@Wayfarer, thanks to your golden brain, knowledge and tongue expressing ideas at so much more fluidity and precision than me.

And so the eye says to the brain, "I see things and you understand yourself in part by me seeing them, but I cannot see you or myself so you cannot understand yourself completely and, like me, brain, you have to make up X-of-the-gaps fantasies about me and yourself. Of course, we cannot honestly believe those fantasies are true no matter what we tell ourselves ..." — 180 Proof

How do you honestly distinguish between a fantasy and a non-fantasy. Honestly speaking, they all fall under one category: life experience. But you just actively make a conscious effort to distinguish between what is fantasy or not to maintain your sanity. But, you might as well lose it instead of doing something that you know you are doing to maintain your self-image and hence losing trust in yourself. Well, these "fantasies" define you. These "fantasies" are you trying to find your own self. These "fantasies' are the true you that you decided to lose so as not to get lost.

You edited your answer after my previous response. — Wayfarer

To add, not to change. That last bit you quoted was from my very first post. It didn't mention grounds or reason or logic or subject matter.

You seem to be arguing that just because something is lacking in empirical evidence, then there are no grounds to believe it. — Wayfarer

Not arguing; defending my original definition of faith.
You can have faith in mathematical axioms, UFO's, Progress, maternal love, capitalism or anything you want. Some of those beliefs might even be justified.

Fine. I never discussed reason, except as a proposed component of sorting information. I think I do use reason as part of the process whereby I arrive at conclusions and decisions, and I suspect you do too, but if you don't believe that, you don't. It's not a critical difference between faith, based in little or no evidence, and trust or belief based on empirical experience. — Vera Mont

I already discussed how I think reason is involved in knowledge and decision making. I never claimed it had no role. We've gotten a little off target anyway, the main issue between us is whether or not faith is a valid path to knowledge. I say it can be. You say no. I don't think we're going to get any better than that.

Well there is faith in the scientific method and faith in religious propositions, but I am not sure we are really talking about the same methodology in both spheres?

what can 'Perennialism' mean to – what existential role can (the) 'ultimate unity' play in – the ephemeral lives of discrete metacognitives like us, Wayfarer? — 180 Proof

From whence we come, wither we go. You gotta choose who to listen to.

How do you honestly distinguish between a fantasy and a non-fantasy. Honestly speaking, they all fall under one category: life experience. — Raef Kandil

But it's very important to distinguish them, especially in this day and age, with its proliferation of media and entire artificial fantasy realms into which you can be consumed. There's billions of young adults spending all their time playing computer games. And being able to make sense of experience and differentiate the real from the unreal is a critical life skill.

I think what you're trying to say is that even fictional characters have a kind of reality - which is true. It's also true that there are many elements of our inner world that are real, even if they don't have any outer existence. Many elements of the spiritual life are especially like this. But what's needed is to find an overall structure within which all these elements have a place.

Here's an example that comes to mind from my experience. I once did a course on Buddhist studies. This included the books of Steven Collins who is a scholar of Buddhist studies and who has written extensively on Pali literature and language (Pali being the traditional language of Theravada Buddhism.) He uses the term "the Pali imaginaire" to refer to the collective mental images, symbols, and themes that are commonly associated with Pali literature and the culture it represents. It is a set of texts, ideas and images that have been constructed over time through the interpretation and re-interpretation of the Pali texts, as well as through the transmission of Buddhist ideas across different cultures and historical contexts. It encompasses a wide range of concepts, including karma, rebirth, meditation, and the nature of the self, and is characterized by a distinctive blend of rationality, empiricism, and mystical insight.

The Pali imaginaire, he said, is not a static or fixed set of ideas, but rather a dynamic and evolving cultural phenomenon that reflects the ongoing dialogue between Pali literature and the societies in which it is read and studied.

This is very much what Karen Armstrong has in mind as a 'mythos'. It's not just myth in the pejorative sense of 'a story that isn't true', but a narrative structure which accomodates all of those elements of existence by giving them a kind of over-arching metaphorical or symbolic structure. The Greek Myths and the Christian mythos are others. Even in modern Western culture many of these themes surface through super-hero movies and the like (per Joseph Campell, 'Hero with a Thousand Faces', one of the main sources for Star Wars.)

That's where I would situate your undertaking.

