GENIUS FORUMS

get a grasp on yourself dipshit. I am amazed KSolway has put as much time into you as he has.

Read and learn. Let the ego go.

prince: if you have something to contribute, articulate it clearly, otherwise it will be mistaken for parenthetical burbs and farts.

On reviewing the thread thus far, I must say that I am sorry I (and others) seemed to have overlooked Clyde's solid, sane, gentle and very intelligent contributions. For my part, I apologise.

I also apologise for the strain 'of irrational exuberance' (to use Greenspan's term in the mid 1990's), however I cannot help myself. I find writing/thinking about such things enjoyable and a sort of efferfescent mentality percolates irresistably.

There have been many noteworthy discussions about various issues. And vocabulary - not surprisingly - has been a little bit of a problem sometimes but more important some lack of sustained topic and clearly defined context. This is also to be expected in a public free-for-all but is also a product of the initial flaws in the premise floated.

If there was far less interpersonal hoo-ha and more respect for the issues discussed, the value of much thus far contributed - which is not inconsiderable despite many falts and failings on many parts including my own - would be more obvious.

In any case, to go back to the very beginning, I maintain that there is absolutely no difference between the notion of the human as human versus human as animal on the one hand, and literal births as literal human versus literal animal (or ghost, god etc.) on the other.

To clarify this further: Kevin has postulated that if one believes in reincarnation one believes that person A in body A is reborn as person A in body B and that this is a false belief. I totally agree with this. In fact, Kevin has also said that Person A is not the same as Person A of X minutes ago. Again, I totally agree with this.

However, where there might be some disagreement (which is not to say the whole thread has been a tharpa versus Kevin fest although too often that has predominated the rhythm and tempo unfortunately) is that Kevin further insists that because Kevin of yesterday is not Kevin of today, therefore reincarnation is a totally false notion akin to superstition.

In reply I have asked him to explain: what is birth and what is death? Or put another way: given that Kevin exists with some sort of continuity connected with the physical body that is Kevin's (and which physicality has been defended by many here including Kevin), and given that Kevin's notion of 'reincarnation' is that of moment to moment, influence to influence, i.e. that there are multiple incarnations of Kevin including every poster on the forum and more etc., why does this not hold true at the moment of birth, of any individual new human or cow person? What is the difference?

If Kevin doesn't really exist despite Kevin's body continuing from childhood (which I assume he had) to old age and death, what is Kevin's problem with Mary the cow? In the same way that Kevin both exists and doesn't exists, so also Mary exists and doesn't exist. There is no difference whatsoever except in terms of how each individual manifests from moment to moment. And in this regard, there is also no difference fundamentally between the view that states that the animal realm idea simply points out the difference between a more awake style of being in a human body versus a more stuck/asleep style (aka the 'animal style') in a human body, and a view that states that different styles of beings take birth in different styles of body-mind costume, aka real humans and real cows. Ultimately, it's all the same thing and there is no either-or true/false conundrum.

The real issue is: what is the nature of wisdom/awareness/human as compared to the nature of confusion/ignorance/animal?

tharpa wrote:prince: if you have something to contribute, articulate it clearly, otherwise it will be mistaken for parenthetical burbs and farts.

Ok, I will articulate it as clearly as possible;

You are a fool.

You disgust me, and are an offense to any truly wise person.

You have been told. Now drop the precious act, and learn, or carry on your precious little way.

tharpa;

:)

Do no harm,
clyde

tharpa wrote:

Kevin Solway wrote:There is a difference between being reborn as an actual cow grazing in the field and attaining a cow-like mentality.

No amount of dancing on your part can obscure this difference.

Oh, here I/we go again! No there isn't a difference, not fundamentally.

Imagine you are a medical doctor and someone comes to you with a disease for which you have the cure.

To be consistent with your reasoning, you would think, "Well, there's fundamentally no difference between these people being alive or dead, so I'll just let them die."

Thankfully you're not my doctor.

Likewise if you have a choice between telling the truth or telling a lie, then, to be consistent with your above reasoning, you would think, "Well, there's fundamentally no difference between truth and lies, so I'll lie."

Likewise, you are arguing that the lie that we can be reborn as actual cows in the field is no different to the truth that we can attain cow-like mentalities.

