This is a suggestion that between the earlier life and later rebirth there must be a discontinuity, and that this must include specific information that is lost, and specific information that is retained. In principle, this is a testable statement.

In the sequence of events that defines some "thing", the essential information about that "thing" is the collection of properties expressed by its dynamics, and associated with its location, by which we know it. We sense the "thing" only during some kind of interaction. Whether the "thing" is material, information and relationships, or a collection of activities, this is true. At the end of the activity by which some property of the "thing" is manifested, there is a cessation of the manifestation process.

As an example, let the "thing" be a trip to Paris to buy a brioche. The activity begins with preparatory steps, continues during our trip, and concludes as we sit down in a cafe with a cup of espresso and our brioche. Then the trip has been accomplished, and there is no more manifestation of it. It has ended. Now we find ourselves being the topic of nearby Parisiennes who are at nearby tables etc, and who bring the external reaction to our trip. Because we ourselves have totally ceased to display interactions by which the trip was defined, the trip is now totally defined by whatever other people think.

In the same way, all activities begin, manifest, and then the manifestation ends and their states become static. During the moment in which the state of some "thing" is static, it does not project or manifest its nature because it has ceased interaction. That means that it is fully defined only by its environment. (We could also go into the cyclic nature of the constituents of atoms and molecules, all of which are cyclic, and which would bring us to the same conclusion of cyclicity. It seems that all the world is, in some way, a quantum system of discrete parts and intervals.)

Life is dynamic. The manifestation of the thread of recycled information that defines the point of consciousness is a "thing" in the same sense as our trip to Paris. At the end of life it ceases. This is because we get dead, and the definition of "dead" is that our ability to manifest our consciousness has ceased. There must then be a minimum of one bit of entropy by which our surrounding world manifests its response to us. This minimum entropy is the point defining the separation between the prior life and the next one. Of course it may be a much larger amont of infrmation than one bit.

We see this in every interaction. First, the "thing" interacts, and then pauses while it becomes the object of external responses. Then it again interacts.

The cycles of life and death are of the same nature. In this way, we build up a personal definition of self, using the totality of our experiences in the world, and then there is an interruption as we die. Next, the external world acts back upon us to give us the definition of self as it appears to the outside world. To the extent, and only to the extent, that our definition of self matches the external world's view and definition of us, that definition can be continued, and will extend into our next life. To the extent that the outside world's definition of our nature differs from our own, then the outside world gives is a reaction to our nature.

Many objects, such as a ringing bell, have a self-definition and other-defintion that are identical, so the bell deforms as it vibrates, thene xternal forces act to reshape it, maintaining the vibration. All cyclic events are of this nature, and the portions that do not agree between self and other are sensed as friction, causing the cyclic process runs down.

Another example, I drive a nail. In the hammering the nail manifests to the hammer and to the wood into which I drive it. Then, between strokes, the wood manifests to the nail in its reaction to the presence of the nail.

A test for the rejection of properties not identically defined, and of continuity of properties similarly defined, could entail reports (which we initially presume valid) that would indicate that a reincarnated actor could sense that the agreement between self and other definitions is, in actual fact, highly correlated with the preservation of traits from one lifetime to the next, and that the frequency is far from chance expectations for random preservation of traits. - The rather severe contingency, that we are getting valid information, remains open to criticism, and would best be handled by having a great many naive subjects to make reports on this question. We then could compare the frequency of their reports with chance expectations.

Because this is a testable statement,  I'd like to express it as the "theory of what survives after rebirth".

Other ways to obtain the same kind of information, but in a more complex manner, would be to see how many BSTs carry the prior life forward, but get hung up in the type of responses the external world imposes. Doubtless others will find better ways to test this.

dave

Hi Dave,

your starting point of thinking is, as far as I can see, the mathemetatic-physical viewpoint. While this viewpoint is quite successful in predicting some things and in engineering, it does not explain everything. The base of this worldview is too narrow to be an entire worldview. My considerations:

1) A "thing" is not constituted by a finite set of single properties (except mathematical/physicist's definitions and such, most things of experience not). It is the entireness of it which comes first, then we can explicate properties, but will never come to an end to tell ALL its properties.

2) Something one has experienced, and is now over, is not necessarily static.
This may be the case with the akashic records if we would assume it (maybe the NDE-reviews is indicating that it exists).
 In terms of physics, one could have believed that there is a record included in the present state which could be calculated backwards if all factors were known; but the Laplace-demon is at rest since the discovery of entropy, quantum mechanics and chaos.
  Then, there is the memory of the one who has experienced it. This, of course, is in no way static, but dynamic. The memory is the background of each person, and it is working continually, while we continue to explicate single bits of it in our present life (to recognize something means to explicate something appropriate of our memory by the opportunity of the new approaching us); in the other direction, the memory is modificated as well, as some studies regarding the "hindsight-bias" have shown.

