Can anything be deduced from the fact that a thing exists? I suppose many of us might answer 'yes. If it exists, it is compossible- i.e. can occur in our world.' What if the thing is miraculous? It oughtn't to exist and yet it does. We might say that it is mysterious or we might appeal to some undiscovered natural law or mechanism which permits its occurrence. Immortality means not dying. Are we immortal? Our body perishes, it is true, but does our essence, our soul, survive?
The Philosopher, Michael Huemer claims that he has proved that our existence is evidence of immortality.
Abstract: Time may be infinite in both directions. If it is, then, if persons could live at most once in all of time, the probability that you would be alive now would be zero.
If you are alive, the probability of your being alive is one. The fundamental probability formula is P(A) = (Number of favorable outcomes) / (Total number of possible outcomes). One is the number of favourable outcomes (i.e. your being alive). It is also the only possible outcome if you are in fact alive. This is because it isn't possible that a living person is dead. 1 divided by 1 is 1.
Since you are alive now, with certainty, either the past is finite,
Your past is finite. It seems likely that the life of this universe is finite. Even if this were not the case, it seems likely that the far future of the universe will be different from the far past or the present.
or persons can live more than once.
There are people who claim to remember past lives. Can they also remember future lives? In either case, they should be able to give us very useful information. To my knowledge, this has not happened.
1. Overview Do persons continue to exist after the destruction of their bodies?
No. On the other hand, maybe there is bodily resurrection at the end of days. This is affirmed by three great world religions.
Many believe so. This might occur either because we have immaterial souls that persist in another, non-physical realm; or because our bodies will be somehow reanimated after we die; or because we will live on in new bodies in the physical realm.
It is also possible that we can simultaneously occupy several different bodies.
I shall suggest herein that the third alternative, “reincarnation,” is surprisingly plausible.
Indeed. We see the grandson of our beloved friend from childhood who passed away many years ago. We might be forgiven for embracing the grandson believing him to be the reincarnation of our friend.
More specifically, I shall argue (i) that your present existence constitutes significant evidence that you will be reincarnated,
the existence of dinosaurs was significant evidence that dinosaurs would continue to dominate the world.
and (ii) that if the history of the universe is infinite, then you will be reincarnated.
But will you know it? If so, you could supply future historians with important information about the times you lived in. If not, it may still be the case that you suffer punishment for sins committed in a previous life. The social utility of this dogma is it gives people an incentive to be good. The drawback is that we may have a 'blame the victim' culture or else a fatalistic attitude.
My argument is entirely secular and philosophical. The basic line of thought is something like this. The universe has an infinite future.
Anything may be said to have an infinite future, unless it doesn't.
Given unlimited time, every qualitative state that has ever occurred will occur again, infinitely many times.
The problem here is the 'law of increasing functional information'. If there is selection pressure for increased complexity 'eternal recurrence' would be improbable. The other problem has to do with identifying the 'qualitative state' which is believed to repeat. Suppose, I make money by promising to endow my clients with immortality. The Estate of one such, who has passed away, sues me. I reply, your beloved father is still alive. He has taken the shape of a dolphin in the Atlantic ocean. I doubt a Jury would believe me. How could I prove a particular dolphin was the person I promised immorality to?
This includes the qualitative states that in fact brought about your current life. A sufficiently precise repetition of the right conditions will qualify as literally creating another incarnation of you.
Not if there is a random element or 'deterministic chaos' in the underlying process. Moreover, how could this claim be verified? A person may have a duplicate but if his soul has not entered the duplicate body, there is no 'incarnation'. An identical twin brought up separately, but under identical circumstances, is still a different person.
Some theories about the nature of persons rule this out; however, these theories also imply that, given an infinite past, your present existence is a probability-zero event.
We only use probability when direct evidence is unavailable. But our own existence is directly verifiable. Suppose I read that 40 percent of South Indians have type O blood. Only about 5 percent have type AB. Thus, I think I am likely to have O, not AB blood. But once a Doctor confirms that I have AB blood, I accept this is the case. If he says I have the blood of a lizard, I don't believe him. I get a second opinion.
