On Reconciling Atheism and Meaning in the Universe

[cpwm17]

109. I agree with everything you wrote

Last edited Fri Aug 31, 2012, 03:42 PM - Edit history (1)

I'm an atheist and I absolutely don't believe souls exist. But I do believe our conscious selves do not just have one existence. The best word for this is 'reincarnation.'

Our memories are destroyed when we die, so we can't know what kind of existence 'our past lives' experienced. All that happens is the particular process that creates ones current self can be duplicated in another conscious critter after we die. I'll call that 'reincarnation.'

It seems that reincarnation must happen. The apparent design of our Universe can easily be explained by the Multiverse theory. The Multiverse brings up the possibility of there being a huge (or infinite) number of universes, and also the possibility of there being a huge number (or infinite) of universes with life.

Multiverse from 11:10 to 26:40. Ignore the rest:

The possible, given infinite opportunities (or a huge number), is guaranteed to happen an infinite number (or possibly a huge number) of times. By our very existence, our conscious selves are proven to be possible. There is no separate soul that dies or an invisible sky ledger that keeps track of whether a particular consciousness has existed yet. So reincarnation should happen, and there's nothing to prevent it.

Also, it would be impossible for me to be conscious right now if I only got one life and time is infinite. Finite#/infinity = zero, which would be the odds of me living right now with only one life. Since my consciousness existing right now is the only thing that matters for my consciousness, this is the equivalent of me winning the lottery with zero odds of winning. So my reincarnation must happen an infinite number of times through infinite time.