3) What is not existent in the physical worldview is subjectivity, I mean that I, here, are now writing this. Every normal person could say that Spooky is now writing, but only one, me myself, can say truthfully that I am writing this now. In other's experiences, when they witness me writing, this element isn't there at all, but it is a very fundamental one. The objective facts, what everyone can say truthfully, are lacking this subjectivity. It is questionable in which way the own experience could be compared with other's experiences (wittnesses'), deriving objective facts from this, and then exactly these objective facts should be the ones which are sticking with someone, surviving death- hard to believe, especially when taking in consideration experiences which cannot be witnessed by anyone except oneself- or some kind of spiritual overseer.

4) Your nail-and-hammer example is illustrating an analytic way of thinking, to decompose a situation into elements. Technical useful, but not as a basis for questions like what is happening to us when we die, I would say. There is no end of decomposing. It's somehow closer to experience to see this nail-driving as a situation with explicable elements, but these elements are not independent from the situation. The elements are melted in this situation, so that it would not make sense to set them apart that way that you could say the wood would react to the nail, or the nail to the hammer.

From all this, I cannot follow your thought of a comparison of outside-experience and a person's experience for having then surviving memories/traits. Actually, the experiences of persons watching the same event (the objective fact) can vary to such a great degree that the common experience of all persons is extremely poor. The idea of a well-defined interaction between (thus) well defined objects is suspicious to me, because of the simultaneous nature of interaction in a situation, in which elements are merely could-be-explications in what more seems to be like a melted, honey-like substance.
 What can be optimized is the skill in noticing what is an objective fact, meaning what everyone can truthfully state. But these are highly narrowed facts, compared with the richer subjective facts, and lack a relationship to a person, but the skill to know what is probably an objective fact is useful in daily life, for being a smart/intelligent person.


Just my thoughts on your post, maybe I missed your point...

Spooky

lol! both u guys are a hard read for a mystic but I still like to try! I just have this affinity for the two of you and others here too of course.

see, I'm already off your topic! :D  I could briefly describe how I died to a role once to see if that helps. this was an aspect? of me, but as it floated in space, it couldn't remember who it was, where it was, and there was no memories of a former life for this aspect. However I was aware that I was I. the same energy feel to me that I feel today.

I had been sprung. I no longer had a mother. I was no longer her daughter. this role of daughter died and was dissociated now and floated, seeking where to belong, to begin again. No memories of having been a daughter were noticed and I didn't know daughter had died either but I was aware I was free now, and sprung, from what I don't know. didn't seem to matter, as I did enjoy the feeling of freedom from something.

as I coasted as this energy body, aware I was I, I felt a little sadness to be out here all alone but still I was free, then I noticed I was still able to have movement so I moved along and then I noticed a trait within self. this trait seemed the whole of myself. It was as sense of adventure I enjoyed. I did not see anything else inside me but this. the sense of adventure was my energy signature. this trait was a positive forward thrust energy as I went looking for whatever I could find. and still no memory of another life, or any people I had known.

I could imagine this experience might be a little like what it's like for a stuck person, who can get retrieved perhaps, as I did have a strong question what its like to be dead and not even know you are dead.

I became aware as I floated that I enjoyed interaction with others. so that became my objective to find others to interact with. the need to communicate. I think this not to be unique in myself. just the sense of adventure was more like a trait, like of keeping a positive attitude, something I had actually cultivated somewhere.
so in a sense I was then, inbetween lives.
as this part of me had died. I'd just burned off all karma with mom. she was now my roommate. not my mother. however, there was like I said, a freedom to attain knowledge we are not the roles that we engage each other with,(entirely)  we change roles within spirit realm and lives, even we change sex roles.

to make a long story short, I finally gravitated somehow up to my physical daughter and asked her what was going on, that no one could see or hear me when I spoke and I could not relate and be a part of groups to interact and be useful. disconcerting feeling of nothingness to experience. we need each other. so retrievals are very helpful to connect others to others.

she told me I was dead. I became highly elated to discover I was dead! haha!
that is when it felt like a religious rapture occurred and a tunnel of energy swept me up as I surrendered myself to oblivion if necessary.
oblivion is a nice ride, but it didn't happen to be obliviated, the surrender part was the best part as that was like being in love. and completely trusting the process of being in love, or in the grip of something that knew where to put me next. going down this tunnel was like the speed of light or sound, like free falling out of an airplane hoping you have a ripcord and it works but knowing this was the biggee moment you'd been wondering about all your life.

at the point of coming out of the tunnel, memories began to return, feelings of some kind of accomplishment where things could have gone much worse and they didn't, so now all was well and I was in the right place with the right people.

so all this is just another perspective, not even scientific in the least but I hope to contribute something to the topic. love, alysia

Great posts Dave, Spooky, and Chuckles.

Thanks for sharing that otherworldly experience Chuckles, that was a great read, and it felt right.

