The Boy Who Lived Before

[cleanbluesky]

Cleanbluesky, you asked d.p. to disprove reincarnation. this is impossible. The dalai lama says the same to carl sagan in the book i mention. Doesnt mean it exists or makes the assertion it does any stronger.

Just got it off eBay. It has to be shipped from America, and its a first edition hard back. I hope you're happy.

 

[sedm1000]

You have presumed souls exist and hence conciousness may nto be a physical entity. No one can say if that right or not but that is a huge assumption you are making. Of course if there is some non-physical 'soul' tye entity then reincarnation is perfectly feasible.

As to your example. imagine a robot in the future, a very sophisticated robot with many intelligent qualities. Ever 7 years it get re-built to keep it running well. The CPU gets swapped out etc. Or indeed it uses some kind of Neural architecture using VLSI or some such technology of the future. Indeed nopthing presented here cannot be done now to some extent, it just helps to think about a more intelligent more sophisticated robot. With this neural architecture one can replace each neuron at a time and it will reconnect links. In this way the intelligent being can be replaced such that non of the original componetns exist anymore. But does that matter, does that effect the way it processes and thinks, No.

And another point, although body cells replace the brain cells do not once the brain has formed. Hence all the research into stem cells etc. Wehn neural tissue is damaged it is damaged for good. Otherwise we wouldn't suffer from Altzeheimers and is also why when the spinal cord is severed it wont grow back- and when a stoke paient suffers brain damage. The brain can adapt and shows some amazing recovery behaviours but this is from re-routing and re-wiring of neural tissue amking it re-learn. Axonal connections can be repaired but not neurons them selves.

Bit late on this, but will add 2 cents; I`ve got a (strong) feeling that most of the biological explanations offered here and elsewhere are bunkum. The explanation for this sort of phenomenom (which is historical enough to suggest basis, irrespective of the way it can be manipulated for entertainment) will lie far more in theoretical physics than any amount of DNA/RNA memory. There are mechanisms that potetnially allow intergenerational information transfer at a non-permanent level, but they cannot to any extent hope to have the influences necessary for "re-incarnation". Analysis of improbable events usually demands a greater burden of proof - in this case I think that the proof offered is underestimated given the likelihood of this knowlege being fabricated randomly. That said, there are plenty of other ways to hoax this that cannot be verified.

 

[D.P.]

Is there anything such as a 'quick search' of psychology journals? Psychology papers are generally about as constructed as any piece of scientific literature can get, and take forever to critiqiue to reveal anything useful.



1) You're making all these claims to inspecific research. Do you have any specific study in mind that actually disproves reincarnation?

2) You place 'the scientists' above you and I because thet have 'more knowledge' than you or I. One of the most famous and prolific Psychologists has been Jung, do you automatically accept his views because he believed in psychic phenomena.



1) I have never seen a neuro-cog jounral or piece of research concerned with such things, in fact I have never seen them deal with anything with any sort of authority other than roughly pinpointing very rough mechanism to approximate areas of the brain. Again, given that reincarnation is so hard to measure effectively, can you explain how nuero-cog psycholgists have dismissed the possibility so thoroughly?

2) Why do you keep jumping disciplines in your 'explanations' so quickly? first you suggest child psychologists have the answer, then you say that nuero-cog psychology has the answer and mix in the idea that psychoanalysis is behind your reasoning...

2) So are you in the second or third year?

Firstly, i was away for an interview in Switzerland so was not around to continue this debate.

Secondly. You have completely misread my posts. There are 2 arguments. 1 pointless thing where you want me to disprove reincarnation (you provide a method to prove/disprove the existence of God first) 2- the neuro-cognitive explanations are for the phenomenon of Deja Vu- it was mentioned as some unexplainable phenomenon. But I suggested it is very explainable, too explainable, and the problem lies in selecting the corret mechanisms based on limited empirical data. Recently reseaerches are using new methods to induce Deja Vu like effects in a spontaneous manner to provide data for model selection. Deja Vu just isn't particularly exciting if you have a basic understanding of how the brain works, its just difficult to study compared to many phenomenon.

 

[cleanbluesky]

Firstly, i was away for an interview in Switzerland so was not around to continue this debate.

Secondly. You have completely misread my posts. There are 2 arguments. 1 pointless thing where you want me to disprove reincarnation (you provide a method to prove/disprove the existence of God first)

I don't see why it would be pointless to attempt to evidence reincrnation, unless you have assumed it is utterly abstract. I'd imagine that it can be as readily examined as many other subjectively percieved psychological phenomenon, although to examine it properly would break tradition of giviing credit to the possibility of anything considered esoteric.

2- the neuro-cognitive explanations are for the phenomenon of Deja Vu- it was mentioned as some unexplainable phenomenon. But I suggested it is very explainable, too explainable, and the problem lies in selecting the corret mechanisms based on limited empirical data. Recently reseaerches are using new methods to induce Deja Vu like effects in a spontaneous manner to provide data for model selection. Deja Vu just isn't particularly exciting if you have a basic understanding of how the brain works, its just difficult to study compared to many phenomenon.

You'll have to explain it better than that, and how it ties in with any sort of nuero-cognitive explaination. If it has been experimentally tested, I'd like to know just how as I do not believe that anyone would be given permission to stimulate human brains for this purpose.

Got a link?

 

[D.P.]

