The soul, suffering, healing, learning, and spirituality [Night Shift split]

I agree that the evidence for souls selecting their next life is not that large - mainly I suspect because it is difficult to get evidence of what happens during the gap between lives. However the evidence for reincarnation as such seems good.

Without reincarnation the concept of what we do after we die is remarkably vague. No other model of how the greater reality is organised seems to come close.


We probably don't live in a perfect system! However, the problem is that a lot of our moral feelings depend on time scales. For example if you were to hit a child, leaving him with a nasty bruise, you might end up in jail. However, if you organised an adventure holiday for kids - climbing mountains or whatever - nobody would mind if one or two of them came back with bruises!

My impression is that when we die, our whole perspective changes in a radical way. Thus for example Steve Jobs' final words were reported as being "OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW".

I'd rather talk about that as a change in perspective, than talk about the person being in some sense two different people!

David

People have tried to find ways to hand wave the suffering in this world with different mythologies such as Karmic Justice or God's Plan, I see the modern idea that life experiences are a buffet souls choose to be merely a part of that.

There seem to be a scant few evidential cases that include this idea, but there are also to my knowledge evidential cases of equal worth that say a particular religion is the right one. Do we accept that Pure Land Buddhism, for example, is the One True Faith? Or another religion?

It's kind of odd to focus on a particular unproven idea (souls choose suffering) and not others (there is only one right religion)?

People have tried to find ways to hand wave the suffering in this world with different mythologies such as Karmic Justice or God's Plan, I see the modern idea that life experiences are a buffet souls choose to be merely a part of that.

There seem to be a scant few evidential cases that include this idea, but there are also to my knowledge evidential cases of equal worth that say a particular religion is the right one. Do we accept that Pure Land Buddhism, for example, is the One True Faith? Or another religion?

It's kind of odd to focus on a particular unproven idea (souls choose suffering) and not others (there is only one right religion)?

For me the nde reports, of which there are many, in which the person voluntarily comes back into their broke body for love of their family or concern for humanity is more than a hand wave in regard to choosing suffering for a purpose.

For me the nde reports, of which there are many, in which the person voluntarily comes back into their broke body for love of their family or concern for humanity is more than a hand wave in regard to choosing suffering for a purpose.

Yes but that is quite different than the idea that this world is a multi-player movie/game/stage where all the evils that will happen are actually part of a group decision made for unclear reasons...

People have tried to find ways to hand wave the suffering in this world with different mythologies such as Karmic Justice or God's Plan, I see the modern idea that life experiences are a buffet souls choose to be merely a part of that.

Well except that if this world is here to teach anything, it is going to have nasty aspects. One aspect seems to be that it has to be such that people can plausibly believe that they are living in a reality that is purely physical.

The idea that life is supposed to teach us something is quite common. Christianity has it in a particularly extreme form - you have one shot at life, and if you don't do well enough you are tortured for eternity! Given that it would seem that time does not rule in the non-materialist realm, and that reincarnation seems reasonably well established, I think the idea that we do participate in a 'play' of that sort is fairly plausible.

Karma (sort of) fits into this wider scheme as a special case. people get to feel both sides of a crime  - either at the time of the life review or in another reincarnation.

I totally agree that there is a lot that is unknown about this picture, and that it might be totally wrong.

David

Well except that if this world is here to teach anything, it is going to have nasty aspects. One aspect seems to be that it has to be such that people can plausibly believe that they are living in a reality that is purely physical.

The idea that life is supposed to teach us something is quite common. Christianity has it in a particularly extreme form - you have one shot at life, and if you don't do well enough you are tortured for eternity! Given that it would seem that time does not rule in the non-materialist realm, and that reincarnation seems reasonably well established, I think the idea that we do participate in a 'play' of that sort is fairly plausible.

Karma (sort of) fits into this wider scheme as a special case. people get to feel both sides of a crime  - either at the time of the life review or in another reincarnation.

I totally agree that there is a lot that is unknown about this picture, and that it might be totally wrong.

David

The challenge I think is that there doesn't seem to be a clear reason a soul needs to learn "both sides of a crime" or anything else if it's a transcendent entity.

Though even before that I would consider the IMO strong possibility that this idea of the world as a school is very modern and appeals to modern sensibilities. In that it isn't so different from NDEs across times and places.

However evidential communication with the dead, AFAIK, does not yield us clear pictures of any particular claim regarding what the afterlife is like. It seems the dead tell us not to worry, and that there are places which are least somewhat pleasant.

I would grant that life reviews do at least suggest there is a design to reality where people are meant to learn from their mistakes, however not NDEr seems to get life reviews...

The challenge I think is that there doesn't seem to be a clear reason a soul needs to learn "both sides of a crime" or anything else if it's a transcendent entity.

Though even before that I would consider the IMO strong possibility that this idea of the world as a school is very modern and appeals to modern sensibilities. In that it isn't so different from NDEs across times and places.

However evidential communication with the dead, AFAIK, does not yield us clear pictures of any particular claim regarding what the afterlife is like. It seems the dead tell us not to worry, and that there are places which are least somewhat pleasant.

I would grant that life reviews do at least suggest there is a design to reality where people are meant to learn from their mistakes, however not NDEr seems to get life reviews...

For what it's worth (some people might take something from it), my first and only wakeful experience in 2021... over the weeks and months afterwards... turned out to be an answer, to the question I asked, prior to the experience.

The question was 'Why are they doing this to us?' the answer (which has turned out to be the most profound response I can imagine) was "The others still bite and scratch at each other".

I don't believe I could have come up with this concise and complete answer myself. There is a lot to unpack within that answer (and the matching imagery), and I believe it is relevant to your own question about suffering etc.

The challenge I think is that there doesn't seem to be a clear reason a soul needs to learn "both sides of a crime" or anything else if it's a transcendent entity.

I totally agree, though it seems to me that no mechanism contains a justification. Take Christianity - why should a god go to all the trouble to make humans (which in turn means devising a huge biochemical mechanism) in order to test them and accept some into a heaven (that presumably also needed making) and devising a hell for the rest.

Maybe an ultimate motivation appears after including a more sophisticated description of time?????

Though even before that I would consider the IMO strong possibility that this idea of the world as a school is very modern and appeals to modern sensibilities. In that it isn't so different from NDEs across times and places.

However evidential communication with the dead, AFAIK, does not yield us clear pictures of any particular claim regarding what the afterlife is like. It seems the dead tell us not to worry, and that there are places which are least somewhat pleasant.

I would grant that life reviews do at least suggest there is a design to reality where people are meant to learn from their mistakes, however not NDEr seems to get life reviews...

But NDEs are not totally consistent - possibly because there are complicated physiological complications at work - so NDEs can only usefully be examined in aggregate. We also have the luxury to investigate them without trying to fit them into an existing religion.

David