Banno

It's not unexpected. One would suppose that the first step in a philosophical justification of reincarnation would be to frame the concept of reincarn...

I would have gone for something like, only the stuff described or describable by physics is worthy of discussion. so, the other sciences are all reduc...

Not all words are nouns. You might need a broader account of meaning.

Cheers. I would have liked to see some comment on the conceptual difficulties I raised, but that's OK.

That's a trite reply. What seems to be happening here is that some people have decided in advance that reincarnation is essential, rational and good, ...

You've completely misrepresented what I have said, both here and in my post history, in order to suit your own narrative. You don't rate a reply, only...

Thanks, Sam. I'm aware of your intrigue. I'm only peripherally interested, and responded to the request in the OP for some discussion of the conceptua...

Good point. Will do.

Cheers, Gary. Remember me in the acceptance speech for your Nobel Prize.

Indeed, it is. There's a better solution in Wittgenstein. There's a way of understanding a rule that is not given in saying it, but in following it.

The notion that we need reincarnation to explain innate knowledge strikes me as perilously ad hoc.

You missed the bit where this was a reply specifically to the assertion that what is reincarnated is memory. If what is reincarnated is memory, and yo...

Yes! What could it mean to say that my digestion was happening in your gut?

, There is a category error at hand here - as I think you indicate, presented by those who have said the mind is an object. Mind is to brain as digest...

Interesting, isn't it, that folk suppose that because "I am convinced", it follows that "Hence, you ought be convinced". Going both ways. "I am not co...

Yes.

Cheers, Sam. Granted, not understanding the physics - if there is any - of the process does not rule it out. I agree. Note however that it's not just ...

You're a fool.

The evidence is insufficient.

Now we are getting somewhere...

Perhaps because he could not provide an account of what was reincarnated. Apparently random memories and strawberry birthmarks were not very convincin...

By asking advocates of reincarnation to explain what it is they think is reincarnated, perhaps? That'd be one way. Then we could examine what they sug...

I'm not interested in the evidence one way or the other - it's inconclusive, at best. I'm interested in the philosophical implications, and that means...

Here's the question again: what is it that is reincarnated? Is the best answer really a morphic intelligent energy field quantum resonance? Hand wavin...

Decisions are not physical - we talk about them using intentional language. YOu want to understand the soul in both physical and intentinal terms at t...

So it's not physical. Yet here's the thing: it moves physical stuff; the mind decides to move an arm, and the darn thing moves. So you have to be able...

You've gone back from energy to intentionality. Basically in inventing "intelligent energy" you are equivocating.

...energy as a magic cloud. This is where reincarnation meets bad physics. How many Joules in a soul?

So the question of what it is that is reincarnated, remains. You've called it "the soul" but haven't told us what it is. One thing that we cannot conc...

:lol: ...and yet here you are.

"The"? There's only one? So bad physics is a result of contempt for science.

Yes; that's the follow-on question: the presumption is that Napoleon gets reincarnated as Apollodorus; but how is Apollodorus the same as Napoleon?

Stop there. What is the soul?

...so reincarnation consists in memories from the dead turning up in random minds...

I've read a bit about his research. I won't reject it outright. What I have said stands; the philosophical issue that remains is: what is reincarnated...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/243503

I'm not seeing a point to this conversation.

Good for you. I don't see the point in our repeating ourselves.

Sure, understood; but pure water = H?O in all possible worlds.

Sure - except we know what an actor is. What is it that remains the same from one life to another? And I haven't seen a good account of that. It's not...

This? Then the purpose of philosophy is to avoid bad things happening?

Ok, why ought you maintain nature's course? Click on the little return arrow that appears at the bottom of a post to let folk know you have replied to...

H?O with lumps in.

Tell me, why should we maintain nature's course?

On the contrary, it re-makes the point your pedantry tries to ignore. You want to use "water" for impure H?O. Go ahead. Pure water is necessarily the ...

Action at a distance is Newtonian gravity. And with it, the demise of materialism - the notion that all causation is the banging of things one in to t...

(see - I can do bible quotes, too!)

I alliterated with alacrity.

What could that mean? It's not at all clear what intelligence is - see the discussion of IQ. SO invoking it here does not serve to clarify the issue. ...

SO we have a new entity, the soul, and that is what is reincarnated... and what makes this soul the same as that soul is that they have the same memor...