Hence, your present existence is evidence against such theories of persons.
It certainly is evidence that this planet supports life. I suppose an astronaut with amnesia who lands on a planet may wish to carry out some tests before venturing upon its surface. However, if he is welcomed by people who look like him, he may not bother to do so.
Given an infinite past, it is conclusive evidence.
Why, then, is it not being presented as such? Also, how come people say the 'Big Bang' occurred 14 billion years ago?
In what follows, I elaborate the reasoning more precisely and address objections to the idea of reincarnation,
He means objections to the idea that there may be lots of planets containing people exactly like us at different times in the infinite history of the Universe. But having a duplicate does not mean you are reincarnated.
including that the correct theory of personal identity rules out reincarnation,
Christians and Atheists don't seem to be missing out on anything by having what Hindus might believe in the wrong theory. The good news is if someone claims to be the reincarnation of a guy you borrowed money from, you don't have to pay him.
that the notion of reincarnation requires a false doctrine of mind/body dualism,
does having the right doctrine give you an advantage in life? Perhaps. Some religious communities appear to be doing better, statistically speaking. Is it because they have a superior dogma or is it because they are more diligent and enterprising?
and that the heat death of the universe will prevent our living again
or our form of life being able to survive.
One problem with the standard (finite-past) Big Bang theory is that the theory requires the universe to have simply started out, for no reason, in an extraordinarily improbable state, one with extremely low entropy.
How could it start with high entropy?
It has been calculated that the probability of the initial state being as the theory takes it to be (if, so to speak, an initial state were chosen randomly) is less than 1 in 1010124 .
Which is why new universes aren't popping up all the time.
You might think that, despite its improbability, it is permissible to postulate the very low entropy initial state for the universe, if this is required to explain what we observe.
Being able to make better predictions or having a structural causal models which enables us to get better outcomes is highly desirable. Currently, cosmology appears to have useful applications.
But it is not required, for here is an alternative hypothesis: Perhaps, rather than 14 billion years ago, the universe began in 1950, with everything in the state that we in fact believe it to have been in then – including human brains configured so as to have false memories of an earlier past, including dinosaur bones buried in the ground just as if dinosaurs had lived millions of years ago, and so on.
I suppose one could go further and say the universe began one second ago. But would this be useful? For me, maybe. I don't owe the Bank money. Also, my books are just as good as JK Rowling's. It isn't the case that my laziness and stupidity have made me a terrible writer.
This hypothesis is many orders of magnitude more likely than the standard Big Bang theory – that is, if you consider all the physically possible configurations for all the particles in the universe, a larger proportion of these configurations have the universe being as we think it actually was in 1950 than have it being as we think it was at the start of the Big Bang. So if you are postulating a starting state with no explanation, you might as well postulate the 1950 starting state
The problem here is the SCT used in cosmology is very useful. Moreover, we could make great technological strides by having a better model of the early universe. There is no similar advantage to choosing 1950. Still I suppose the defeated Axis powers might have benefited by the notion that they had no 'war guilt' and thus need not pay reparations.
I suppose, in ordinary life, we find it useful to hold to certain dogmas. I like the idea or Heaven and Hell or the notion that good people get reborn on a Paradisal planet. It reconciles me to much manifest injustice. Still, I have to admit that there are far nicer and more productive people than me who don't believe in an after-life. Indeed, they are more praise-worthy for that reason. I might say 'God denied them the gift of faith. It was a test. They passed with flying colours!' But then I have to admit my own great culpability in not doing what is pleasing to God.
The Poincaré Recurrence Theorem
which only applies to 'conservative' or 'non-dissipative' systems. Sadly, it appears the Universe is not 'conservative'. Neutrino decoupling happened within a second of the Big Bang.
states that a physical system limited to a bounded region of phase space will (with probability) return arbitrarily close to its initial state given sufficient time.
unless a 'dissipative' process- e.g. neutrino decoupling- occurs.
Given infinite time, it will repeat the initial state, to any desired degree of precision, infinitely many times.
