There is evidence of children recalling previous lives. See this article. — Wayfarer

Summarise the important parts of the article. Why should it be believed that they're "recalling" previous lives rather than making them up?

Oh, okay, I see you've given a lengthy post instead of a summation. First there was far too little information presented, now there's far too much.

The main researcher was a Professor Ian Stevenson — Wayfarer

Have you done your due diligence on this guy, though? I doubt it.

"Generally ignored or maligned" - or rightly discredited? To me, that rings of confirmation bias from you. I don't trust your spin, and I don't think anyone else should, either. We'd have to look into it ourselves, because you can't be trusted. You clearly have a stake in this, you're emotionally invested.

Values have everything to do with it. The idea your beliefs have nothing to do with your values is simply derisible.

Science does not prove the earth is not flat, evidence does. You do not need science to validate claims. How often in a conversation do you demand people validate a claim with science. Never?

People cannot prove the claims they make about the contents of their experience nor can science.

You have made such a simplistic and facile notion of evidence that only trivial claims could past muster.

It is clear that your notion of evidence is maximally bias and prejudice. — Andrew4Handel

I reject more or less everything you just angrily spurted at me and stand by my prior claims. There is a wealth of scientific evidence that has been amassed to make the claim that Earth is not flat credible, and my values and desires would not change that situation in any way. The very idea that it would is ludicrous.

No, something may well be impossible even thought we could never prove that. So, it doesn't necessarily follow that if we cannot prove it is impossible, then it must be possible.

Have you done your due diligence on this guy, though? I doubt it. — S

I got one of his books out of the library once, and read some of it.

One of the things he said in the article I linked was ‘the will not to believe is as strong as the will to believe.’

I don't trust your spin, — S

which would be....?

Janus
7.1k
↪Frank Apisa
No, something may well be impossible even thought we could never prove that. So, it doesn't necessarily follow that if we cannot prove it is impossible, then it must be possible. — Janus

You are wrong.

If a thing is not established as impossible...IT IS AT LEAST POSSIBLE. I am not asking you to prove it is impossible. I am saying that until it is established as impossible...it is possible. That has to do with the meaning of words...not with any facts about existence.

But apparently you are going to insist...so insist.

I got one of his books out of the library once, and read some of it.

One of the things he said in the article I linked was ‘the will not to believe is as strong as the will to believe.’ — Wayfarer

That's certainly not what I meant by due diligence.

which would be....? — Wayfarer

Which would be, for example, your choice of phrasing. You spin it as though he is a victim of a scientific community that is unfairly set against him, ignores his good work, and maligns his good character.

That sounds a lot like spin. The language is loaded, and, coming from an outside perspective, it looks really fishy. Again, are we, as an audience to what you're saying, supposed to uncritically lap this up? Because it has the opposite effect on me. For me, it sends up red flags. It makes me question whether it was not in fact the case that he has been rightly discredited, and you just do not like that. It looks like you're trying hard to sell him to us, but I have strong doubts about the quality of the product that you're trying to sell us. My concern is that this product is a cheap knockoff, and that the feedback which you're telling us to not take all too seriously is in fact a damning indictment, and something to be taken very seriously.

It’s not spin. He was generally ignored and often maligned. Reincarnation is a cultural taboo in Western culture, as a matter of fact. It goes against the grain. The main point I’m making is simply that this body of work does exist, and it is, as Stevenson says, suggestive of the possibility.

It’s not spin. — Wayfarer

It certainly looks like spin to me.

He was generally ignored and often maligned. Reincarnation is a cultural taboo in Western culture, as a matter of fact. It goes against the grain. The main point I’m making is simply that this body of work does exist, and it is, as Stevenson suggests, suggestive of the possibility. — Wayfarer

What is your intent behind mentioning these irrelevancies, though? That's a rhetorical question, because I don't trust your ability to answer that question. They are irrelevancies because it's possible that he could be completely wrong and rightly discredited in spite of also being ignored and often maligned. My answer to that question which you can't be trusted to answer is that you are fallaciously appealing to our emotions in the hope of swaying our opinion in his favour and against the wider scientific community. In short, it is indeed spin. That's an apt name for it.

