This is one of the reasons why outsiders' attempts at discussing religious claims are bound to be abortive. — baker

I totally agree. Some pretend to take an "objective" or "scientific" approach to religion that is bound to fail given that religious experience is largely subjective. This is why, for example, you get self-appointed "scholars" and "experts" who come up with the peculiar notion that because Platonists view Ultimate Reality as indescribable, ineffable, etc., they are really "atheists". They forget that even Christian mystics often describe God in very similar terms and that all it means is simply that God is a reality above ordinary experience involving words and thoughts. Apparently, this is too difficult for "scholars" to grasp.

you get self-appointed "scholars" and "experts" who come up with the peculiar notion that because Platonists view Ultimate Reality as indescribable, ineffable, etc., they are really "atheist” — Apollodorus

I agree. This is exacerbated by the fact that much modern scholarship deliberately downplays the transcendental dimension of Plato so as to present his works as more compatible with their assumed scientific materialism.

This is exacerbated by the fact that much modern scholarship deliberately downplays the transcendental dimension of Plato so as to present his works as more compatible with their assumed scientific materialism. — Wayfarer

Precisely. This is where I point out to critics that their presumed "scientific objectivity" is akin to (unconscious) "neo-Marxism", in view of the fact that Marxism has always used scientifically sounding language to legitimize what is otherwise material lifted straight from the more utopian brands of socialism which Marxism dismisses as "unscientific nonsense". But to admit this much would require rather more self-examination than materialists are willing to undergo. In their worldview, there is nothing higher than themselves. Thus, they prefer to take Marx's path of "criticism of everything" except of themselves. That's always the easy way out. It's intellectual laziness disguised as "science" and doesn't solve anything, but it's good for that old materialist ego that likes to worship itself.

. In their worldview, there is nothing higher than themselves — Apollodorus

Oh, they wouldn't put it like that. They'd say there are no scientific grounds to consider the transcendent dimension of Platonism. (Never mind that they themselves have already decided what constitutes 'scientific grounds', but the comparison with Protagoras would be lost on them.)

Current article, just published on Aeon Magazine: Why Modern Buddhists should Take Reincarnation Seriously, Avram Alpert.

Current article, just published on Aeon Magazine: Why Modern Buddhists should Take Reincarnation Seriously, Avram Alpert. — Wayfarer

To be quite honest, when I read statements like these:

“... this temporal relation is also an ethical one, because it suggests that we’re the products of other lives and the creators of other futures, and thus share a global and temporal interdependence ...”

and

“... The Buddhist ideal of ending the cycle of reincarnation has a secular corollary in the ideal of removing all traces of our past mistakes – truly living in a society without patriarchy or poverty or violence ...”,

I immediately thought how this could be used to put a political spin on it. By the time I got to the author’s views on Marx’s stance on reincarnation, it all became clear.

I should have known that the minute he mentioned Slavoj Žižek. But I suppose that's what tends to happen when you give people the benefit of the doubt ....

But at least he’s discussing the idea in terms which are understandable to current readers.

If an insider can't explain or at least clarify for an outsider, it's more likely than not that discursively the insider doesn't understand it or the discourse itself is unintelligible. I've been an "insider" of Biblical discourse and Zen Buddhist teachings. Over decades I've had many productive, informative discussions with scholarly & thoughtful insiders of quite a few religious traditions. I have no idea what you mean when you're glossolaling (or whinging) about "the epistemic and normative nature".

Yeah, religious discourses are language games grounded in forms of life which when interpreted in terms of non-religious language games tend to generate – degenerate into – (polemical) misunderstandings & nonsense. I won't put words in @Banno's mouth, but I've not reduced any religious language game to, say, a philosophical language game; I've been quite charitable and repeatedly asked you insiders

wtf gets reincarnated in "reincarnation" that belongs to, or travels with, a self from incarnation to incarnation? and, if some quality / property belongs to a self, how does that square with the doctrine of "anatta"? or, if "no self", then why should any non-self be concerned with her "karma" reincarnated to afflict some other non-self incarnation somewhere else, somewhen else?

Just questions, Mr. Insider, not evaluations or reductions to exogenous terms or anything misguided or sinister.

I call bullshit whenever someone claims an "outsider" or uninitiated can't understand what an insider understands – how does an insider know he discursively understands something if he can explain, or convey it intelligibly, only to other insiders? That's groupthink, right? Preaching to tf choir? Blowing sunshine (or smoke) up each others' arseholes, no?

