It's a bit like an actor on stage. The costume changes, the character changes, the stage etc. may change even during the same performance and the audience changes too. Yet the actor himself or herself remains the same. — Apollodorus
The powers of will, knowledge, action, etc, remain the same. What changes is their content, object and ways in which they operate in accordance with the new circumstances. — Apollodorus
What is it that remains the same from one life to another? — Banno
In Sri Lanka, a toddler one day overheard her mother mentioning the name of an obscure town (“Kataragama”) that the girl had never been to. The girl informed the mother that she drowned there when her “dumb” (mentally challenged) brother pushed her in the river, that she had a bald father named “Herath” who sold flowers in a market near the Buddhist stupa, that she lived in a house that had a glass window in the roof (a skylight), dogs in the backyard that were tied up and fed meat, that the house was next door to a big Hindu temple, outside of which people smashed coconuts on the ground. Stevenson was able to confirm that there was, indeed, a flower vendor in Kataragama who ran a stall near the Buddhist stupa whose two-year-old daughter had drowned in the river while the girl played with her mentally challenged brother. The man lived in a house where the neighbors threw meat to dogs tied up in their backyard, and it was adjacent to the main temple where devotees practiced a religious ritual of smashing coconuts on the ground. The little girl did get a few items wrong, however. For instance, the dead girl’s dad wasn’t bald (but her grandfather and uncle were) and his name wasn’t “Herath”—that was the name, rather, of the dead girl’s cousin. Otherwise, 27 of the 30 idiosyncratic, verifiable statements she made panned out. The two families never met, nor did they have any friends, coworkers, or other acquaintances in common, so if you take it all at face value, the details couldn’t have been acquired in any obvious way. — Jesse Behring, Scientific American
And a process has parts. — Banno
Children.There is copious evidence of children who remember previous lives. /.../ — Wayfarer
It's futile to talk about a topic like reincarnation/rebirth or recollection of past lives without first defining the terms, or by categorically ignoring the contexts in which those terms originate from.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? — Banno
Does Analayo's book provide doctrinal evidence of the spontaneous recollection of past lives?I don't recal ever hearing in Theravada Buddhist doctrine about the spontaneous recollection of past lives. I searched ATI for it, no finds
— baker
https://www.amazon.com.au/Rebirth-Early-Buddhism-Current-Research/dp/1614294461 — Wayfarer
So, my theory is that Plato's principle of Reincarnation was an attempt to justify the goodness and justice of the gods, despite all the evidence against it in the real world — Gnomon
Does Analayo's book provide doctrinal evidence of the spontaneous recollection of past lives? — baker
The most compelling of the children’s stories is that of Dhammaruwan, a Sri Lankan boy born in 1968. At the age of two, he spontaneously began to sit in meditation and chant for long stretches of time. Eventually someone realized he was chanting Buddhist discourses in Pali, but in a melody and meter more akin to devotional kirtan than to the monotone cadences favored today. The boy explained he had learned the chants in a previous life in India when he served as a reciter monk, one who memorizes sections of the Pali Canon. He said he studied under the renowned monk Buddhaghosa in the fifth century and moved with him to Sri Lanka, where the elder carried out his work of compiling and translating many commentaries, including the Visuddhimagga.
Dhammaruwan’s chants were recorded and circulated, making him famous in Sri Lanka, uncomfortably so for a shy child. By adulthood he had lost the memories of the chants but was still able to recall his impressions of Buddhaghosa, whom he described as a scholar but not a meditator.
But Apollodorus is not the power to will, knowledge, action - we each have those; Apollodorus is the content that you say changes. So it's not Apollodorus who is reincarnated.
On that argument, since you and I both have the power to will, knowledge, action, we are the same person. — Banno
At some point one has to choose between following Reason, and following tradition. — Bartricks
I don't recal ever hearing in Theravada Buddhist doctrine about the spontaneous recollection of past lives. — baker
You are probably correct that the historical origin of the Reincarnation hypothesis arose in some of the older civilizations. The Egyptians, and later the Babylonians, were considered the world-class experts on Magic & Mysticism -- the subjective "science" of their day. So, the mythical worldview that incorporated Reincarnation followed a chain of authority from "higher" cultures to "lower" societies. That may explain the "how" of cultural transmission of memes.Pythagoras or some other Greek philosopher went to Egypt in search of higher knowledge. — Apollodorus
It is the mind, not our consciousness, that is the object of reincarnation. There has to be something that lives a life and that has lived other lives. Two lives can be radically different, yet lived by the same mind. It's the mind that is that thing. That's why two lives that have no conscious states in common can still be lived by one and the same mind. — Bartricks
The mind is the self. I am my mind I am my self. So if Buddhists deny the self, then they are either denying the mind, or playing fast and loose with language. — Bartricks
What matters is what Reason says. — Bartricks
But, of course, that's just my opinion, based on my lack of experience with spirits, or knowledge of arcane "secrets". — Gnomon
I think there was a discussion on reincarnation some time ago. However, supposing we accept reincarnation either as fact or as theoretical possibility, how would we convincingly justify it in philosophical terms?
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.