Reincarnation - evidence or hooey?

[Justforfun000]

This is an interesting story. The family seems quite sincere. The story also seems specific, consistent and historically accurate. If this is something that he might have "seen on TV" for example would this have stuck in his mind so vividly that it could cause such a phenomena? Any thoughts?

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestof ... nation.cnn

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

This is an interesting story. The family seems quite sincere. The story also seems specific, consistent and historically accurate. If this is something that he might have "seen on TV" for example would this have stuck in his mind so vividly that it could cause such a phenomena? Any thoughts?

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestof ... nation.cnn

The simplest, and most likely explanation: Hoax. As there is zero scientifically acceptable evidence for a metaphysical soul, by extension, there is zero evidence for reincarnation as reincarnation would require a soul. Ergo, the family in question is perpetuating a hoax.

Or why CNN is not in my list of news sites I get my news from.

[Jim Raynor]

This is hilariously stupid, and doesn't qualify as any kind of credible evidence. Notice that the kid keeps his mouth shut the entire time (despite supposedly being the focus of this whole segment) while his parents do all the talking. The one time he did talk, at the end after being prompted by the host, he gives an extremely stilted and brief response: "It [the dreams from his past life] has...diminished."

And on top of all that the parents' story doesn't get any deeper than a freaking Google search should tell you that this is a hoax. I don't know how the hell stuff like this gets on a mainstream news network, but that's the world we live in.

[Justforfun000]

The simplest, and most likely explanation: Hoax. As there is zero scientifically acceptable evidence for a metaphysical soul, by extension, there is zero evidence for reincarnation as reincarnation would require a soul. Ergo, the family in question is perpetuating a hoax.

Your probably right. I don't believe in reincarnation and can't even begin to wrap my head around the multitude of problems that would bring if it WERE true. Odd if they ARE telling the truth about the kid though. I'm betting on some kind of psychological trauma that happened unawares...

[Frank Hipper]

For fuck's sake!

I got as far as the mother feeding the kid questions about "his past life" while they were supposedly trying to investigate ("investigate") the nature of his nightmares.

Oh, and by the way, on the subject of Google, run a search on McMartin Pre-School to explore for yourselves the wondrous and innocent veracity of children under questioning.

Even accepting them as being honest in this, a toddler with interest in aircraft having nightmares and giving an in-exact name of a ship means jack and shit.

[Patrick Degan]

Apparently, this is merely the latest "news" story about this boy and the reincarnation story. The media have run items about James Lenninger since about age six.

It's horseshit. Either the parents are making this whole thing up and have turned their son into a cottage industry, or at some point, without the parents knowing about it, this kid somwhere picked up on some information about World War II pilots or the Pacific War or maybe even specific information about the missions of the USS Natoma Bay and is confabulating and the gullible have picked up on it and turned him into their cottage industry. Watching the CNN video, I couldn't help noticing how seemingly disengaged James was from the whole thing.

[General Zod]

Children miraculously knowing things "they couldn't possibly know" has been used as "evidence" for reincarnation for years. Fuck, I remember hearing shit like this as proof for reincarnation when I was in high school at least 15 years ago.

[Simon_Jester]

If reincarnation really happened and produced a traceable memory trail, then you'd expect it to happen more often. The fact that this only seems to happen one time in a million or less (otherwise we'd be besieged by reports of children who know things they "couldn't possibly know" all the time, instead of only once a decade or so) makes it far more likely that we're dealing with a fluke or a hoax.

Otherwise, making the favorable assumption for the sake of argument that reincarnation is in fact possible, we are left with the idea that it hardly ever happens, and seems to either:
a) Strike at random on very rare occasions that have no visible evidence in common otherwise, or
b) Happens only to famous people... who are exactly the ones you'd think of as being the ones it's easiest to get details on by means other than being their reincarnation.

So, hooey.

[Themightytom]

Children miraculously knowing things "they couldn't possibly know" has been used as "evidence" for reincarnation for years. Fuck, I remember hearing shit like this as proof for reincarnation when I was in high school at least 15 years ago.

Reincarnation doesn't really fit into our current understanding of thee brain.
http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-memory1.htm

For someone to have "reincarnation memory" the brain must be sucsceptible to broad manipulation, smells, sounds sights feels emotions, perceptual interpretations, conclusions etc would all ahve to be "Implanted" in different areas of the brain in order to get the cumulative effective of memories.

I've seen plenty of articles about "genetic memory" most of which support only the passing of a predisposed receptivity to certain isntincts, certainly nothing on the order of "I was born with the memories of my ancestor, Paul Atreides!!"

Unless you want to get metaphysical and start claiming a supernatural soul or spirit is driving our physical bodies around, there's no place to STORE memories after death, no vehicle for transferring them, and no catalyst for recalling them either way.

[Simon_Jester]

Virtually every advocate of reincarnation believes exactly that; I know of no exceptions and would be surprised as all hell to meet one.

