Thoughts on strength of reincarnation evidence?

But I do think certainty comes with personal experience.  And I feel very strongly that if some of these critics themselves experienced some of these events, they would no longer be critical and they themselves would feel their own old explanations to be way off base.  Like Grant Cameron said (paraphrasing), "you can say that you believe or do not believe in UFO close encounter experiences, but when it happens to you, there is no belief either way, you KNOW." 

Very rarely (virtually never) does somebody have a blatantly anomalous experience and not walk away convinced and knowing full well that critical explanations do not hold water.  A lot of skeptics seem to feel that they are immune and that they wouldve "seen the swamp gas for what it was, swamp gas."  But this isn't what we see. When former skeptics have experiences, they change their tune very quickly.  Their own previous explanations become insufficient.  Depending upon the nature and strength of the experience of course, as I am speaking of events which are, essentially, unmistakable.  And what we see with all the data, is that the seeming credibility of witnesses does not go DOWN the crazier and more bizarre the case is.  Theres no shortage of credible witnesses with regards to events that really have no adequete explanation.  Particularly when it occurs in all parts of the world thousands of times over.

But I do think certainty comes with personal experience.  Theres no shortage of credible witnesses with regards to events that really have no adequete explanation.  Particularly when it occurs in all parts of the world thousands of times over.

Definitely. Without my childhood experience I would have found it much much harder to get to where my understanding is now. Indeed those experiences are a motivating force that drives me to learn more.

Feynman gives a lovely example of how a phenomena [electromagnetism] can be hiding in plain sight with only the odd 'anomalous' phenomena (which didn't fit the Greeks current ideas) giving it away.

Or Steven Shevell's book which describes that people had observed 'anomolous' phenomena like coloured shadows for centuries. Even right up to the 1950's, we were still working off a completely wrong theory of colour (three-colour principle) that couldn't explain these coloured shadows or other 'anomalous' colour phenomena. But without anything better to replace the Three-colour principle with, we staggered along until Edwin Lands work on Colour Constancy in 1959 showed that colour arose purely in the brain.

These are two particularly relevant, and I think beautiful examples, that show how we stagger on with old theories, until somebody comes up with something better. Everyone on PSIence knows very well the more common anomalous phenomena which we regularly discuss on here. Phenomena for which currently accepted theories offer no very satisfactory explanation. These phenomena we discuss are no different, to the Greeks "...strange rock from the island of Magnesia which attracted iron...", or Guericke's 17th Century description of "coloured shadows" made by candle light.

Most of us on here already know the current theories must be wrong (or incomplete)...

Man i wish I wasn't so busy these days because this is a thread I've wanted to get involved in for awhile.

It seems to me that if reincarnation is a real phenomenon - and I also agree that the evidence is strong - it might account for some other interesting phenomena that aren't well explained conventionally.

For example if you talk to people with young children, many of them are awestruck by the ease with which kids manipulate computers and phones. Although you could never prove the idea, I do wonder if many children carry over skills and general knowledge from previous lives.

It seems to me that if reincarnation is a real phenomenon - and I also agree that the evidence is strong - it might account for some other interesting phenomena that aren't well explained conventionally.

For example if you talk to people with young children, many of them are awestruck by the ease with which kids manipulate computers and phones. Although you could never prove the idea, I do wonder if many children carry over skills and general knowledge from previous lives.

Maybe the thing with kids learning is more like an example of Morphic Resonance, as per Rupert sheldrake? I’m wondering how kids would carry over  technological skills from times before the technology existed?

For example if you talk to people with young children, many of them are awestruck by the ease with which kids manipulate computers and phones. Although you could never prove the idea, I do wonder if many children carry over skills and general knowledge from previous lives.

Well, it seems to me that you chose a somewhat awkward example to illustrate the idea. Almost certainly computers/mobile phones were not around during previous lifetimes of most people. (At any rate, these technologies change so rapidly that even over the course of a few years, skills can become outdated and irrelevant). Any proficiency would seem more likely just a sign of the general flexibility/adaptability of the young.

Now if you'd chosen a skill such as the ability to play a musical instrument, or to learn a foreign language, then past life recall, maybe at a subconscious level could perhaps play a part.

