Here’s a heuristic for transcendent-al [^1] stuff I thought of recently: if you assume that no thing happens just once – which I think is a very reasonable assumption that occam’s razer might even prefer. OR, similarly, if you assume for a single sample of a distribution (so, n=1), that that sample is probably typical. Then you probably are born and die multiple times. ie: Reincarnation is probably more reasonable than other models of pre/after-life. Though!: you may or may not retain information (ie: memory) through a birth-death cycle, and the form of the successive universes you’re born into may be arbitrarily different than this one. Though again, by the same assumption: its more likely you will have a human form in an earth-like setting if you reincarnate

On this line of thinking: its really strange that my perspective is attached to a person instead of the more numerous living organisms: cells, small animals like rats, birds, insects, etc. Of course, my human body and human neurological consciousness is always going to say that, even without a metaphysical consciousness, but assuming I have a metaphysical consciousness attached to my body, why? It may just be a coincidence

[^1] For posterity: why I post so much about transcendent-ism / existential-ism lately: I had covid (for the third time) in January which resulting in long covid and periodic anxiety / panic attacks (which I’ve since learned to manage completely) along with derealization, then I hit my head in May (?) hard enough to get post-concussion syndrome, and I had an ear infection that exacerbated the symptoms of the long covid and post-concussion syndrome (because of the dizziness). Alternatively, there’s something else wrong with my brain. Anyway, each time I had an attack of these symptoms, particularly the derealization, I would consider the nature of reality (for obvious reasons). Note: I’m not obsessed with my own mortality, I’m just really interested in metaphysical models of reality