Paradise (Where is it now?)

by dhw, Friday, January 01, 2010, 15:47 (5439 days ago) @ BBella

BBella imagines an interlude after death, during which we may think about the lessons we've learned from life, perhaps link up again with our loved ones, and eventually choose to be reincarnated ... though not necessarily on Earth ... to enjoy new experiences.-Your ordeal and your recovery from it remain an awe-inspiring example of the power and range of the human mind. I don't think even you can really explain what happened, but it certainly raises the whole question of what constitutes reality. The idea of reincarnation is common to a lot of thought systems (Hinduism, Kabbalah, lots of African religions, and also modern pagan and new age movements), though I don't think I've ever heard of one in which the soul actually makes its own choices. The sceptic in me naturally wonders why the heck I don't remember anything of any past existences, and how I can possibly hope to learn from them if I don't know about them, but then I recall the African boy who "remembered" scenes from the life of a child who had died before him ... an experience told to me by my wife (who is African). This type of memory is echoed in research done by Professor Ian Stevenson, who specialized in the subject. Wikipedia gives what seems to me a very fair account of the pros and cons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Stevenson -David's post refers to Susan Blackmore's study, indicating that any religious aspects of NDEs always conformed to the person's own faith. This certainly underlines the subjectivity of the experience (George would call it a delusion), but it could also indicate that the individual soul retains its identity and with it the portion of reality in which it lived, i.e. its memories and its imaginings, its beliefs and its feelings. Consciousness, perhaps, freed from its physical container? -As for the Big T (Origin of Life, 31 December at 22.35), I'm glad to have been of assistance. Assuming, of course, that my insight is to be trusted!