246 thoughts on “Sean Carroll and Steven Novella debate life after death with Eben Alexander and Raymond Moody”
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The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
“As I’ve said, one of the personal standards I set for myself was to dismiss all “knowledge” that was not based on first-hand, empirical experience.”
What does “dismiss” mean in big-boy-pants-less epistemology?
I don’t know what a “big-boy-pants-less epistemology” is.
It has considerable intersection with your own reasoning system.
Of course. And having dismissed “all knowledge that was not based on first-hand, empirical experience”, including.the Pam Reynolds case, you decided that what Alexander and Moody should have mentioned in their debate — the very thing they should have mentioned, but didn’t — was the Pam Reynolds case.
You crack me up, William.
William, to Richardthughes:
Fish don’t know what water is, either.
It’s when you make a claim (e.g. that the tests Randi asks claimants to go through are not scientific), get rebutted with evidence then ignore that rebuttal despite the fact it speaks to a claim you made a dozen posts ago.
Keiths,
Please read patiently and understand what I say and come with your answers.
I like to have your answers to all my questions without missing a single one.
I give below the reason why I am very much interested to understand my existence.
The biggest problem is sorrow of death. We fear to die or do not want our existence come to an end. (There may be exceptions but I talk about the normal trend and my position) When we lose our loved ones we suffer from the psychological pain of sorrow due to loss of life. In this world there are many eminent Scientists, Psychologists and Philosophers yet this problem continues without being solved. Whether there is God or no God, whether there is soul or no soul, whether we are illusion or real whether we are by product of neural activity of brain or something more, whether we are physical or non physical we all want to exist and do not want to die or see our loved ones or even others die. I think that the problem of death can be solved only by understanding the real nature of our existence. My questions are to reveal the mystery of my existence.
When a problem comes first we ask questions. Questions only reveal the truth. Truth only solves the problem. Newton asked the question why things are falling. He found gravity. I ask many questions
to understand my existence.
Guessing is important. But we cannot come to any conclusions by guessing only. Scientists are guessing that there may be lives in other planets in other solar system. I guess there should be an existence other than this physical body. There are scientific evidences for the possibility of an existence other than this body. But even scientific evidences are argued by other people. So I want to see the truth directly without evidences.
You wrote:
Well, I have to at least mention that there is an unanswered question waiting for you on the other thread. Specifically, how can you say that you and I are separate persons while denying that the hemispheres of a split-brain patient are also separate persons? What criterion do you use to make that judgment?
I will come to that question under other thread.
My question:
Why do you bother to know whether there is after life?
Your answer:
a) I’m curious;
b) it would potentially change the way I live my life;
c) if it is actually possible to reunite with dead loved ones, that would be nice to know;
d) it has important religious implications;
e) it would open up a new realm for investigation.
My response:
Good. I like your answers.
I wrote:
One thing is obvious that there is no life without a physical body.
Your reply:
Something we agree on!
My explanation:
We are living with a physical body. We need a tongue to have different taste sensations. We need eyes to find things and people and enjoy life by seeing. There are also other factors in the body to have different sensations. That is obvious. So we need a body to live. So when the body dies I can’t live without a body. But there is another truth that I am not this body. But there is a possibility of continuing through another body. I explain that below.
I wrote:
But there may be a possibility of taking another body which is continuity of life through physical bodies.
Your response:
Sure, that’s possible. The problem is that there’s no good evidence that it actually happens.
My explanation:
There are even scientific evidences. Unfortunately those evidences are subject to arguments. Seeing the truth directly and personally without any evidences is good to understand the possibility of taking another body.
I wrote:
It is not necessary to have an immaterial soul to continue from one body to another.
Your question:
Then where is the continuity? A dies; B is born. If there is no immaterial soul, then what is it that “continues from one body to another”?
My answer:
It is good question. You ask if there is no immaterial soul, then what is it that “continues from one body to another”? What is it that continues in this changing physical body and the changing mind?