You want it both ways. 1. The cup is shattered. 2. birth and death still happens.

Cups are broken (ie, death) and things are created (birth). That's birth and death. There's no "both ways" there. There's no contradiction.

There never was birth; there never will be death; there can be no reincarnation at all.

You continue to paint yourself into a worthless position. If what you say is true, then there's no point to anyone wanting to get rid of their delusions. They may as well just stay deluded. And doctors have no need to try and cure anyone.

The first step of the spiritual path is into the formless, but the next step returns to form.

It seems to me that you are attached to the formless because it helps you to avoid many thorny problems, like the systemic delusions to be found in Tibetan Buddhism.

No matter what kind of lies and deceptions are pointed out, you can just say, "It doesn't matter, since all things are fundamentally the same. There's no point in trying to improve or change anything. There's no point in even thinking about them."

Debating about whether or not reincarnation is physical or mental is irrelevant.

It's important to divest people of the deluded ideas of reincarnation fostered by Tibetan Buddhism and the tulku system, otherwise it will remain as a barrier to their understanding of cause and effect, and thus prevent them from entering the human realm.

Tharpa,

You are wise to ignore the poster named prince. He is a toxic old man who has long wandered into the forum to look around and to take an occasional putrid dump. Why he decides to use this hall of wisdom as his private toilet is unknown, but it is of no consequence.

On the subject of reincarnation, was there actually a proof given as to why the possibility does not exist for full-on rebirth? Or is it simply illogical, and if so, how so? How are we so convinced that death of the physical body is the end of the self? How do we know we behave as clouds, and dissapate with the wind?

Carl G wrote:On the subject of reincarnation, was there actually a proof given as to why the possibility does not exist for full-on rebirth?

It's certainly possible that our consciousness at death somehow makes its way, intact, into a cow. This would be a case of "full-on rebirth" as you put it. But there's no evidence that this happens. Nor is there any evidence that the consciousness at death makes its way intact into the body of another person.

So, such "full-on" rebirth is impossible given the evidence and what we know about how consciousness works. [ie, a qualified "impossible"]

tharpa wrote:

If Kevin doesn't really exist despite Kevin's body continuing from childhood (which I assume he had) to old age and death, what is Kevin's problem with Mary the cow?

I asked my sister a similar question recently regarding my father.

I think we decided that he is several different persons all at once--a different individual to each sibling as well as our mother--based on our individual experiences with him. Now, I left the question of father’s true incarnation unanswered because I no longer knew who we were talking about…

I could quite easily call Kevin “Bob” when, for instance, I quote something he says--but then many people would not know whether or not to place any importance on beards.

.

Carl G wrote: How do we know we behave as clouds, and dissapate with the wind?

Because everything is like that.

kevin wrote: "Imagine you are a medical doctor and someone comes to you with a disease for which you have the cure.

To be consistent with your reasoning, you would think, "Well, there's fundamentally no difference between these people being alive or dead, so I'll just let them die."

Thankfully you're not my doctor.

Likewise if you have a choice between telling the truth or telling a lie, then, to be consistent with your above reasoning, you would think, "Well, there's fundamentally no difference between truth and lies, so I'll lie."

Likewise, you are arguing that the lie that we can be reborn as actual cows in the field is no different to the truth that we can attain cow-like mentalities. "

Frankly, there is no point in continuing to 'debate' with such ridiculous misuses of either-or logics using inappropriate and essentially irrelevant analogies.

'full-on' rebirth is only partially possible because of course many causes and conditions, just as they do moment to moment in the current birth, change, though in this case far more.

However, supposedly it is possible to eject consciousness into another body, providing that body is a fresh corpse. I have not done it myself or seen it done, so no there is no scientific proof, but this is something taught not only in the Tib buddhis schools but elsewhere as well (indian tantra from which the technique comes, and some daoist esoterics as well). Assuming there is some truth to this, it implies that there is enough of a basis in 'consciousness' (in the sense Kevin describes it here as that pertaining to a particular sentient being not mind in general) that 'it' can move from one body to another.

