Past Life Regression

Over the weekend I spoke to someone that firmly believed in past life regression, being a topic I was unfamiliar with(except in passing) I decided to do some research into the subject.  There is certainly a wealth of information online about the topic.  The theory basically states that under hypnosis people can access memories of past lives.  There seems to be some clinical evidence that some people under hypnosis do say things that could be interpreted as memories of past lives.  Although in all fairness the data collected isn't exactly definitive or often particularly credible.  I won't go into credibility and merits of the particular studies here as they have already been discussed ad nauseum online, suffice to say there is certainly no general consensus on the credibility of any of the studies conducted from both sides of the issue.  Despite the arguments about the credibility of many of the key studies in the area there does seem to be a large amount of anecdotal evidence.

While anecdotal evidence is hardly something to rely on being an open minded guy I decided to do some research into the matter.  Nearly all of the articles I read about past life regression seemed to be written by proponents of reincarnation.  It appeared to me there is a lot of jumping to conclusions and a whole bunch of people trying to use past life regression as evidence for reincarnation.  But as is often the case with these things the people espousing these views have very little hard evidence to link the two theories let alone a testable hypothesis as to how the phenomenon could actually work.

I could find nothing in the way of a solid testable hypothesis as to how these memories are stored and transmitted from person to person and just a lot of wild conjecture.  So for those of you out there trying to link reincarnation and past life regression consider the following:

There has been some clinical data collected showing that under hypnosis people can say things that could be interpreted as memories of past lives.  That is all the definitive information on the matter at this time.

Many people seem to have prematurely concluded that past life regression must be the result of reincarnation.  Reincarnation however is an untested and unproven theory, equally I could say that an invisible unicorn sneaks into your room at night and implants memories of past lives into your brain.  Both these theories would explain past life regression or conversely past life regression could be used as evidence to attempt to validate either of these theories.  Given that there is the same amount of empirical evidence to support the theory of reincarnation and also the theory of unicorn transmitted memories then I have to conclude that they are both equally probable.  No article I could find could offer a decent explanation of how clinical observations past life regression and reincarnation were linked other than nebulous explanations of the "soul" or "some energy" again both theories with no physical evidence.

Seeing as the theory of the "soul" and reincarnation are both unverified theories(with no hard evidence to support them) they should both be treated with a healthy degree of scepticism.  While I found many people attempting to use past life regression as evidence of reincarnation or the "soul" I didn't find anyone trying to properly explain how these things could work or answer any of the obvious questions that arise from such explanations like:

What is the mechanism by which these memories are stored and passed from person to person?

What form does the "soul" take?

Given that the "soul" can influence our behaviour then it must in some way be interacting with normal matter so how is this interaction taking place?

Given that the "soul" must be interacting with the normal matter in some way it should therefore be possible to design an experiment to measure this interaction and collect hard data on the theory.  So why don't the proponents of these theories come up with a decent hypothesis and design an experiment to test it?

Surely if you firmly believed in something so seemingly unlikely as reincarnation or the "soul" these would be the first questions you would ask and then try to find answers to these questions, if for no other reason than to have the peace of mind of some credible basis for your beliefs.  If in fact observed instances of past life regression are actually what is being claimed then the phenomenon should be studied and understood.  I read several articles claiming that maybe it is "just beyond logic and science" which shows a particular brand of ignorance that treats science as a static thing, assuming if it can't provide a definitive answer today it never will in the future.  In the past many things were "beyond logic and science" which can now be accurately explained so it seems wilfully ignorant(and quite frankly lazy) to assume that something not currently understood can never be studied and explained.  If proponents of theories like the "soul" or reincarnation want to be taken seriously then this sort of wilful ignorance will always keep them on the fringes of intellectual credibility.  To be taken seriously proof needs to be provided and to just say "it is real but can never be understood so I can never investigate or provide proof" doesn't exactly inspire credibility or give anyone any reason to subscribe to your theory over any other and is certainly not going to win over the people sitting on the fence.

Before I hear the cries of "Well you can't disprove the theory of the soul or reincarnation" I will say this:  The onus of proof is on the person making the claim.  It is not my responsibility or the responsibility of scientific researchers to disprove every theory that anyone comes up with, it is the responsibility of the person making such extraordinary claims to provide evidence to back up their theory.  In addition to this I could not find a testable hypothesis as to how the "soul" or reincarnation could work so even if I did have the resources or inclination to test its veracity there is nothing for me to test.

Anyway this is a big topic(I could write many more pages on this) and I have digressed quite a bit but seeing as nearly everything I read on the topic seemed to be desperately grasping at straws to try and link the "soul" and reincarnation to past life regression I felt that I need to at least cover the topics.