Why do you need a soul to continue? Can’t we continue without a soul? If you can continue now without a soul then there is a possibility of continuing from one body to another. It is obvious that we are continuing now in this body. How do we continue now? If we know how we continue now then perhaps we can find the possibility or know the natural process which makes us to continue to another body in the same manner we continue now.
You buy a tasty food and keep it to eat tomorrow or one week later. So there is a continuity of existence. Otherwise you can’t enjoy the taste of food after one week. How do you continue to exist from today to tomorrow? You are sure that you will continue to exist till the body dies if nothing happens to your body adversely. If you are able to continue till birth to death then you should find out how your continuity of existence happens. If we are able to continue till birth to death without soul then it may be possible to continue to next birth too without a soul.
If I want to come again what should I need? May I come again as exist now if any Scientist brings all the molecules which made my body again together? Don’t say it is impossible. Scientists made many impossible things possible. But there is a problem.
Do I want the same molecules which composed my body to come again? Do I keep the same molecules till birth to death? No! So why does I need the same molecules to come again? So what I need to come again?
My question:
What is it that lives or what is the living thing that exists now?
Your answer:
The living body.
My explanation:
In the living body there are many cells and organs. In the body nothing exists permanently. So, which part of the body is engaged in living a life? It means which part of the body has all sense of experiences? Can we say that our legs are involved in the enjoyments and sufferings of life? Can we say that our heart is doing that? Is it brain? If it is brain the question arises, which part of the brain?
My question:
What is it that dies or come to an end?
Your answer:
The living body.
My explanation:
Living body is not permanent. Only the shape appears to be permanent. But inside the shape of the body death is being taking place in many ways. Cells are dying. New cells are being born. Even the shape slowly under goes changes. The body I had when I was a child does not exist no more. The body of a young man will not exist when he become old. Perhaps the sick people may transplant their organs. Your answer is living body. Is the living body remains the same always? Thoughts are arising and dying. Emotions are arising and ending. There is no permanency whether in physical or psychological. I think that answer is not the living body but there should be another reality to live the life.
My question:
So what we lose when death take place?
Your answer:
Life, and all the things that go along with it.
My explanation:
So what is life? Seeking enjoyments and rejecting sufferings and struggling to exist to fulfill the desires is life. Enjoyments and sufferings cannot last long. So there should be an existence other than the body and sensations to live a life. Do you accept that?
When we start a fresh life with a new body all the things we have should go. It is a cleaning process. It is like disposing all old records and old unusable things.
What is the purpose of life? Why do the molecules assemble together and make this body and struggle to exist and make all the pleasures and sufferings? Molecules assemble and make a form. Again the molecules de assembles and go out safely. The form just an appearance disappear. So what is it that come to end. Just an appearance. Do we keep our appearance always same?
A.Sriskandarajah
Sriskandarajah,
Using the “blockquote” tag to surround text you are quoting helps with readability.
For example:
<blockquote>Something I am quoting</blockquote>
Becomes:
Like a defense attorney, you don’t have to believe your defendant to be in fact innocent in order to sort through the available information and develop the best tactic for getting the jury to come back with a “not guilty” verdict.
That I don’t consider the Pam Reynolds case to be personal knowledge (by how I define knowledge – my personal experience), and do not use it for any significant personal worldview purpose, doesn’t mean that I don’t have the information about the case and see how that information is relevant to the arguments made in this debate (or others) and is apparently contradictory to the case presented by the anti-afterlife team.
I can sort, categorize and use relevant information, keiths; that doesn’t mean I consider that information to represent facts about the world or that I am advancing it as personal knowledge. That doesn’t mean I am using that information to defend or argue for my personal views.
