“Exactly” is doing some heavy lifting there. Even limiting the discussion to classical physics, complexity and chaos theory rears its ugly head; and if exotic quantum concepts like retrocausality (!) are true then the extent of what we don’t know about how neurons and brains work expands nearly without limit.
Of course. Penrose enters the discussion with his contention that consciousness is not computation.
Plus a neuron-replacement would need to replictate current inputs AND the sum of many previous operations. On the other hand: it seems that is what neurons DO. Unless you are going to invoke magic, there is no violation of physics or chemistry going on. Just a very complex system which we don’t understand well yet?
However if brain functions were that sensitive to minor variations, we wouldn’t exist in the first place. Biology and genetics are sloppy and variable; not rigid and standardized.
And really, the main reason people bring up exotic quantum effects and so on in regards to the brain is the need many people have to think humans are special. Not because they are likely to be there.
There’s a lot we don’t know about how brains operate, but we know pretty much everything about how neurons operate. Individually they are pretty simple devices (Penrose notwithstanding). All the unknowns are in the vast and complicated ways in which the neurons interconnect and operate en masse.
All those sheep and cows are former beetles.
And don’t ask where all the beetles are getting their souls from. It’s beetles all the way down.
I think I read the same explanation. It used the same metaphors anyway.
But I don’t feel this addresses the issue of what the difference is between rebirth and reincarnation. In one, a soul passes from one body to the next. In the other, karmic energy is transferred from one body to the next.
So we’ve just shifted the question. Now we need to know what the difference is between a soul and karmic energy.
When I got sucked into new age religion as teenager, the mentality they were pushing was that there ‘was a line’ to reincarnate on earth, and now that there are more bodies, more people are incarnating.
Nobody ever answered what lessons a person learns from dying in childhood. Up until a century ago, it was common for most people to die in childhood. A woman may have 4-6 kids and only 2 survive to adulthood. What ‘life lessons’ does a person learn by starving to death at 2 years old or getting an infection and dying at age 3?
Also when people discuss past lives its always culturally myopic. Nobody remembers being a farmer in china, or being in a hunter gatherer tribe 90,000 years ago, or being a laborer in Africa. Everyone remembers being in Judea around the time of Jesus, and everyone remembers being a peasant in the middle ages.
Reincarnation is an abhorrent philosophy, because it tries to justify all the evil in the world by saying that people secretly want to live in a world full of pain and suffering, and that the ends justify the means (misery and torment is worth it for spiritual growth).
My understanding is:
- with reincarnation it is you before and you after. You’re in a different body, but your soul is the same in both lives.
- with rebirth it’s not you at all in the second body. Your energy was used to trigger the second life, but it’s someone else’s life.
I agree with your point though; the distinction isn’t entirely clear. I struggled with how to phrase it in my first post and settled on karmic energy, but I’m not sure that’s entirely correct or helpful.
The explanation I heard is that, just as your body is is an aggregate, composed of atoms, your soul is an aggregate, composed of personality traits and impulses and tendencies. When you die, the atoms get re-shuffled into new bodies, and the personality traits get re-shuffled into new souls.
Which makes me wonder why the personality traits would care about Enlightenment or Nirvana, but apparently it is still a goal.
And is being reincarnated as a human really a promotion? Do those of other species — or whoever’s making the decision — think it’s a demotion?
If, and I mean if I had to take reincarnation seriously, I would prefer options that have come up in various flavors of fiction and less mainstream religions. It turns out I’m a semi-omnipotent, immortal being, and periodically reincarnate as a random person or animal for a lifetime without any memory of my “true” existence. Then I “wake up” as that demigod again, and complain/praise about what I learned or enjoyed (like talking about a favorite/worse TT-RPG character) until I get bored again, and repeat.
No one to blame but myself for the cycle, and no consequences for my actions during an incarnation accept perhaps rueful embarrassment if I screwed up badly or contradicted my normal moral codes. Better again if every creature on the planet with a semi-developed brain is the result of the same sort of choice from a member of my kind. It’s all just a huge MMORPG, with people dropping in and out as time and interest allows.
Of course, certain people think something like this is already our reality, whether the Operating system being some sort of overGod, or just a Matrix-style simulation.
Aside, if this turns out to be real: Ur-ParallelLines, why didn’t you bother for the cheat mode options? Oh wait, I’m a White (or close enough), Male guy living in the USA who benefited from parents wealthy enough to see me educated and independent. I -AM- playing on cheat mode! Thanks, but couldn’t you spring for the super-talented option while you were at it?
You got “super loud”. Isn’t that enough? /s
I thought the point was the universe will handle this for us without the intervention of the courts and that baby will be destined for an unhappy life because of the evil deeds that landed their past self in prison
I assume this is somewhat tongue in cheek. But presumably plenty of places have or had* a law code based on a culture that believes in reincarnation (just as European law codes are based on a culture that believes in an abrahamic god who demands certain moral codes via a holy book)
Do any of those laws codes specifically address things related to reincarnation?
‘*’ - due to colonisation and the western hegemony they probably now have law codes based on the western model, but plenty of law codes predate that.
The Chinese do. At least when it concerns the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama.
Okay, but other than those 1.2 billion people, no one is talking about this! /s
I am not an expert on the law codes of the Peoples Republic of China but I’d be very surprised if they have any clauses concerning.the reincarnation of the Dalai Lamas eternal soul, or anyone else’s (but very much not the Dalai Lama in particular), what with it being based on communist atheism.
Though presumably pre-invasion Tibet did?
It may be not stated explicitly in the law code, but the Chinese are extremely interested in having a say on who the new Dalai Lama should be, when the current one dies. Same with the Panchen Lama, who is the second in command in Tibet’s exile government and who along with the council of high lamas is charged with determining who the new reincarnation of the Dalai Lama is. He has the institutional task of chosing the right baby. And China want to have a say in who this baby is, and how he is educated (in the spirit of communist China, of course, not some buddhist rebellious exile baby).
So yes: the Chinese government has a detailed policy concerning the next reincarnation of the current Dalai Lama, and the current Panchen Lama too, particularly should he die first, with all the legal and political consequences they regard as important. They don’t want to leave anything to chance and have thought long and hard about the whole subject. See for instance the controvery around the abduction of the 11th Panchen Lama to find out how relevant this particular future reincarnation is to China. They very much do “consider the legal issues surrounding reincarnation”, as Horatius put it. It is state policy at the highest level.
What then happens in real life, we should soon see. The Dalai Lama is old.
Oh, and another detail: The Golden Urn. China does have laws concerning the legal consequences of reincarnation, see the section about the PRC in that wikiarticle:
The traditional method of identifying the reincarnation of Lamas (Chinese: 喇嘛轉世辦法)[7] was abolished in 2004. In 2004, the Central Government published the Religious Affairs Regulations (Chinese: 宗教事务条例).[8] Article 36 states that the reincarnation system must follow religious rituals and historical customs and be approved by the government.[citation needed]
In 2007, the Central Government published the State Religious Affairs Bureau Order No. 5 (Chinese: 国家宗教事务局令第5号). Article 7 states that no group or individual may carry out activities related to searching for and identifying the reincarnated soul boy of the Living Buddha without authorization.[citation needed]
Article 8 states that a lot-drawing ceremony with the Golden Urn is applicable to rinpoches or lamas reincarnated previously in history. The State Administration for Religious Affairs handles requests for exemption, and the State Council handles requests for exemptions that would have significant impact.
Fascinating stuff, thanks for making me look for the details.
After a career in technology, my resume lists a significant number of companies. I refer to my positions in them as ‘previous lives’.