I don't trust your ability to answer that question. — S

Then don't ask it.

Then don't ask it. — Wayfarer

Rhetorical question.

I'll point out a paradox in this rebirth issue.

As a practising tradition reincarnation/rebirth is part of Buddhism where some unfortunate children are chosen as reincarnated bodhisattvas and made into monks at an age where they can't consent. Note that Buddhism doesn't endorse the idea of a soul and so the question ''what is being reincarnated?''

Abrahamic religions believe in souls giving it a sound basis to believe in rebirth and yet they don't support such a belief.

Could the answer to the OP's question lie in the resolution of the above paradox?

There is a wealth of scientific evidence that has been amassed to make the claim that Earth is not flat credible — S

Why do you need "scientific" evidence to prove the earth is not flat? If you travel around the globe on a boat you will find it is not flat. Why does evidence have to be classed as "Scientific"?

This is a problem because hidden mental states are not the kind of things science can validate.

To demand that evidence be scientific is ignoring the limitations of the scientific methodology. The prejudice comes because people accept a lot of claims without evidence such is if I told you I had cornflakes for breakfast or that I dreamed I was flying a plane. They only start to reject personal testimony when they don't like the content.

At the extreme are the consciousness deniers who have decided all conscious states are problematic and try to eliminate them.

Why do you need "scientific" evidence to prove the earth is not flat? If you travel around the globe on a boat you will find it is not flat. Why does evidence have to be classed as "Scientific"? — Andrew4Handel

Do not ask me loaded questions which do not accurately represent any claim that I have made. If you're too incompetent to accurately represent what I've said in your own words, then stick to mine.

You are wasting both of our time by doing this.

Personal testimony is NOT certain evidence. That's why there's currently a lot of debate about how much eye witness testimony should count in courts. — NKBJ

I wasn't using certain in that sense of the word. I meant it in the sense of some but not all.

Personal testimony can be fallible but that does not make it all false, logically. We rely on successful inter human communication to get through life.

Initially You claimed you needed credible evidence and then used scientific evidence as a source of credible evidence and personal testimony as made up stuff.

As far as I am aware you have not used an example of credible evidence that could include personal testimony.

I think the reason we find some personal testimony compelling is because of current norms and from analogy to ones own experience. But this involves bias

The earth was known to be round for thousands of years based on observations by clever thinkers. It didn't need a truck load of scientific evidence. You used they example of a much ridiculed claim in a discussion about afterlife claims which is a case of "poisoning the well" or guilt by association.

Democritus posited an atomic theory of matter thousands of years before any evidence could validate it.

I wasn't using certain in that sense of the word. I meant it in the sense of some but not all.

Personal testimony can be fallible but that does not make it all false, logically. We rely on successful inter human communication to get through life. — Andrew4Handel

No one has claimed that it's all false. Why are you addressing claims that no one here has made?

There's a basic and well-known standard for this. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It makes a lot of sense, and is a must-have for any epistemological standard worth it's salt. The claim that you've lived past lives should not be treated as on par with the claim that you had cereal for breakfast this morning, and the reasons why they shouldn't be treated as such should be obvious. If you do not see the reasons as obvious, then what does that say about your critical thinking skills? Just think of the logical consequences.

Initially, you claimed you needed credible evidence and then used scientific evidence as a source of credible evidence and personal testimony as made up stuff. — Andrew4Handel

No. I'm going to say this one last time. Do not attempt to paraphrase what I've said, because you are proving too incompetent to do so accurately.

I wasn't using certain in that sense of the word. I meant it in the sense of some but not all.

Personal testimony can be fallible but that does not make it all false, logically. We rely on successful inter human communication to get through life. — Andrew4Handel

I see now.

