Scientific proof of reincarnation?

[Nicolas]

Yeah, well, I'm not religious but there are certain thing I want to believe in. Besides, without any soul or something which could transfer from one body to another, how would reincarnation work?

Maybe that's why reincarnation doesn't exist?

 

[Mylo.X.]

I don't recall the particulars of it, but I seem to recall something on that order. I'm don't have anything and my keywords aren't pulling much up on Google so I'll wait for a good link myself.But the premise isn't too entirely crazy. Brain-to-brain interfacing is in the works, so the idea that you could capture, store, and reproduce the very brainwaves that basically make up our brain for use in another being is the essence of reincarnation. I have no idea how to explain that kids can show up with these memories, but if it can be done in a lab, it can surely happen at least once in the wild with no interference of men or machines. It's brain candy, at least.

Guess what, I was led to this, while reading a couple of totally unrelated posts on Reddit. Coincidence? Who knows?
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/early/2013/06/27/jeb.087809.abstract

 

[Gpa]

I downloaded the pdf on that study. I'm going to read it tomorrow.

 

[AgiTitor]

Guess what, I was led to this, while reading a couple of totally unrelated posts on Reddit. Coincidence? Who knows?http://jeb.biologists.org/content/early/2013/06/27/jeb.087809.abstract

Thank you! I read Reddit a lot and that looks like the exact article I read on it a little while back. /r/todayilearned I think it was posted on.
Those flatworms could be the key it takes to create a better and/or more functional brain-to-brain link. Personally, I wonder what could happen to the mind of a lesser animal if a human's mind was linked to it. Would we be able to give lesser animals (more?) sentience just by showing them how we think?

 

[Arvis]

Possibly. But reincarnation is another thing which I want to believe in. I just can't bear with the fact that when life is over then that's it, you don't exist anymore in any form.

 

[Mylo.X.]

Thank you! I read Reddit a lot and that looks like the exact article I read on it a little while back. /r/todayilearned I think it was posted on.Those flatworms could be the key it takes to create a better and/or more functional brain-to-brain link. Personally, I wonder what could happen to the mind of a lesser animal if a human's mind was linked to it. Would we be able to give lesser animals (more?) sentience just by showing them how we think?

That would be impossible (to link the human mind with an animal). The flatworm is quite unique, due to its regenerative capabilities... it's still a fascinating notion, never-the-less, that the worm maybe able to transfer memories onto its new, regenerated brain. Here is a link to a site, that summarizes the study:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-08/13/worm-brains

 

[kimberlyd]

Interesting conversation I just had on reincarnation that I thought you guys might find a bit interesting. The conversation ran along the lines of religious but their theory was interesting enough for me to mention it. When God (or what ever higher being you have faith in) created mankind, there was x amount of souls that were created in the first initial beings. As each one dies, their soul returns into the world in a different body. The reason being is there are certain levels of understanding and knowledge that must be learned before they can final get into heaven (or what ever after life you believe in). This is why some people have 'talent'. The talent is something they did in another life that carried over into the new life or certain types of knowledge (never could figure out how it is I know how to build a boat when I never learned to do so). My question then was how could that be possible when there were only so many men and women in the world in the beginning and there are over that many in the world now.... the response, look into the eyes of those who do evil, not everyone has a soul. So what is your response about that?

 

[Demon_skeith]

I would like to think these are hoaxes, the kids given the info somehow ahead of time because why would they get used souls? Since there is always more life than previous, somehow they are made new I don't get the process how a old soul would end up in a new body.

 

[AgiTitor]

That would be impossible (to link the human mind with an animal). The flatworm is quite unique, due to its regenerative capabilities... it's still a fascinating notion, never-the-less, that the worm maybe able to transfer memories onto its new, regenerated brain. Here is a link to a site, that summarizes the study:http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-08/13/worm-brains

At the least, we'd be able to get a better understanding of how creatures we don't consider sentient think. If you could record and translate a dog's thoughts into something we understand, it'd probably blow a lot of established psychology out of the water.
I suppose I was being a bit optimistic with my speculation, but I'm hoping the flatworm might at least be a key to mind-based virtual reality.

 

[Gpa]

I read the study yesterday. Boy did that bring back memories. All the detail documenting and checking to insure a good experiment. They did a real good job. I might have suggested a few improvements and offered some other considerations toward the conclusion but it was very through and informational. I have for some time now entertained the possibility that instinct and by extension some "memory" is encoded into our DNA (Genetic memory) and "new" information could be added generationally and passed on to succeeding generations. Maybe that's why musical talent runs in some families but may skip an individual in the family because they didn't inherit that gene. As they say.."It's in your genes". Testing this idea would be, at present, improbable at best. It would require a complete DNA profile of several generations of family members, run at intervals and compared to previous profiles. I don't see that happening for a long time yet. The idea of Genetic memory has been around for sometime now. It is not widely accepted in modern Psychology, but with studies like the planaria memory study, along with advances in DNA study and computer speed, a link might be found.

 

[kjonesm1]

I've always had very strong memories and dreams from a past life in particular so I'm a big believer in reincarnation. It was a life where I was happily married to a soldier who went off to war. He was gone for a long time and news got back to me that he had died in battle. I eventually found somebody else and we had a baby. Soon after the baby's birth my husband showed up at my door, seemingly back from the dead.

These memories have always felt so real that I just feel like I have lived them.

 

[Travelist]

That sounds too much of a fiction to me. I have heard in the past these poeple that claim to remember a past life but come on.. How a human witha working brain could believe such things? It's obviously fake and the videos about it are just films. It would be cool to know if reincarnation exists but I don't think these are valid proofs.

 

[CallipygianGamine]

My family was convinced I could remember a past life, as when I was very young I started talking about Alaska before I even know where, let alone what it was. I’m skeptical despite being the one who supposedly had the memories; I tend to think something I heard somewhere must have filtered into my brain. But supposing reincarnation is possible, I tend to think it would be much easier for very young children to retain memories of past lives, so studying young children in order to find proof makes perfect sense to me. They’re still pretty fresh, so to speak, and the older one gets the more likely such memories would be replaced with new memories in their current lives.

 

[sunflogun]

We can claim whatever we want, but for me the most obvious evidence of reincarnation are the child prodigy, they are born with a talent and for me that happens because they had already mastered that in previous lives.

 

[Nicolas]

My question then was how could that be possible when there were only so many men and women in the world in the beginning and there are over that many in the world now...

@kimberlyd , there's a very popular cult here in Brazil, called Kardecism. I don't know if you've heard about it, but I've asked this question a few times to Kardecists and they seem to believe that God creates new souls from time to time. Basically our planet is also just one of the places where life exists, and souls are exchanged among these other planets as well. If you were a very bas person here on Earth, you might be sent to another planet to suffer there and learn new manners.

If you wanna look it up, it's called "Espiritismo" in portuguese. I don't know if there's a word for it in English. The term Kardecism comes from the name of the creator of the cult: Alan Kardec. Plot twist: his real name is Denizard Rivail and Alan Kardec is the name of the spirit that "used" him to pass on the knowledge and write the Kardecist Doctrine.