This is very much what Karen Armstrong has in mind as a 'mythos'. It's not just myth in the pejorative sense of 'a story that isn't true', but a narrative structure which accomodates all of those elements of existence by giving them a kind of over-arching metaphorical or symbolic structure. The Greek Myths and the Christian mythos are others. Even in modern Western culture many of these themes surface through super-hero movies and the like (per Joseph Campell, 'Hero with a Thousand Faces', one of the main sources for Star Wars.)

That's where I would situate your undertaking. — Wayfarer

Myths are not literally true, but they have meaning non the less in imparting values and understanding.
The story of the good Samaritan does not have to be true or even to have happened to impart the message and value that it is meant to convey. Religion as "mythos" is not meant to be an insult quite the contrary, it is meant to convey meaning. I am just agreeing with you.

I think what you're trying to say is that even fictional characters have a kind of reality - which is true. It's also true that there are many elements of our inner world that are real, even if they don't have any outer existence. Many elements of the spiritual life are especially like this. But what's needed is to find an overall structure within which all these elements have a place. — Wayfarer

I totally agree with you. I was reacting to @180 Proof idea that they are just fantasies and they have much deeper meanings than that. They could be anywhere between some very powerful insights into our inner beings to higher beings communicating with us in their own unique way and they shouldn't be trashed as "just fantasies". But, I am advising no one to throw himself out of the window because of a superman's fantasy in his head.

I am advising no one to throw himself out of the window because of a superman's fantasy in his head. — Raef Kandil

:up: 'Trust in Allah, but tether your camel first' ~ Arab proverb.

How do you honestly distinguish between a fantasy and a non-fantasy. — Raef Kandil

As opposed to 'dishonestly distinguish'... ? :roll:

@180 Proof what I meant to say was: Honestly, how do you distinguish between a fantasy and a non-fantasy?

I hope we are clear I am not here to learn English and if you can decipher the meanings, there is no need to pick up on these non-native speakers' grammatical errors. Unless, this forum is for only members who can speak English as their first language in which case I should be told so.

180 Proof wasn't correcting your English usage. Presumably one would only distinguish between the two honestly. It's more sarcasm than grammar gestapo.

180: You're welcome. Explaining other people is dirty work but somebody has to do it.

From whence we come, wither we go. — Wayfarer

All the compelling public evidence suggests: from nonbeing back to nonbeing (re: anatta, anicca, moksha ... the atomist's void).

All the compelling public evidence — 180 Proof

We've often discussed the evidence of children with past-life recall, they have been documented in thousands of cases, but of course if you refuse to believe it, then none of that will be considered evidence, because, well, it just couldn't be true.

But I do understand that belief in nothingness is very soothing. Nothing to worry about, eh?

180 Proof what I meant to say was: Honestly, how do you distinguish between a fantasy and a non-fantasy? — Raef Kandil

"Fantasy" is subjective and "non-fantasy" is non-subjective: usually the latter can be corroborated with public evidence and the former cannot.

180: You're welcome. Explaining other people is dirty work but somebody has to do it. — BC

Thanks, BC. :up:

My epistemic position is consistent with both what classical atomists and (pre-sectarian) Buddhists have taught about our whence & wither, Wayf. As for your "documented ... thousands of cases" of "past life memories", those anecdotes are not, in any rigorous sense, compelling public evidence. :roll:

f. As for your "documented ... thousands of cases" of "past life memories", those anecdotes are not, in any rigorous sense, compelling public evidence. — 180 Proof

On the contrary, the researcher Ian Stevenson conducted many investigations into alleged cases. He followed the same kind of methodology that would be used for missing persons cases, epidemiological evidence, and so on. It is of course true that almost all his work is dismissed or rejected by the scientific community, and it is also possible that he was mistaken or tendentious in his approach, but having read some of the literature, I think it is not feasible to declare that all of it was simply mistaken. There were many cases - hundreds, in fact - where the purported memories described by the subject children were then checked against documentary evidence including newspaper reports, birth and death notices, and many other sources.

And the significance of that in this context is precisely because it is feasible to collect empirical evidence. If someone says 'I used to be called Sam and lived in a white house on a cross-roads with a flame tree beside it', and you find such a house, where a Sam used to live, prior to his death, then you at least have some actual empirical evidence. Do that several hundred times and a large amount of compelling public evidence is amassed.

