I don’t believe in reincarnation in the sense that I can be born again on this planet as a dog or something. More like whatever makes you “you” was possible in a universe where it probably shouldn’t have been possible. I believe in the Big Crunch theory even though a lot of evidence says this is not true, the universe is definitely expanding at an insane rate. I like to think that all matter in the universe eventually comes together in one supermassive black hole and somewhere in that matter soup, another big bang happens. Maybe this time around life doesn’t happen, but maybe after a trillion iterations it does and whatever makes you “you” could happen again. You’d have no memory of it, you’d just be aware of being alive again. If there is just the heat death of the universe and nothing ever happens again then so be it, I was fine before I was born anyway.
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My thoughts was from a comic a while back that each time you die you are reborn into someone else, any time, and place, the concept was that you are everyone else but without the memories of your previous yous. And the point was to learn and understand every view and everything.
The reason is because it made me more accepting and humble to others thinking there life is mine just born different with different circumstances.
I don’t believe in it in the traditional sense, but I do have a feeling that there’s something deeply mysterious about our minds and consciousness. I wouldn’t claim with absolute certainty that death is the end of experience.
Take general anesthesia, for example - it’s one of the closest things to dying that we can experience and still return from. What does it feel like? Nothing. By definition, it cannot be experienced. You might have been under for ten hours, but from your perspective, you simply go from feeling drowsy to waking up in another room, with no sense of time having passed in between. You can only experience being, not not-being.
Who’s to say something similar doesn’t happen when you die? Your experience could simply continue elsewhere. Whether it happens instantly or after a ten-thousand-year gap is irrelevant - because from the standpoint of your subjective experience, it would feel instantaneous. We could take this even further and consider the possibility that consciousness is something universal - something we merely tap into rather than generate individually. In that case, who’s to say you weren’t “born” this morning into this already existing body, complete with prior memories of a past life, simply continuing from where “someone else” left off?
I don't necessarily believe in it, but I have had the thought that if it was real the reason it hasn't been proven could very well be that it's super duper hard to come back as a human and not as, like, a protozoa or even be on Earth. The universe is pretty damn huge; possibly infinite. The chances of coming back as the same thing in the same place are exceptionally small.
I want to believe in it because the thought of hell or oblivion fucking existentially terrifies me. I like being a human. Or at least a sentient self aware creature.
But I don't know what to believe because I don't know the truth. :(
In case you're not aware having your memories completely deleted is the same as death
I've sort of always believed in reincarnation, though I can't recall the first time I was introduced to the concept. I feel like the universe is very cyclical, so why not reincarnation? Although I guess I'm not sure how much of us gets "carried over" into the next life. What makes us "us"? What part of us would be passed on to the next life? I definitely feel like I've been here before, though it would be hard to explain why, and perhaps I'm just mistaking that feeling.
For the same reason as people who believe in religion, comfort against the scary reality of the fragility of life.
I don't believe in it, but here's a very popular short story that uses reincarnation in a clever way:
I love Andy Weir
The physical law of the “do-over”
"Only second chance I know is the chance to make the same mistake twice."
-Davd Mamet
what the heck law is this?!
Mulligan's Law, does not go well on chicken sandwiches as opposed to Cole's Law.
Correct. Also known as the Fifth Law of Thermoflynamics.
Just science, that’s all.
I don't believe in reincarnation, but my mother did, based on childhood experiences. It sounded convincing to me as she told it.
Personally, as far as I can tell, when you're dead you're dead.
I recently (re-)read Robert Lanza's "Observer" and there are some trippy ideas in there that have me rethinking what reincarnation could mean.