Shadows playing on the cave wall.
Past Life Experiences
- Thread starter welsh
- Start date
Deja vu happens when information gathered from visual stimuli settles in the long-term memory before getting processed by the conscious mind, so when your conscious mind does process it, you think it already happened. Deja vu isn't a recollection of a previous life. More likely it's a sign of developing schizophrenia or a brain tumor.
From what I've read on the subject, déjà vu is still largely unknown, with various theories (I remember small seizures and lags in the transmission of visual data as two theories) on the subject. I believe déjà vu is so ubiquitous that it really isn't indicative of anything (well, perhaps stress).
Lazarus Plus
The smoovest
quietfanatic said:
No, see, I'll wake up in the morning and say "That was the weirdest fucking dream I've ever had."
Then the EXACT SAME EVENT happens later on. And I feel like my brain is doing a simulation of artic ice floes breaking up.
John Uskglass
Venerable Relic of the Wastes
All life comes from God and all life goes back to Him. Past life? Besides in a nearly Pantheistic sense is silly. Reincarnation is for Buddhists and Neopagans.
Lazarus Plus said:
Funny thing is there's no objective difference between you remembering you had the dream and you actually having had the dream.
If Ratty's theory, which I've heard before, is true, than there's no way of telling whether you did it before or it just got implanted in your memory.
In other words, if the exact same event happens later, it might just have been implanted in your memory at the moment you knew it happened. Hell, you might've had a weird dream on another subject, who can tell?
No wonder primitive people believe in precognition.
Lazarus Plus
The smoovest
How does that work? If I am having a full thought process about a dream before an event bearing similarity to the dream... Are you saying that the memory of the process of thought itself is implanted along with the dream? That seems a spurrious claim.
If I were to say "Ah HA! I had a dream just like this!" afterwards but not beforehand, you'd have me.
If I were to say "Ah HA! I had a dream just like this!" afterwards but not beforehand, you'd have me.
Lazarus Plus said:
You said "I had a dream just like this" beforehand? Now that's just bad English.
If you put to writing a visionary dream that then came true, I would believe you. Or if you had several witnesses to account for you saying it, I would also believe you. Those are both outside ways of measuring memories, though. Truthfully, you can't even remember what you yourself said, in the case of a deja vu.
Lazarus Plus
The smoovest
Kharn said:
I won't even go into a grammar debate, but I'm pretty sure that (nix the missing comma) that sentence was fine.
Anyways, no, it wasn't like a deja vu at all. The FIRST time that happened to me, I woke up thinking "What the FUCK?" because the dream was so vivid and yet so mundane. The whole day I felt like I was buzzing slightly, off kilter. As I walked into a certain place I felt stranger and stranger, and then I heard a sentence ("She's not coming.") and I froze. Looking around, I realized that the scenery was exactly the same as I'd dreamt it to be. The only difference was my reaction afterwards. In the dream, I'd just paused and answered the statement. Instead, I froze, shocked at what just occured. Like I said, ice floes breaking up. In my brain.
The Vault Dweller
always looking for water.
Kotario said:
That would easily explain it as simple failure at memory retrieval creating a bizarre effect on supposed memories.
Funny thing is I recently finished the chapter in my Psychology book on consciousness and another chapter on memory.
Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
Lazarus Plus said:
The sentence was fine, but you can't use a past tense to describe a future situation beforehand.
's a joke, you see.
Lazarus Plus said:
Yeah.
Sounds like deja vu to me.
Your memories lapping over each other so that you think you paused to consider a dream you never had is nothing new or special. Deja vu.
Back on topic.
I'm a physicalist/determinist, so my answer is pretty short and boring:
No.
Okay, I can spice that up a bit.
Since physicalism is pretty much defined by the idea that there is no such a thing as a non-physical "soul" and that your physical manifestation is all there is, I don't believe in an afterlife. I also don't believe in rebirth per-se. I logically can't believe in justified human superiority either.
Essentially at some point you die and you as an individual cease to exist. Your "harddrive" is flashed, your "machinery" is plucked apart and all that was you is recycled by the environment (just like all those dinosaurs that allow us to drive expensive cars now).
But since I believe that all things in the world are "trying" to stabilize ever since they started being unstable for some weird reason (there's always a flaw SOMEWHERE in the programming, trust me) that doesn't really matter because at some point in the most distant future everything will have come to a full stop and that is the end of that.
Unless the same weird reason pops up again, which it possibly will, just because it is very unlikely that it won't happen if the elapsed time closes in on infinity (nothing's truly impossible -- most things are just VERY very very VERY unlikely, like me ever getting laid by a good-looking human female that has a pulse and 20-20 eyesight) -- or ceases to exist, for that matter.
Buuut ANYWAY. What I was trying to say is that I don't think human kind needs any more of a notion in the Great History of the Universe(s) than mosquitos or Ebola. We're just a coincidentally semi-stable combination of molecules.
Not that that has any effect on my misanthropy or practical speciecism, though. In that respect I'm Hitler's rational twin.
I'm a physicalist/determinist, so my answer is pretty short and boring:
No.
Okay, I can spice that up a bit.
Since physicalism is pretty much defined by the idea that there is no such a thing as a non-physical "soul" and that your physical manifestation is all there is, I don't believe in an afterlife. I also don't believe in rebirth per-se. I logically can't believe in justified human superiority either.
