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Buddhism is deeply rooted in reincarnation and the progression of a common person to an enlightened being through different ranks over the span of multiple life

Buddhism is deeply rooted in reincarnation and the progression of a common person to an enlightened being through different ranks over the span of multiple lifetimes. I am pretty sure there is a dimension of life that we have yet to discover and learn about. And for the time being Buddhism is the only “religion” that openly discusses this progression. Hinduism has the same but in my experience it’s a lot more reserved. Bali is a great example of this (which has a strong Hinduism foundation), of how you can create “paradise on Earth” and yet 99.99% of tourist’s don’t ever encounter the root of that paradise. Humans will learn the full extent of life long before they go extinct.

Nevermark 2y ago
I think any view of life consistent with its emergence by evolution isn't consistent with reincarnation, or certainly doesn't support it. But given the universe in total may be unimaginably larger than our observable universe, and the total universe may well be an insignificant feature of an unimaginably larger reality, its quite possible that versions of us appear in a fractal-like way, over and over across reality. Also, given the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is the most basic (Occam's razor) interpretation of the equations, we are constantly spinning off a foam of combinatory alternatives of ourselves and everything around us, because the particles that make us up are doing that. So we live many lives, and even when we die in one perceived timeline, other versions of ourselves continue their journey. Both of those are scientifically plausible, especially the second - which many scientists already believe to be true. Although they sensibly tend to focus on interpretation at the particle level, avoiding the hype and wishful mysticism that would tend to crop up around its implications for us as individuals. Too many imaginative people and popularizers have a tendency to jump from actual equations/constraints they don't understand, to non-scientific psychologically motivated "implications" and ideologies. Quantum mechanics has been abused enough that way.
- skilled 2y ago
  The easiest way to test the theory is to go into the unknown and find out for yourself. You can walk into life situations with a predisposition (which is a useful skill to have) and then see the feedback that you get in return. By and large, to really have success with this is to learn meditation (not master it by any means), because even basic meditation will naturally provide insight that is outside of the scope of the mental framework you are accustomed to as a mind. Even in science, there is a lot of focus on what happens to the person on a physical and a mental level, but little on what happens outside of it, which can only be learned by being quiet/still. I like your reply and it is balanced, and I am not sure that I could reply to it in any other way than I did now. My personal experiences transcend a lot of such discussion, even what I am saying myself, but those are the elements of being human, being bound by something. I think manipulation of elements (for example) will be considered as a very primitive thing in the grand scheme of evolution!
  - Nevermark 2y ago
    I am not exactly sure what you are saying! :) My response is staying with science, which just means staying with evidence and reasoning that avoids our unbounded ability to fool ourselves. I.e. repeatable experiments by others, tested model predictions, mathematical and statistical checks, etc. That is all science and math are. An accumulation of tools and systems that improve the reliability of our thinking. They increasingly help us mitigate our exceptional talent for fooling ourselves. If we find another way to "know", it will get included into science too. I am a big believer that our personal experience and relationship with life is improved by meditation, staring by learning to quiet our minds and focus/refocus on one simple thing at a time (breathing for instance, or nothing). Then use our ability to focus to mindfully listen to our bodies, then our feelings, then our beliefs, our values, our situations, finally what it all means. But our minds/brains don't internally track providence of information. What is real and beyond us, vs. what we imagine or want. It is all mixed up in our heads, thus the ease with which we trick ourselfs, and others. I am a big believer in imagination, to the sky and beyond anything we see. But the very unboundedness of imagination is why just because we can imagine something, and it seems right, fulfills some deep balance, and seems vivid, desirable, and makes clear sense that must be true, ... that doesn't actually make it true, real, or coherent, not even a little bit. > I think manipulation of elements (for example) will be considered as a very primitive thing in the grand scheme of evolution! Evolution created multicellular creatures, nervous systems, and brains, which in turn have created a species/society that is actively searching for knowledge and putting it to work for survival at higher orders of organization. I.e. science, economics, politics, technology, etc. Limited resources (at any given time) continue to drive us to solve new problems and learn more, to continue surviving even as we complicate and expand the environment we survive in. So in that sense, life is already moving past biological chemistry into other substrates, and we are already learning to harness the arrangement of atoms to go further. And eventually, perhaps, harness the fine structure of space-time, and beyond.
- mistermann 2y ago