PUL,
Cosmic_Ambitions

Very interesting Alysia.

You wrote: "it couldn't remember who it was, where it was, and there was no memories of a former life for this aspect. However I was aware that I was I."
 That is what I meant with subjectivity. Our memories of what we have done, and what we think we are, are not sufficient for being a person, a reference point is needed, this bare "I"- or the "here-me", otherwise memories would be just floating bits and pieces of unrelated informations.

However, the bare "I" needs the memories to become what we say a normal person, and that is where the second part of your experience is going to, the roles. When I summarize/generalize what you've told, I say you first were in distance to your memories, then you moved closer to them, but like a scientist would do, just investigating, and then you took the same old memories, but decided to use them in a different way, you chose a different role than you had before.

Nothing is changed of the memories (or, better said, the memory-stuff), only your way to use them, and the funny thing is, this can change everything regarding the entire person. Even memories can seem different then, my interpretation is, the stuff is the same, but the way you approach this memory-stuff has become different, so that you see new things in your memory. The memory is, so to say, charged in a different way, or interpreted new. (Of course I don't know if you agree to my ideas) A bit like Cosmic Ambitions' Zen proverb, it's all the same, but as well, totally different.

I think normally it is a quite extreme experience to find yourself bare of your memories. Fear is the natural mate of this, I had that once very briefly. But, of course, the great chance is, when not falling into the fear trap, to enjoy freedom (the free-from type of freedom, maybe then as well the free-to freedom type). Good for you that you had the freedom experience rather than the fear one!

Spooky

thanks Spooky, I think you have a good grip on what I experienced but I can't describe the feelings that I went through or the intensity which made it real for me, but still you picked up what I tried to describe very well.

you said: so that you see new things in your memory. The memory is, so to say, charged in a different way, or interpreted new.
_____
if I try to get a new handle on this dream due to what u said, heres what comes up: specific memory was absent during the experience, and the memory of my daughter was not what drove me to her; rather I blinked out, that was a subjective occurrence to blink out and blink in to her presence, and I think it was because of love pulling me to her. what got reinterpreted (past memory) was occurring when I woke up the next morning; I was surprised to be alive and I began to reinterpret the past over the next several years.
______
then you said:
I think normally it is a quite extreme experience to find yourself bare of your memories.
_____
it is a feeling like you have lost something and for a while you wonder if you did something wrong because you are so unattached and alone. I imagine that some of those I have retrieved could feel lost like this. but yes, you hit the nail on the head.
________
S.
Fear is the natural mate of this, I had that once very briefly.
____
LR.  like confusion would be there. and a kind of shock later on when I realized I was dead. I don't recall fear, just confusion and a knowing I had to move forward and then when I woke up I had a need to move forward positively.
____


But, of course, the great chance is, when not falling into the fear trap, to enjoy freedom (the free-from type of freedom, maybe then as well the free-to freedom type). Good for you that you had the freedom experience rather than the fear one!  
___

the feeling that something was there to take care of all of us was the strongest feeling that I cannot share unless I could call it god, I would say all that is, it cares about us and watches our footsteps.

thanks Spooky!

Cosmic_Ambitions wrote on Apr 30^th, 2007 at 2:20am:

Great posts Dave, Spooky, and Chuckles. Thanks for sharing that otherworldly experience Chuckles, that was a great read, and it felt right. PUL, Cosmic_Ambitions

thanks for reading CA and I do so enjoy the name chuckles...

I forgot to to say that after I died, I then started to become quite active on this board as I had taken mother home and had more time to come here and develop more learning in this field of retrievals and such. so it was precognition.  I met you guys before I met you guys in C1.    (no one will believe me, but you will won't you? hahahaha!!! hey CA here comes the bathtub!!!  [smiley=bath.gif]

Deep cleansing towards the betterment of eternity!  [smiley=bath.gif]

PUL,
Cosmic_Ambitions

Hi Dave, I been all day scanning "Disappearance of the Universe." came up with this for this thread:
I'll do the verbatim:
When your body is finished functioning your consciousness continues.
...pg 263  what happens is the awe eventually wears off because the subconscious guilt that is still within the mind starts to catch up with you. this causes you to reincarnate as a way of escaping guilt and your fear of god. this always happens to you eventually unless your mind has been completely healed by the holy spirit. (whole spirit to me, undistorted spirit)

so a funny story, "some buddhists (not residing Buddhists of course) smile.  try to avoid reincarnating by practicing lucid dreaming in order to train their mind so upon death of their body they can simply decide not to reincarnate..it doesn't work unless theres a total absence of guilt..if their unconscious guilt was completely healed they would be enlightened while still appearing to be in a body.

this jives with Monroe; of the addiction to earth plane and the guilt makes us want to get it right, to keep returning. however, we can achieve guiltlessness by working it here, through a process of letting go and making amends. this assures us the ability to not send ourselves back as in an automatic process.

hope this helps a little. love, alysia