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Talk:Past life memory

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Unbalanced tag[edit]

I added the unbalanced tag because this article currently doesn't cover:

  • the strong scientific consensus that the memories/theories don't reflect a true past life (especially regarding the current material - Tucker is... not exactly the most fastidious about scientific verifiability).
  • experiences of past life memories in other cultural contexts, and in religions that include reincarnation.

As it currently stands, this article is kind of just a baby of the past life regression article. I'm going to go through and remove the blatantly non-RS citations. -- Xurizuri (talk) 22:04, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Xurizuri: Would like to get the paper criticize past life memory (not just past life regression). I read some newspaper that some case use past life memory successfully identify the killer and help the police to solve the criminal case. There are some Example:
It seems there are no conclusive answer on past life memory are true or not, and there are not able to fully verify a single case of reincarnation.
But it does not means there are consensus that the memories/theories don't reflect a true past life or past life are pseudoscience.
There are no conclusive answer to make sure that A is correct =/= There are strong consensus A is incorrect Joeccho (talk) 15:00, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if the Daily Mail and India Today and even "some newspaper" say so, then I guess we will just have to accept that there is no consensus.
No, we won't. Wikipedia has guidelines that require it to be much less gullible than you. So, you need to be more selective in the sources you use here. See WP:RS for general rules and WP:RSP for specific examples. The Daily Mail is deprecated, for instance. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:24, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Hob Gadling: How about these research articles from the School of Medicine, University of Virginia
Children Who Report Memories of Previous Lives, Division of Perceptual Studies, School of Medicine, University of Virginia
Children Who Remember Previous Lives – Academic Publications, Division of Perceptual Studies, School of Medicine, University of Virginia
Books about the Study of Past Life Memories Books about the Study of Past Life Memories, Division of Perceptual Studies, School of Medicine, University of Virginia
Media-Reincarnation Research,Division of Perceptual Studies, School of Medicine, University of Virginia
These research seems suggest the possibility of past life may be true. Joeccho (talk) 04:47, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like it's just one guy, Jim B. Tucker. Who works there and probably had those pages made. Not impressive. Sometimes an academic gets weird and flies off the rails into fantasy land. If he has tenure, nobody can do anything about it except ignore it. So what? It does not mean he makes any impression on the scientific community.
BTW, one of those links is a bookselling page.
And there is no need to ping me. WP:FTN knows about this page, and they will tell you the same thing in different words. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:13, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Hob Gadling: I see. But from human history perspective, most of great innovation and discovery start with skeptic first, and the majority scholar will classify it as a pseudoscience and fringe theories. After long time investigation, then will have consensus to put it a science theory. In my point of view, I think it is both a fringe theory and a protoscience. The reason I think past life memory as a protoscience instead of pseudoscience is that, it provide a possibllity for scholars to do more research and investigation for past life memory. It is not unrepeatable. So it have some degree of verifiability by confirming some of past life memory and experience are true past life memory. Actually if we can fully confirm any one case of past life experiences in the world are true past life experiences, that means past life may possibly true. Joeccho (talk) 08:16, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
None of what you say is a reason to add poorly verified stuff to Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia collects the knowledge of humankind, not something that may turn into knowledge at some unknown time in the future, and not the opinions of some insignificant person (except to the article about that person, if there are good secondary sources).
I repeat: There is no reason to ping me. I have a watchlist, and I look out for articles and Talk pages I edited recently. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:08, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The point is, past life memory is not an insignificant issue, it is related to human life and death, having high public concern, and it is accepted by minority of scholar such as University of Virginia, although it is not accepted by most of mainstream scientist and psychologists.Joeccho (talk) 12:44, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that past life memory are fringe theory and fringe science, but it is very controversial to say past life memory are pseudoscience. Joeccho (talk) 09:34, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

One could say that it's a religious belief or personal experience and not science (and like much of religion is related to the fear or fallacious rationalization of death), however when some claim that it is scientificially supported in some way, it enters textbook pseudoscience. Reporting about the statistics or demographics about believers is something else, of course (for instance, religious beliefs are part of being human, delirium experiences are common in ICU patients, etc.) and if supported by reliable sources can be covered in the relevant article, without suggesting that it indicates that reincarnation is plausible (the latter can be expressed as one's attributed opinion, especially in their own biography article, etc.) —PaleoNeonate – 05:46, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Is there are evidence suggested that past life memory claimed as science rather than collection of personal experience ? Past life regression, not past life memory, may claim as scientific research using hypnosis technique, but past life memory is not only about past life regression, but also some child report of past life memory. In addition, past life regression is never claimed itself as a nature science, they may claimed itself as social science, which have different research method from nature science. Joeccho (talk) 06:27, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
More about past life memory study Persistence of Past-Life Memories: Study of Adults Who Claimed in Their Childhood to Remember a Past Life, Erlendur Haraldsson, University of Iceland — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joeccho (talkcontribs) 08:03, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes of course, pseudoscientific arguments have been commonly pushed about it in articles related to reincarnation, hypnotherapy, past memory regression, recovered memory, psychoanalysis, parapsychology, etc. Interestingly, Haraldsson seemed notable for his interest in parapsychology. —PaleoNeonate – 17:51, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]