-- Posted by Bacon at 6:02 am on Aug. 24, 2008 I was thinking about death again today and I decided that if the scientific viewpoint of death is true (that one simply becomes non-conscious and therefore feels nothing, perceives nothing etc.) then doesn't science also state that matter cannot be created or destroyed? In theory, an eternal Universe (or even one that just continues to exist for eons to come) would eventually reuse the atoms that constructed our physical selves into perhaps, another form of life. And if that form of life becomes conscious, does that not mean reincarnation could indeed occur? No matter how much time it would take, reincarnation is inevitable is it not? Even if it can't naturally occur and even if it takes a super-advanced race to reincarnate our consciousness individually.. Would it not inevitably occur - in a Universe in which could be never-ending? The most intriguing part of all of this is that if someone died, they'd be reborn again seemingly instantly at the point they become non-conscious. But in actuality, many many years may have gone by. Amongst all of this, one then has to wonder.. What if this has happened before? And what if we are only able to be reincarnated when the exact same situation of our original existence arises again - perhaps from the Universe collapsing and expanding. Could we be in an eternal loop of existence? -- Posted by Micus at 6:10 am on Aug. 24, 2008 The mind does not have matter and as such can be created and destroyed. Our molecules may have rearranged themselves back into our old bodies (unlikely) but the chances that the mind/soul/whatever survives the trip is nil. -- Posted by Bacon at 6:42 am on Aug. 24, 2008 Quote: from Micus at 11:10 pm on Aug. 24, 2008 The mind does not have matter and as such can be created and destroyed. Our molecules may have rearranged themselves back into our old bodies (unlikely) but the chances that the mind/soul/whatever survives the trip is nil. That's only if you consider the mind to be a non-physical entity - something that doesn't fit in with modern-day science anyway. -- Posted by Micus at 6:47 am on Aug. 24, 2008 Well, certainly the mind can be explained due to particular chemical balances in the brain, and whatnot... but as far as I knew, once your brain shuts off, everything gets wiped clean. -- Posted by Bacon at 7:14 am on Aug. 24, 2008 Quote: from Micus at 11:47 pm on Aug. 24, 2008 Well, certainly the mind can be explained due to particular chemical balances in the brain, and whatnot... but as far as I knew, once your brain shuts off, everything gets wiped clean. Yes, but we aren't talking memory here, we're talking consciousness. -- Posted by allsmiles at 10:26 am on Aug. 24, 2008 I've thought of this too. I'm just hoping that the next time I'm conscious, I have an atmosphere and suitable strength of gravity around me. -- Posted by medjai at 11:14 am on Aug. 24, 2008 This begs the question. If you are materially reconstructed are you you? Either way you'd never know. -- Posted by hithere at 11:19 am on Aug. 24, 2008 I don't follow your logic...Matter can't be destroyed, so we are reincarnated? Um no, it's called decomposing. -- Posted by Bacon at 8:34 pm on Aug. 24, 2008 Quote: from hithere at 4:19 am on Aug. 25, 2008 I don't follow your logic...Matter can't be destroyed, so we are reincarnated? Um no, it's called decomposing. Decomposition is simply a way of returning the atoms from your body back to nature. There, those same atoms can be used to construct anything. -- Posted by hithere at 8:49 pm on Aug. 24, 2008 Quote: from Bacon at 8:34 pm on Aug. 24, 2008 Quote: from hithere at 4:19 am on Aug. 25, 2008 I don't follow your logic...Matter can't be destroyed, so we are reincarnated? Um no, it's called decomposing. Decomposition is simply a way of returning the atoms from your body back to nature. There, those same atoms can be used to construct anything. Well, yes, I don't see how anybody might not think that that is inevitable. -- Posted by Bacon at 6:22 am on Aug. 25, 2008 Quote: from hithere at 1:49 pm on Aug. 25, 2008 Quote: from Bacon at 8:34 pm on Aug. 24, 2008 Quote: from hithere at 4:19 am on Aug. 25, 2008 I don't follow your logic...Matter can't be destroyed, so we are reincarnated? Um no, it's called decomposing.    Decomposition is simply a way of returning the atoms from your body back to nature. There, those same atoms can be used to construct anything. Well, yes, I don't see how anybody might not think that that is inevitable. Exactly.. -- Posted by holysaiyan1 at 9:04 am on Aug. 25, 2008 That's assuming that the number of possible states a consciousness can have is finite, and (relatively speaking) low.  IF we confine the realm of discussion to human consciousness, then we're only talking about 100,000 or so years.  So I suppose it's possible that someone alive today has the same consciousness state as someone who was alive 100,000 years ago, but since we don't know the number of possible states a consciousness can have, there's no way to say.   My gut says that there's a huge number of possible states, and if I had to ballpark it, I'd put the number in the hundreds of trillions, if not higher.  Consciousness is a very complex thing, so complex that we aren't even close to being able to understand the amount of and types of things that go into creating a consciousness from scratch.   -- Posted by libertine at 10:40 am on Aug. 25, 2008 Yes, our atoms will be reused, but they'll be spread out over vast, vast differences, and if one carbon atom from me in some alien life form means i've been re-incarnated, i guess that's fair enough. -- Posted by InsaneBlue at 9:19 pm on Aug. 25, 2008 It is remotely remotely remotely remotely possible for all the atoms of one persons brain to be recycled into an identical brain. But for these atoms to be arranged the same way, the two individuals sharing these brain particles would need to be genetically identical (never mind how you're going to construct the new brain from all the particles of the old). Then you would need nature to treat it the exact same way. This is the only way to have a brain be identical to one before. And your cyclic idea of everything happening the same way after every Big Bang is quite interesting, but it is contradicted by our current understanding of quantam physics in which effect happens without cause. Take Uranium for instance, which is a radioactive material and therefore has deteriorating atoms. We can predict how quickly it will deteriorate, but there is no way of knowing when atom A and when atom B are going to go poof. They seemingly break without cause. So if nature is capable of such true spontanuity (sp?) that would mean that things would never happen the same way, even if set up the same way. In fact, it would always be very drastically different, as when everything is as dense as we believe it was before the Big Bang, quantum mechanics and the movement of particles have cosmic significance. -- Posted by Bacon at 10:48 pm on Aug. 26, 2008 Quote: from InsaneBlue at 2:19 pm on Aug. 26, 2008 It is remotely remotely remotely remotely possible for all the atoms of one persons brain to be recycled into an identical brain. But for these atoms to be arranged the same way, the two individuals sharing these brain particles would need to be genetically identical (never mind how you're going to construct the new brain from all the particles of the old). Then you would need nature to treat it the exact same way. This is the only way to have a brain be identical to one before. And your cyclic idea of everything happening the same way after every Big Bang is quite interesting, but it is contradicted by our current understanding of quantam physics in which effect happens without cause. Take Uranium for instance, which is a radioactive material and therefore has deteriorating atoms. We can predict how quickly it will deteriorate, but there is no way of knowing when atom A and when atom B are going to go poof. They seemingly break without cause. So if nature is capable of such true spontanuity (sp?) that would mean that things would never happen the same way, even if set up the same way. In fact, it would always be very drastically different, as when everything is as dense as we believe it was before the Big Bang, quantum mechanics and the movement of particles have cosmic significance. I understand there may only be an infinitesimal chance of those atoms making up another consciously equipped brain after death, and yet.. Perhaps in a Universe of which potentially will never truly "end", those atoms will have to make up such a brain simply as there is only a finite amount of atoms in this Universe. That spontaneity apparent in nature may be a result of the specific variables defined by the big bang. And if that same big bang occurred again, is it not possible for the same events of spontaneity to occur? I guess this is all coming down to one's belief of fate. A predetermined Universe means that anything seemingly 'spontaneous' is merely a result of our ignorance. -- Posted by Alabamarama at 11:00 pm on Aug. 26, 2008 Reincarnation is an anglicized word of Latin derivation, meaning "reinfleshment," the coming again into a human body of an excarnate soul. The fact that most of the matter that humans are made up of will most likely be reused by and even reconstructed into other organisms may be true, but it doesn't follow that reincarnation is inevitable. -- Posted by InsaneBlue at 10:24 am on Aug. 27, 2008 Quote: from Bacon at 10:48 pm on Aug. 26, 2008 Quote: from InsaneBlue at 2:19 pm on Aug. 26, 2008 It is remotely remotely remotely remotely possible for all the atoms of one persons brain to be recycled into an identical brain. But for these atoms to be arranged the same way, the two individuals sharing these brain particles would need to be genetically identical (never mind how you're going to construct the new brain from all the particles of the old). Then you would need nature to treat it the exact same way. This is the only way to have a brain be identical to one before.    And your cyclic idea of everything happening the same way after every Big Bang is quite interesting, but it is contradicted by our current understanding of quantam physics in which effect happens without cause. Take Uranium for instance, which is a radioactive material and therefore has deteriorating atoms. We can predict how quickly it will deteriorate, but there is no way of knowing when atom A and when atom B are going to go poof. They seemingly break without cause. So if nature is capable of such true spontanuity (sp?) that would mean that things would never happen the same way, even if set up the same way. In fact, it would always be very drastically different, as when everything is as dense as we believe it was before the Big Bang, quantum mechanics and the movement of particles have cosmic significance.     I understand there may only be an infinitesimal chance of those atoms making up another consciously equipped brain after death, and yet.. Perhaps in a Universe of which potentially will never truly "end", those atoms will have to make up such a brain simply as there is only a finite amount of atoms in this Universe.   That spontaneity apparent in nature may be a result of the specific variables defined by the big bang. And if that same big bang occurred again, is it not possible for the same events of spontaneity to occur? I guess this is all coming down to one's belief of fate. A predetermined Universe means that anything seemingly 'spontaneous' is merely a result of our ignorance. I suppose you're right. Once every 9999999999999 septillion years everything would happen exactly the same way, creepy. And they think that this spontaneity is what caused the big bang in the first place, but I'm going to go ahead and say that your, my, and Uncle Steve's guesses are just as good as any scientific consortium's. Trying to look beyond the big bang at this point is just crazy.