The reason I used the Pam Reynolds case and refer to the Schwartz and other published research is because that is information that is more relevant to a debate with people that routinely dismiss non-scientific information. That is the case of the debate; it was supposed to be a scientific debate. If you’re going to go to a scientific debate and present a case for the afterlife, you need to sort through your information and select that which is scientific in nature. Arguments based on the purported facts of the Reynolds case, the Schwartz research, and potentially through quantum physics – would have been the way to go in this debate because that information would be scientific in nature and not philosophical musing or personal anecdote and memory.
OMagain, I usually don’t respond to things that are obvious, but I’ll make an exception in this case. The very information you quoted from Wiki clearly explains why the challenge is not scientific in nature. The preliminary test is non-blinded; this is not scientific. “Failure to display a 100% success rate in the open test will cause their immediate disqualification” is not scientific; if success rates of 100% were required in, say, pharmaceutical testing, we’d have no drugs on the market. A significant variance above the statistically expected norm is all that should be scientifically expected to advance through the testing process.
As your quote states, there is no independent judging and James Randi – who is not a scientist – has final say in the judgment, and he has a huge conflict of interest.
There’s nothing scientific about any of it, and the whole thing is unreasonable and smacks of fraud. Your own Wiki quote shows this.
In fact it’s more like this:
The PSI claiment says “I can do X”.
They are then asked to do X under “normal” conditions.
If they cannot do X then the trial is over. If they cannot do the thing they claim to do then why continue?
If then can do X then they are asked to do X under controlled conditions.
If they can do X under controlled conditions, and “doing X” was agreed at the start of the test to be the winning condition, the money is paid.
What you don’t get is that the claimant agrees what the winning conditions are in advance. All Randi does is accept that result, somebody has to, and pay the money.
No, you don’t understand the purpose of the initial test – if they can’t do X under uncontrolled conditions why bother to proceed?
The judging consists of “did the test subject do the thing they claimed they could do but under controlled conditions”?
It’s not an opinion of Randi if they passed the test or not. It’s simply was the condition met, and Randi is the judge of that.
Of course, you could add weight to your claim by giving an example of somebody who claims to passed the test but then was refused the prize. But you won’t do that as you’ve already ignored the fact that I gave you an update on the one court case you could find, as it was decided in Randi’s favour.
It’s ironic that you say this when you should know it’s the PSI/Mediums etc who are the purveyors of fraud here.
People asking them to do what they do without the ability to pull strings or have assistants pass them messages via hand signals is, according to you, fraud.
Whatever William, whatever.
No wonder you were taken in by a faith healer, you do not have the mental equipment needed to see through such frauds. That’s no shame, most people do not have that equipment.
And that’s the point. People like Uri Geller have convinced plenty of scientists that he has real PSI powers. Scientists are not generally equipped to spot deliberate, calculated, planned fraud.
There are scientists who are also accomplished stage magicians, and what do you know! Those scientists were *not taken in* by Uri (I can supply references but what do you care about facts?) so what does that tell you?
And this is why people like Uri Geller fool people like you. It’s “obvious” that he’s really bending that spoon!
What might be illustrative is if you, William, describe an experimental protocol designed to test if PSI powers are real or not.
How would you test someone who claimed they could read minds? Or reproduce pictures locked away in a safe? Or move objects with the power of their mind?
How would you determine if the claimant passed the test?
I then responded with this quote from the court case:
Please support your claim that “Sincere applicants are turn away or ignored if Randi thinks he might have to pay out” as the example you gave has now been adjudicated by an independent 3rd party (as you desired, the court system) to not support your argument.
OMagain,
The court case has nothing to do with whether or not the test is scientific; it shows that Randi simply refuses many applicants without even giving them an initial test.
It’s not obvious to me at all. I have no idea if Uri Geller can actually bend a spoon or not.
Chronic illness does not just cause suffering in the form of pain. In fact, the vast majority of chronic suffering has little to do with physical pain; it has to do with the loss of control of one’s means of living and one’s enjoyment of living. These are not temporary sufferings.
Do not try to hand wave my point away by calling my comments irrelevant. That is a sure sign that you don’t have a very strong point of your own.
Robin said:
Are those suffering under those conditions immortal?
