Based Camp: What if Reincarnation Were Real?

In this thought-provoking discussion, Malcolm and Simone debate the implications if reincarnation were proven to be real. Malcolm argues it would necessitate rethinking identity, consciousness, and the meaning of emotions. Simone counters that practically, not much would change in how we live. She theorizes souls could be residue transferring between bodies and accumulating through evolution. Overall, they explore fascinating philosophical questions about the soul and metaphysical realities.

Simone: [00:00:00] Hello, Malcolm. Hello,

Malcolm: Simone. So for our topic for this one, it actually was something that was inspired by an interview we did with another podcast. Do you remember the name of the podcast, by the way?

Simone: It was the podcast weird and worthwhile.

Malcolm: Weird and worthwhile. Okay. So I want to give them a shout out if people want to check out that episode. But at one point of it, they asked us, they go, okay, so, you know, some people believe in reincarnation. I got the impression that they did. They're like, okay, so, assume reincarnation is true.

Malcolm: How does that change how you think of what you're trying to maximize for the human species? And I just went off at that point. I think what they expected is, Oh, you tweak here and here in terms of how you're modifying, like maximizing, you know, this or that. But no, if I assume that reincarnation is real.

Malcolm: Mm hmm. And I change something when we describe how people have \ belief systems about the world. We [00:01:00] describe them as like a tree, right? When then they have a lot of branching parts to them. If reincarnation is true, the core trunk of that tree. It's completely changed, which changes all of the sub-branches for us.

Simone: What? Yeah, I'm, I'm so surprised 'cause nothing changes for me so far. This is my default. Nothing is different. I'm not, no, no

Malcolm: change. Okay. So we have just scientists have confirmed, and this is something that scientists could confirm. That's a really cool thing about it. Scientists could tomorrow be like, yes, we have proven that people could know things that they could only know if reincarnation happened, right?

Malcolm: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. , So, so this is something that could be concretely proven at some point, right? That means a number of other things. First, it means that humans have a soul that's separate from their physical body. Mm hmm. This is not something that we believe, right? Mm hmm. If humans have a soul that's separate from their physical body.

Malcolm: That means that some other form [00:02:00] of reality exists or some other form of material exists. And this material or form of reality is likely more important than the reality that we perceive. So let me explain what I mean by this Simone, because you're looking dubious at me. I'm

Simone: still extremely dubious. Yeah, nothing, nothing is changing still for me.

Simone: Nothing's

Malcolm: different. Okay. So if it turns out that a person's memories, for example, and this is, I think, what they mean when they, they say reincarnation if you're just reincarnating a soul, but nothing is, is carried between the two individuals. But nothing is. Okay, but that's not what we're talking about here.

Malcolm: We're talking about the people who think they can remember past lives and stuff like that. Because, this other form of reincarnation So this

Simone: is a form of reincarnation where you remember your past life, because, I'm sorry, only hippie to be people, and my Right, but I'm

Malcolm: saying, suppose scientist proves this, because it is something you

Simone: could prove, okay?

Simone: Okay. And then the, what, in that everyone is capable of remembering their past

Malcolm: lives? Doesn't [00:03:00] need to be everyone. Only needs to be one person concretely proven. If you prove just a single person, what have you proven? What you've proven is that some aspect of some human's identity, so it could turn out that not all humans have these souls, but it turns out that at least some humans have these souls or whatever you want to call them, some sort of like metaphysical imprint of their identity.

Malcolm: And this Dalai Lama.

Simone: Right. And I mean, you could argue that they've, they've proven it. I mean,

Malcolm: he picks out. I don't think that they've proven it at

Simone: all. Key things. I don't know. I mean, they would argue that they have if the person, they had

Malcolm: scientists would be going there and researching it, like you understand how much this would change every aspect.

Malcolm: By their

Simone: standards of evidence though. I mean, I think that previous Dalai Lamas have. You're acting like

Malcolm: ESP research departments didn't used to exist. They

Simone: still do. [00:04:00] There's still a lot of people researching this. I'm just saying their standards actually are a little different than

Malcolm: ours. There's people researching this.

Malcolm: No one has concretely proven ghosts exist. No one has concretely proven ESP exists. If they did, and, and Simone, YouTube habits. Okay. Yeah. I am not somebody who hasn't found this evidence because I'm not looking. Yeah. I know.

Simone: Literally. Well, see, I think the truth is out there, but the truth is not accepted per our standards of truth.

Malcolm: Literally about a quarter of all the information I consume is about cryptids or ghosts or ESP or so I'm out there consuming, but none of the information, none of the research into this that has been done has been of a standard where I was convinced. That it was accurate. Okay. Right. It, it changed my beliefs, but I am very, very open to having my beliefs changed on this subject if I felt that there was compelling evidence.

Malcolm: Okay. But if that evidence was true, like if it turned out that some aspect of an individual can be [00:05:00] transferred between individuals without like direct informational transfer between those individuals in the material plane, what that would mean is there is some aspect of, of some human's identity. Again, it could be that not everyone has a soul in some human's identity that is extra material.

Malcolm: Okay? If that's true, then that's the aspect of the human identity that is experiencing one, consciousness, two, our emotions, like pain, suffering, everything like that, right? And if that's true, What that could mean is that pain and suffering or happiness, you know, when, when we dismiss those things, right?

Malcolm: The reason I most commonly dismiss them is I believe that the reason that we feel them is just serendipitously our ancestors who had those sociological predilections and more surviving offspring. This would imply that the reason we feel those things is something else. It's something almost supernatural?

Malcolm: No,

Simone: where is that implication? That [00:06:00] implication is nowhere. It would still make perfect sense that those signals are felt because it can ensure survival and a more effective go for that time. You know, it'll help you have a more successful... round of play for that particular life so why would you not feel those stimuli