Perhaps you come back as your own, uh, manhood. That would certainly a fittingly embarrassing punishment.
I think that’s a cool idea. And would make sense, especially if the soul does not experience linear time like the body does. So it would stand to reason, that if the whole point of living various human lives would be to learn as much as possible, then moving around freely in time and space would be logical.
I don’t believe in reincarnation (or much of anything else, frankly) but I can see the future sometimes. It’s never been anything useful, but I know that I’ve dreamed things that happened later. It’s not deja vu. It’s not just remembering something similar. I’ve dreamed specific events that happened later (up to a year later). I keep waiting to dream lottery numbers or stock tips… so far no luck though.
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ive had that too, though funnily enough in my dreams something bad happened while when it happened irl nothing really happened
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First off, no. And if that answers your question then I suppose you can stop reading here.
Why just a brick or rock?
Why not a grain of sand, or a whole desert? A molecule of water, or the ocean? Let’s say you’re a toy, a doll with red hair and overalls. 
I’m open to the idea. But I’d think it’s a transfer or rebirth as a human, not so much a rebirth as a chihuahua or lion… Or ant or lobster. Even though they have senses that experience their reality - I’m less open to the idea of going to lower or higher life forms.
What would be the purpose? I suppose it could be… Like you live in the present day, die, then your consciousness returns to this physical realm and you’re born as an impoverished disabled person in the early 1800s, or maybe you’re reborn and grow up to be a soldier that commits war crimes as a form of revenge for the horrible things (the enemy) did to your friends/family and comrades.
So who’s to say you wouldn’t reincarnate as that same enemy?
What’s it all worth? To learn or experience so many different lifetimes and human conditions? 
I mean, if that is what happens. Not saying it is or isn’t. There’s really no way to know (outside some transcendental life-changing experience - probably induced by psychedelics or other illicit substances, or maybe a Near Death Experience).
I think for your consciousness to be “in” something - it needs not only sensory organs to receive information about their surroundings but also a degree of conscience. And with a conscience comes a sense of morality.
There’s an aspect of consciousness that delves into or asks what it is that perceives everything you experience. It’s not so much that you realize that you merely exist… That part is your body, your person, and who you identify as… What your labels are. So, what is it that is witnessing everything that is you?
You’d need to get to the place where you can ask yourself; “Who Am I?” And when you realize that John Doe in Anytown USA isn’t the right answer - you’re on the right path.
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Anyone having issues with HMF? I’m getting a 500 internal server error when I try to reply in yes/no.
I also couldn’t bring up any PMs.
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I was just trying to post something in the PlayStation thread and kept getting the same 500 error.
Then I posted in the Music thread just fine. 
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God i wouldn’t want that, what if you die by a car, you’d be useless in the future wouldn’t you? Unless you reincarnated in the next like 5-10 years
Well, the idea of any kind of afterlife or spiritual existence is that there is a deity of some kind who determines what happens to a human soul once their body dies. Presumably such a being exists beyond time, and so could determine when and what and how a soul ends up as it does, for punishment or reward.
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buddhism is pretty popular and that doesn’t have a deity. jainism too. in fact, i’m pretty sure the other dharmic religions are pretty agnostic towards gods; take em or leave em type deal.
what i’m getting at is, it’s not necessary to believe in god(s) to believe in an after-life or spiritual existence, but it’s just as pointless.
no offence anyone!
yikes.
i wonder what you’d come back as if you die of dehydration, asphyxiation or hunger, given thet’re an absence of something. do you come back as a hole?!
what about a fall, do you come back as the ground?
ohmygod what about a heart attack? will i come back as a heart or cholesterol? IS THE CHOLESTEROL PLUGGING UP MY VEINS RIGHT NOW THE SCREAMING SOULS OF HEART ATTACK VICTIMS PAST?! IS MY HEART A PERSON?!
i need a lie down.
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Which had always been a problem for me because, unlike matter and energy in the living universe that can more or less trace it’s origins back to the point of creation, if there’s no deity that is responsible for the existence of souls and afterlives, how would those exist? And what would govern how and why a person goes where? The concept of an afterlife has its own inherent problems, logically, but those that don’t even have a corresponding deity responsible for them are truly befuddling.
i’m sure there’s plenty of stuff written about it, all i’m saying is one doesn’t necessitate the other.
that’s the same sort of question as “how does anything exist?”, isn’t it?
does anything need to? if you don’t believe that the rules that affect the physical world are governed by a deity, then i don’t think it’s too big a leap to assume an afterlife could work similarly.
then again:
“knowing the secrets of the universe is about as helpful to us as knowing the chemical composition of water is helpful to a drowning sailor.”
—- freddy n. (paraphrased)
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I would normally agree with that quote, but we’re not drowning yet. We learn those secrets, we might be able to make the universe answer to us instead of the other way around. It’s the only outcome that makes our species’s existence even marginally relevant.
given how we’ve treated the planet, i think that would be the worst possible outcome.
if we don’t kill ourselves before we get to that point, then… well, here’s another quote for you:
“even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. for existence has its own order and that no man’s mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others.”
—— cormmy mac c
all the high falutin’ quotes today!
But, if we learn how to interpret that, and above all, learn to halt or even reverse entropy, then we not only wouldn’t cause any more damage, we could undo what we’ve done. Basically imagine someone wise instead of fantastical wielding the infinity stones.
i think the suggestion in the quote is that we can’t.
genuine question: do you worry about dying a lot?
but the infinity stones are fantastical. a wise person would know that 
Other than being touched by a tarantula or falling into a pool with a killer whale, it’s the only real fear I have.
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there’s no need to be afraid of death, at the end of the day it’s the funniest thing that’ll ever happen to you (or to anyone, it wasn’t meant as you specifically)
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Why does our species have to be relevant at all?
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