As to whether you could prove it, perhaps it is difficult, but maybe no more than reincarnation cases in general. You might need something specific, such as familiarity with or apparently creating an unknown melody, then much later rediscovering the same melody buried in some obscure record. Similarly if a child spontaneously speaks and understands at least some fragments of a foreign language without being exposed to it.

It's possible that I misunderstood your point of course, please feel free to explain further.

Well, it seems to me that you chose a somewhat awkward example to illustrate the idea. Almost certainly computers/mobile phones were not around during previous lifetimes of most people. (At any rate, these technologies change so rapidly that even over the course of a few years, skills can become outdated and irrelevant).  Any proficiency would seem more likely just a sign of the general flexibility/adaptability of the young.

Well, you have a point, and I did wonder about that as I wrote my suggestion, but the point is that kids' handling of modern technology is something that get's remarked on a lot - people say things like, "I couldn't get the TV remote to work, but my child showed me what to do".

People didn't have mobile phones, but they were getting more and more used to older technologies - TV's, radios, computers (to a lesser degree), and other gadgets. Now imagine that children get some of that familiarity at a very young age, and then can build on that general knowledge to use modern technology. If true, it has presumably been going on for many generations, so people don't start as empty slates.

I suspect that even realising that a gadget get transformed from state to state as you push its buttons, and that you need to do that in a defined sequence, takes some learning.

Well, you have a point, and I did wonder about that as I wrote my suggestion, but the point is that kids' handling of modern technology is something that get's remarked on a lot - people say things like, "I couldn't get the TV remote to work, but my child showed me what to do".

People didn't have mobile phones, but they were getting more and more used to older technologies - TV's, radios, computers (to a lesser degree), and other gadgets. Now imagine that children get some of that familiarity at a very young age, and then can build on that general knowledge to use modern technology. If true, it has presumably been going on for many generations, so people don't start as empty slates.

I suspect that even realising that a gadget get transformed from state to state as you push its buttons, and that you need to do that in a defined sequence, takes some learning.

Children have many more synapses and network connections than adults. The parts of the child’s network that are useful get reinforced (learning), while the unused parts are eroded. By the time we’re well into our twenties, the complex networks of the child have been eroded into a much sparser but strongly reinforced networks of an adult. So you’re pretty much fixed (in relative terms), compared to a very young child. You’ve adapted. That’s mainly why children can learn more quickly than adults, their networks are created in massive bursts of network creation, completely naturally and spontaneously, where as adults in later life have to work hard to create new networks. This is all bound up with things like interference theories (from all your past experiences) which are damn useful, but also very restrictive when it comes to new and different learning. Then you’ve got all the detritus of your life, renforcing how your networks are activated.

There isn’t much work available on the different speed of network creation, reinforcement, and erosion in people. But it looks likely that these will play an important role in different learning and retention speeds at different ages. Those along with different spacing in cortical minicolumns between people probably play large roles in different ways people process sensory data.

Anyway, a child just has to reinforce networks that have been spontaneously created for it, and it has a relatively blank canvas of past experience, so learning is easier on new/different concepts, than it is more generally for adults to absorb new/different concepts, because adults are trying to adapt an already adapted and reinforced network, with lots of interference from the past.

I guess my personal difficulty with this particular area is that when I grew up, we were using valve (tube) radios, wind-up clocks and watches, and such things as digital watches and pocket calculators were dreams of a fantasy future. The world has changed rapidly, I spent years working as a software developer, something which I took to readily, despite my penchant for devices built with cogs, levers and springs. Only a tiny proportion of past lives would involve people who have fitted in multiple short lifetimes during the later years of my own, which would be necessary to have familiarity with electronic devices with push-buttons. As such, being a minor proportion, it would not be able to provide a generalised explanation for the ease with which children learn.

I do understand though that I am placing the emphasis differently, and looking at a different angle.

I should also add, for those unfamiliar with my views, that usually I am the one arguing in favour of the role of past-life influences on things in a current lifetime. In that respect I am to an extent playing devil's advocate and arguing against an area which I usually support.

One other angle to consider is the idea of Morphic Resonance proposed by Rupert Sheldrake, and the "hundredth monkey effect" from Lyall Watson. These both have relevance to the ease of learning or doing something new, once it has been achieved previously.