  > Although they sensibly tend to focus on interpretation at the particle level, avoiding the hype and wishful mysticism that would tend to crop up around its implications for us as individuals. Is this yet another one of those scientific facts that does not require a proof? > Too many imaginative people and popularizers have a tendency to jump from actual equations/constraints they don't understand, to non-scientific psychologically motivated "implications" and ideologies. Similarly, too many imaginative people who lack adequate depth in epistemology and non-binary logic like to practice both on the internet as if they know what they're doing. And the beauty of it is: if the minds of the population have been adequately conditioned, no one notices. But wait, there's even more Oracle level soothsaying of the unknowable below: ------------- My response is staying with science, which just means staying with evidence and reasoning that avoids our unbounded ability to fool ourselves. I.e. repeatable experiments by others, tested model predictions, mathematical and statistical checks, etc. That is all science and math are. An accumulation of tools and systems that improve the reliability of our thinking. They increasingly help us mitigate our exceptional talent for fooling ourselves. If we find another way to "know", it will get included into science too. ------------- I'm sorry to be such a party pooper, but when religious or mystical people make epistemically unsound claims, the knives almost always come out for them, a little in the opposite direction shouldn't hurt too much. And besides: "science" claims to welcome criticism, much like religious people claim to follow their scriptures. But then, who doesn't like to have their cake and eat it too?
  - Nevermark 2y ago
    While I get your general critique I am not quite clear if you are critiquing me, including me with the science inspired confabulators. Just in case you were including me in that: For the record, the many worlds interpretation just sticks with the field equations of quantum mechanics (extremely well tested). It doesn’t invent the quantum collapse, which actually isn’t necessary to interpret them and which raises many questions that have never been well answered. I.e. when does collapse occur, how is information conserved if collapse keeps injecting information into all quantum systems, in situations with time reversal (different orders of events for different viewers in relativistic scenarios) how is information being destroyed. On and on. Collapse is both an unnecessary and problematic interpretation in an attempt to avoid a continuation of superpositions. What we see as collapse is just the experience of being included in the field equations as the quantum systems information becomes too complex (via thermodynamics, information escaping the experiment) for superposition to be detected anymore at a practical level. But as we learn to control larger and larger systems, we do indeed find superposition isn’t bound by mass or system size. In fact, all of quantum computing depends on it not being bounded. It is just a challenge to keep information in isolation, I.e. from spreading in a way that is unrecoverable. Just as eventually we will be able to “simulate” intelligence in a quantum computer, we are already intelligence in a quantum system. We just can’t control the quantum information in us so we lose any systematic relation/observability to the superpositions of our particles. Chemistry throughout our body operates consistently with the quantum behavior of all other chemistry. Our particles are no different from any other particles.
- broscillator 2y ago
  > I think any view of life consistent with its emergence by evolution isn't consistent with reincarnation, Why?
  - Nevermark 2y ago
    Evolution is environmental selection, in a context of reproduction with error. We have chemical, geological, genetic and morphological evidence of its history. And the history of the things it produces, our bodies, and then nervous systems, and our minds. Our minds being constructed biologically, implemented with neurons that maintain its activity and memories. So we know how our eyes, brains and hair came to be with a truly remarkable amount of evidence. The theory of evolution is also mathematically tractable, to the point of being a tautology. It explains vast amounts of phenomena, and can be tested in the lab and with computer models. It is a highly robust theory in practice. Useful for doing such things as optimizing aircraft wing geometry. We know how information flows in evolution, encoded in form and blueprints, how they are maintained and duplicated. Where there is information continuity, where there is not and why. -- Reincarnation proposes a different form of continuity, that is not just unsupported by evolution, it is in stark contrast to everything we have learned about it and from it. Reincarnation isn't even a well defined concept, and has no evidence for it. It has no explanatory power or any proposed connection to evolution that makes sense. It is not only not supported by evolution, but violates everything we know about how life develops and reproduces. What is reincarnation exactly? There are nothing but vague definitions, which violate any principle of the information flows, we call survival and reproduction, as explained by evolution. What part of continuity does it maintain? Why does it happen? How does it happen? How and why would it appear and evolve? What was the initial process? In what initial form? How would it progress? What maintains its existence as a phenomena? Why would it happen at death? Given death isn't a simple event, how does it "know"? Why not continuous reincarnations? Why not merged reincarnations? What constraints what can reincarnate into what? How would any of this work? Nobody has been able to propose construction, reproductive, selection or adaptation mechanisms for anything that looks even vaguely like reincarnation. Nobody has been able to propose tests that would identify a reincarnation event vs. non-event, its presence or effects that others can work with. Nobody has created an experiment to initiate or monitor a reincarnation. Nobody has a formal model for it. Or even an informal model beyond hand waving. In contrast to the unending number of worlds that don't exist, but mathematicians have no trouble exploring. Reincarnation is an incoherent psychologically motivated conjecture. Like many other such culturally generated and valued ideas, it is also interesting, fascinating, imaginative and inspirational. A positive contribution to stories and dreams. Even a comfort, to those who don't require their beliefs and values to be well formed or verifiable.
nonethewiser 2y ago
How does this comment relate to the comment it's replying to?