In my initial thoughts on a mechanism for how memories could be transmitted across lives genetic memory seemed like the most obvious answer.  Genetic memory is the idea that some behaviours and instincts can be transferred genetically, there are many examples of this such as nest building in birds.  To be honest it seemed like a pretty unlikely answer(for many reasons I won't go into here) but it was the only explanation that immediately sprung to mind.  I figured that if some epigenetic factor could somehow encode memories into a person's genes they could be transferred to their offspring and therefore across lives.  After some research I discounted this idea as many people report remembering dying in past lives and so there is no way this information could have been passed to their offspring, also you would only be able to access memories of people related to you.  It would be fairly easy to design an experiment to verify or disprove the theory using identical twins separated at birth(to try and account environmental factors) who should theoretically share identical past life memories.  I could not find anything about anyone actually doing such an experiment.  So while genetic memory is in well documented in nature it can't explain past life regression adequately.

So what are the other explanations for past life regression?  There are a few, none of which have been conclusively proven.  One is that it's just made up, people have dreams that feel very real, I could dream  I was a Roman soldier or a scullery maid in the past but I would not see that as evidence that I actually was.  So it is clearly possible for the brain to create very realistic feeling scenarios that are not based on fact so this could just be what is happening to these patients under hypnosis.

Another is that the hypnotist asks very leading questions while the patient is in a hypnotised state to try and lead them towards saying things that could be interpreted as talking about actual past lives.

But as I said there is no conclusive evidence for any of theories put forward(including reincarnation and the "soul").  So the short answer is no one has a proven explanation for the clinical observations(although to be honest I am even a little suspicious of the clinical evidence).

"Ha Ha, I got you, science doesn't know everything!" I hear the new age anti-intellectuals cry.  Well no one claimed it did.  Equally new age hippy "spiritualism" doesn't explain everything either.  I find people who fervently espouse unverified "spiritual" explanations to as yet unresolved questions  a strange bunch, they seem to view science as a static thing(much like their own beliefs) and tend to think if science doesn't explain something today then it never will and has somehow failed and it must be some mystical supernatural force that science can't define.  This is such a bizarre and short sighted conclusion to jump to and shows such a massive lack of curiosity, understanding and knowledge of history that I find it difficult to fathom.  Less than 80 years ago we didn't know the mechanism for how hereditary traits are passed from parents to their offspring and I'm sure there were many people saying "see, science can't explain it therefore it must be the work of [insert crazy theory here]".  But with more research better experiments and brilliant minds we slowly but inevitably peel back the layers and discover the underlying principles of the world around us.

To think that scientific discovery has gone as far as it ever will or can, and will never explain certain things that many around us point to as evidence of the supernatural, will inevitably, like many before you,  leave you looking the fool.  So for those of you who jump upon unexplained(and often unverified)clinical or experimental data to try and shore up your outlandish, unproven and untested theories I say this: fervent belief in something without evidence poisons the mind, society and advancement of the human condition and will ultimately leave you open to justifiable ridicule.

So until someone can come up with a verified and tested explanation of the observed clinical data I can't make a call either way as to whether clinical observations described as past life regression are in fact memories of past lives.  But if I was a betting man my guess would be that whatever the answer it lies within the boundaries of physics, neuroscience and physiology.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I am naturally highly sceptical of any theories that are based on new age "spiritualism" and that lack any empirical evidence and do not fit in with the currently known laws of Physics.  While you might argue that a lack of an explanation in any of the current theories of Physics is  a failing of Physics, given the masses of empirical evidence and predictive power of currently accepted Physics theories such as General Relativity I would need to see some equally compelling evidence that they were incorrect to be swayed.  While I fully acknowledge there are some gaps in key Physics theories such as the standard model it still provides a far more compelling explanation and predictive powers than any other theories I have seen put forth.  I would therefore see any theory that did not comply with the currently accepted laws of Physics as inherently flawed if it could not also offer explanations for the observed empirical data and also offer the same predictive powers.  I don't think this is an unreasonable point of view and given solid evidence to the contrary I would be more than willing to revise this opinion and accept any new facts as they come to light.  I will not even get into the obviously lacking Physics explanation of past life regression in this post as it is topic all on its own.  That being said I feel that I have approached the topic at hand with an open and inquisitive mind and to the best of my abilities given the resources and time constraints in order to give an even handed and fair overview of the topic.  If you an adherent to theories such as reincarnation and the "soul" and disagree with my point of view I feel that the questions raised in the post are the same ones that many others sceptical of your claims will need answered before your theories can be fully taken seriously.  They are probably also questions you should be asking yourself too and attempting to find answers for.  If you have any reasonable answers to any of the questions posed in this post please feel free to leave a comment.

NOTE: I did find some attempts to explain the existence of the "soul" scientifically, just google "quantum theory of the soul" to see many articles about it, but while the mainstream non-scientific media jumped on the story for it's exciting headline value when you actually read into the details the theory seems very sketchy and is not generally taken seriously among experts in the relevant fields.  Again there is no experimental evidence to back up the theory but at least it's nice to see someone producing a hypothesis that could one day be tested(although I imagine the new age types holding up this theory as adding scientific credibility to their beliefs will not change their minds even if this theory was tested and disproven).  And again to try and link this to past life regression is just pure unfounded conjecture.