Sadly, there is hysteresis because of dissipative processes. Ergodicity is violated.
Does the Poincaré Recurrence Theorem apply to the universe as a whole?
To our best knowledge, no.
It may not, for the universe may continue expanding indefinitely, in which case its phase space is unbounded. But if our universe has an infinite past as suggested in section above, then it is probably cyclical, meaning that it does not expand infinitely but goes through cycles of expansion and contraction. In that case, it will repeat its present state, to any desired degree of precision, at some future time.
If the universe is infinite in space, there may be identical versions of the earth scattered across it. But how does it help us if they are outside our 'light cone'? We will never observe them and they will never observe us. I suppose there is some real number which, properly interpreted, represents all information about every moment in my life. But it is inaccessible to me. Even if I find a number which is accurate about my past, the likelihood of its being right about my future approaches zero.
If instead we are part of an infinite multiverse that periodically spawns new daughter universes, then, although our universe may never return to its current state, other daughter universes will approximate to our universe’s current state, with any desired degree of precision.
This does not help us if that 'daughter' is inaccessible.
Note also that the argument for reincarnation only requires there to be a recurrence of a person sufficiently similar to you;
No. Reincarnation, conventionally interpreted, has to do with a common 'karma'- i.e. inheritance of past merit or demerit. Speaking generally, there is no expectation that your next birth will be similar to this birth. I will be reborn as a pig because my behaviour has been swinish. The Dalai Lama will be reborn as a monk able to expound the sacred mysteries of Buddhist scripture. This is because he is like the 'Boddhisattva' who delays his own 'Nirvana' so as to benefit fellow creatures seeking release from the wheel of rebirth.
the entire surrounding universe need not be the same.
You aren't the same and the world isn't the same. Some advanced mystics may say that all souls are just the same soul or even that the Universe is a sort of hallucination. In itself, it is nothing. There may be great spiritual benefit in going down this road. But can if help STEM subject research? At one time, it seemed possible. There were great Quantum Theorists who were inspired by mystical writing from the East. But did any Eastern mystics become great Scientists? As far as I know, this was not the case.
What I call the Bayesian Conception of Evidence is an idea motivated by probability theory, especially Bayes’ Theorem.
It only applies where beliefs are updated on the basis of new data. It does not apply where there is direct evidence available. The teacher may ask 'Is John present?'. John puts up his hand and stands up. The teacher recognizes him and marks him present. The same teacher may be asked by the Headmaster 'will John be present tomorrow?' He may reply 'I believe he will. He has an unbroken attendance record and appeared in good health when I saw him this morning. He is a diligent, conscientious, boy.' However, if the next day John is absent from the class, then the teacher marks him as absent. Upon inquiry, he may find that John isn't a diligent boy. He bunked off school to attend the Cinema with his chums.
The idea is that evidence supports a hypothesis when that hypothesis renders the evidence more probable.
The problem is that the hypothesis may not be falsifiable. Whatever new data is received can be explained away. I say I was Queen Victoria in a previous life. You ask me what I said to Lord Palmerston in 1862. I reply that astral rays from planet Venus are interfering with my memory. Still, I have a hazy recollection that I told him to shave off his mutton-chop whiskers. You reply that Lord Palmerston was clean shaven. Also, Victoria did not receive guests in that year as she was in mourning for her husband. I put the blame on Planet Venus and continue to maintain that I was Queen Victoria. You can't disprove it any more than I can prove it. After all, even if I gave the correct answer to the question, I may have mugged it up from history books.
That is, the evidence should be something that would be more likely if the hypothesis in question were true than if it were not. In mathematical terms: Bayesian Conception of Evidence: E supports H if P(E|H) > P(E|~H)
I conclude that Eternal Recurrence is likely, especially so if the past is infinite.
Our current existence is certain, otherwise we could not question it. But, just because we exist now doesn't mean we always existed or will exist forever. We may say 'God created up in his image with an immortal soul. God is the guarantee that the good and faithful people will enjoy eternal bliss by his side'. Why this should be so is a mystery.' If pressed, we may give examples from our own life which have confirmed our belief in God's grace. We may say, this is 'Bayesian'. We may go further. We may say 'if bad tings had happened to me, maybe I would have lost my faith. All the more reason to be grateful to God rather than judgemental of others.'