But at least he’s discussing the idea in terms which are understandable to current readers. — Wayfarer

I agree. I think the problem with Buddhism is that it seems to have taken reincarnation from Hinduism but it reinterpreted it in a Buddhist context that has no reference to soul. What reincarnates or is re-born is an aggregate of karmic imprints whose “transmigration” from one birth to another is difficult to explain in everyday language. In contrast, the Platonic and Hindu explanation is much easier to understand even for non-specialists.

The difficulty of the Buddhist theory has been noted by many, e.g. in this article from Psychology Today, The Problem with Reincarnation

See PM

Aren't you just looking for an opportunity to press your metaphysics? Otherwise I don't get the point of the "what is reincarnated" question. It's been answered.

]wtf gets reincarnated in "reincarnation" that belongs to, or travels with, a self from incarnation to incarnation? and, if some quality / property belongs to a self, how does that square with the doctrine of "anatta"? or, if "no self", then why should any non-self be concerned with her "karma" reincarnated to afflict some other non-self incarnation somewhere else and somewhen else? — 180 proof

What reincarnates or is re-born is an aggregate of karmic imprints whose “transmigration” from one birth to another is difficult to explain in everyday language. In contrast, the Platonic and Hindu explanation is much easier to understand even for non-specialists. — Apollodorus

This is where Buddhism is very different from the 'substance and attribute' metaphysic of Aristotle.

It also differs from the Hindu view of an unchanging self that exists from life to life. ‘Eternalism’ was the indigenous idea that through the right practices and disciplines an ascetic could be reborn in perpetuity, an unending series of lives. On the other hand, nihilism is the idea that at the end of life there are no karmic consequences to actions. Basically all such views are driven by desire (will, in Schopenhauer’s terms) - thirst for continued existence, or desire to escape from existence. Neither is ‘seeing things as they truly are’, which is that craving gives rise to continued re-birth. There is a kind of karmic continuity, but nothing unchangeable within it. It was called in later Buddhist schools citta-santana, sometimes translated as ‘mindstream’.

As for the identity of the Tathagatha, the ‘awakened one’:

Freed from the classification of consciousness, Vaccha, the Tathagata is deep, boundless, hard to fathom, like the sea. 'Reappears' doesn't apply. 'Does not reappear' doesn't apply. 'Both does & does not reappear' doesn't apply. 'Neither reappears nor does not reappear' doesn't apply."

This is in keeping with the principle that Nirvāṇa is essentially inconceivable.

This is criticised by both Christians and Hindus as being nihilist. Christian doctrine is that individual souls realise eternal life in heaven. Christians object to Buddhism for being impersonal or annihilationist. Hindus say something similar, although Buddhism greatly influenced Hindu doctrines of Advaita Vedanta through the dialectics of emptiness. (Adi Shankara, legendary Hindu sage, was called by some other Hindu schools ‘quasi-Buddhist’.)

As I might have mentioned elsewhere, I did an academic thesis on anatta in early Buddhism (readable here for those interested.)

This is where Buddhism is very different from the 'substance and attribute' metaphysic of Aristotle. — Wayfarer

I agree. I wouldn't go quite so far as to call Buddhism "nihilist" in all respects. It still has some interesting contributions it could make.

However, some Buddhist traditions claim that imprints of past experience are stored in a “store-consciousness” (ālayavijñāna) from where they arise in the form of memories like plants germinating from seeds. But that doesn’t explain where the store-consciousness itself is stored. Even if we grant that the store-consciousness is nothing but the totality of imprints or seeds, we still need to explain how the seeds are held together and where. The same applies to the chain-of-consciousness or chain-of-causation theory.

In contrast, Platonism and Hinduism say that remembrance, for example, is a function of the soul who stores impressions of past experience within itself.

In my view, the Buddhist theory sounds like an artificial device intended to spare the Buddhist an admission of soul, necessitated by the no-soul theory (anattā/anātman). This is also suggested by the negative description of memories. Once you postulate the non-existence of soul, you need to negate other things normally associated with a soul and you may end up appearing to be "nihilist" without necessarily intending to.

I wouldn't go quite so far as to call Buddhism "nihilist" in all respects. It still has some interesting contributions it could make. — Apollodorus

Oh, it's definitely NOT nihilist. This is what was always thrown at in by it's Hindu opponents. It's one of the reasons it died out in India.

