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In reply to the discussion: Enough of the Gene is with Gilda [View all]Orrex
(63,210 posts)We moved into our current house when our younger son was 4.
A few months later he told us that the previous owners had a big dog. This baffled us, because he'd never met the previous owners, nor were there any dog-obvious signs in the house that he could identify. So my wife and I asked him how he knew:
"The lady told me on the stairs."
Spooky, right? Some sort of mysterious woman telling secrets to our toddler son in our very own home?
Nope. It was our realtor, who had bad knees and sat on the steps with him while we checked out the second floor of the house, and she told him about the dog.
The point is that parents--even very hands-on parents--don't control all of the information that flows into their kids' brains. Children are highly imaginative and are exceptionally good at retaining and regurgitating information in a way that makes it seem mysterious if you lack all of the details, much the way your friend lacked all of the details about her son's cryptic revelation.
In short, that anecdote--though admittedly charming--fails completely as evidence for reincarnation, and it certainly has nothing to do with the conservation of matter and energy.
Incidentally, that's a trendy ad hoc way of shoehorning a caricature of modern physics into a caricature of ancient wisdom. It's ultimately not very persuasive to anyone who doesn't already have faith in the underlying philosophy.