A Response to my Previous Post (Is Reincarnation a Possibility?)

I thank my brother, Andrea, for providing a detailed feedback to my previous post “Is Reincarnation a Possibility?” and giving me the chance to expand some arguments. His points are well substantiated and I am sure some readers will feel closer to his views than mine (which I don't see too far apart). That’s absolutely fine as I am not claiming to know anything for certain – my views change continuously as I explore deeper my inner self – and because I am not here to preach but to initiate discussions over issues that I feel are important regardless of how diverse the views of my readers might be. The aim of this Blog is not to seek approval but rather to exchange ideas in a way that eventually will lead us to improve the formulation of our own individual theories, which in the end will have to satisfy only us!

ANDREA: The first problem I find is the insinuation that reincarnation and scientific observation could somehow coexist, or even benefit mutually. This is simply not true. Despite vague ad-hoc examples, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that reincarnation exists beyond what most biologists and scientists would describe as a continuation of the energy cycle. There has never been a conclusive study that was able to elevate reincarnation from its current condition of pseudoscience, a place it shares with alchemy, astrology, and phrenology among others.

REPLY: Some could argue that the absence of valid scientific evidence supporting the philosophical idea of reincarnation is due to the matter not being a subject of modern science. Nevertheless, being reincarnation an experience, it is absolutely scientific and perhaps psychotherapy will come up one day with a convincing method by which anyone will remember past lives... Until then we can only rely on the experiences of great minds of the past and present such as Pythagoras, Gautama, Laozi, Kanada, Plotinus, Plato, Origen, Mahavira, Yogaswami, Yogananda, Adi Granth, and many more…

ANDREA: On the other hand, there are innumerable studies showing that in no instance would you find a continuation of the cognitive processes beyond the natural death of the organism that produces them. In other words, the death of the brain signifies the death of the mental processes it produces.

Many "spiritual" people lack an understanding of even the basic tenets of world religions and philosophies (two very different subjects pertaining to more or less the same basic questions), and this has generated great confusion. Most people who seek consolation in Buddhism because it grants them a certain continuation to the very natural tendency of all living things to die, would be quite disappointed to learn that the Buddha categorically denied any possibility of the permanence of the soul, the mind, or the self.

REPLY: Spirituality is not measured by how educated we are about religions, philosophies, or science. Actually it is arguably the opposite as the more we rationally try to understand existence, the less we free our mind to experience it. While many seek comfort in existing systems of belief (misinterpreting them or otherwise), many others simply follow their feelings and sometimes these result to be closely aligned with some basic tenets of religions or philosophies.

ANDREA: Siddharta Gautama was unequivocal: when you die, you die. In Buddhism, death and life are often compared to two candles. We can be a dying candle lighting another, thus creating the condition for the light to perpetuate, but we cannot become the other candle.

REPLY: Right in saying that Buddhists don't believe in the soul intended as a spirit or ghost, but they (including Gautama) do believe in rebirth.

Also appropriate is the metaphor of the two candles to illustrate the lack of a constant self, although I don’t think it clearly depicts the continuum of the life cycle in Buddhism, a conception which is by the way not too far-off from the continuation of the energy cycle you acknowledged previously. Instead of the two candles I prefer Osho’s view of a single candle whose flame constantly changes never being the same twice but always connected. The flame changes incessantly disappearing into smoke with a new flame replacing it each moment. The first flame of when you light the candle and the last of when you put it out are different but are part of one chain. For lack of better words, I have referred to what keeps each flame connected as the soul, but perhaps we need a different term to describe that continuum.

ANDREA: What made the Buddha such a pivotal figure in the history of mankind was that he was one of the very first scientific minds of the East. He tried opulence and asceticism, and readily rejected them when he found them not to work. He had been introduced to the concept of eternal soul of Hinduism (and the consolation it brings), but decided to follow his observations instead. On is deathbed, he urged his disciples to always question everything, and to submit every idea to the test.

REPLY: I believe the test he was referring to was not a lab experiment but the test of ‘experience’. Wealth and asceticism did not work for him as paths to increase his consciousness but eventually he found his way through moderation and meditation.

ANDREA: Let us not forget that this happened more than 2500 years ago. Clinging on to ancient theories when our knowledge has improved so vastly is a nonsensical endeavour, and one that would make the Buddha himself ashamed. He made the best of what he had. If only he had known about galaxies, atoms, cells, and energy! How would he test his ideas today?

One of the main flaws with the whole "we can't quite explain this yet, so… god (or fairies, or spirits) did it!" is that it does nothing to improve our odds of understanding a concept. How would an unobservable, unmeasurable, and even indescribable entity ever solve any problem? Certainly science does not have an answer for everything, but that is no excuse to put a deity in there.

REPLY: I also did not mention God anywhere in the post and I totally agree that deities should not be used to cover holes in our understanding of the universe and its laws.