Still, it's not even close to sufficient evidence. At most, in such extraordinary cases, it may be a reason to investigate further, but even that has its limits.

Like, if someone claims to have seen a murder happen. Sure, the police will investigate, but when not a single shred of corroborating evidence turns up, they'll stop and probably assume the witness was mistaken somehow.

You initially said

Yes, because there isn't a shred of credible evidence in its favour. Only fools take seriously such presumed possibilities — S

You started your "debate" being completely dismissive with no good reason. You already dismissed all the claims made in this area without a specific reason using no case as an example.

Then you brought in science disproving the flat earth as your example of credible evidence.

Then you said

An example of incredible evidence would be some chump just pointing out that some people say some stuff about supposed extraordinary events which could easily be made up, and there being no way of knowing the claim to be true. — S

Most personal experiences we have had or have cannot be proven to be true. We can make up anything. Plausible lies are still lies. If I lie and say I had cornflakes for breakfast that sounds credible but it is only credible if I am not lying.

It is a big struggle in the area of mental health and cognitive disorders to overcome prejudices, the idea people are making things up or exaggerating. I don't think anyone can be an arbiter on the absurdity of personal claims. I think you have to have well argued reasons to reject these claims.

You don't have to believe any claims if you don't want to but personal belief does not relate to whether something is a fact.

You initially said

Yes, because there isn't a shred of credible evidence in its favour. Only fools take seriously such presumed possibilities
— S

You started your "debate" being completely dismissive with no good reason. — Andrew4Handel

You genuinely believe that I did that with no good reason? I literally gave the good reason in the first sentence: there isn't a shred of credible evidence in its favour. And our subsequent discussion hasn't changed that one bit. Testimony of extraordinary events is not credible evidence, and if you have the required critical thinking skills, then you should already know why that is without me having to explain it.

Like, if someone claims to have seen a murder happen. Sure, the police will investigate, but when not a single shred of corroborating evidence turns up, they'll stop and probably assume the witness was mistaken somehow. — NKBJ

The problem is that you can't provide corroborating evidence for private mental events.

A pre-life or afterlife account is usually only observed by the individual and is not a report of publicly observable phenomenon.

I am skeptical of afterlife claims myself but I don't reject them outright because I don;'t reject personal testimony without strong reason and I know how difficult it is to convince people of personal and mental events in the case of historical abuse and mental illness.

Also I think the mysterious nature of consciousness and the mental offers significant scope for afterlife possibility.

You genuinely believe that I did that with no good reason? — S

What was the good reason?

There are many different types of pre-life, after death, near death accounts etc I wouldn't lump them altogether. Near death experiences tend to be taken seriously but theorists tend to try and explain in terms of types of neural/biochemical activity.

Logical positivist A J Ayer had a near death experience. (Which contrasts with the sterile nature of that philosophy.)


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._Ayer

"In 1988, one year before his death, Ayer wrote an article entitled, "What I saw when I was dead",[15] describing an unusual near-death experience. Of the experience, Ayer first said that it "slightly weakened my conviction that my genuine death ... will be the end of me, though I continue to hope that it will be."[16] However, a few days later he revised this, saying "what I should have said is that my experiences have weakened, not my belief that there is no life after death, but my inflexible attitude towards that belief""

What was the good reason? — Andrew4Handel

I predicted such a dumbfounded response, so I went back and edited my reply:

I literally gave the good reason in the first sentence: there isn't a shred of credible evidence in its favour. And our subsequent discussion hasn't changed that one bit. Testimony of extraordinary events is not credible evidence, and if you have the required critical thinking skills, then you should already know why that is without me having to explain it.