Sigh. Whatever, you are obviously never wrong, and therefore pointless to talk to.
Anybody can bend a fucking spoon.
It is my belief that William has not shown this. If William had evidence for this he should show it. As no such evidence has been produced I do not believe he has made his case.
It also seems that William is also unable/unwilling to describe a protocol to scientifically test if PSI powers are real or not.
I suspect he has not responded to this point as any such protocol he would devise would be a remarkable similarity to Randi’s proposed test.
As this would directly undermine William’s argument, I believe he has simply chosen to ignore it.
As such, William is free to continue to criticize without explaining how he would improve on such a test. And as we all know, it’s easy to poke holes in something but difficult to improve something. Anybody can criticise. Few can construct.
Hence the popularity of ID with people such as William where the only “science” that ID does is to poke holes in “Darwinism”. Very small holes at that.
I’ve already referred to such research and protocols several times – Drs. Gary Schwartz and Julie Beischel have developed and used just such protocols for years.
http://www.drgaryschwartz.com/files/QuickSiteImages/BeischelEXPLORE2007vol3.pdf
It appears that William has, once again, mistaken “something claims X” with “something is actually X”.
In this instance William has labelled something as unscientific (Randi’s tests) but has been unable to explain the reasons for that label.
William has then pointed to other research which he has labelled as scientific.
If, as William appears to do, the opinion of scientists are respected over the opinion of non-scientists (i.e. Randi) then the matter would appear to be a simple one to resolve.
For example, a cursory search shows that scientists dismiss the work done by Gary Schwartz:
From: http://www.skepdic.com/refuge/afterlife.html
The conclusion (the article is worth reading in full):
Unconvincing…
And Bieschel?
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Julie_Beischel
Those numbers represent further information you can look at. I note this for Williams sake.
So, if only scientists opinion counts, then there are many many more scientists who say the work of Drs. Gary Schwartz and Julie Beischel is unscientific then those that support them (afaik it’s just Gary and Julie supporting each other!).
I would suggest to people like William that they do a cursory check on those they would use to support their arguments. However, if recent history is a guide, then none of this will matter as William will likely say that his only point was that PSI research is being conducted by scientists, not that it is good, scientific research or that the results are meaningful.
Even those in vegetative states? I think you know what I meant.
In any event, the idea that Uri Geller can “fool” me, or that I”m “fooled” by any of the sources of information I’ve provided demonstrates that you’ve missed a salient point I’ve made over and over: I don’t hold any of that information as true. How can I be “fooled” that something is true, when I don’t hold that it is true?
I only care if something appears to work in my experience.
I’m really the last person that can be “fooled” into believing something to be true by any source whatsoever. I don’t even consider my interpretations of my own experience to be necessarily true models; I only care that the models apparently work. I don’t care if “the Secret” (or any manifestation system like it) is all, in truth, utter crap and all my experiences of manifestation are delusions and hallucinations; that model has still apparently delivered me to the state I was intending. I don’t care if there is, in truth, no afterlife and mediumship is all BS; it’s irrelevant to the purpose of such assumptions in my worldview system.
It appears to me that people who think like this are low-hanging fruit for dishonest students of human psychology.
James Randi:
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/4081-i-want-to-be-if-i-can-as-sure-of
I never said “only scientists opinions count”; I said that the proper way to conduct a scientific test is to set it up using scientific methodology and by using scientific criteria to judge the results – not one stage magicians biased, conflict-of-interest opinion.
Using a triple-blind methodology and comparing the results against the expected norms is, IMO, the scientific way to perform and evaluate such research. If you disagree, that’s fine with me.
That consensus, mainstream scientists dismiss such research as “pseudoscience” is irrelevant. Consensus, mainstream science has dismissed all sorts of research in the past that has later been accepted and has since become part of the mainstream.
Randi has debunked many psychics over the years, saving many people from suffering false hope (their dead relatives are talking to them!) and preventing, no doubt, the earning of millions from the more credulous among us. And not to mention the potential saving of lives by exposing faith healers for what they are.