However, this is not usually what is meant by rebirth in the buddhist tradition, which is more like: attachment to experience (aka desire) creates a momentum, an addiction to experiencing territory. This momentum, essentially selfish, perpetuates the birth and re-birthing of many beings in many different types of body and realm, the latter being a reflection of the types of desire for solidity, pleasure and pain etc. of the 'mentality' or 'momentum' or 'territorial style' of such beings. So the outer world and the beings which inhabit it are a product of this motivation/style/realmic tendency essentially.

That is why it is just as true to say that reincarnation happens as to say that it doesn't happen.

It happens in the sense that each new sentient being is the product of certain causes and conditions which include certain aspects of its consciousness and certain basic karmic momentum therein, including the consciousness-configuration, you could say, of the type of body, which is an expression of the type of 'realm' that being inhabits, how they perceive territorye tc.

It does not happen in the sense that if Kevin were reborn next life as Mary, that he would still be Kevin. He would not. Certain karmic tendencies, i.e. momentum, would be perpetuated in helping to engender the being Mary, but the Kevin of yore would be gone forevermore. Death is still real. So in this sense, there is no such thing as reincarnation, not really.

That said, clearly there are more intelligent and less intelligent beings, both within the same species or family and in dealing with different ones, such as animal and human. Some of the more intelligent humans, let us say, who have developed wisdom and virtue by fully understanding how karma functions and then some, will engender a future birth (also not the same Kevin as before) that ends up providing the causes and conditions for further virtuous and intelligent existence, and this might include not only inherent faculties such as type of body, IQ, compassion etc, but also external situations, such as being in a protected, highly cultured situation and so forth.

Perhaps one could put it this way: if you regard incarnation as the transmission of some sort of wave of momentum rather than particular particles of matter, then it all makes sense. And again, there is no underlying difference between the distinction between human and animal in this human realm, and in a more literal sense. Yes, there is a significant difference between human-human and human-animal, the latter being trapped in ignorance and habitual patterns, but the same sort of motivational forces that bind the human-animal into his/her karmic blinkers are the same sort of forces which are involved in the various different types of being, body, intelligence, situation, cultures and so forth. They are all aspects of what is, in shorthand, called a 'realm'.

DHodges wrote:

Carl G wrote: How do we know we behave as clouds, and dissapate with the wind?

Because everything is like that.

Logically this is an unverifiable statement. It is not possible for us to know how every thing is.

Also, it is false. There is at least one thing that obviously does not behave like a cloud (and dissipate with the wind), and that is the Totality.

Kevin Solway wrote:

Carl G wrote:On the subject of reincarnation, was there actually a proof given as to why the possibility does not exist for full-on rebirth?

It's certainly possible that our consciousness at death somehow makes its way, intact, into a cow. This would be a case of "full-on rebirth" as you put it. But there's no evidence that this happens. Nor is there any evidence that the consciousness at death makes its way intact into the body of another person.

So, such "full-on" rebirth is impossible given the evidence and what we know about how consciousness works. [ie, a qualified "impossible"]

There is anecdotel evidence that some part of someone's consciousness may pass on to another person (or, to another part of the same person, their future self). That evidence comes in the form of flashbacks, and also in unwarranted knowledge, such as of street layouts in a town in which a person has never set foot.

There are other explanations, of course. It could be that people tap into some sort of group gestalt, a pool of collective human experience, and attract the "memories" that their particular life situation triggers. Some people, myself included, have quite a few of these memories, and these can be quite vivid, while other people never do.

Carl G wrote:

DHodges wrote:

Carl G wrote: How do we know we behave as clouds, and dissapate with the wind?

Because everything is like that.

Logically this is an unverifiable statement. It is not possible for us to know how every thing is.

All "things" are the same in the sense that they are all "things". The quality of all things is that they are born and die.

The Totality doesn't fit the definition of "thing", so it doesn't have the quality of things.

tharpa wrote:'full-on' rebirth is only partially possible

In other words, it's not possible.

However, supposedly it is possible to eject consciousness into another body, providing that body is a fresh corpse.

Now you're suggesting that full-on rebirth is actually possible. And no, I don't suppose.

Or perhaps you think that it might be possible to eject only a little bit of consciousness into a fresh corpse.