My complaint is that even if we assume for the sake of argument that a metaphysical soul actually exists, it seems very implausible that we could show reincarnation by looking at inherited memories. In other words, even if this couple is right and their child is a reincarnation of some WWII fighter pilot, their argument "proving" that he is is nonsense. If that were true, we should all, or mostly, remember improbable details from past lives, just the way little James supposedly does.

[adam_grif]

The only evidence sufficient to establish something miraculous is that which means that it would be a greater miracle for it to have been faked.

My complaint is that even if we assume for the sake of argument that a metaphysical soul actually exists, it seems very implausible that we could show reincarnation by looking at inherited memories. In other words, even if this couple is right and their child is a reincarnation of some WWII fighter pilot, their argument "proving" that he is is nonsense. If that were true, we should all, or mostly, remember improbable details from past lives, just the way little James supposedly does.

It also doesn't fit in with our understanding that memories are physical parts of the brain. It doesn't make sense for a soul to take memories with it at all. If the soul stored memories, not the brain, it's difficult to reconcile the evidence we have from traumatic brain injuries resulting in retrograde amnesia.

[Shroom Man 777]

If reincarnation is real, I think it would be awesome if we ended up killing the souls of those undying dead people from the past by cutting off pieces of brain matter.

If these kiddies were WWII fighter aces in their past lives, then why don't they grow up to assume the mantle of their past personas? I mean, shit, if I was the reincarnated soul of Napoleon or Julius Caesar and I ended up becoming some shit-eating septic tank cleaner and dying miserably, even IF reincarnation is real it's still bullshit. Useless bullshit!

[adam_grif]

What do souls do while they wait for bodies to inhabit? Where do the souls come from? Is there a limited number, or do they just kind of keep getting spontaneously generated? Is there a difference between a reincarnated soul in a new born baby and a completely fresh one?

Most importantly:

What purpose does it have? What's the difference between a human with a soul and a human without one? How would they function any differently? If they don't function differently, then how can there ever possibly be any evidence for reincarnation? If memories are a soul thing and not a brain thing, then does my PC have a 1 TB soul drive inside it?

[Shroom Man 777]

Maybe souls travel through time. Maybe you are a reincarnated spaceman from the year 90210.

[adam_grif]

If there are aliens, do souls travel between species, Minbari style?

Oh crap, that means I might have been a Grunt in a past life.

SQUAWK!

[Dooey Jo]

What purpose does it have? What's the difference between a human with a soul and a human without one? How would they function any differently? If they don't function differently, then how can there ever possibly be any evidence for reincarnation? If memories are a soul thing and not a brain thing, then does my PC have a 1 TB soul drive inside it?

That depends. Do you actually want to know about different beliefs throughout the ages, or are you just asking random questions? In certain European traditions, a "human without a soul" would be dead, or some kind of revenant. Or vampire, whose lack of reflection was due to the absence of a soul. Certainly, such a thing would be characterised by it's lack of humanity and general nastiness.

[adam_grif]

Was presenting questions that must be asked of those who support the idea of humans having souls, or that humans are reincarnating after they die (which also means they must have souls).

[Drooling Iguana]

If there are aliens, do souls travel between species, Minbari style?

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure the Minbari only thought that Sinclair was the reincarnation of Valen because they didn't know that he was actually destined to become Valen.

[FSTargetDrone]

I despise people like these parents who use their children in such a way.

This kind of garbage is par for the course for Larry King's show and has been for awhile.

[Patrick Degan]

Basically, what we have are third parties filling in the details for little James over the years. The kid probably has had nightmares (what small child doesn't?) and might well have had some sort of contact with World War II media from a young age which helped fuel his interest in aircraft as well as his dreams.

The kicker is his apparently naming a specific aircraft carrier from which the dead pilot was based. Assuming the story isn't a complete lie, the kid may well have said something that sounded vaguely like "Natoma" during the period of his nightmares, the father found Natoma Bay while Googling, and filled in the blanks himself. The rest is histeria...

[Simon_Jester]

It also doesn't fit in with our understanding that memories are physical parts of the brain. It doesn't make sense for a soul to take memories with it at all. If the soul stored memories, not the brain, it's difficult to reconcile the evidence we have from traumatic brain injuries resulting in retrograde amnesia.

OK, but the soul is such a vague concept that there are a lot of ways to handwave around that problem. For instance, you could posit that the nonmaterial "soul" is actually a sort of metaphysical echo of consciousness that doesn't come into being until your material consciousness is destroyed. Or that it isn't attached to your body, and propagates out in some weird kind of space carrying your memories, but doesn't store your memories in a form you can access: a sort of write-only memory of your personal history. Or any other kind of weirdo explanation.

What I'm trying to do is give the most favorable assumptions I find to be broadly sane, even if they raise troubling questions when considered against the evidence in their own right, because I want to point out that this argument for reincarnation doesn't work even as mysticism.

I can live with a certain amount of mysticism, but I despise lazy mysticism. There's something deeply wrong with a person who is willing to believe in even the most bizarre things imaginable... but is so insecure about it that they're willing to grasp at any half-baked notion that purports to be "proof" those things are true. Even to the point of losing track of whether the argument providing the "proof" is worth anything.