Essentially at some point you die and you as an individual cease to exist. Your "harddrive" is flashed, your "machinery" is plucked apart and all that was you is recycled by the environment (just like all those dinosaurs that allow us to drive expensive cars now).
But since I believe that all things in the world are "trying" to stabilize ever since they started being unstable for some weird reason (there's always a flaw SOMEWHERE in the programming, trust me) that doesn't really matter because at some point in the most distant future everything will have come to a full stop and that is the end of that.
Unless the same weird reason pops up again, which it possibly will, just because it is very unlikely that it won't happen if the elapsed time closes in on infinity (nothing's truly impossible -- most things are just VERY very very VERY unlikely, like me ever getting laid by a good-looking human female that has a pulse and 20-20 eyesight) -- or ceases to exist, for that matter.
Buuut ANYWAY. What I was trying to say is that I don't think human kind needs any more of a notion in the Great History of the Universe(s) than mosquitos or Ebola. We're just a coincidentally semi-stable combination of molecules.
Not that that has any effect on my misanthropy or practical speciecism, though. In that respect I'm Hitler's rational twin.
Jarno Mikkola
Water Chip? Been There, Done That
As one of the bible's say, "from dust to dust". You know, if you build up somethings, say it in enough many ways, some of it shall make sense in the future, thought it may take hundred or 267 487 238 474 years, in the end it will make sense, at least in the heads of mad men. But it still doesn't make the whole book true. :!: :arrow: religion is crapJohn Uskglass said:
:idea: from Android prophecy war:Ashmo said:
-I thought that, as I am a robot, I can't dye.
-Just because you can't dye, doesn't meen that you can't be killed. As you die, every cell in your body shuts down and quits it's programing and never rebutes again, but when you are killed, the never...
doesn't happen.
John Uskglass
Venerable Relic of the Wastes
Anyone still think that nonreligious people are on average more intellegent then those who are not going to Hell? Anybody?Jarno Mikkola said:As one of the bible's say, "from dust to dust". You know, if you build up somethings, say it in enough many ways, some of it shall make sense in the future, thought it may take hundred or 267 487 238 474 years, in the end it will make sense, at least in the heads of mad men. But it still doesn't make the whole book true. :!: :arrow: religion is crap
I suspect that few people will admit to believing in reincarnation. Many people claim the church invented it to give hopeless people hope (Marxists for example). Maybe these people are right. The beauty of it is that no one knows, until that last breath is taken, what the truth is. How wonderful for the person who believes and is right...
If oblivion is all that awaits us, it might not be so bad. I think death is a gift. Who wants to live longer than your loved ones? I try to make the best of every day I have. Sorry, time to go.
If oblivion is all that awaits us, it might not be so bad. I think death is a gift. Who wants to live longer than your loved ones? I try to make the best of every day I have. Sorry, time to go.
Ah, a case study based on a single case.John Uskglass said:Anyone still think that nonreligious people are on average more intellegent then those who are not going to Hell? Anybody?Jarno Mikkola said:As one of the bible's say, "from dust to dust". You know, if you build up somethings, say it in enough many ways, some of it shall make sense in the future, thought it may take hundred or 267 487 238 474 years, in the end it will make sense, at least in the heads of mad men. But it still doesn't make the whole book true. :!: :arrow: religion is crap
Such accuracy.
I may have had lives before this, I may be able to imagine lives that I have not lived before this. I my have had visions of the future, I may just be interpreting current events into imagined visions.
How could I possibly tell which was correct without documentary evidence?
Lazarus Plus
The smoovest
SNorth said:
Fuck no. I want to live. Oblivion? I'd rather that Hell in fact exist (though I suspect not) as an alternative to nothingness, because at least then my conciousness might survive death. Nihlism is... UGH.
Lazarus Plus said:
I was in too much of a hurry. Sorry I didn't have time to write a more coherent post. All I meant is that life without meaning isn't worth living. It is good that there is an end. As long as my loved ones are with me I have a reason to live. Of course the down side
of allowing yourself to love is that you become vulnerable. When you value something, you have to come to terms with the fact that you may lose it, or something terrible may happen to what/who you love. I'm sure that this is apparent to you.
Once again, I am being pressured to surrender the computer (by a loved one, no less
) so I will wrap this up. I choose to believe in an afterlife for a number of reasons, but the main one is that disbelief leaves you with nothing but the present. Heaven help you if you have no one to love at the same time.
Remember the Browning quote also:
A man's reach should exceed his grasp, else what's a heaven for?
Jarno Mikkola
Water Chip? Been There, Done That
This goes to the basic problems of describing intelligence, a man has years to form a religion, but you only have one chance in millions to make it in the egg, so you have to decide in one second, which decision you make with the religionsJohn Uskglass said:
. In the end you will be wiser, and more intelligence, but you have just a millisecond to say it, and as you start and say -Arh, you are dead. 
He should have sayid:
The men's reach should exceed their grasps, else what is life for?
Lazarus Plus
The smoovest
Either I'm goddamn clarivoyent or my mind has an incredibly accurate "timeclock" feature.
I woke up at 10:ish AM, looked at the clock, and went back to sleep. Waking up again, I thought to myself: "I'd better get up, it's probably about 11:08 right now."
I looked at my clock.
It was 11:08.
I woke up at 10:ish AM, looked at the clock, and went back to sleep. Waking up again, I thought to myself: "I'd better get up, it's probably about 11:08 right now."
I looked at my clock.
It was 11:08.