I have not done it myself or seen it done, so no there is no scientific proof, but this is something taught not only in the Tib buddhis schools

There's no evidence that it can actually happen, nor any mechanism that we know about whereby it can happen - not even for a little bit of consciousness.

That is why it is just as true to say that reincarnation happens as to say that it doesn't happen.

No, it's true to say that full-on reincarnation (eg, into a fresh corpse) doesn't happen, since there is no evidence of it happening, nor any evidence of a mechanism whereby it might happen. Not even for a little bit of consciousness.

However, "reincarnation" by normal means of cause and effect, like a candle lighting another candle, definitely does happen.

I think you are simply trying to evade thinking about the whole issue, as I suggested in my previous post, since you don't want to face the ugliness of it.

It does not happen in the sense that if Kevin were reborn next life as Mary, that he would still be Kevin.

A few sentences ago you said, "However, supposedly it is possible to eject consciousness into another body, providing that body is a fresh corpse".

Now if this were possible, ie, to eject consciousness, intact, into another body, then the personality would also remain intact, with all memories being intact.

but the Kevin of yore would be gone forevermore. Death is still real. So in this sense, there is no such thing as reincarnation, not really.

That which creates "Kevin", or identity, is memories. Memory is what makes consciousness work.

You are arguing that consciousness can "supposedly" be ejected into a fresh corpse, but that so many memories are lost in the process that the personality is lost.

Don't you see how crazy that is?

Importantly, and to contradact your point of view, many Tibetans believe that advanced meditators can reincarnate without losing any memory from previous births, in which case their personality would necessarily remain constant from one life to the next. They would in fact be the same person.

I think you need to go back to square one with regard to your thinking on this subject.

Carl: How do we know we behave as clouds, and dissapate with the wind?

DHodges: Because everything is like that.

Carl: Logically this is an unverifiable statement. It is not possible for us to know how every thing is.

Kevin: All "things" are the same in the sense that they are all "things". The quality of all things is that they are born and die.

My question wasn't "are all things born and do all things die?" It was, "do all things dissipate like the wind?" Or, I wonder, may they be reborn in a sort of lineage of being? As far as I know, there is no definitive knowledge about this. There is none about the soul, for instance. We do not know the true nature of humans. Therefore we cannot say they behave like clouds. A soul could be the carrier of consciousness from body to body, concievably.

Kevin: The Totality doesn't fit the definition of "thing", so it doesn't have the quality of things.

I do not see why Totality cannot be a thing. It is a thing: The Totality.

tharpa,

Debating about whether or not reincarnation is physical or mental is irrelevant.

I thought this entire thread is about whether or not reincarnation is literal or figurative.

Your last few posts have seemed like you are trying to back out of the debate; I would suggest that unless you can form a convincing argument, in the interest of truth you begin to take your opponent's position more seriously. If you lose a debate, intellectual integrity requires that you change your opinion: you are battling Kevin over the very issue you are trying to call irrelevant.

Thus far, you have called on proofs of literal reincarnation that, if legitimate, would seriously undermine Kevin's position. For instance, you tried to show how the mind is not completely dependent on the tangible structures of the brain. You have also suggested that consciousness can transfer virtually intact from one body to another without transplantation. Furthermore, you have suggested that the process of evolution is flawed, which would disprove consciousness as an emergent, accidental, feature that arises within living bodies after billions of years of propagation and mutation.

Each of these would be an empirical proof that would suggest that there might be some credibility to Buddhist claims of literal reincarnation (such as those emphasized in The Tibetan Book of the Dead). Even if all your claims were true, however, that would still not be sufficient proof of literal reincarnation.

I think your best chance at proving literal reincarnation would be the "either/or" logic you are denigrating so much. That is the only way to achieve absolute certainty in any belief.

Trevor, I might be backing down, but I find most of Kevin's points non-sequiturs and thus far too tedious to refute point by point.

I myself have pondered the six realms and other related topics virtually non-stop for over thirty years. This does not mean I have the ability to express my view well, but it certainly does not mean that I need to necessarily reject it unless I absorb something meaningful that resonates. I haven't read anything from Kevin that makes much sense at all, as evidenced by his last post. He jumps from point to point illogically, deracinates them from their context, misunderstands much of what is said and believes that many of his simple statements are unfalsifiable truths, things like 'everybody knows that' etc., or 'since there is no proof of Y therefore X must be true.'

