What do you mean?

Regardless, it's a hypothetical situation and I believe something absolutely different. :P

What he means is, if you were reborn, you wouldn't know you had been reborn, or that after you died, you didn't know you would be reborn. To you, you would just live out your life, just as anyone else would, you would die, expecting to die and they you would 'just so happen' to be reborn with no post or prior knowledge.

(Reading back, that is worded extremely crazy/confusingly, but I hope you catch my drift. :D)

*aint that a b***? :S

The way the 2 options were presented - with full amnesia in both cases - ìt doesn't seem to be much difference between them.

Erm.. any chance for at least a vague glimpse of a memory? Like a feeling in a place you visit for the first time: "This seems familiar... I feel I've been here before..." or a sudden recognition of a person, you feel like you know them forever? Dreams/ flashes of seeing yourself in a different epoque, with a different look?

Provided that, I would sign up for the 2nd option. True, or not, but it leaves something for imagination (at least :P)

PS Oooh and is it obligatory to be reborn on Earth? any chance for other worlds? cos I know where I would want to be reborn... :rolleyes:

I'd rather just have cookies when I die.

How would you eat the cookies? Maybe you'd just pass through them?

They'd be ethereal cookies, duh. :D

But then they wouldn't have the delectable charm of the old ones. :P

Why not? You've not got tastebuds either. :awesome:

death. just would be such a piece.. reborn.. no way, a one way ticket on this terrible spot in the universe is enough.

Because.. Reborn... Well.. Work, age leads one downhill and every rebirth the same wish for destroying the universe again without reaching the goal... no way - this is even so much that i can not handle this :P

Death is the only real thing :D

Interesting, because the two options are not actually mutually exclusive. Indeed they could be regarded as consecutive.

Anyway, I will answer the questions. Or what I really mean is that I won't becauee I am not ready to answer yet. There is no time limit on giving the answers. So I think I will wait before answering.

If the reality is option one and there is nothing after death. Then I choose option 1 because that is the reality. Any other response would be pure delusion.

If the reality is option 2, then I will have to live out all my lives before choosing. If all my lives are varied, full of happiness, action and exciting sex, then I choose option 2.

On the other hand, if my lives are generally dull and full of suffering, dispair and monotony, then I choose option 1.

So that is my choice if I can choose to wait.

On the other, hand if I have to choose now, then I choose option 1. because then I will be cradled again in the arms of the Mother Goddess. Back where I belong, in exactly the same blissful ignorance in which I existed (or should I say not existed) before i was born.

So there you go. I choose option 1.

But if hypotheticals are impossible, they're not worth considering. :P

And I still don't understand how the people in the second option are "me" in any way. I don't suppose someone could explain that? AFAIK, they're completely unrelated people.

I have to admit, I don't remember having any bad memories or experience relating to my infinite period of non-existence before my birth. Thus, there is no reason to believe that it will be bad in the infinite period of non-existence I will have after my birth.

It occurs to me that the question is exactly the opposite of the choice given to Achilles. Either have a long uneventful life or a short life full of sensation and action.

The OP seems to ask the opposite:
1) Do you want a short uneventful existence?
OR
2) Do you want a long existence full of varied sensation and action?

You could say that one option is the choice of God and the other is the choice of the Devil. The question is: Which is which?

Thermodynamics is tricky though, because matter does enter and exit our universe, so conservation is not necessarily true.

As for being who you are, well what makes you who you are? You are a long lasting chemical reaction increasing the entropy of the universe, and you would likely remain so in each consecutive life.

As for me, if I were presented with the choice, I would probably choose 1, cause I couldn't stand the thought of having more parents and more lives, even if I only had that thought for the short remainder of the life I lived out in which I chose between option 1 or 2.

In short, I couldn't go to that many funerals of my parents, so presented with the question I would choose 1.

It does? Since when?

But I'm a specific chemical reaction, and the distinguishing feature is my memory. That is not carried over into the "next" life.

In quantum mechanics, particles can pop into and out of 'existence'

So although it's small quantities of matter, the amount of matter and energy in the universe is not constant. (If you want me to find some scientific essays on it, I can, but it will take awhile, cause I leave for college tomorrow and will be very busy)

Also, your memory will be gone when you are dead, and ultimately (although it is theory, it is a plausible fate) the universe will end with every atom decaying to a hydrogen atom, and moving further and further apart. So all of your atoms will have broken down to the most basic state of 1 proton hydrogen atoms. So I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'specific'

Also,think about this: If you take all the atoms that made you when you were alive, and reconstructed them perfectly into your body, you would have your memory, let alone the same personality etc. (Although we are incapable of doing that today, it is perfectly possible to do so given a few technological advances.)