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As an Agnostic I am always interested when the sciemce takes a serious look at a spiritual topic. Their methodology always intrigues me. This article is interesting. What do you guys think of the work mentioned in this article?

[blogs.scientificamerican.com]

Norman347 5 Oct 31
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30 comments (26 - 30)

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1

From the article - "So why aren’t scientists taking Stevenson’s data more seriously? The data don’t “fit” our working model of materialistic brain science, surely. But does our refusal to even look at his findings, let alone to debate them, come down to our fear of being wrong? “The wish not to believe,” Stevenson once said, “can influence as strongly as the wish to believe.”

The reason no scientist is taking this more seriously is because this data is anecdotal, untestable, unfalsifiable and simply doesn't meet the definition of evidence in the terms of science. It's on par with UFO sightings and cryptozoology.

Mind you, a load of fun to talk about, but... science? No...

1

Ian Stevenson is about as credible as Arnall Bloxham (the Erich von Daniken of the Parapsycology world), if this article is to roll him out as their best evidence in the head line for the article I'm not going to waste my time reading it.
You may as well refer to Ed and Lorraine Warren or Dixie Yeterian as a credible source for proof of the afterlife.

The fact that we can create and alter quantum entanglement means that there exists some physical component to the tie that we are yet to comprehend. Same for the double slit experiment. With our free will and conscious decisions we alter reality on a quantum level. That's just a fact. So to continue to deny it as "woo" and all these other myopic slams is just pure ignorance and rather delusional. Einstein, Sagan, Hawking ... they all make reference to and contemplate quantum existence apart from classical newtonian physics. Just denying it is stupid.

@JeffMesser Quantum physics is often used to explain magic and woo woo. Sure quantum physics is real. But until we fully understand quantum physics and understand the causation, things like reincarnation are still woo woo.

@dare2dream yeah and I'm pretty sure those are the same remarks they told Galileo and Copernicus.

@dare2dream Best to do a bit study first I suggest. You clearly haven’t or you would not be making such remarks to defend your position!

@JeffMesser Let me see if I have this right, you are proposing that quantum entanglement maybe the cause of reincarnation and or reincarnation?
You are proposing that reincarnation is an ethereal form of quantum entanglement where by two minds/or souls separated across time and space are yet entangled and privy to memories and reactionary effect from the other?
And somehow you are equating that with the double slit experiment?
Because what?
You perhaps mean the data package collapses on the "spiritual/ parapsychological level" and sends both waves and particles between the two "entangled minds" via some kind of psychic mobius strip, providing itself with both energy (waves) and substance (particles) in order to bring about the very entanglement effect by reversing cause and effect?
If so are suggesting the human "soul" for want of a better word is made up of quarks or a quark or some other subatomic phenomena? Or that Twin souls are made up of the same quanta existing at different points in their individual span of existence?
If I have this right it is a fascinating hypothesis but a completely untestable one as things stand and not one that any serious physicist is going to propose as a research project, for which they require funding.
It is likely such an idea my only be proven or falsified as a byproduct of more serious study.
Could make the basis of a good time travel story though.
I still personally feel reincarnation experience is usually the result of cryptomnesia.

EDIT by the way you seriously think you can be compared with Galileo and Copernicus for original thinking?

@LenHazell53 no, I am proposing that the reason quantum entanglement happens across the universe is because the "connector" between the particles is consciousness. The entanglement experiment if nothing else shows that the tie between the particles is part of the physical world that we can affect. And do affect. The hindus refer to this as the "causal body". I believe it has an actual, physical essence of some type that alters quantum reality and we have just yet to discover its' origin. The world you think you see around you is not how reality actually appears. That is just the quantum narrative our mind creates.

And don't try to minimize me. thats rude. I was merely making the point that new discoveries are often ridiculed before understood. These theories aren't merely myth. They have form.

@JeffMesser Hindu swami do not identify the "causal body" in any such way, however theosophists such as Besant and Leadbeater do.
Are you sure you are not confusing you esoteric?