Like I have said several times, there is no reason why there has to be agreement. Furthermore, there is no reason why there needs to be a debate as such. If there were a debate, one would have to agree on a precise topic, which isn't the case here. For example, basic terms like birth, re-incarnation, death, life, karma and so forth have not been defined in any consistent fashion, let alone a clear particular argument. Rather there has been a rather loose discussion roughly around the theme of whether or not incarnation is a notion that applies only to influences experiences within one birth, or there is such a thing as person A becoming person B.

To give one small example of kevin's incomplete logical method, when I above said that only partial full rebirth was possible he immediately jumped to an extreme conclusion, but I explained it, perhaps not well, by pointing out that a birth from one body into another means that there are significant shifts in the underlying karmic matrix (aka causes and conditions). A true 'full' rebirth would mean - since fundamentally there is no difference between mind and physical/body as many here have argued, including Kevin on occasion when it suits his latest little bullet-point - that there is the exact same body in Birth B as Birth A. Either that, or you are holding to the view that there is a complete Self somewhere that can migrate from one body to another. I have never seen this argued in any buddhist text anywhere since it goes against all the basic norms of dharma.

That is why I said a full rebirth type thingy was simply not possible. Of course this was turned into some sort of snappy bullet-point false logic exercise which, as I have said earlier, is a) not all that interesting and b) not all that interesting.

Kevin has made some good points about overly simplistic notions of reincarnation and also some good points about certain aspects of interdependence and influence. But he has by no means covered the topic either consistently or fully, nor does he want to. However, he seems quite concerned to point out that anyone who doesn't think what he thinks must be wrong because he is right.

So you can believe that the reason I have stopped replying to each point-by-point rebuttal is because I have been defeated in the debate. Fine by me. I don't find that there is a real debate, and even worse, not all that much of a conversation.

Also, it has been quite a few posts since anything substantively new was brought to the discussion and it has indeed become somewhat circular, or perhaps even argument for the sake of arguing. Despite all that, I have enjoyed participating, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered.

Carl G wrote:My question wasn't "are all things born and do all things die?" It was, "do all things dissipate like the wind?"

A cloud dissipates with the wind because the wind sweeps away the causes that brought about the appearance of a cloud.

It is the same with all things. As soon as the causes which cause them to appear are no longer there, they disappear.

We do not know the true nature of humans. Therefore we cannot say they behave like clouds.

We can know the true nature of all things in the sense that we know that all things are caused and all things have effects.

Kevin: The Totality doesn't fit the definition of "thing", so it doesn't have the quality of things.

I do not see why Totality cannot be a thing. It is a thing: The Totality.

It's a matter of definition. I define a "thing" to have a beginning and an end in some way. thus, one thing exists in relation to other things.

In the case of the Totality, it is all there is, so it doesn't fit my definition of a "thing".

We can however contrast the Totality with its parts, so the Totality is indeed a thing so long as it is an object of mind.

tharpa,

Kevin has made some good points about overly simplistic notions of reincarnation and also some good points about certain aspects of interdependence and influence. But he has by no means covered the topic either consistently or fully, nor does he want to.

I thought Kevin stayed consistent to his thesis that reincarnation is a metaphor for causality. How fully does he need to explain it? How many Buddhist texts does he need to individually reference? Does it matter?

For instance, I reject medieval Scholastic philosophy offhand, even though I never read Aquinas or Augustine or any of their contemporaries and followers. I know that many of the Academics made careers out of solving riddles as perplexing as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The words that fall through the grapevine is enough to keep me from reading it.

I have been supposing that Kevin has a similar attitude to much of modern Buddhism. How would you convince him that the Buddhist version of the angels-on-the-pin argument is worth taking seriously?

Trevor, your premise that there is an equivalent to medieval angels on heads of pin is no more than a vague generalisation and furthermore, I have no desire to convince him of anything in that regard. As I said in one post back there, I have come to the conclusion that he is expressing the truth as he sees it viz modern buddhism and modern buddhists. The fact that the expression basically means nothing to me in any substantive, concrete fashion, is irrelevant, nor does it mean I wish to change his view.

