this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
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I assume that belief in reincarnation requires belief in something like a soul to be reincarnated
In the traditional sense yeah but it could also be linked to the idea of the multiverse or quantum immortality. Or maybe our physical brain only acts as some kind of a receiver that tunes onto some greater consciousness.
I would call all of those "something like a soul"; an embodiment of your essence external to your physical body.
If it's not an embodiment of your essence external to your physical body, then it's difficult to really call it reincarnation, since it's not you
I see it simply as a continuation of experience after this current biological vehicle dies. I think that the idea of a “soul” - in the sense of there being a center to consciousness where “you” are located - is an illusion anyway, so the notion of that moving into another body isn’t something I’m concerned about.
Of course, it’s an abstract term, and people use it to mean different things, so in that sense, I suppose the transfer of your “soul” is necessary too. I just don’t agree with what most people mean by that term. Even now, the people who do believe in reincarnation assume they’ve already had past lives they can’t remember. So if “you” aren’t your physical body or your memories, then what actually remains? I’d say it’s the bare fact of experience - consciousness itself. The feeling of being.
That's the whole point of this post.
What if you do retain your memories, but your past lives were creatures that didn't have the ability to form memories?
Yes, but the point of my response is that I disagree with the premise. It's a serious answer to unserious question. I’m willing to entertain the idea of something like reincarnation, but I’m not making the same assumptions about what that would actually mean.