d posted what I did above so you have at least some idea of what I’m talking about when I use the terms ‘ethereal counterpart’ and ‘mind’. I’ll try to address your question now. It appears that all matter, sentient or not, has an ethereal counterpart. When I say ethereal what I really mean is any type of matter, including the shells of bodies in which our minds attach to, or even a tv or a rock, whose matter waves have a higher vibrational frequency pattern when compared to our own matter system. <—- The site that explains how this is possible is located on my profile page (warning it gets technical). According to some of the material I’ve been reading, it appears that Mind and Quantum Waves are a different phenomena from each other, but they can interact with each other, and even interfere with each other. Yes, I’m open to the possibilty that everything in the universe has an ethereal counterpart, but whether everything has a degree of sentience or not I’m just not sure at this point.

What does amaze me is how many physicalist veering scientists go out of their way to deny all of the collective evidence for the duality of the mind (this is a very time consuming process, but I have already posted many links which provides the evidence for what I’m saying in other threads so I’m not going to attempt this here), but yet are willing to support an equally ‘absurd’ idea that a near infinite amount of universes exist that continue to split themselves into more, without almost any evidence of this being true. Why is it that anything considered to ‘spiritual’ in nature, or even the suggestion that multiple interpenetrating ethereal worlds of spirit, along with the communication of these dimensions, is considered absurd, but not their own materialistic speculations? It appears that more scientists are beginning to become more open to this, and an inevitable paradigm shift is occuring in the world of science.

Bill1939's avatar

Because the terms spirit and soul have been given differing definitions over the centuries, I feel somewhat free to specify a definition for them in my attempted construction of a cosmology. Many atheists, whether or not they are scientists, seem closed minded to anything that smacks of a spiritual reality. It is as though should some evidence of a reality that is not physically based would mean the end of life as they know it, and perhaps it would.

I will check out the three links listed on your profile, though the titles do not seem relevant to “a higher vibrational frequency pattern.”

Paradox25's avatar

@Bill1939 Actually I’m more concerned with religious followers (especially the followers of the more dogmatic religions) than the psuedosceptics. It has also been no mystery that many Christians are in opposition to the exact phenonema that would be needed (in my opinion) to actually validate mind duality or an afterlife, physical mediumship. Some Christians aren’t too fond of nonchristians reporting positive near death experiences either.

Obviously any scientific research of a potential afterlife whose findings would oppose that of certain religious philosophies would meet vivid opposition from the religionist camp. Some of my greatest allies I’ve found to be in the atheist camp, not the religious, when referring to these matters.

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