I think there's a possible naturalistic explanation for past-life memories and re-birth. It is that humans bequeath future generations with the results of their actions in this life, and not only by way of what they leave in their will. They set in motion causes which continue to ripple outwards into the future. Those yet to be born are inheritors of these causal factors, just as we have inherited the consequences of our forbears' actions. Genetics is part of it, but only a part - as epigenetics shows, gene expression is a causal factor, and that relies on environmental influences. The only factor that is absent from the mainstream naturalist accounts of such a causal matrix is a subtle medium through which memories propogate. But it doesn't seem to great a stretch.

:roll: HELP @Banno @Tom Storm @universeness ...

I get it- cultural taboo. I won't press the point, other than to say that Stevenson's publications constitute public evidence, although for obvious reasons, most people will be repelled, rather than compelled, by it. (For the curious.)

I put anecdotes and compilations of anecdotes under 'That's Interesting But...'

I'd be curious to see some independent investigation on this one. I spent my 20's with people who channeled past lives and saw ghosts, and some of the accounts were impressive but never amounted to a paradigm shift from me. I can't make any claims either way about such anecdotes, but if I get time I'll see what reputable skeptics have made of it all, if anything. I suspect that this subject and the kinds of claims made are very hard to investigate. And even if many accounts are accurate, there could be a range of mundane explanations for many of them. But who knows? They are interesting, but...

I find the cases Stevenson details quite compelling, but I'm don't obsess over it. The reason it provokes such strong reactions, I think, is because the idea of re-birth is twice taboo in Western culture - once from the original Christian anthematizing of the idea in around the 4th century, and now because it appears to undermine materialism. The only reason I brought it up was contra 180's point of there being 'no compelling public evidence' concerning such things as past lives, when Stevenson published a lot of cases over 40 years of research. But let's not pursue it, it's a dead letter on this forum.

Well, @Wayfarer, ChatGPT says:

Ian Stevenson was a psychiatrist who conducted research on the phenomenon of reincarnation. Stevenson's work was based on the idea that some children have memories of past lives, and he traveled the world investigating cases of such memories. While his work has been praised by some as groundbreaking, it is not scientifically rigorous, and his anecdotes do not provide compelling public evidence of reincarnation.

Firstly, Stevenson's research lacks a scientific approach. Scientific research involves creating a hypothesis, testing it through experimentation, and collecting data to support or refute it. Stevenson's work did not follow this process, as he did not have a hypothesis to test. Instead, he merely collected anecdotal evidence of children who claimed to remember past lives. While anecdotal evidence can be valuable, it is not sufficient for scientific research. Anecdotes are not a reliable way of collecting data, as they are subjective and open to interpretation. There is also no way to verify the accuracy of the anecdotes, as the events they describe cannot be independently verified.

Secondly, Stevenson's research is not rigorous. In scientific research, it is essential to control for variables that may influence the results. Stevenson did not control for any variables in his research, which means that the results are open to alternative explanations. For example, the children who claimed to remember past lives may have been exposed to stories or media that influenced their memories. Additionally, Stevenson did not use a blind or double-blind methodology to prevent bias in his research. This means that he was aware of the hypotheses he was investigating and may have been biased in his interpretation of the data.

Lastly, the anecdotes collected by Stevenson are not compelling public evidence of reincarnation. Anecdotes are not a reliable form of evidence, as they are subject to interpretation and cannot be independently verified. Even if the anecdotes were accurate, they would not be sufficient to provide proof of reincarnation. Reincarnation is a complex phenomenon that would require rigorous scientific testing to be proven. Anecdotes, by their nature, are not rigorous enough to provide such proof.

In conclusion, Ian Stevenson's research into reincarnation is not scientific, and his anecdotes are not compelling public evidence. While Stevenson's work has been praised by some, it does not meet the standards of scientific research. Stevenson's work lacked a scientific approach, was not rigorous, and relied on anecdotal evidence, which is not reliable. While the idea of reincarnation is intriguing, it is essential to approach it with a critical eye and rely on scientific evidence to draw conclusions. — ChatGPT

Sure. These stories do interest me. Speculating wildly now, but can we be certain, even if we accept a different account of metaphysics, that past lives is the only explanation? Could it not also be argued that random images from universal mind can be thrown out in small snatches or loops to which some people have access? For all we know there were 100 children who shared the same snatches of alternate life experiences. I mean, once we enlarge our metaphysical speculations, we can go in so many potential directions, why constrain it to preconceived past-life accounts?

Confirmation bias is most at home in cases in which anecdotal evidence is available in abundance, but rigorous disproof, falsification, is impossible. places such as flying saucers, eternal Elvis, and reincarnation. The emphasis is placed not on showing what is problematic with the data, but on why it "is compelling". Showing that this or that piece of data is false just leads to "but what about this... and this....".