Bayesian Conception of Evidence: E supports H if P(E|H) > P(E|~H) This is subject to the qualification that the initial probabilities of H and ~H must each be nonzero (otherwise, neither can be supported).
Not if there is Knightian Uncertainty or incomplete information re. all possible states of the world. Negative probabilities may arise as mixing distributions of unobserved latent variables in Bayesian modelling. A version of Bayes rule can be given for negative mixing weights.
Furthermore, the degree to which evidence supports a hypothesis is determined by the likelihood ratio, P(E|H) / P(E|~H): the higher this ratio is, the more strongly E supports H.
If H is directly known, there is no belief. There is certainty. John is in the class, because the teacher can see him there. He may say 'I am astonished to see you. I thought you would be sure to bunk off school!'
Why hold this view? Because it is a theorem of probability that whenever P(E|H) > P(E|~H) (and P(H) and P(~H) are nonzero), then P(H|E) > P(H), which means that the truth of E makes it more likely that H is true.
If John is present, it is more likely that he isn't a habitual absentee. There may be good in the boy, yet.
For any given value of P(H), it can be shown that as the likelihood ratio (P(E|H) / P(E|~H)) increases, the ratio P(H|E)/P(H) increases monotonically. I have so far taken no stand on what propositions should be considered to correctly state our evidence. I have assumed only that there are some propositions that state our evidence, and that, whatever they are, if they render some theory more likely to be true, then we have evidence for that theory.
Is there a falsifiable proposition of this type? Can you prove I wasn't Queen Victoria as I claim to be?
The Indexicality of Evidence Sometimes, our evidence is indexical – that is, it can only be correctly characterized using an indexical expression such as “I” or “now”, rather than using purely qualitative terms. To illustrate, imagine that you flip a coin ten times. To your surprise, you observe it come up heads all ten times. Question: Do you now have evidence that many coins are flipped at least ten times each, somewhere in the universe, by someone?
Yes. Because you did it, others like you probably do it too. People like flipping coins. On the other hand if you flipped your motorcycle ten times in a row and people stared at you and made adverse comments, it is unlikely that other people are doing the same thing.
I assume the answer is obviously no. But suppose we were to describe the evidence, nonindexically, as that a coin comes up heads ten times in a row. The probability that a coin comes up heads ten times in a row is higher if many coins are repeatedly flipped, than if not many coins are repeatedly flipped. For example, to a first approximation, it is twice as likely that at least one coin comes up heads ten times in a row if there are two coins being repeatedly flipped than if there is only one. It is even more likely if there are a thousand coins, and almost certain if there are millions of coins. Applying the Bayesian conception of evidence, therefore, we might claim that the evidence supports that there are many coins that are flipped, somewhere in the universe.
No. The fact is people like flipping coins. They don't like flipping cows or motorcycles ten times in a row. Indexicality does not matter.
The fallacy is straightforwardly diagnosed: the evidence one acquires in the scenario is not merely that some coin comes up heads ten times in a row.
but also that all similar coins will behave in the same manner. It may be that coins in some distant country and manufactured in a different way and thus have a bias. But such is not the case with the coins familiar to us.
The evidence one acquires is that this specific coin comes up heads ten times in a row. Flippings of other coins, however many there may be, have no effect on the probability of this coin’s coming up heads ten times. Therefore, the observation of this coin’s behavior is not evidence either for or against the existence of any such other coin flips.
But there is a 'supplementary' hypothesis regarding the nature of coins we come into contact with. Does this have to be spelled out? Not really.
The fallacy is straightforwardly diagnosed: the evidence one acquires in the scenario is not merely that some coin comes up heads ten times in a row. The evidence one acquires is that this specific coin comes up heads ten times in a row. Flippings of other coins, however many there may be, have no effect on the probability of this coin’s coming up heads ten times. Therefore, the observation of this coin’s behavior is not evidence either for or against the existence of any such other coin flips.
