Reincarnation Revisited Rationally

Author(s): Ashok Aklujkar
Publisher: Ashok Aklujkar

Page 3

ASHOK AKLUKAR
REINCARNATION REVISITED RATIONALLY
write its obituary has not arrived. However, it stands in this conceptual Trišanku space, that is, in a conceptual no-man's land along with scientific method - it too has not been disproved or modified to the satisfaction of Mr. Orange-robe - and along with a host of other concepts such as the existence of ghosts. Not a very comforting prospect, is it? Wouldn') it be better if either reincamation or scientific method were to escape the tongs formed by 'validity' and 'nonvalidity'?
that the mome
is in
Mr. White-robe - So, show me your wares or I will call your bluff. Mr. Orange-robe - No, not on your terms. (After a long silence]
Mr. Orange-robe - Ok, you have been prevailing in the intellectual world for quite some time now - increasingly, in the last 300 years. Why don't you now retract a little and give me a chance to move beyond this theoretical impasse we seem to have reached. I grant that this would be a less than strictly rational approach. Mind you, not an irrational approach, though. I am proceeding on an impressionistic judgment of the wider situation, not just this concem with scientific method you have - it looks like obsession to me, but let us just call it a concem at this point. I am not asking you to concede my point but to agree, for a while, to be a little less in love with your method. I do not want the usual pronouncements: 'this method alone is your salvation, it stands in no need of modification as far as its foundation is concerned, if you modify it by allowing exceptions to the criterion of testability on empirical evidence, you may consider yourself a person lost on a path that will never intersect with mine. I will only argue that reincarnation is not such a weak or bad idea.
Mr. White-robe - Ok, but please keep your speeches short
Mr. Orange-robe - You see, the resistance to accepting reincarnation arises primarily from our inability to explain how it could take place as distinct from why it should take place. The capabilities and inclinations of individuals that we actually see in life are different. A model under which it is claimed that the difference in capabilities and inclinations is caused by what happened in an earlier birth-or a series of earlier births - at least will not be logically inferior to a model which accounts for the difference in terms of heredity and environment. I concede that the former model is not self-sufficient. It appeals to an item, earlier lives, outside of its tested items, the present capabilities and inclinations. But the 'heredity-environment model which you people prefer must pretend that heredity and environment are clearly separable when it has not been proved that they can indeed be separated.
Mr. White-robe - How so, my dear fellow
Mr. Orange-robe - It is very difficult to decide what is inherited and what is acquired environmentally. In fact, even the terms "heredity and 'environment cannot be defined without arbitrariness - without prejudging the issue. The best definition would be that what exists at the first moment of conception is heredity and what is faced or created after that moment is environment. But even in this, apart from the difficulty of defining the first moment of conception, we have a problem: the possibility that the inherited could be affected by the environment as it is inherited is arbitrarily set aside. • Mr. Triple-eye-He has got a point there. Why should the
parents' attitudes and physical conditions not affect conception? Must conception be a purely biological phenomenon having no psychological aspect to it? Would saying 'yes' to this question not imply acceptance of the mind-body dualism? Anyway. let me rejoin the conversation..
Mr. Orange-robe How far would a strict separation of mind and body agree with the empirical evidence we have from other investigations? Is it justifiable to accept a separate mind - under any name - although it cannot be separated for any testing? How far would it agree with your larger scientific model that seems to point toward the interchangeability of matter and non-matter?
Mr. White-robe - Hmm.
Mr. Orange-robe - I have also got another question for you. The inherited is assumed to be an unchanging entity - albeit for a few moments. If it can change subsequently, would it not make sense to assume that it is always in a state of change? This way, even your ultimate theoretical definition of heredity and environment forces us to make several assumptions that come across as arbitrary and do not agree with the indications we have from other investigations carried out in your science. It seems better to conclude that "heredity" and "environment" are simply two labels that are convenient in scientific discussion at a certain - lower-level. Ultimately, it is preferable to think of a continuum in which this moment's heredity becomes, in part, the next moment's environment.
Mr. White-robe - I see how it is with the 'how of the reincarnation process that we have a problem. The details of the process defy attempts at a logical construction. How an item leaving a body-as accompani ment or part of life or life force - could enter another body, invisibly, does not lend itself to a verifiable step-by-step conceptualization. Call it visualization or concretization, if you like.