Starting with that, if my memories are not being reimplanted into a reborn body, then (in my estimation) it's not me. For that matter, if my identity were implanted in a female, and my thought processes were then influenced by estrogen instead of testosterone, that also would not be me.And I might add, every being's self-perception gives rise to the sense of 'me'. I guess that this sense is fundamentally the same in every being - what is different in each, is the unique memories and experiences that are associated with it. — Wayfarer
Under this paradigm, the parts that are actually me (which is transient), are just hitching a ride on something that is eternal - so even if this were true, it seems to lack all significance to anyone's life.even so, on dogmatic grounds, Buddhists will never admit that there is 'a soul that has been reborn'. Again, they will depict in terms of a 'mind-stream', but in practice, it seems very much like 'a soul' to me — Wayfarer
Under this paradigm, the parts that are actually me (which is transient), are just hitching a ride on something that is eternal - so even if this were true, it seems to lack all significance to anyone's life. — Relativist
After all, what are all of most attached to, if not our very lives themselves? — Janus
Well, the ultimate aim of Buddhism - being a religion - is to realise 'the deathless'. That is one of the meanings or implications of Nirvana, and what puts an end to the cycle of samsara. — Wayfarer
My only observation is, if it can happen once....... — Wayfarer
saying that such a thing cannot be known to be impossible, but it cannot be known to be possible either; it could only be known to be possible if it were known to be actual. — Janus
It's just that the design for their collation and verification will never allow you to establish the effect they're supposed to establish. — fdrake
Janus
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Note that I am not saying that we know that such a planet is actually impossible; the point is that we don't know that such a planet is actually possible either. So, it is only so far as we know that such a thing might be possible. β Janus
It is not as far as we know, but regardless if we know.
Our knowledge as to the aforementioned example, neither gives or takes away from its possibility. β Shamshir
You're ignoring the fact that something might be, just on account of the way things are, impossible even though we could never know that with absolute certainty. Rebirth, to use the example of this thread, might be impossible due to the nature of the Cosmos. But take careful note, I am not saying that rebirth is logically impossible, it obviously is not since it involves no contradiction; I am saying that what is logically possible may have absolutely no bearing on what is actually possible. I am also not saying that rebirth is impossible just that it might be.
That something might be impossible does not imply that it must be possible, but rather that, just as it might be impossible, it also might be possible. The "might be" refers only epistemologically, not ontologically. Ontologically speaking something is either possible or it is not, just as is the case with logical possibility and impossibility. but the domains of logical possibility and impossibility and ontological possibility and impossibility do not necessarily coincide; they may or they may not, we simply cannot know. — Janus
And yet it does. It denotes that something is partly possible and partly impossible.That something might be impossible does not imply that it must be possible, — Janus
Have you considered that what might seem like intuition might be wishful thinking — Janus
Surely what matters is only how we live this life we know; why worry about what might happen after death? Gautama reputedly said something similar in the parable about the man who had been shot with a poison arrow, and refused to have it removed until he knew everything about where the arrow came from. — Janus
But isn't that why, or at least part of the reason why, he's been discredited? Because he deviates from the high standards of the scientific method? Isn't that why his research isn't considered authoritative, but is only peddled as such by those with the agenda of giving an appearance of credibility to claims of past lives? — S
Could be!
Anything is possible...except stuff that has been established as impossible. — Frank Apisa
Could be!
Anything is possible...except stuff that has been established as impossible. — Frank Apisa
And then there are those who think merely establishing the possibility of X is sufficient to believe in X — NKBJ
You are intelligent enough to see this. Why are you refusing to see it? — Frank Apisa
The questions that the 'poison arrow' parable were concerned with were speculations about whether the world had a beginning or not, whether the self is identical with the body, whether the Tathagata exists after death, and so on. But the question of whether or not there was a life beyond was not one of those questions. — Wayfarer
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