Yet if it were up to people like William, those faith healers would have no cause for concern. Scientists unaccustomed to being manipulated for profit would continue to affirm the claims of mind readers, and those who demand a more rigours accounting are deemed as “unscientific” and unqualified to speak on the matter, despite being able to replicate *all* the key bending, mind reading tricks that have fooled the scientists.
http://listverse.com/2008/04/10/top-10-psychic-debunkings/
Harmless fun….
OMagain,
Let me ask you a philosophical question:
What difference does it make if every model I employ worldview-wise is utter bullshit, as long as I am a productive, law-abiding member of society, pay my taxes, not harming anyone else, supporting and taking care of others who need me, and am quite happy and joyful in my life?
It seems William believes he is better equipped to comment on if Drs. Gary Schwartz and Julie Beischel’s work can be considered scientific then actual scientists.
It seems that William is unable to appreciate the fact that tricksters can trick scientists under most conditions. Only someone who understands the tricks in use can prevent “triple blind” experiments being manipulated. And what happens when that happens? All evidence of PSI abilities vanish! Co-incidence? I suspect William would have a reason why not…
“They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”
Carl Sagan
Why would anyone want to have a ‘conversation’ with such a person whose bullshit makes bullshit look bad?
The internet made them do it?
If you want to have an actual conversation that involves more then just raising a point then ignoring a factual counter-claim and acting as if the counter was not raised then that’s really up to you, not me.
This sword cuts both ways. If Randi is familiar with the way that psychics fool scientists, then Randi can easily fool others – like you, me and scientists – that real psychics are frauds. Since Randi’s reputation and means of earning a living (not to mention his million dollars) are at stake, why shouldn’t we consider it just as likely that it is Randi (and other professional skeptics) that is using trickery to fool others, bilking money out of their supporters?
If it was up to me, I’d advise ALL people to never go to a faith healer that charges money – or, at the very least, never go to one that charges up front. As far as psychics are concerned, I don’t think they bilk money out of the gullible at any near the rate that legal but misleading and manipulative advertising bilks money out of the gullible public, or at anywhere near the rate political organizations bilk money out of people.
IMO, the disproportionate attention to faith healers and psychics is indicative of some kind of emotional, ideological vendetta.
Desperate.
Nonetheless you are still part of the problem, not the solution.
Is that right, o-internet expert on all things.
Here’s the problem with your argument, Omagain;
If scientists agree with your ideological predisposition, you accept their conclusion.
If scientists disagree with your ideological predisposition, you reject their conclusion and refer to a stage magician with a conflict of interest.
You claim that scientists can be fooled into disagreeing with your ideological predisposition by “tricksters”, but refuse to acknowledge that scientists can just as easily be fooled into agreeing with it by professional (James Randi) “tricksters”.
You point to mainstream scientific consensus when it supports your ideological predisposition in dismissing contrary research, but refuse to acknowledge that in the past mainstream scientific consensus (in dismissing research or a theory) has very often been wrong.
Please note that the deciding fulcrum in how you assess every aspect of the argument depends only on your own ideological presupposition.
What problem? I’ve never paid a faith healer a cent in my life.
And yet, here you are, eliciting a conversation. Can you answer your own question?
Why shouldn’t they also be able to bend spoons?
I was struck by a fundamental contradiction between an assertion/concession made by Moody and Alexander’s entire narrative.
Specifically, at about 1:07, Moody states that William James was probably right to say that for whatever experience one has there is certainly a correlated state of the central nervous system.
Alexander is arguing the opposite WRT his coma experience – his argument is premised upon the claim that his meningitis was of such intensity that there could not have been a brain (neorcortical) state that accompanied/accounted for his experiences.
Utterly wrong. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll go through line by line and explain why. Not that I would expect you to do the same. You should try it sometime. It might be enlightening.