If you like wild conjecture and awful web design you might find these fun:
http://innerrealms.co.uk/plr2.htm
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/past-life-regression-plr.html

An interesting review of one of the books I saw commonly cited:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/418986461
http://www.hypnothoughts.com/forum/topics/hypnotic-regression-to-past-lives-fact-or-fantasy-my-forensic?id=716892%3ATopic%3A1104299&page=1

Why you shouldn't believe in psychics

I've met a few people over the years who believe in psychics and I am always bemused and astounded by the veracity and closed mindedness with which they defend a concept with no empirical scientific evidence to support it.  Here I will attempt to outline the reasons why psychics and psychic phenomenon could not possibly be real.  I'm talking here specifically about the type of psychic who claim to be able to read people's futures.  As with all things I would be happy to revise my opinion if someone could present me with hard evidence confirming that these abilities are indeed real.  For the record, by evidence I mean actual proper verifiable evidence gathered through well designed repeatable experiments not evidence like "my uncle totally went to one and everything they said came true".

Knowing things:
I think that we can all agree that the concept of "knowing something" is defined by an arrangement of neurons within a person's brain.  For a psychic to have knowledge of the future and to be able to voice that knowledge they must have an arrangement of neural connections that represent the events they are "predicting".

Acquiring that knowledge:
So that brings us to question of how these neural connections pertaining to future events were formed inside the brain of the psychic.  Given that the events of which they supposedly have knowledge occur in the future then we must assume that some particle or energy has travelled backwards through time in order to influence these neurons to create the appropriate connections in order for them to know the specific details of these events.  There are some fairly big assumptions that need to be made for this to be true:

1. That abstract concepts such as "meaningful" life events are encoded in such a way that they are generic enough that the a set of neurons being influenced in a particular person's brain would result in the same knowledge in the brain of another psychic if exposed to the same stimulus.

2. There would need to be some explanation as to why certain events seem to be more strongly predicted than others, for example why would the particles or energy representing the  knowledge that "you will find true love" be any more likely to travel backwards through time than "you will have toast for breakfast"

3.  That particles or energy can travel backwards through time(this is a pretty big one).

4.  There is also the possibility that the universe is entirely deterministic and that the psychic has knowledge of the position, state and velocity of every particle in the universe and can therefore extrapolate all future events based on the current state of the universe.  This however is obviously an impossibility for many reasons - like how would this knowledge be obtained, stored and extrapolated?  Also given that the psychics brain is part of the simulation and would need to also model itself and is just simply not large enough to store that quantity of information.

The "What if it's some other thing?" question:
I've had someone pose this as a response to my aforementioned arguments.  If it is "some other thing" then what?  To have any credibility you would need to provide some explanation as to what that "other thing" was.  This would include direct physical evidence.  A reasonable and consistent hypothesis as to what this "other thing" is.  Predictions made by this new theory and experiments designed to test these predictions.  Some solid mathematics to back it all up.  Unless some or all of these criteria can be met there is no point even bringing this argument up, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

The "You can't disprove it" argument:
Well first off I think it has been fairly soundly dis-proven but in my experience people that believe such unlikely things are rarely swayed by logic, facts or evidence.  So my only response to this can be that it is not my job to disprove the existence of psychics to you as the onus of proof is always on the person making the claim.  ie.  If you want to claim psychics are real and want other people to take you seriously it is your responsibility to provide the proof to back up your claims, it is not the responsibility of everyone else to assume that what you are saying is true unless they can prove otherwise.

The "What if Physics and science generally are wrong?" argument:
Well they may well be but again given the overwhelming evidence that they are correct I would need to see equally compelling evidence that they are incorrect to be persuaded.  One of the behaviours that I find most perplexing is that some people will doubt Physics and science but then go and use their phones, computers, GPS devices etc. that would simply not work if the known laws of Physics were incorrect.  Therefore any arguments that claimed that these laws were incorrect would also need to include watertight explanations of the mountains of observed physical evidence to have any chance of being taken seriously.

The "You're just being closed minded" argument
Quite the contrary, being open minded doesn't mean believing everything you hear, it means being open to the evidence and facts.  In fact I would argue that believers in things like psychics are being exceptionally closed minded as they are rarely willing to abandon their beliefs when presented with facts and reasoning which contradict their point of view.  If you genuinely think I am being closed minded ask yourself this - Would you be willing to change your opinion and admit it was wrong if presented with sufficient evidence?  I certainly would, but I'm willing to bet that most people who believe in psychic phenomenon would not.

I hope this clears things up, although I acknowledge that if you believe in psychics despite the complete lack of evidence of their existence then this post will probably do little to sway your opinion but it may at the very least give you insight into the looks of derision you receive when touting your unfounded theories and why most people don't share your belief.