There are many different types of pre-life, after death, near death accounts etc I wouldn't lump them altogether. Near death experiences tend to be taken seriously but theorists tend to try and explain in terms of types of neural/biochemical activity. — Andrew4Handel

What is that supposed to be? Are you just nitpicking at my use of the phrase "take seriously", taking it out of context and applying your own meaning? Because that's how it looks. In future, if you're not sure, just ask for a clarification. Your ability to remain on point and to accurately interpret and represent what I've said leaves much to be desired. I've really had to put my foot down and browbeat you into trying again and again until you gradually get closer to what I'm getting at. You're hard work.

What I meant by "take seriously", is something more than, "That sounds utterly implausible, fantastical, and extraordinary, and nothing in my own experience, or science, or logic, backs it up as something for which there is anything approaching sufficient credible evidence. But I suppose one can presume that it's a logical possibility, provided the lack of any knowledge of a contradiction".

Otherwise we'd have to take seriously all manner of ridiculous claims, as though they're all on par. No, I'll take them seriously in a different sense. I'll take them seriously in the sense that you seriously need to pull your socks up if that's what you think is an acceptable epistemological standard.

The problem is that you can't provide corroborating evidence for private mental events. — Andrew4Handel

There's a different set of evidentiary expectations for ordinary events and extraordinary ones. If someone says, I was thinking about making a sandwich, you can believe them, cause it's a totally ordinary thing that I would say most people think about fairly often. If you say, I had a vision of my past life, that's not ordinary.

Same with cornflakes. I can believe you, because there's no reason to doubt that possibility. If you say you ate dragon eggs and unicorn flanks, I'd have reason to doubt you.

Additionally, the claim that you had a vision of a past life, if true and not a delusion, simultaneously makes a claim about the way the world outside of your mind is and works, thus making it not purely a mental phenomenon.

The bigger problem here is that we are supposed to be a community of intellectuals, yet some people here struggle with something so basic.

Philosophy isn't for everyone. Some people here might be better suited to a different sort of forum, one without such rigorous intellectual standards.

Additionally, the claim that you had a vision of a past life, if true and not a delusion, simultaneously makes a claim about the way the world outside of your mind is and works, thus making it not purely a mental phenomenon — NKBJ

It does not follow that a claim about a mental state entails a claim about what we consider to be the external world. There have always been thinkers that view consciousness as primary.

The afterlife could refer to another dimension or purely mental realm but anyway, as it is, we do not know what the relationship between mind and a material or external world is.

No claims about mental states content make assertions about brain mechanisms which is what is being correlated with mental states. If I say I have a headache I am not saying anything specific or technical about the workings of my brain.

There's a different set of evidentiary expectations for ordinary events and extraordinary ones. — NKBJ

What makes you claim something is an extraordinary event? Existence itself is extraordinary.
Maybe you mean common mundane events.

If we saw ghosts floating around every day that would be considered an ordinary event. The problem is you cannot see other peoples experiences so they cannot provide the same kind of evidence required in science.

It does not follow that a claim about a mental state entails a claim about what we consider to be the external world — Andrew4Handel

You do realize that if rebirth doesn't extend beyond my personal belief in it, then it's not real?

What makes you claim something is an extraordinary event? Existence itself is extraordinary.
Maybe you mean common mundane events. — Andrew4Handel

Sure, things are relative. We should all spend more time thinking about how extraordinary it is that we exist in this vast, cold, amazing universe.

And yet, it's just blatantly ridiculous to claim you can't tell the difference between claims of eating cornflakes and of eating dragon eggs. That's just being disingenuous on your part. Don't pretend things cause you want to make your argument stick.

And yet, it's just blatantly ridiculous to claim you can't tell the difference between claims of eating cornflakes and of eating dragon eggs. That's just being disingenuous on your part. Don't pretend things cause you want to make your argument stick. — NKBJ

Yes, and that sort of approach has wider implications in philosophy. It is deeply immoral, is it not? Intellectual honesty is right up there as a fundamental value. What's worse than knowingly trying to sell us snake oil, or coming up with intellectually dishonest post hoc rationalisations, trying to drag us down to his level of nonsense?