In short, rather it’s simply that the more outside the mainstream the claim the more diligently the evidence for that claim is examined.
If I claim I have proof for X and you ask to see my methods, and they are shoddy and incomplete, what trust would you then put in my proof of X? Especially if I can only show you that proof in a dark place, say a hat?
keiths:
William:
I see. So in addition to your “high intellectual standards”, you also have “high” moral standards that permit you to say anything that will get your audience to agree with you, even if you regard it as well beneath your own intellectual standards. That’s an interesting confession.
Sriskandarajah,
You could make it easier for us to be patient with you if you would do a few things:
Sriskandarajah:
I understand that, but the question we are addressing in this thread is whether there is an afterlife. You say there is, in the form of reincarnation. Can you make an argument supporting your position?
Sriskandarajah:
keiths:
Sriskandarajah:
That doesn’t answer my question. What, precisely, is continuing from one body to the next?
And how can you distinguish between these two scenarios?
1) A dies and is forever gone. B is born.
2) A dies and is reborn as B.
What evidence tells you that scenario #2 is happening instead of scenario #1?
During the debate, Moody stated that he had never experienced an NDE.
Yet according to this review of his book Paranormal, he does claim to have experienced one:
Alexander lies about Sagan and conceals his past, and Moody apparently can’t even decide whether he has or hasn’t experienced an NDE.
What great ambassadors for the pro-afterlife position.
keiths said:
First, I never said anything about being willing to “say anything”- that’s just your dismissive hyperbole. Second, how absurd it is that you think I can make others experience what I experience. Personal experience is my standard for knowledge; I cannot make others experience what I have experienced. All I can do is relate it, but when I do that it becomes testimonial/anecdotal evidence at the other for those who are listening to it or reading it. Of course I cannot utilize that which I hold as the standard of acquiring knowledge because there is simply no way for me to share it.
So, absent the capacity to plug others into what I experience (my intellectual standard for acquiring knowledge), the best I can do is sort through the information and find that which corresponds as much as possible to the kind of debate at hand and to the evidence preferences of those involved in or are judging the debate.
William,
Read your quote again:
Nothing about truth, nothing about logic, nothing about intellectual standards — just “the best tactic for getting the jury to come back with a “not guilty” verdict” — whatever that tactic happens to be. It’s manipulation to produce a desired behavior, with no other restrictions whatsoever.
That I didn’t happen to say anything about truth or logic or intellectual standards in that paragraph doesn’t give you license to infer that I wouldn’t consider any of those things in the debate. I also didn’t say anything about not rigging the voting system and not threatening or bribing the voters. So? Do I have to provide an exhaustive list of qualifiers to prevent you from employing every conceivable notion that would paint me out negatively?
You do not have to believe your defendant is innocent to defend presumed innocence with integrity and up to a high intellectual standard.
In a debate, being a devil’s advocate is taking a position you personally do not agree with in order to see how well you can argue it or how well someone else can respond to it. There’s nothing untruthful or lacking in intellectual standards about this practice. It is perfectly permissable (and, IMO, the sign of a high intellectual standard) to take a view you do not personally agree with and see if you can successfully argue for that side on its merits. That would include sorting through the available information and coming up with the best argument you can given the nature of the debate – scientific, or philosophical, or even rhetorical.
You might stop trying to negatively characterize me at every chance you get. It’s leading you to make erroneous inferences.
What would be a violation of integrity as an intellectual standard is if one was attempting to fool others by not stating up front that they don’t personally hold the position you are about to argue to be true. For example, Moody admitted up front that he didn’t think that the afterlife was a proper scientific question at this point – but, if that’s his view, why did he involve himself in a scientific debate about the afterlife? He immediately dismissed anything that might have even been considered scientific evidence as “pseudoscience”.
Alexander, on the other hand, considered the evidence valid, but he tossed it in like an afterthought late in the game.