In my view, the Buddhist theory sounds like an artificial device intended to spare the Buddhist an admission of soul, necessitated by the no-soul theory (anattā/anātman). — Apollodorus

Well, in my view, you'd be mistaken. You'd be reifying the dynamic process which is 'the self' into an objectively existing entity, which it isn't. In Buddhist terms, it gives rise to clinging - the idea of 'me and mine', transposed into some supposedly ethereal domain of existence.

You ought to consider the link between Buddhism and scepticism. The Buddha is actually a sceptic, but his frame of refence is very different from that of the armchair sceptics who cling to the treacherous testimony of sense only.

(Logging out to go to work, back much later.)

If examining presuppositions and implications of a so-called "answer" for, at minimum, intelligibility is "looking for an opportunity to press my metaphysics", then I'm guilty as charged. To prefer sense over nonsense is a proven adaptive preference, y'know.

Why should we yield to special pleading for religious discourse to be granted special snowflake immunity to philosophical inquiry or critique? Why shouldn't we push back on dogmatists like baker who "press their otherworldly metaphysics?" Why do any of you bother discussing your "religions" on public fora only to balk at actually discussing it with those of us who don't believe what you all believe in?

We're not here to be proselytized at; and when fideistic sermonizing transforms a dialogue into a monologue, a friendly fuck off is warranted which either spurs the dialogue galloping onward or spooks a jackass to bolt away to bray (pray) imponderable monologues elsewhere.

It's been answered. — frank

Where, exactly?

Or could you provide a summation, perhaps?

I appreciate your poetry. Your logic, not so much.

Or could you provide a summation, perhaps? — Banno

Which tradition? And why exactly can't you look it up?

Well, in my view, you'd be mistaken. You'd be reifying the dynamic process which is 'the self' into an objectively existing entity, which it isn't. In Buddhist terms, it gives rise to clinging - the idea of 'me and mine', transposed into some supposedly ethereal domain of existence. — Wayfarer

Sure, I might of course be wrong. I was just stating what my personal impression was after seeing that Buddhism which is otherwise quite thorough in other respects has failed to come up with a more satisfactory account of remembrance, rebirth, etc.

People do ask questions, it isn't just @baker

The Problem with Reincarnation - Psychology Today

But there is no big rush to answer my points at all. Do take your time. I happen to work from home at the moment so I know what it's like trying to juggle many things at once. My multitasking abilities tend to be way below what I would like them to be ...

then the question is unanswered.

ok

Poetry sugar coats the medicinal logic. Stop spitting it out after you suck the pill sour, that's not helping with your condition.

Poetry sugar coats the medicinal logic. Stop spitting it out after you suck the pill sour, that's not helping with your condition. — 180 Proof

What condition is that?

Given the obscurity of many esoteric texts, it's an open question whether insiders are able to convey their ideas to other insiders as well.

That said, I don't subscribe to the idea that that which exists must be necissarily be something that can be described with language. So I find it entirely possible that some mystics are attempting to describe an insight and failing to do so in clear terms because such transcription is impossible (for them, or entirely).

How should I know? Ask another insider.

The Problem with Reincarnation - Psychology Today — Apollodorus

He makes some interesting points, but I note his byline says 'Alex Lickerman, M.D., is a general internist and former Director of Primary Care at the University of Chicago and has been a practicing Buddhist since 1989.'

Once you postulate the non-existence of soul, you need to negate other things normally associated with a soul and you may end up appearing to be "nihilist" without necessarily intending to. — Apollodorus

The term 'soul' is foriegn to both Buddhism and Hinduism. The Hindu word 'atman' is simply the first-person participle of 'to be'. As said above, Buddhism challenges the notion that there is an entity or being which is always the same, which remains the same from one life to the next, but it's very tricky to understand exactly what is being affirmed or denied in these debates. It's true that in popular Buddhism, there might just as well be a soul that passes from life to life even if that is very different from what the texts actually say.

My view is that 'the soul' is shorthand for 'the totality of the being' - the sum total of your past, your destiny, talents, proclivities, memories, habits and so on. It's a larger idea than the ego, person or self, because aspects of the totality are hidden even to oneself (as Jung knew well).

He makes some interesting points, but I note his byline says 'Alex Lickerman, M.D., is a general internist and former Director of Primary Care at the University of Chicago and has been a practicing Buddhist since 1989.' — Wayfarer

That's why I found the article interesting, because it's written by a practicing Buddhist. Obviously, a beginner or non-Buddhist would find the matter even more confusing.

But I agree with "soul" as the "totality of being". Interestingly, the Platonic term for the embodied soul or totality of man as a “living being” is το ζώον, to zoon. Its Hindu equivalent is jivātman which means pretty much the same.