However, during the course of the interchange, I tried to articulate my own, and also of course engaged in a bit of back and forth. I did strenuously object to certain statements which I believe are clearly false, but later relaxed to the view above, which is that he is calling it as he sees it. Needless to say, I don't think his view represents the truth for all people, nor do I think that he as someone outside the path of the buddhadharma can possibly represent himself as someone qualified to judge - at least not for those who are on that path. It is not a philosophical or intellectual discipline that can be learned from texts alone, and this is clearly set up from the very beginning, i.e. the Noble Eightfold Path, which demands levels of ongoing daily commitment in action, speech and mind, mainly through the practice of various forms of mindfulness and awareness, that intellectual analysis alone cannot comprehend.

Never would I try to impose a buddhist view on those who are not practicing the buddhist way or path. Total waste of time. However, for a while I wished to defend against statements - such as his characterisation of what 'modern buddhists' 'believe' about the six realms - which are clearly and unequivocably false. He is either misinformed, deliberately misrepresenting, or more likely ignorant, seeing as he has probably mainly met buddhists in one part of the world. Whatever the reasons, his characterisation factually speaking is false. And there are other instances of this sort of thing.

But all one can do is point this out. Everyone has the right to their own view. More important than 'right', everyone has their own view, this is choiceless. That they may not be the same is also unavoidable and no cause for alarm. Neither, again, is there any reason why everyone should come to the same view nor, when discussing rather broad subjects in a rather broad way, is there any reason to keep boiling things down to: 'if you disagree with my point of view therefore anything you say is false, like a doctor who doesn't see the difference between life and death' and other such totally fatuous, irrelevant and immature logics!!

tharpa wrote:'since there is no proof of Y therefore X must be true.'

If there no proof that something exists, it is a fair use of language to say that it is true that it doesn't exist. I have qualified the statement a number of times.

For example, it's true that it is not raining outside my window, since there's no evidence of any rain. That is fair use of language.

To give one small example of kevin's incomplete logical method, when I above said that only partial full rebirth was possible he immediately jumped to an extreme conclusion

I don't think it was an "extreme conclusion" to surmise that you are talking about only a minute amount of consciousness being transferred from one body to another, since if there was a reasonable amount of consciousness transferred, then personality and identity would be constant from one life to the next (just as the identity of a sane person is constant from one moment to the next). That is, the new incarnation would remember most things from the previous life, including who they are. Thus they would effectively be the same person.

Since you are talking about most memories being lost (ie, one's very identity) then we are talking about some trifling amount of consciousness that can't really be called consciousness at all.

fundamentally there is no difference between mind and physical/body

To remind you, in your previous post you said, "However, supposedly it is possible to eject consciousness into another body, providing that body is a fresh corpse."

So how can one body "eject" its consciousness into another body? Do we cut out all the organs, and brain of the recipient body, and replace them with that of the donor?

You are not being consistent. Give me more detail on how the body "ejects" its consciousness, and exactly how it retains its title of "consciousness" even though virtually all of its memories are lost, including the identity and personality.


I think its very clear what point I have making all through this thread, but you have been seeking to evade it, as you are right now in this business of a body "ejecting" its consciousness into a fresh corpse.

Kevin Solway wrote:

tharpa wrote:'since there is no proof of Y therefore X must be true.'

If there no proof that something exists, it is a fair use of language to say that it is true that it doesn't exist. I have qualified the statement a number of times.

For example, it's true that it is not raining outside my window, since there's no evidence of any rain. That is fair use of language.

twaddle. No references to anything specific.

Kevin Solway wrote:

To give one small example of kevin's incomplete logical method, when I above said that only partial full rebirth was possible he immediately jumped to an extreme conclusion

I don't think it was an "extreme conclusion" to surmise that you are talking about only a minute amount of consciousness being transferred from one body to another, since if there was a reasonable amount of consciousness transferred, then personality and identity would be constant from one life to the next (just as the identity of a sane person is constant from one moment to the next). That is, the new incarnation would remember most things from the previous life, including who they are. Thus they would effectively be the same person.

where do you get 'only minute' from? Was not said. Fale premise for yr argument.
Next: 'if a reasonable amount, then personality.. would be constant'. No, logically there is no reason for that conclusion at all.
'..would remember most things ' etc. Pure guesswork. Every sentence is sloppy, hyperbolic and bounces around all over the place.