Personally, I don’t hold the scientific research to be valid or not valid; to be true or not true. I don’t hold it as knowledge in the idiosyncratic way I define “knowledge”, but that doesn’t mean I consider the scientific data untrue. I don’t consider testimony by other people to be knowledge on my part, no matter how credible they appear to me; that doesn’t mean what they are testifying about is not true.
So, obviously, when I’m sorting through information to make a case in a particular debate, the debate is not about what I personally consider to be true (in the sense of a factual condition of reality) because other than “I exist”, I have virtually no such claims about reality. As far as communicating truthfully, that is one of my intellectual standards – even if I know I’m going to get ridiculed about it, I will communicate truthfully to the best of my ability; however I can only communicate truths about my experience, not about “reality” beyond that.
Alexander obviously thought there was scientific merit to some psi research. He should have gone through the information and presented the best case without lying about any of it – obviously. A defense attorney cannot legally get a witness to LIE under oath, fabricate evidence to clear his client, threaten or bribe jurors or otherwise subvert the justice process; but he still must defend his client to the best of his ability otherise.
Keiths:
Make arguments instead of asking endless questions, some of them quite irrelevant.
Sriskandarajah:
Questions only make you to inquire into any phenomena. Questions only open the door to truth. I don’t ask you any questions in future.
I don’t argue supporting my position. I only explain what I have understood in the search of what I am.
You didn’t answer my initial questions and didn’t understand what I say. That is why I had to ask questions endlessly to make you aware of yourself.
I didn’t ask you any irrelevant questions. All my questions are related to my own existence. Unless you understand your own existence you will never understand anything about the meaning of person or after life. That is why endless arguments are going on in this world without knowing the truth of our existence.
Keiths:
You say there is, in the form of reincarnation. Can you make an argument supporting your position?
Sriskandarajah:
There is an existence other than the body cells and sensations which continues till birth to death. It exists. Only the existing body which under goes changes goes forever.
Keiths:
Then where is the continuity? A dies; B is born. If there is no immaterial soul, then what is it that “continues from one body to another”?
That doesn’t answer my question. What, precisely, is continuing from one body to the next?
Sriskandarajah:
Yesterday I was happy. Today I am very sad. Happiness gone. But I didn’t go with the end of happiness. The reality which continued from the emotion of happiness to the emotion of sadness continues from one body to another. This is a fact. There is a very deep understanding in this continuity of existence. You have to see this truth in yourself. That is the only way.
Without an immaterial soul if I am able to continue from my birth to death then I don’t need a soul to continue even from one body to the next. The same way the reality passes to another body.
Keiths:
And how can you distinguish between these two scenarios?
1) A dies and is forever gone. B is born.
2) A dies and is reborn as B.
What evidence tells you that scenario #2 is happening instead of scenario #1?
Sriskandarajah:
I don’t know what you mean by A and B. You say that A has gone forever because the physical body identified as A is dead and gone. The body existed for a certain period ends forever which means there is no way for the same body to appear again. The body is identified as A. So you say A dies and is forever gone. Ending of the body make us to think that A has gone forever. When I was a child I had a physical appearance. That physical appearance gone forever. It doesn’t exist now. I think that cells made my childhood appearance also dead and gone. That body will never come back. There is no regret. Because I am not dead. The same body is no more in existence. Ending of body cannot be an evidence to say that the reality continued with the body also gone forever. When A dies another existence B is born if A and B are identified as physical existence. A dies and is reborn as B if A is identified as the reality which continued throughout the life in a permanent state.
If A and B are identified as physical existence then A or B cannot be a permanent existence. If it is a permanent existence then only there is a meaning to say that A gone forever. If A is not a permanent existence then there is no regret if it has gone forever. But a permanent existence will not end with the end of body.
Better explanation is there are no A and B. Really there is I and You. I am not the brain. When the brain dies I lose my ability to experience anything. But when I get another body again I start to feel all experiences including the world.
A.Sriskandarajah
Good grief. Doesn’t anyone do background checks on these guys?