Incidentally, the Platonic nous is also equated with "being" just like Sanskrit atman. As Plotinus puts it:

"For we and what is ours goes back to real being and we ascend to that real being" VI 5,7, 1-8

The pure soul and intelligible being are one and the same.

So, essentially, man consists of (1) a pure spiritual core (nous or pneuma), (2) the soul proper (psyche) which is the psycho-mental apparatus attached to embodied spirit and (3) physical body.

Disembodied spirit, as in the after-death state, consists of essentially the same, viz. spirit (nous) and soul (psyche) with the difference that its body is not physical but a slightly more "palpable" extension of soul consisting of the same psycho-mental "substance" as the soul, including perhaps impressions or memories of the physical body left behind.

This metaphysical body is termed ohema in Platonism and sukshmasharira ("subtle body") in Hinduism. The soul is endowed with this subtle body prior to rebirth and apparently during "out-of-body" travel and other OBE states.

I'm not sure to what extent certain Buddhist traditions agree with this but the Platonic and Hindu accounts seem to make reincarnation fairly easy to explain.

How should I know? Ask another insider. — 180 Proof

Thanks, but I'm not a believer. Damn, thought you were going to cure me. :broken:

However, some Buddhist traditions claim that imprints of past experience are stored in a “store-consciousness” (ālayavijñāna) from where they arise in the form of memories like plants germinating from seeds. But that doesn’t explain where the store-consciousness itself is stored. Even if we grant that the store-consciousness is nothing but the totality of imprints or seeds, we still need to explain how the seeds are held together and where. The same applies to the chain-of-consciousness or chain-of-causation theory. — Apollodorus

Paṭiccasamuppāda explains these things. Unless you think that paṭiccasamuppāda requires an additional explanation/context/foundation?

If an insider can't explain or at least clarify for an outsider, it's more likely than not that discursively the insider doesn't understand it or the discourse itself is unintelligible. — 180 Proof

Oh?
Would you say that if you cannot explain, say, advanced math to someone who totally isn't into math, or to a small child, this means that " it's more likely than not that discursively you don't understand it or the discourse itself is unintelligible"? And that it deserves to be called bullshit?

It's like this for any specialized field, whether it's advanced math, or cooking, or engineering, or hair-styling.

The prospective understander needs to have the required basic knowledge of the field, or he won't understand what the other person is saying.

People sometimes say "If you can't explain it to a 5-year-old child, you just don't understand it". Yet this is patently wrong. Small children simply can't understand anything about advanced math, or how to make a proper souffle, or how to cut a bob, and so many other things, no matter how much things are dumbed down for them. (But one thing small children might be good at is keeping up the appearance of understanding.)

I've been an "insider" of Biblical discourse and Zen Buddhist teachings. Over decades I've had many productive, informative, discussions with scholarly & thoughtful insiders of quite a few religious traditions.

Like you say -- you're an insider in those fields. So no surprise that you had "many productive, informative, discussions with scholarly & thoughtful insiders of quite a few religious traditions".
Although I wonder what you mean by "productive discussions".

I have no idea what you mean when you're glossolaling (or whinging) about "the epistemic and normative nature".

And you think that your attitude that you display here is conducive to a productive exchange?

Yeah, religious discourses are language games grounded in forms of life which when interpreted in terms of non-religious language games tend to generate – degenerate into – (polemical) misunderstandings & nonsense. I won't put words in Banno's mouth, but I've not reduced any religious language game to, say, a philosophical language game; I've been quite charitable and repeatedly asked you insiders wtf gets reincarnated in "reincarnation" that belongs to, or travels with, a self from incarnation to incarnation? and, if some quality / property belongs to a self, how does that square with the doctrine of "anatta"? or, if "no self", then why should any non-self be concerned with her "karma" reincarnated to afflict some other non-self incarnation somewhere else, somewhen else?

You didn't read the sources that we referred to.

Just questions, Mr. Insider, not evaluations or reductions to exogenous terms or anything misguided or sinister.

But not questions asked in good faith, as you yourself noted earlier that you engage in these discussions because you're bored.

how does an insider know he discursively understands something if he can explain, or convey it intelligibly, only to other insiders?

In the same way that there is a special linguistic understanding among the native/fluent speakers of a language, an understanding that outsiders characteristically lack.

That's groupthink, right? Preaching to tf choir? Blowing sunshine (or smoke) up each others' arseholes, no?

*sigh*
Looks like you're having some hangups about the social nature of knowledge.
Also, note the emic-etic distinction.