Technically reincarnation is for realsies. Your bits and pieces will be used by nature again.
I think about it in a slightly different way.
Once I'm dead, people will keep being born. When I think real hard about it, it's pretty much the same as reincarnation except there's no need for some kind of immortal soul.
There's no functional difference between my experience of being born and someone else's after I'm dead. In both cases, a new person wakes up inside a meat suit and thinks "this is me." This is already reincarnation without a hard drive and a rating algorithm.
even moreso. ever meet people that are a type. where several are really similar. I have even seen and met my own type. not only will people continue being born but ones a lot like you.
To be even more technical. You are being reincarnated constantly.
We shed skin and cells and those become something else while our own body rebuilds itself constantly from other life.
The only cells in the body that dont change out are neurons and sensory receptors.
A lot of proteins stay forever though. Like bones, teeth, and probably a lot of proteins in muscles. A lot of others I'm not listing.
But the cells themselves are always dying and being remade (except neurons and receptors).
Flesh of Theseus.
Theseus of Theseus
thats like the concept of buddhist reincarnation, there is no "soul", ego is illusion in buddhism
like a stream of consciousness constantly travelling through cycles
The short story collection/sorta novel Haunted by Pahlanuik ends with the discovery that the planet Venus (I think? Might have been Jupiter) is essentially an eternal awesome orgy heaven, which everyone will eventually end up reincarnating on when they die. So everyone on earth essentially decides to kill themselves. Stores have to start locking up suicide kits because people will just take them in the store and die before paying.
That entire thing is fucked up. I read it somewhere around sophomore year of high school and existentially traumatized me. There are stories in there that somehow 4chan shock image level in just written words.
Maybe it does and the queue is so long we just forget about our old life by the time our number comes up
The existence of a queue sparks the follow-up question: What happens if something is born while the queue is empty?
Donald J. Trump.
I read a short story once that there's only one person constantly reincarnated simultaneously, and everyone you (I) meet is actually me (you) and only realizes it after death before being born into the next person's body,
In my story, Maizy's Tails, I made it so that souls had to be aged for 1000 years before they could be reincarnated. Otherwise the lingering attachment (which makes souls weightless) won't allow them to enter into a new body.
The 1000 years is just a nice, round figure the gods use as a safe baseline. Some souls might only need 200 years while others might need 950 or so. Best to just place them all into balloons and let them age in batches 👍
I'm pretty sure in Buddha, where the concept of reincarnation comes from, suicide would negatively affect the karma, which would affect how one would reincarnate. CMIIW tho
As if religious teachings ever stopped people from doing certain things...
One step forward, two steps back.
Would it count as suicide anymore?
strategic respwan?
Rerolling. As a Civilization player, I get it. I'd be aiming for that legendary start too.
Cory Doctorow has a story set in a society where cloning complete with mind restoration exists and is pretty quick and cheap. People make regular backups of themselves and then engage in dangerous activities like mountain skiing and whatnot. I forget which story it is: might be ‘Rapture of the Nerds’.
did they cure pain???
Don't remember that, alas: Doctorow's shorter stories and even some novels are pretty weird, and I was often too baffled by some aspects and details to remember the particulars. Need to give them a reread one of these days, and in text rather than in audio.
If I could be a bumblebee for 12 seconds I'd do it
You can still wiggle your butt and dance, sister!
Oh wait. That's honey bees. Do bumblebees do anything fun?
If any religion with a good afterlife were proven suicide rates would rise.
Not if suicide excludes you from a good afterlife in that religion...
Abrahamic religions typically have suicide as a sin, for example.
As an instant-hell in some cases.
Frankly I think there’s already a gap on this with religious belief. If SO many people truly believe in god and an afterlife, there should be more suicides. Okay, it’s a sin. Fine. But then why aren’t people happier when a relative passes? It’s almost like no one actually really believes this shit at the end of the day.
I am atheistic and agnostic personally, so not speaking from faith but:
People can have two (or more) emotions at the same time, they can be happy and joyfull that their relative is in a better place now and at the same time sad and tearfull that the person is no longer with them. Happy for the dead, sad for themself.
It is not a contradiction, it only shows the very deep and complicated ways of our mind and emotions.
I like the idea of Death in the Discworld. You get what you believe in. That's why some isolated tribes kill evangelist on site , hell only exists if you believe in it.
The monk that believes in reincarnation is always so excited to start again but wishes he would remember more, only remembering his other lives in the time he is dead.
The long desert that Brutha believes in is special when he decides to save Vorbis, and walks it together, even though he is like a messiah and Vorbis should be condemned to suffer his loneliness forever.
I fucking love The Small Gods book so much
If it were proven, and you could identify your previous identity, would you be able to claim your wealth and possessions from previous life?
Christianity made suicide a mortal sin because new adherents kept killing themselves to get to heaven pronto.
There was a scifi story like this. People could remember their was reincarnation and people could remember their past lives and like rich people who reincarnated poor killed themselves and such.
They would increase if any afterlife was proven. Even terrible ones ppl will convince themselves are actually good.
If I had to go through my childhood and resulting alienated adulthood again, I'd try to delay death as long as possible to NOT go through it.
I read a short story back in college about a woman who helped people remember their past lives. Somehow she gets transported to a universe where reincarnation is completely real and everyone remembers all their previous past lives. Suicide was rampant and the world generally sucked. She somehow transitions to helping people forget their past lives to make the world a better place. I really wish I could remember the title of the story.
Showerthoughts
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.