I'm likely no more knowledgable than you but, I find the idea just so bizarre. How many different choices can we actually make if we still had to come from the same parents? Which we presumably would have to- how could we be 'us' if we didn't? So- our parents and their parents and their parents etc. would have to have hooked up on this other earth(s). So- those choices are predestined- surely or else- 'we' can't exist there.
Would you really have the same sense of self if you were a different gender, a different race, born hundreds of years in the past or future? Do you think 'you' are a complete self when you are born? Why are babies so stupid then?
If it's true though. If reincarnation is true. If either my one soul or, replicants of my soul keep being reincarnated. I don't know really. I feel bad for them of course. But- I don't feel connected to any of them right now. It's like me pitying someone else being born in 10 years time or, tomorrow. They do have my concern and, my well wishes but, I don't feel a connection to them.
And, if I'm born again on the planet zorg with three heads and a tail, I doubt I'll even recall being human. So, how will I even be 'me'.
But- if somewhere else, there's a replica of the earth in the 1980's where I'm going to be born again, after I die here- how will the timings line up? My Mum's been dead for 42 years. Is she just twiddling her thumbs till it's time for her to be born in time to have me? My Dad's still alive. If I die tomorrow say- how can he be in his 30's in this other world to get my Mum pregnant? Time travel?
Or, are our 'souls' fragmented into multiple parts? But then- why? Maybe there is a how figured out but, it doesn't even seem so.
I'm sure there could well be other earth- like planets with life on. That likely went through similar evolutionary stages to our planet. But then, if they weren't shelled with a comet, maybe dinnosaur type creatures still wander about there. Maybe there are human- like creatures elsewhere. Why does it mean they are 'us' though? Why couldn't they have evolved their own consciousness and self awareness?
I think it comes down to what consciousness is- which people don't seem to know. But- whether you believe consciousness is produced by the body or possesses it. I tend to believe the former. I think we mannifest consciousness as part of the brain's functioning. I don't tend to believe it exists separately and before or after our bodies do. That's my feeling.
Not 100% concrete. Some things still puzzle me. People having similar dreams- why? Like flying dreams. Where do they come from? Close relations being aware of when the other is in danger. That does suggest a pyschic connection. So- some stuff does still make me ponder. But, billions of versions of us? I just think that sounds typically humanly egotistical. If there is in fact no afterlife, we've done a crazy job of convincing great swaths of the population we are immortal. It just sounds like another attempt by people who do actually love life to desperately try and hold onto it.