ANDREA: It is true that we don't exactly know how the first prokaryotes came into being, but we have sound, workable theories. Some of these theories will undoubtedly prove to be false, and others will take us one step closer to an answer. But we certainly shouldn't give up so easily, and believe that a "soul" would be a grand explanation (or even a remotely plausible hypothesis) of how inanimate matter could have turned into life. Give that idea a chance, and you'll have to give it to any other idea anybody will ever come up with!

The fact that you can't disprove something does not make it real. You can't disprove an invisible unicorn lives at the bottom of the sea, but you wouldn't waste a minute of your life pondering that possibility. "But many people have had an experience of reincarnation," you may say. Well of course, what could a unicorn at the bottom of the sea do for you? Clearly, believing that your dead loved ones still hang around is slightly more powerful (but raises all kinds of embarrassing questions). I submit to you that most people who were born in Baghdad have had visions of Mohammed, and that Christians love nothing more than being visited by the Lady of Fatima, but not by their ancestors reincarnated in a child.

REPLY:
As a general consideration I’d say it is fine to generate ideas to explain events that science cannot yet explicate; especially when you seem to agree that “certainly science does not have an answer for everything”. The big problem is when people blindly keep following religious views that have been thoroughly disconfirmed.

My suggestion that a soul could explain how inanimate matter has turned into life is in fact an idea just as the invisible unicorn. However, considering that ‘something’ (called soul or anything else) is carried forward from a previous death to guarantee the continuum of the life cycle is perhaps not as absurd especially when we consider that “most biologists and scientists already recognise a continuation of the energy cycle”.

I do not doubt the importance of nurturing our scientific endeavours which perhaps one day will have enough substance to disprove the main tenets (including rebirth) of great philosophies that have lasted the test of time. But so far, science is still throwing wild guesses to fabricate a possible TOE (Theory Of Everything) that is not much less absurd than the invisible unicorn idea.

ANDREA: Had we applied this method of explaining the unknown with whimsical conjectures instead of observable evidence, we would still be taking hearts out of sacrificial victims every morning to propitiate the Sun's rising. We would still believe in burning bushes and great floods. Excuse me, but I find the immensity of space, the swirling of galaxies, the wonderful trees and animals, and the fact that we are made of stardust much more appealing.

REPLY: It is in fact a very appealing portrayal and perhaps not far from the truth. But the immensity of space, the swirling of galaxies, the wonderful trees and animals, and the fact that we are made of stardust can all very well coexist with rebirth.

ANDREA: And finally, on the subject of life on other planets. The possibility of life on other planets even within our own solar system is being recalculated almost daily. Observations from Titan, Europa, Mars, and other corners of our small cosmic backyard suggest that life could indeed be everywhere.

Why have no green man ever contacted us? First of all, we must understand the difference between life and intelligent life. Intelligent life might be much rarer than micro-organisms. There has been life on this planet for more than 3 billion years, and yet we have been able to send signals out into space only for the last 60. This is a tiny, tiny window of opportunity that might not necessarily coincide with the same window of opportunity of other civilizations, if indeed they exist.

Secondly, the distances are so great that if the green men's civilization did happen to coincide with ours, and managed to send a signal just in the right direction, and in a form we could identify as artificial (and that's a lot of ifs), it might take tens of thousands of years for that signal to get to us.

REPLY: It is precisely because of the belief that life can exist on many planets, combined with the young age of our solar system (4.58 billion years) – when compared to some far away corners of the universe (13.7 billion years) – that we should by now have been contacted/invaded by green men. Assuming that several other planets in the universe have followed an evolutionary pathway similar to ours, there should be a few civilizations out there with technological advancements several billion years ahead of ours. I think it is biased to place extremely complex capabilities to communicate at the same level as signals we sent out 60 years ago!

Conversely, if we start saying how special our solar system is, how special Earth is, how special life is, and how special intelligent life is, then it is a natural and perhaps correct consequence to declare that we are unique in the universe and why not that we have a purpose: we might be the ultimate peak of evolution of consciousness and through the symbolical Buddhist cosmology we strive to move up from one world to the next until we reach Enlightenment.

Is this much crazier than what science states? Theoretical physicists don’t know where to turn their heads and suggest totally unsubstantiated theories of parallel universes to explain what came before the Big Bang…

ANDREA: Are we all connected? Of course we are. We are all made of the same elements that once formed stars, and supernovas, and other living creatures. How is this less appealing and mystifying than an unsound theory of reincarnations, body seeking souls, and hungry ghosts?

REPLY: Whatever the ‘real’ answers might be to the questions we raised in this discussion, we are still far from the truth. I am mostly certain that science will not be able, at least during our time on this Earth, to develop the ultimate TOE. Therefore it makes sense to me to search that understanding through meditation and elevation of consciousness. That being said I continue to support science in all of its forms and I monitor its developments with anticipation regardless of whether new findings will support or confute my current beliefs.