3.
Reincarnation. Is this perspective survival friendly?
Reincarnation as a perspective has a fundamental problem of
inconsistency to start with. The notion of reincarnation conflicts
with the teachings on not self. If there is no permanent essence
then does it make sense to talk about reincarnation? Who is it that
would be reincarnated? Also what about assigning responsibility to
a being, from one life to another?
Taking these problems aside, reincarnation is generally
interpreted as a view which posits that same human
mindor soul
animates successively different bodies.
Satisfaction of the bodily criterion is not essential to
preserve personal identity. Of essence is the soul which is reborn
into another body.
Objections.
If I
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My traits would
presumably be that of a mouse. Therefore my former (human) self as
an identity would seem to be lost and forgotten.
To answer this objection, once could say that it would be
thru subsequent re- incarnations, presumably into higher and more
evolved animals and eventually into a human being, one would
somehow regain ones former personal identity. Still, in the
interim bodies of animals in which the I resides, how could we
know that it was me who got re-incarnated? How would my essential
personal identity which was human to start with continue if I
became an mouse, then a cat, then a dog? It seems that
Reincarnation faces quite a challenge with respect to
satisfying the requirement of maintenance of personal identity.
4. Immortality
Immortality posits that our dependence on bodies is not
necessary or essential for survival. The immortal soul does not
sustain the sorts of changes that a body would. The body
disintegrates but the eternal soul lives forever, disembodied, in
an immaterial world. The supporters of this doctrine argue that the
satisfaction of bodily criteria is not essential for maintaining
personal identity.
Critic might say that since
consciousnessdepends on a functioning nervous
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Take a musician
for example. Would a disembodied soul be able to fully express
himself as an accomplished musician without a physical form? If not
or not fully then you might argue that his personal identity has
lost an essential part. If so, how does one retain exactly the same
nature we had before death?
One possible answer is that mans true nature is wholly
expressed by his soul.
Still there is an issue of what might it be like for a soul
to exist on its own, disembodied. If you live as a soul you could
be terribly lonely. Without a body, which before death acted as a
medium of expression, it might not be possible for the soul to
communicate with other souls. This is where the mid-body
interaction re-appears as an issue.
Another objection to the concept of immortality is that once
a person has died, and their body decomposed, in trying to identify
the person we run into a problem. As we have no criteria of
identity for souls how can one distinguish from one another?
In conclusion, it is very difficult to find coherent accounts
of a person surviving their death. The views for survival discussed
seem wanting in varied degrees and pose doubt as to their
coherence. The least problematic and most
coherent,
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