Nevermark 2y ago

I think any view of life consistent with its emergence by evolution isn't consistent with reincarnation, or certainly doesn't support it. But given the universe in total may be unimaginably larger than our observable universe, and the total universe may well be an insignificant feature of an unimaginably larger reality, its quite possible that versions of us appear in a fractal-like way, over and over across reality. Also, given the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is the most basic (Occam's razor) interpretation of the equations, we are constantly spinning off a foam of combinatory alternatives of ourselves and everything around us, because the particles that make us up are doing that. So we live many lives, and even when we die in one perceived timeline, other versions of ourselves continue their journey. Both of those are scientifically plausible, especially the second - which many scientists already believe to be true. Although they sensibly tend to focus on interpretation at the particle level, avoiding the hype and wishful mysticism that would tend to crop up around its implications for us as individuals. Too many imaginative people and popularizers have a tendency to jump from actual equations/constraints they don't understand, to non-scientific psychologically motivated "implications" and ideologies. Quantum mechanics has been abused enough that way.

skilled 2y ago
The easiest way to test the theory is to go into the unknown and find out for yourself. You can walk into life situations with a predisposition (which is a useful skill to have) and then see the feedback that you get in return. By and large, to really have success with this is to learn meditation (not master it by any means), because even basic meditation will naturally provide insight that is outside of the scope of the mental framework you are accustomed to as a mind. Even in science, there is a lot of focus on what happens to the person on a physical and a mental level, but little on what happens outside of it, which can only be learned by being quiet/still. I like your reply and it is balanced, and I am not sure that I could reply to it in any other way than I did now. My personal experiences transcend a lot of such discussion, even what I am saying myself, but those are the elements of being human, being bound by something. I think manipulation of elements (for example) will be considered as a very primitive thing in the grand scheme of evolution!
- Nevermark 2y ago
  I am not exactly sure what you are saying! :) My response is staying with science, which just means staying with evidence and reasoning that avoids our unbounded ability to fool ourselves. I.e. repeatable experiments by others, tested model predictions, mathematical and statistical checks, etc. That is all science and math are. An accumulation of tools and systems that improve the reliability of our thinking. They increasingly help us mitigate our exceptional talent for fooling ourselves. If we find another way to "know", it will get included into science too. I am a big believer that our personal experience and relationship with life is improved by meditation, staring by learning to quiet our minds and focus/refocus on one simple thing at a time (breathing for instance, or nothing). Then use our ability to focus to mindfully listen to our bodies, then our feelings, then our beliefs, our values, our situations, finally what it all means. But our minds/brains don't internally track providence of information. What is real and beyond us, vs. what we imagine or want. It is all mixed up in our heads, thus the ease with which we trick ourselfs, and others. I am a big believer in imagination, to the sky and beyond anything we see. But the very unboundedness of imagination is why just because we can imagine something, and it seems right, fulfills some deep balance, and seems vivid, desirable, and makes clear sense that must be true, ... that doesn't actually make it true, real, or coherent, not even a little bit. > I think manipulation of elements (for example) will be considered as a very primitive thing in the grand scheme of evolution! Evolution created multicellular creatures, nervous systems, and brains, which in turn have created a species/society that is actively searching for knowledge and putting it to work for survival at higher orders of organization. I.e. science, economics, politics, technology, etc. Limited resources (at any given time) continue to drive us to solve new problems and learn more, to continue surviving even as we complicate and expand the environment we survive in. So in that sense, life is already moving past biological chemistry into other substrates, and we are already learning to harness the arrangement of atoms to go further. And eventually, perhaps, harness the fine structure of space-time, and beyond.
mistermann 2y ago
> Although they sensibly tend to focus on interpretation at the particle level, avoiding the hype and wishful mysticism that would tend to crop up around its implications for us as individuals. Is this yet another one of those scientific facts that does not require a proof? > Too many imaginative people and popularizers have a tendency to jump from actual equations/constraints they don't understand, to non-scientific psychologically motivated "implications" and ideologies. Similarly, too many imaginative people who lack adequate depth in epistemology and non-binary logic like to practice both on the internet as if they know what they're doing. And the beauty of it is: if the minds of the population have been adequately conditioned, no one notices. But wait, there's even more Oracle level soothsaying of the unknowable below: ------------- My response is staying with science, which just means staying with evidence and reasoning that avoids our unbounded ability to fool ourselves. I.e. repeatable experiments by others, tested model predictions, mathematical and statistical checks, etc. That is all science and math are. An accumulation of tools and systems that improve the reliability of our thinking. They increasingly help us mitigate our exceptional talent for fooling ourselves. If we find another way to "know", it will get included into science too. ------------- I'm sorry to be such a party pooper, but when religious or mystical people make epistemically unsound claims, the knives almost always come out for them, a little in the opposite direction shouldn't hurt too much. And besides: "science" claims to welcome criticism, much like religious people claim to follow their scriptures. But then, who doesn't like to have their cake and eat it too?
