Belief in Reincarnation Tied to Memory Errors

baywax

Yes we're alive and at the mercy of our genetics/environment. A more apt metaphor would be to say that our cells are computers that our genes/environment will one day turn off.

VooDooX

are you sure baywax? you cant control many aspects of your body that you need to survive. you body doesn't trust you with that ability. the only things we have control over that are regulated are breathing and blinking... nothign else. cant slow or speed our hearts, cant decide we need some adrenaline. (this would be helpful in a heart attack) most of the functions that are going on are fully autonomous, and we have no feedback from them at all .. all our cells have there own whims and minds. we cant control them all that much. immune cells do there job but you have no input from them ,and dont know there working. but chug along they go. we are the operating system that navigates our body. i bet the first life came to this planet as a microbe on a comet, and then since the creatures that extracted energy the fastest reproduced the most they eventually took over. the world then there were predators to clear up some of the less successful creatures, and up the chain it went. all the way to us our goal is to help the smallest creatures on the planet capture energy more efficiently if you follow logic and follow the food chain you will see the true dominators of this planet. Imagine billions of life forms teeming in the hot, underground regions of the Earth. scientists now believe that the amount of underground life in this planet outweighs life on the Earth's surface. Microbes have been found in hot springs to volcanoes ice lakes to the frozen poles . ... even int he most inhospitable environments on earth microbes find a way they out number us trillions of trillions to one who do you think really rules this world? its not us we would die if a meteor struck or a nuclear holocaust occurred microbes wouldn't die unless the whole planet was molten

Pattonias

You could argue that our cells somehow organized as a collective mind for self-preservation, but you have to agree that our mind is well beyond that now. We are capable of making decisions that are totally out of sink with the well being of our individual cells. If all the cells in our body were actually making the decisions, then it would not make sense for us to be able to cause harm to ourselves in ways that would be so obvious.

Garth

Ivan, would you like to share that memory with the rest of us?

Garth

asickler

Would I be correct in saying that thought is a wave (brain waves)?

asickler

And by the way, we can control our heart rate. Buddhist monks do it all the time, look it up. It has also been proven that humans can thermoregulate through mental discipline. Eastern monks generally are known for being able to do this.

Galteeth

Please provide sources. Thanks.

asickler

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/.../09-tummo.html

baywax

Yes but all of the traits of the humans and other life forms are only here because the genes that express to support those traits are still in our gene pools. If they had been weeded out through natural selection we would still be eating ants off of a stick. When the traits we call "free will" and "self determination" turn out to be duds in the face of certain environmental conditions... the whole game changes.

Now, after say, 1000 years of no free will and less self determination because of raw survival demands due to environmental conditions...... will humans begin again to build, innovate and read books etc.... and will all of this be considered reincarnation because it will feel like we've done it before?

Galteeth

That does of course bring up the question what the evolutionary purpose of subjective self-awareness is.

baywax

Obvious. It gives us the illusion that we're in control. Animals who feel controlled die out sooner... Take the farmed cows, pigs, chickens, lab rats and so forth... for example. Now, I know they are being slaughtered but... that is not to be taken into consideration. They're whole natural state has been altered by control and they are, individually, on the brink of extinction... in a controlled and perpetual manner.

Also, subjective reasoning has proven to be a source of new ideas and ways of surviving modern life as well as in the wild.

Galteeth

But hypotheticaly, one can imagine a brain that performs all the same calculation functions advantageous to the organism's survival, but without providing the subjective sense of self-awareness. Such a scenario is referred to in philosophy as a "p-zombie." The necessity of a subjective consciousness (not the objective functions of consciousness) is something of a mystery.

baywax

That and the necessity of an appendix... or wisdom teeth... or skin flaps and cancer.

Galteeth

Those are fallacious comparisons. The appendix is an evolutionary hold over. Wisdom teeth are used for mastication. Cancer is a disease from disregulation of cell growth. All of these are describable in terms of evolution. I think you don't understand my point.

Galteeth

Let meput this another way. Let's say you have an android whose cybernetic brain reproduces the calculations of the human brain. Would it be consciouss (in the sense of possesing subjective self awareness)? Why or why not? Is some form of organic materil required? Is it the electrical activity? Is it some intrinsic property of information complexity?
We know that stimulating certain rod and cone cells produce sensations of vision. Would stimulating these cells without connection to the striate cotex producs "units" of subjective visual experience? What i the subjectiven entity that would experience such? Would adding the striate alone help? Or is the whle brain necessary? What is the cutoff line between subjective experienc and no subjective experience?
And directly to the point, why is it necessary at all? The subjective "am" of cogito ergo sum does not seem to be necessary in an immediate sense to the function of the brain. A computer does not require subjective perception to function. Do you see what I mean?

baywax

Self awareness is a product of human evolution as is an appendix. All I'm saying is that mutations take place, traits are developed and if they work toward continuing a species they remain a functioning part of its physiology. If you think the neuronal mechanisms involved in producing subjective self awareness are anything more than a physiological adaptation to the environment I would beg to differ.

VooDooX

why would the trait of self awareness help at all? and are all animals self aware? i dont know i can tell you im pretty sure a dog, and a horse, and most mammals seem self aware to me. but an insect or a plant does not i don't think an insect has an awareness. its more of a robot then anything else being ordered by its cells for example... too hot here move, too cold here move, hungry eat, and so on. but i don't think it ponders whats going on other then that. some live far too short to need such a thing why we have self awareness is beyond me maybe as intelligence increases it just sinks in. when we naturally wonder what we are that we are a continuing being. this leaves me to speculate that computers once they reach a certain intelligence, may accidentally acquire this trait. as each motherboard is ever so slightly different then the next. even tho manufactured to strict tolerances. computers besides the point it can be argued we are just a very advanced computer developed by life over the eons to control the body and that may very well be all we are a self aware organic computer. just because we can make real computers doesn't mean nature hasn't already done a far better job, given its billions of years. the human brain acts very similar to a computer in almost every way, so you would be hard pressed to argue that this cannot be true.