Kevin Solway wrote: Since you are talking about most memories being lost (ie, one's very identity) then we are talking about some trifling amount of consciousness that can't really be called consciousness at all.

It is your definition oft mentioned that consciousness by definition involves memory. I don't buy it necessarily, but again, it is your supposition that my statements involved 'trifling amounts of consciousness'. Not said, not thought, not meant.

Kevin Solway wrote:

fundamentally there is no difference between mind and physical/body

To remind you, in your previous post you said, "However, supposedly it is possible to eject consciousness into another body, providing that body is a fresh corpse."

So how can one body "eject" its consciousness into another body? Do we cut out all the organs, and brain of the recipient body, and replace them with that of the donor?

First, I didn't say that a body ejects consciousness, this is another leap/false assumption. In any case, why do you leap to the cutting out of organs? It is the consciousness being ejected/transferred, not the organs. Obviously.

Second, no, you use the body mechanisms/organs etc. as the 'vehicle' of consciousness just as is going on right now. This does not necessarily mean that body and mind are separate totally or ultimately, but just as the hand is not the same as the eye or the mind and so on, so also consciousness is not the same as the body in every respect and/or you could say that another body fulfils enough of the interdependent extras needed to create a situation where the new 'consciousness' replaces what is missing in the 'dead body' to create a new functioning organism including both.

By the way, I just realised I used the wrong english term. I should have said 'transference' of consciousness. 'Ejection' is usually used for a different function, but either way, it was never said that 'the body' ejects/transfers it. I also forgot to mention: when this happens, Body A (or rather we should say 'sentient being A') 'dies'. (In both cases.)

Kevin Solway wrote: You are not being consistent. Give me more detail on how the body "ejects" its consciousness, and exactly how it retains its title of "consciousness" even though virtually all of its memories are lost, including the identity and personality.

I never said the memories are lost (nor kept). This is just part of your rambling assumptions masquerading as logic. However, 'memories' might not be what you think they are, also not all 'memories' are the same. Some are far more rooted in the physical and some in the psychic/mental.

Kevin Solway wrote: I think its very clear what point I have making all through this thread, but you have been seeking to evade it, as you are right now in this business of a body "ejecting" its consciousness into a fresh corpse.

That was an example, not a main point. An example of a certain form of what might be called (quasi) direct incarnation but which, as I immediately went on to point out, is not direct at all because of course the Person A quotient (clearly not complete without Person A's body) goes into Body B, and therefore a new life/person results. I was not really trying to promote this as a proof of anything, merely an example of a view and also an example that illustrates that even when 'direct' 'ejection' etc. is hypothesised, clearly the result is that the new birth is not the same as the old. So it is more a logical point than anything else.

I seek only to 'evade' your insistence that there is no commonality between literal animal and literal human existence, or that one cannot gradually morph into the other. I don't evade in any case, I have 'consistently' disagreed and moreover poited out that there is no fundamental difference between the two views.

You seem to have separated real life and current bodies (Kevins and Marys) on the one hand, with the notion of reincarnation being purely a psychological notion pertaining to current humans only on the other, thereby refusing to discuss reincarnation in the context of how new beings come into existence as Marys and Kevins, or - more importantly - what is the nature of a being at all. You are not even being inconsistent; rather thoroughly incomplete. In fact, you are not discussing reincarnation or incarnation AT ALL rather pet theories about it which ignore major important issues, such as the very nature of a literal human and/or literal animal in the first place.

Similar to what Kevin has said, we would have absolutely no identity if we did not have our memories. Without them we immediately terminate the status quo state of consciousness. Therfore it is a logical impossibility to physically reincarnate into some other being or body. If there is no memory of you maintaing those previous states of consciousness then there is no existing mental/conscious connection between the current and former being. This also effectively terminates the whole point of physical reincarnation because one wouldn't even suffer for leading a sinful life if they can't agonize over how good they used to have it as a human being.

Nick Treklis wrote:Similar to what Kevin has said, we would have absolutely no identity if we did not have our memories.