- Nevermark 2y ago
  While I get your general critique I am not quite clear if you are critiquing me, including me with the science inspired confabulators. Just in case you were including me in that: For the record, the many worlds interpretation just sticks with the field equations of quantum mechanics (extremely well tested). It doesn’t invent the quantum collapse, which actually isn’t necessary to interpret them and which raises many questions that have never been well answered. I.e. when does collapse occur, how is information conserved if collapse keeps injecting information into all quantum systems, in situations with time reversal (different orders of events for different viewers in relativistic scenarios) how is information being destroyed. On and on. Collapse is both an unnecessary and problematic interpretation in an attempt to avoid a continuation of superpositions. What we see as collapse is just the experience of being included in the field equations as the quantum systems information becomes too complex (via thermodynamics, information escaping the experiment) for superposition to be detected anymore at a practical level. But as we learn to control larger and larger systems, we do indeed find superposition isn’t bound by mass or system size. In fact, all of quantum computing depends on it not being bounded. It is just a challenge to keep information in isolation, I.e. from spreading in a way that is unrecoverable. Just as eventually we will be able to “simulate” intelligence in a quantum computer, we are already intelligence in a quantum system. We just can’t control the quantum information in us so we lose any systematic relation/observability to the superpositions of our particles. Chemistry throughout our body operates consistently with the quantum behavior of all other chemistry. Our particles are no different from any other particles.
broscillator 2y ago
> I think any view of life consistent with its emergence by evolution isn't consistent with reincarnation, Why?
- Nevermark 2y ago
  Evolution is environmental selection, in a context of reproduction with error. We have chemical, geological, genetic and morphological evidence of its history. And the history of the things it produces, our bodies, and then nervous systems, and our minds. Our minds being constructed biologically, implemented with neurons that maintain its activity and memories. So we know how our eyes, brains and hair came to be with a truly remarkable amount of evidence. The theory of evolution is also mathematically tractable, to the point of being a tautology. It explains vast amounts of phenomena, and can be tested in the lab and with computer models. It is a highly robust theory in practice. Useful for doing such things as optimizing aircraft wing geometry. We know how information flows in evolution, encoded in form and blueprints, how they are maintained and duplicated. Where there is information continuity, where there is not and why. -- Reincarnation proposes a different form of continuity, that is not just unsupported by evolution, it is in stark contrast to everything we have learned about it and from it. Reincarnation isn't even a well defined concept, and has no evidence for it. It has no explanatory power or any proposed connection to evolution that makes sense. It is not only not supported by evolution, but violates everything we know about how life develops and reproduces. What is reincarnation exactly? There are nothing but vague definitions, which violate any principle of the information flows, we call survival and reproduction, as explained by evolution. What part of continuity does it maintain? Why does it happen? How does it happen? How and why would it appear and evolve? What was the initial process? In what initial form? How would it progress? What maintains its existence as a phenomena? Why would it happen at death? Given death isn't a simple event, how does it "know"? Why not continuous reincarnations? Why not merged reincarnations? What constraints what can reincarnate into what? How would any of this work? Nobody has been able to propose construction, reproductive, selection or adaptation mechanisms for anything that looks even vaguely like reincarnation. Nobody has been able to propose tests that would identify a reincarnation event vs. non-event, its presence or effects that others can work with. Nobody has created an experiment to initiate or monitor a reincarnation. Nobody has a formal model for it. Or even an informal model beyond hand waving. In contrast to the unending number of worlds that don't exist, but mathematicians have no trouble exploring. Reincarnation is an incoherent psychologically motivated conjecture. Like many other such culturally generated and valued ideas, it is also interesting, fascinating, imaginative and inspirational. A positive contribution to stories and dreams. Even a comfort, to those who don't require their beliefs and values to be well formed or verifiable.

nonethewiser 2y ago

How does this comment relate to the comment it's replying to?