Palingenesia

One of the less discussed aspects of CTF is the idea that we all live our life over and over again in the final second of our first life - what Karl terms The Vigin Life. Although it has not been discussed a great deal on this blog it is still of profound importance if CTF is to work as a philosophical construct. This idea is far from new. The Stoics, for example, called this endless repetition palingenesia. The word has its roots in Greek - 'palin-', again, '+ genesis', becoming, or rebirth. What I find particularly frustrating is how many dictionaries and web references state that this is another word for reincarnation. It clearly is not. The Stoics did not in any way believe in reincarnation as it is understood by most people - i.e. that after death a person is re-born as somebody else, or even a different life-form. No, they understood palingenesia to be exactly how I describe it in ITLAD - that we are all re-born as ourselves living our own lives again.

For example it is commonly stated to me that deja vu is proof of reincarnation. How can this be? When I experience a deja vu I sense that I have been in this place, having this experience before. However the experience is unique to me and is related to this moment and this time. If it was a memory of a past life as somebody else in a different time then surely it would feel 'different' not 'Familiar'. For example if I am a reincarnation of an person who stood in this location during the Civil War the first thing I would notice is that my clothes would be unfamiliar, as would the look of the people around me, the furniture I see etc. This would not be a deja vu experience but a 'flashback' - a totally different phenomenon.

For me deja vu is implies one thing, and one thing only. it is what it seems to be - a reliving of the same moment as the same person in the same circumstances. And the only logical conclusion that can be drawn from this is that the experiencer has lived this moment before. it is a 'memory'.