Is the human self nonexistent?

[Ninshub]

I don't believe that souls choose to be blind or have cancer etc. In my opinion this is pure fiction. It is also illogical. What lessons one could learn from being blind?

In terms of being blind, Natalie Sudman describes how during her bomb explosion NDE, she-as-soul and other collaborative souls had "fun" (from their perspective) deciding on what she would have as injuries. Blindness in one eye was one of the injuries chosen.

[Ninshub]

Matlock didn't find any evidence suggesting elaborate life planning. Stevenson, Tucker, Haraldsson etc. haven't find such evidence either.

How could they find such evidence one way or the other? There would have to be LBL memories, not PL memories. What's the extent of the "sample" they were able to find in terms of LBL memories?

I don't believe that souls choose to be blind or have cancer etc. In my opinion this is pure fiction. It is also illogical. What lessons one could learn from being blind?

Surely to believe that you have to discard the idea that they 'see' the life they might experience, because viewing a life, it can't be possible to miss cancer or bing blind!

Surely to believe that you have to discard the idea that they 'see' the life they might experience, because viewing a life, it can't be possible to miss cancer or bing blind!

You place too much weight on the faculty of sight.

What about all of the other senses? What about emotions and feelings? Thoughts and beliefs? And other things besides?

Being blind or having cancer isn't "missed" ~ they're not what matter. What matters is what we learn, or how we grow from these experiences.

For a Soul, the journey matters as much as the destination. These human lives are relatively rather short and fleeting in the grand scheme of things, compared to the vastness of a Soul's existence, so why not try out different experiences? There's nothing that can ever be lost. There is only a gaining of experiences and new perspectives.

You place too much weight on the faculty of sight.

What about all of the other senses? What about emotions and feelings? Thoughts and beliefs? And other things besides?

Being blind or having cancer isn't "missed" ~ they're not what matter. What matters is what we learn, or how we grow from these experiences.

For a Soul, the journey matters as much as the destination. These human lives are relatively rather short and fleeting in the grand scheme of things, compared to the vastness of a Soul's existence, so why not try out different experiences? There's nothing that can ever be lost. There is only a gaining of experiences and new perspectives.

Would that we could all of us look at and understand our and others' lives deeply from the perspective of our souls, as you seem easily to be able to do. 

Most importantly, can you do this when you are going through a bad trial or tribulation? 

Your description of your soul's perspective on human suffering is dispassionate and calm, and I could well believe that it is also the truth for the soul experience even during the worst experiences of its human avatar. 

The big question is whether this soul perspective is morally or ethically or otherwise humanly justified given that it is the human that does the suffering, that has to climb into the trenches and get shot up and mutilated, etc., so to speak. To the blind or cancer-ridden person, most certainly what matters is the affliction, not what can be (or maybe or might be) learned by the soul in the excruciating human process.

Would that we could all of us look at and understand our and others' lives deeply from the perspective of our souls, as you seem easily to be able to do. 

Most importantly, can you do this when you are going through a bad trial or tribulation? 

Your description of your soul's perspective on human suffering is dispassionate and calm, and I could well believe that it is also the truth for the soul experience even during the worst experiences of its human avatar. 

The big question is whether this soul perspective is morally or ethically or otherwise humanly justified given that it is the human that does the suffering, that has to climb into the trenches and get shot up and mutilated, etc., so to speak. To the blind or cancer-ridden person, most certainly what matters is the affliction, not what can be (or maybe or might be) learned by the soul in the excruciating human process.

Doesn't this assume the body's identity is different than that of the soul?

I'd mentioned elsewhere that someone born as their own daughter's son after getting shot in the chest had a heart defect. It seems the incarnation was a choice but the heart defect was something that had to be endured in order for the father to keep his promise to always look after his little girl.

There's also the distinction between Native American tribes where a person can choose the family they incarnate into and the cases elsewhere (such as in India) where this seems to occur less (if at all?).

All to say the ability to choose aspects of one's life seems to be limited (in that not all humans incarnated now made such choices prior to being born), though maybe it depends on the particular soul's personal power + group/faction beyond this life.

In connection with the wrenching issue of why are there are evidently (at least according to some systems of human thought on the matter) so many soul choices made between lives for the next physical life, that lead to great human suffering, I ran across a very thoughtful and insightful comment on Amazon by a reader of Michael Newton's Memories of the Afterlife: Life Between Lives Stories of Personal Transformation (this anonymous reviewer gave it 5 stars). 

