opcorn
I believe you can only be "you" at a particular point in time which is determined by several factors including culture, family, period in history, your genes, your brain, the environment and life experiences. If some energy somehow continues on after we die, it in no way should be considered the being we have come to know as "self."
If somehow humans are able to contain pieces of information from someone else's previous life, I believe it is most likely similar to a psychic sensing an past individual's life information rather than it actually being us having lived that life.
Since modern humans have been around for some 200,000+ years with 190,000+ years spent as hunter gatherers, it would appear that during the vast majority of our lives all we've been doing is hunting animals, picking fruit and nuts and getting eaten or bitten by unfriendly animals.
A couple of nights ago, I saw a reincarnation story on this new show called Proof Positive where a modern day police captain determined through a series of events that he had lived as a painter in New Orleans early in the 20th century. He actually found a diary and portraits made by the painter. But what puzzles me is why he thinks that individual is him, considering how different they were, with no interests in common. Wouldn't pretty much everyone else in the world have as much in common with the deceased painter as he does? Then how is that him? To me, memories about another individual's life does not make that person "you."
If somehow humans are able to contain pieces of information from someone else's previous life, I believe it is most likely similar to a psychic sensing an past individual's life information rather than it actually being us having lived that life.
Since modern humans have been around for some 200,000+ years with 190,000+ years spent as hunter gatherers, it would appear that during the vast majority of our lives all we've been doing is hunting animals, picking fruit and nuts and getting eaten or bitten by unfriendly animals.
A couple of nights ago, I saw a reincarnation story on this new show called Proof Positive where a modern day police captain determined through a series of events that he had lived as a painter in New Orleans early in the 20th century. He actually found a diary and portraits made by the painter. But what puzzles me is why he thinks that individual is him, considering how different they were, with no interests in common. Wouldn't pretty much everyone else in the world have as much in common with the deceased painter as he does? Then how is that him? To me, memories about another individual's life does not make that person "you."