The relationship is more complex than that rabanthor, and it is pure generlisation to suggest that false memories are can be 'implanted' by 'psychoanalysists'... what sort of sequence of events do you think can be constructed by someone who merely sits and discusses things with a person? If a person is seeing a psychoanalist and they are given false constructions of what they remember, it is no different from accepting the discourse of another in any other social medium. You accept the discourse of the medical profession, is this not 'implanting ideas' in your head. Perhaps false ones. Scientists aren't always right.

No one suggested the memories are implanted intentionaly let alone by a rpofessional. False memories can occur naturally by many mechanisms.

I, myself, have many memoies I don't know if they are real or not. I don't know if I merely dreamt the sitruation and I now remember the dream asserting that it was reality, or I am remembering photos or video and asserting that as a memory of reality, or I am remembering descriptions which formed mental images in my imagination.

This is most clear with so called memories of when I lived in Madagascar. The problem being I was only 2 and should not have memories of that age, but it is possible. I do not know if the memories are from dreams, watching the videos and photos or from my imagination based on descriptions of events given by my parents.

If I was to undergo regression I would be able to provide many more details. But the nature of the details can never be proven. Regression doesn't make you remember more, it simply makes you more willing to provide answeres, wether this means you make the answers up or whatever doesn't matter to you. Hence regression is not allowed in a court of law, it is not evidence of anything and certainly does not constitute proof.

 

[D.P.]

I don't see why it would be pointless to attempt to evidence reincrnation, unless you have assumed it is utterly abstract. I'd imagine that it can be as readily examined as many other subjectively percieved psychological phenomenon, although to examine it properly would break tradition of giviing credit to the possibility of anything considered esoteric.



You'll have to explain it better than that, and how it ties in with any sort of nuero-cognitive explaination. If it has been experimentally tested, I'd like to know just how as I do not believe that anyone would be given permission to stimulate human brains for this purpose.

Got a link?

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20050422-000002.html

If you want to read the explanations in detail then purchase access to neurological and cognitive science journals. The explanations I have given are quite clear and easy to understand, based on the most elementary understanding of the most basic brain processes.

 

[cleanbluesky]

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20050422-000002.html

If you want to read the explanations in detail then purchase access to neurological and cognitive science journals. The explanations I have given are quite clear and easy to understand, based on the most elementary understanding of the most basic brain processes.

"Dual processing" aaahhh the sick joys of nuero-cognitive. What stuns me most about nuero cog is that I know a very spiritual person who got offered the oportunity to do a doctorate in it and has almost finished it. She was planning on studying psychosynthesis, yet she went for nuerocog. Is there no natural justice in this world?

Anyway, I don't see anything in that link you provided other than a few vague theories that the author suggested were hard to test.

You claim that experimentally valid information exists in journals, but cannot exactly cite it yourself. If you are aware of such information, why are you unwilling to specify it - or are you merely assuming that the information exists?

 

[D.P.]

Déjà vu in neurology
Wild, E.
Journal of Neurology, Steinkopff-Verlag Darmstadt, vol. 252, no. 1, pp. 1-7


Deja vu experiences in patients with schizophrenia
Adachi, T. / Adachi, N. / Takekawa, Y. / Akanuma, N. / Ito, M. / Matsubara, R. / Ikeda, H. / (...) / Arai, H., Comprehensive Psychiatry, Sep 2006


A Review of the Deja Vu Experience
Brown, A.S., Psychological Bulletin, May 2003

Intense and recurrent deja vu experiences related to amantadine and phenylpropanolamine in a healthy male
Taiminen, T. / Jaaskelainen, S.K., Journal of Clinical Neuroscience, Sep 2001

Memory and the self
Conway, M.A., Journal of Memory and Language, Oct 2005

Disordered memory awareness: recollective confabulation in two cases of persistent deja vecu
Moulin, C.J.A. / Conway, M.A. / Thompson, R.G. / James, N. / Jones, R.W., Neuropsychologia, Jan 2005

Human EEG gamma oscillations in neuropsychiatric disorders
Herrmann, C.S. / Demiralp, T., Clinical Neurophysiology, Dec 2005

A model-based theory for deja vu and related psychological phenomena
Findler, N.V., Computers in Human Behavior, May 1998

Episodic depersonalization in focal epilepsy
Dietl, T. / Bien, C. / Urbach, H. / Elger, C. / Kurthen, M., Epilepsy and Behavior, Sep 2005
...Dreamy states" may comprise recollections in the form of deja vu, unfamiliarity-unreality (jamais vu), forced thinking, and...depersonalization syndrome." A variety of symptoms like deja vu, metamorphosis, and anxiety attacks were common in both...

Hypergraphia in temporal lobe epilepsy
Waxman, S.G. / Geschwind, N., Epilepsy & Behavior, Mar 2005




For starters.

 

[rabanthor]

Just got it off eBay. It has to be shipped from America, and its a first edition hard back. I hope you're happy.

Sensible lad buying it online, took me half an hour to find it in borders. Stuck in a wee stupid section up the back...

 

[cleanbluesky]

Sensible lad buying it online, took me half an hour to find it in borders. Stuck in a wee stupid section up the back...

Yeah, amazon dont have it. I thought they had everything, and even things that didn't exist.

Who reccommended it to you?

 

[rabanthor]

Yeah, amazon dont have it. I thought they had everything, and even things that didn't exist.

Who reccommended it to you?

I read a review of it , don't recall exactly where. Possibly one of the sunday supplements.