None of which makes reincarnation wrong, of course. Until here is a rigorous testable hypothesis, there's little point in giving it much consideration.

As it stands, reincarnation is neither falsifiable nor verifiable.

Any suggestions on how to test?

As it stands, reincarnation is neither falsifiable nor verifiable. — Banno

It cannot be tested. Hence, it is no more than a curiosity.

As you already said, GPT is often a bullshit generator, although at least in this case, I have an idea why: that account almost exactly matches the one in Wikipedia, which I strongly suspect was the product of the Guerilla Sceptics cabal, who make it their job to selectively edit articles of those kinds on Wikipedia. (Learned about them reading Mitch Horowitz, who's a parapsychology writer.)

These stories do interest me. — Tom Storm

Stevenson remarked that Western people would say 'why are you wasting your time researching this? Eveyone knows it's just a myth.' Whereas people in Asian cultures would say 'why are you wasting your time researching this? Everyone knows it happens all the time.'

People tend to be either fascinated or repelled, I've found. I'm neither, but I accept that it is something that happens.

Or, as you have suggested previously, ChatGPT and the Cabal could just be right.

We might look for things closer at hand, such as whether is a reincarnation of @Bartricks. There are similarities of style, but so far the defining characteristics have not shown themselves.

Damn, I wasn't going to comment on this thread, because the terms involved need so much work before one could get started.

Alternately,

Ian Stevenson's research into reincarnation has been widely regarded as scientific, as he employed a rigorous methodology to investigate cases of children who claimed to have memories of past lives. Stevenson's work has been praised for its objectivity, attention to detail, and scientific rigor. Additionally, his anecdotes provide compelling public evidence of the possibility of reincarnation.

Firstly, Stevenson's research followed a scientific approach. He developed a hypothesis that certain children may have memories of past lives, and then conducted investigations to test this hypothesis. He collected data through a variety of methods, including interviews with the children and their families, and analyzed this data in a systematic and objective manner. His approach was grounded in the scientific method, which involves creating a hypothesis, testing it through experimentation, and collecting data to support or refute it.

Secondly, Stevenson's research was rigorous. He took care to control for variables that may have influenced the results, such as cultural or religious beliefs. He also used a double-blind methodology to prevent bias in his research, meaning that neither the interviewer nor the child knew the details of the case being investigated. Additionally, Stevenson took steps to ensure the accuracy of his data, such as verifying the details of the child's claimed past life through independent sources.

Lastly, the anecdotes collected by Stevenson are compelling public evidence of the possibility of reincarnation. While anecdotes may not meet the strict criteria of scientific proof, they can provide valuable evidence of a phenomenon that is difficult to study in a laboratory setting. Stevenson's anecdotes are highly detailed and specific, and often include information that the child could not have known through normal means. For example, in one case, a child accurately described the location of a hidden key that belonged to the person he claimed to have been in a past life. This level of detail and accuracy is difficult to explain through normal means and provides strong evidence for the possibility of reincarnation.

Additionally, Stevenson's research has been replicated by other researchers, further supporting the credibility of his findings. For example, researcher Jim Tucker has continued Stevenson's work, and has found similar cases of children who claim to remember past lives with striking accuracy. The fact that other researchers have found similar cases lends credibility to Stevenson's work and suggests that the phenomenon of reincarnation is worthy of further study.

In conclusion, Ian Stevenson's research into reincarnation is scientific, and his anecdotes provide compelling public evidence of the possibility of reincarnation. Stevenson's rigorous methodology, attention to detail, and objective approach to investigating cases of children who claim to remember past lives set a high standard for scientific research in this field. While his anecdotes may not meet the strict criteria of scientific proof, they provide valuable evidence of a phenomenon that is difficult to study through traditional means. Stevenson's work has inspired further research in this field, and has opened up new avenues of inquiry into the mysteries of human consciousness and the nature of life and death. — ChatGPT

How'r we gettin' on?

:up: Right, there just aren't compelling grounds to even believe that "reincarnation" is anything more than a popular, consoling fantasy.

Neither are there compelling grounds to dismiss it entirely.

My own response, given elsewhere, is that the implicit dualism is sufficiently problematic to render reincarnation not worthy of much serious consideration.

That is, other evidence seem to indicate that mind is a function of brain. Different brain, different mind. The problem goes deeper that just that, though, since it is far from clear what it is that gets reincarnated.