HRMMMM I dont think you need to be able to figure it out in your IS, you are just suppose to like pose all these questions and see what the possible answers to them are? I think in general, as with many religions, the soul is not defined by the psychological, mental or physical; and thats essentially what gets reincarnated or goes to the after-life, whichever floats your boat.
Umm but theres some merit in the idea of exploring how actions define our "soul".
ahaa, im not actually doing on reincarnation la, just came across it in my research (cos reincarnation is infinitely more interesting than the construction of knowledge of death-anxiety)
but kee en! (no this is not what it sounds like) what im saying is that, if the soul is not defined by the psychological, mental or physical, and that gets reincarnated, then the reincarnation cannot possibly be you, because no part of you has carried on at all to the next life - who's to say whether the next random chicken born is the reincarnation of my grandma who died yesterday, or the cat that was run over by the car this morning? it could be either and there is no possible way of identifying which of the two it is, not in any human's perception (or any other higher being, for that matter), but only in the one who actually facilitates this transfer from one life to another.
I'm just giving suggestions here, probably really crappy: - You could link karma to (the discredited theory of) luminiferous ether? Like how both are assumed 'substances' that help make the world go round. And draw a link to science through this? - How does a belief in (a certain sort of) reincarnation influence, er, art, morality etc? So you could compare and contrast different cultures with their differing views on reincarnation.
Oh and I just read up on Wiki and it seems like the notion of the self being retained is not found in Buddhism.
Ehh I saw this in a NYT article about the Dalai Lama today:
Tibetan Buddhists believe in reincarnation, although not in the sense of an irreducible self passing from body to body. They describe a dying candle lighting a new one; one’s essence passes on.
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Umm but theres some merit in the idea of exploring how actions define our "soul".
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Interesting topic though - but how is there a logic-idea behind reincarnation?
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but kee en! (no this is not what it sounds like) what im saying is that, if the soul is not defined by the psychological, mental or physical, and that gets reincarnated, then the reincarnation cannot possibly be you, because no part of you has carried on at all to the next life - who's to say whether the next random chicken born is the reincarnation of my grandma who died yesterday, or the cat that was run over by the car this morning? it could be either and there is no possible way of identifying which of the two it is, not in any human's perception (or any other higher being, for that matter), but only in the one who actually facilitates this transfer from one life to another.
Reply
- You could link karma to (the discredited theory of) luminiferous ether? Like how both are assumed 'substances' that help make the world go round. And draw a link to science through this?
- How does a belief in (a certain sort of) reincarnation influence, er, art, morality etc? So you could compare and contrast different cultures with their differing views on reincarnation.
Oh and I just read up on Wiki and it seems like the notion of the self being retained is not found in Buddhism.
Reply
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Tibetan Buddhists believe in reincarnation, although not in the sense of an irreducible self passing from body to body. They describe a dying candle lighting a new one; one’s essence passes on.
That's a very nice analogy in my opinion. :)
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