@LenHazell53 don't tell me what hindus do ... I'm hindu. You need to read more advaita vedanta. swami Paramarthananda in particular as he describes the 3 bodies of man in hindu dharma: gross body, subtle body, and causal body.

In fact, I even have a link for you. CHap. 9 I believe.

[shiningworld.com]

@JeffMesser I am not telling you what Hindus do I am telling you what Swami Sivananda (among others) teaches, it would seem from your reaction that Christians are not the only religious people who don't know their own religion as well as they should.
The effects you describe on and by the causal body is comparable to that which is contained in the books and manuals of theosophy compiled by A. E. Powell, a prominent theosophist and scribe to Madame Helena Blavatsky and not at all similar to the Karana sarira of Hindu doctrine.

@JeffMesser I just read chapter nine as you kindly provided and am pleased to see Swami Paramarthananda agrees completely with Swami Sivananda and so with me, thank you for proving me right.

@LenHazell53 if you're speaking of their physical explanation then yes I will be deviating from that. but the idea of a causal body was most certainly within vedic provenance. no, I don't subscribe to all of the physical explanation so my apologies there. I thought you were saying they made no reference at all. It's just like when I reference Einstein's mention of spooky action. A lot of the actual physical science in vedic beliefs becomes subsumed by western education. But not all of it. Some ideas such as gunas I don't agree with - but often I've found that they package up things differently than we are accustomed to and you can decipher some of the terminology and cross it west western views. I've been doing that for psychology and the mind. But when you get so deep you have to start learning sanskrit which I have grudgingly started. So I keep seeking as a sannyasin.

1

The article you proposed is incredibly compelling. Stevenson's research is quite convincing. I am a materialist for the most part but this information causes me to question and to stop and think. I appreciate you post tremendously and plan to dig deeper as time permits. Thanks again.

0

Quantum mechanics suggests many things about the state of the universe at the most minute level, smaller than Planck lengths.

How can quantum mechanics be used to test reincarnation?

It can’t...yet.

@girlwithsmiles I like the honesty!

If an experiment can be devised within the framework of quantum mechanics (or any testable scientific theory, really), then I'm all whiskers and ears.

But if the default position is that reincarnation is true first and that quantum mechanics somehow mysteriously holds the answer, I have to question the woo involved here.

0

Without examining Stevenson's work I would defer to Occam's Razor. Why just these 3,000? Why don't many more show up today? Is there a simpler reason(s)? My mind is open, but I'm not buying just yet.

The fact that we can create and alter quantum entanglement means that there exists some physical component to the tie that we are yet to comprehend. Same for the double slit experiment. With our free will and conscious decisions we alter reality on a quantum level. That's just a fact. So to continue to deny it as "woo" and all these other myopic slams is just pure ignorance and rather delusional. Einstein, Sagan, Hawking ... they all make reference to and contemplate quantum existence apart from classical newtonian physics. Just denying it is stupid.

@JeffMesser why have you posted this same answer verbatim, in response to two different comments?

@LenHazell53 why does it bother you so?

@JeffMesser Does not bother me I was just curious as to whether one or the other was a misposting

@JeffMesser I am however disappointed you chose to answer this post and not the other where I try to address you idea.

@JeffMesser If you are referencing Everett's Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics you are overlooking the fact none of the "worlds" created by the collapsing wave function have any contact or connection with the original or subsequent reality. Both entanglement and those worlds are created across space and not time. None of the non-Everett approaches I am aware of posits the creation of any additional realities. One final thought...If anyone saying they have an open mind awaiting further evidence is "stupid", wtf does that make someone as arrogant as you come across as being?

@jeshuey I am a sannyasin and I merely respond in kind to the attitude I am given on this board. I refuse to meekly bow down and slink away. I should, but I still don't. vestiges of old ego I'd suspect. what others think of me? not overly concerned. I know where I am at in this search and validation isn't necessary. There are a specific few people I posit ideas for and others are welcomed to postulate or not. Just don't expect me to sit around and act like a boxing dummy. don't like it? don't listen.

As for your question about the reference. no. not that one.

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