In this comment this person points out a number of examples of seemingly unjustified, wrong, human and animal suffering common in the world, and the difficulty of reconciling this with the spiritual, Deistic, view of the world:

"I was hoping to find satisfactory answers to some questions that all my life have caused me much heartache despite all my readings still do not make sense even in the big picture and continue to go unanswered:

1. What purpose does it serves individuals who die suddenly or from indiscriminate natural "disasters?
2.Prior to having the ability to learn from the experience in their present lives why do the very young suffer and die?
3. Since animals do not have free will as humans and live mostly by instinct, what purpose does their suffering serve?
...And why would a compassionate creator allow a natural system of carnivores/predators causing so much ongoing stress, fear and suffering in the animal kingdom?
4. Why do so many people with so much talent and skill find themselves in circumstances with little opportunity to use those special abilities to make this a better world...Why do not the spirits not work along side us for the greater good rather then allow us to become so discouraged and allow others of greed and cruelty to continue to dominate and decimate our planet?
5. Why does prolonged suffering occur amongst animals ...how could they be learning anything to further there spiritual evolvement since unlike man they are instinctual beings without free will ?
6. It seems that “lessons” can often be so hard, and or prolonged as to severely traumatized a person and loved ones causing understandable bitterness and regression, especially when earthbound the reasons are unfathomable yet still not revealed to them, which seems counter-productive and cruel ? Christ knew with certainty where he came from, his purpose and where he was going and why he was being crucified while God in spirit by his side, giving much needed comfort and fortitude etc. ...so why not the rest of us ?
7. Childhood would seem waste of time rather then starting at a mature age or where one left off from their last incarnation. Children being more prone to engage in abuse (...and further bad karma) cause unnecessary suffering, especially toward the defenseless such as animals?
It would be a great relief as well as remove a substantial hindrance to my spiritual progress if any anyone could answer these questions as specifically as possible or give me references to some text that does, or if unable to ask someone appropriate during your hypnotic therapeutic questionings who could, such as a spiritual guide which if published would be of great interest and worth to others as well."

Needless to say there were no responses. I think most of these questions are unanswerable or it is at least very difficult to come up with anything plausible.

The best approach seems to me to be along the lines of trying to come up with a plausible theodicity, that is, a plausible rationalization or rationalizations of the existence of very much suffering in our physical reality, in the context of a basically spiritual world-view. I have already posted my proposed one, at https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-i...g#pid47682 .

Perhaps this topic would be better given a separate thread, but it is closely related to the issue of what is the human self. Is it basically human stuff or is it soul stuff, and if soul stuff, how can that be, given actual human experience?

Doesn't this assume the body's identity is different than that of the soul?

I'd mentioned elsewhere that someone born as their own daughter's son after getting shot in the chest had a heart defect. It seems the incarnation was a choice but the heart defect was something that had to be endured in order for the father to keep his promise to always look after his little girl.

There's also the distinction between Native American tribes where a person can choose the family they incarnate into and the cases elsewhere (such as in India) where this seems to occur less (if at all?).

All to say the ability to choose aspects of one's life seems to be limited (in that not all humans incarnated now made such choices prior to being born), though maybe it depends on the particular soul's personal power + group/faction beyond this life.

I am assuming (based on the vastly most common human experience) that the human self is separated by a great experiential gulf from the soul, even if the human is ultimately in some esoteric sense, of the same substance.

Surely to believe that you have to discard the idea that they 'see' the life they might experience, because viewing a life, it can't be possible to miss cancer or bing blind!

Not necessarily. I think that the souls who have the ability to see the life they might experience are more evolved than those who lack that ability. Moreover, the reincarnation evidence suggests that violent death limits the soul's options. I don't believe that everybody has equal abilities or assortment of options after death.

In terms of being blind, Natalie Sudman describes how during her bomb explosion NDE, she-as-soul and other collaborative souls had "fun" (from their perspective) deciding on what she would have as injuries. Blindness in one eye was one of the injuries chosen.

Although the NDEs are very good evidence of survival after death, they are also subjective experiences, and sometimes the accounts contradict each other. I find it hard to believe that she would have deliberately chosen such a severe injury to herself. To me the behavior of those other collaborative souls seems sadistic.

How could they find such evidence one way or the other? There would have to be LBL memories, not PL memories. What's the extent of the "sample" they were able to find in terms of LBL memories?

According to James G. Matlock, Poonam Sharma and Jim Tucker found intermission memories in 217 (20%) of 1107 cases in the DOPS collection. Birth defects in the reincarnation cases also seem to be related to injuries received in previous lives. To me this suggests that those defects are not due to karma or deliberate choice.