Yes, but a sense of identity is an illusory construct in the first place, i.e. interdependent. Identity is one thing that consciousness can display on its screen, but is not the only thing, nor the quintessential essence or nature of consciousness. This is a common sense remark if you think about it. When you watch a movie on TV, there is the TV set, the transmitted signal, the actors making the drama, the story itself, and the cognitive mind that can take this all in and perceive a story, and then the underlying ability to be aware-conscious at all in which 'field' cognition is hosted.

Nick Treklis wrote: Without them we immediately terminate the status quo state of consciousness.

Says you. I don't see how you get to that.

Nick Treklis wrote: Therfore it is a logical impossibility to physically reincarnate into some other being or body.

Yes, based on your unjustified assumption, you are correct. Perhaps. It all sounds like guesswork masquerading as logic.

Nick Treklis wrote: If there is no memory of you maintaing those previous states of consciousness then there is no existing mental/conscious connection between the current and former being. This also effectively terminates the whole point of physical reincarnation because one wouldn't even suffer for leading a sinful life if they can't agonize over how good they used to have it as a human being.

If you read some of Nargarjuna etc., your argument here is in the same sort of territory of the discussions about the nature of heat in relation to a flame (in that flame always produces heat). For example, you can list many of the contributing causes and conditions of a flame, such as fuel, oxygen, not too much wind, friction and all the rest of it, and each one of those also has c&c and so ad infinitum BUT: none of them on their own is a flame or necessarily has heat per se. (some might be tempted to interject that if you use a match that has heat, but in fact, of course, the match produces a flame so you have to start all over from before the match is struck).

So since none of the constituent causes of such heat is heat per se, heat/flame is produced by a combination of factors and has no inherent existence as such per se. In other words, there is no 'heatron' or even 'flametron' to be found. Now we are talking of pure 'physical' processes. Heat exists and can be experienced and yet there is no one single origin of such heat. In a similar fashion, we could say the same about memories or even individual consciousness (along with anything and everything as Kevin keeps pointing out in terms of referencing causes and conditions). So why one would predicate memories alone as a sine qua non of consciousness is beyond me. It is simply not that simple and linear. Ever. With anything. At all. Just as heat does not exist alone as such per se, i.e. is not really a thing, so also does consciousness not exist as such per se.

I suspect, actually, that just as heat is a property of flame, so also memory is a property of individual consciousness. Heat doesn't necessarily cause flame, rather flame is a manifestation of heat in a certain way. Then you can get into analysing the cause and conditions of heat and so ad infinitum. But it seems clear to me that to presume memories can exist without consciousness is virtually a non-starter. However, it seems quite possible to me that consciousness might be the main context of the awareness principle/capability in which memories can form and seem to continue, just as one flame can be passed from one candle to another. Only once the flame is lit can it pass to another candle. Only once consciousness is awake can memories form therein and be passed from one moment to another like a flame to different candles.

More importantly, both 'memory' and 'consciousness' are different aspects, each interdependently caused, neither fundamentally/intrinsically existing. Therefore, to repeat what I floated earlier, obviously there is no real reincarnation per se at all since there is nothing continuous to reincarnate. That being a given, we are still left with the Kevins and Mary's of this world, conversing and mooing.

So first we see that a river is not a river. Then we see that a river is indeed a river. First we see that there is no existence as such. Then we see that there is existence, i.e. Kevins and Marys. The realms explanation is valid for actual sentient beings in actual bodies, including cows, humans, insects, ameoba and all the rest of it. That different variations of pain/pleasure, ignorance/flexibility, selfish territory/compassion are exhibited as oscillating both in the course of one life ( or one day in a life for that matter) and over a progression of different lives is really saying the same thing. There is no fundamental difference between the two approaches at all. Whatsoever. The difference posed by Kevin is an artificial extreme.


Perhaps we are interchaging the terms 'consciousness' and 'self'? It does seem fair to say that without a sense of memory there can be no sense of self. But that is not at all the same as saying that without memory there can be no consciousness or that consciousness is not possible without its possessing memory.

During moments of sudden shock such as sneezing, a car crash, orgasm and so on, there is intense consciousness: but often a marked absence of memory, even sense of self.