Guybrush

Nothing can be proven. Well, almost nothing. You yourself cited Descartes some posts back.

Because it is impossible to prove f.ex that the pencil you hold in your hand really is a pencil (and not f.ex just the illusion of a pencil), we don't actually build up a scientific understanding of the universe by going around and proving things. We may statistically prove something, but that's not the same thing.

Instead, our understanding of the universe is built up by collecting evidence. The pencil looks like a pencil. We can analyze the materials like wood and graphite or how you are able to write with it and the intent by which it was made. The answers to all this should provide evidence that what you are holding is a pencil, but at some point, you're just going to have to believe in that evidence - or not.

So we build our understanding of the universe piece by piece, by adding more evidence onto the evidence we've gathered so far. This is why principles like Occam's Razor is important. When furthering our knowledge of the universe, we have to make assumptions about it. But every time we make an assumption, there is a chance that assumption is wrong. So to reduce the risk of making wrong assumptions, we generally pick the explanations who build upon the amount of evidence we already have and which require us to make less new assumptions about the universe - because every new assumption runs the risk of being wrong.

That is what logical thinking is. What you have constructed is something entirely different. Instead of building on evidence, which f.ex points to the mechanics of the quantum world giving rise to a macro material world which behaves relatively predictably and which would exist even if there is no consciousness in it, you've made a hypothesis that flies in the face of evidence and which needs a wealth of new assumptions about the universe in order to be valid. You run a great risk of deceiving yourself by failing to take the pencil at face value. In other words, I don't think your argument is very logical at all because logic to me also implies critical thinking and I think you've failed to apply that. You already stated that your research has been done not to uncover truth, but specifically to support the idea of reincarnation. Seek and you shall find, whatever it is you find.

Your use of quantum theory is stereotypical. I'm not sure if you have any idea how many hogwash ideas people try to validate by applying "quantum" to it, even on this forum. Quantum theory's scientific history and its difficulty to understand which makes it both brainy and relatively incomprehensible to most and that makes it a favorite go-to explanation for almost anything conceivable. If you say that you understand quantum theory, then I will say you are bluffing. None of us really understand what happens when things are so small that an atom seems the size of a solar system just like noone truly knows what takes place in the center of a massive black hole. These are fringe sciences which are complicated and our understanding of them is still incomplete. To base your world view on assumptions you've made from your attempt to understand them .. Seems like folly to me. Especially when your interpretation counters evidence. But then again, you set out to find arguments to support reincarnation and not necessarily the truth.

In my time in academia, I've met quite a few physicists, but none of them have expressed your world view. They've seemed willing to accept that however mysterious things may seem at the quantum level, they give rise to a world with predictable rules that we can attempt to understand.

As touched upon earlier, if you strive to be at all scientific in this, you should follow the evidence.

What goes on in the head of a dog or a vampire bat is something great thinkers have studied for a long time and parts of the puzzle which makes up our understanding of the universe. The consistent validity of that knowledge adds credibility to the general scientific understanding of our universe, a credibility that your version of it does not have. There are many such sources of credibility that your version of the universe has no claim to. That you think of various facets of the universe as entirely dismissable (waste of time) is telling.

I don't think so. Now it seems you don't understand, but I can roughly explain why it makes sense to me.

If the universe contains matter and some of that matter orders, over time, into me, then you could say I am a consequence of the universe. My consciousness exists at the duration in time when my physical body makes it possible, but not before or after. Why should I know everything? I simply couldn't. Your own posts seem to say so.

But if my consciousness is what shapes the universe, then that makes me the creator of the universe. The universe only exists during the time that I do and is dependent on my very existance. So if I create the universe I exist in along with everything in it, then why is it stupid to ask why I created dinosaurs? Or if the universe is a consequence of a collective consciousness, why is it stupid to ask why we created dinosaurs?

You know, a good theory holds up in the light of scrutiny. Certainly if it's air-tight, right?

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