Nor is it evidence that any coin flipping took place. One may have hallucinated the whole thing. However, if you have no history of hallucination, this hypothesis is unlikely. On the other hand, when I say 'I flip the coin and find to my surprise', I may be speaking rhetorically. I did not actually perform the experiment.
Are your Poincaré clones incarnations of you?
No. They are like people who resemble you and who are of similar background. I recall meeting a 'Vivek Iyer' who looked like me and had studied economics. We shared the same opinions and interests. But within about 5 minutes, I realized we weren't alike at all. He had actually read a lot of books. I was merely bullshitting. If we prolonged the conversation, I would be found out. Perhaps he already realized this was the case. He showed no eagerness to continue our conversation.
Many would say that a Poincaré clone is merely another individual very much like you, rather than literally you. When we speak of personal survival, we are interested in the existence of the very same token individual after the destruction of their body, not the appearance of another individual of the same type. Hence, many would say, eternal recurrence is irrelevant to personal survival.
Indeed. Still, it may provide solace to some people.
Whether a Poincaré clone of you is literally you depends upon the correct theory of persons. At least some non-absurd theories of persons would allow your clones to be literally (different stages of) you.
For some purposes, they may be- e.g, for the purpose an organ transplant.
Call these “Permissive” theories of persons. Thus, perhaps there are certain repeatable characteristics such that, whenever there is a unique person having those characteristics, that person counts as you.
Why say unique? Why shouldn't there be a whole bunch of such people? It may be that the same soul can occupy many bodies.
These characteristics could include a certain type of brain configuration, certain mental capacities, certain character traits, and so on. They could include complex, disjunctive properties; dispositional properties; relational properties; or any other repeatable properties, taking “properties” in the broadest sense. Note: Despite the picturesque talk of Poincaré clones, a Permissive theory need not demand a high degree of similarity between your current and future incarnations; a theory counts as Permissive just as long as the conditions for being you are held to be repeatable.
It is still only a theory. Only if you can point to existing examples do we have a 'repeatable' type of confirmation- e.g. a DNA test which, no matter who carries it out or at what time, always yields the same result. Consider scientific testing for Extrasensory Perception. When I was young, many believed that the thing had been achieved. The CIA and the KGB had 'remote sensing' operatives who could enter each others top-secret facilities by means of astral projection. Sadly, there was a 'replication problem'.
Your present existence as a living, conscious being is evidence for a Permissive view of persons, and hence for actual reincarnation.
Evidence that a lot of people ignore completely isn't really accepted as such. Equally, if a theist says 'only God could have created Man. It could not have happened by chance' many might reply 'we don't know that. Currently, it looks as though it could have been merely a matter of chance. True, if there were some process associated with living beings which is known to be beyond physics- i.e. metaphysical- our view might change.'
From the Indexicality of Evidence (section 4.2), the proper characterization of the evidence is that you are alive now; your evidence is not, for example, merely that some person having such-and-such qualitative characteristics lives at some time.
It is something we can confirm repeatedly e.g. by asking people if they can see and touch us. If they can, than we are at least as alive as they are. True, you might say 'a person who does not follow my creed is not truly alive. They have a zombie existence'.
From the Bayesian Conception of Evidence (section 4.1), this counts as evidence for a Permissive view of persons, provided that the probability of your being alive now given
that you think you are alive- this has probability equal to one unless, for some reason, you think you may be a ghost which is why you can pass through walls.
a Permissive view of persons is greater than the probability of your being alive
You can't have a probability greater than 1.
now given a Restrictive view of persons, that is: P(L|H) > P(L|~H) where L = [You live now], and H = [Some Permissive view of persons is correct].
It is unlikely that any view we currently hold is 'correct'. It may be useful enough but it is likely to yield to something more complex and yet more useful. Consider the problem of people declared dead on the basis of lack of a pulse, no apparent brain activity etc. In one case, in Taiwan, such a person came back to life while suffering a sexual assault by a mortuary attendant. I imagine that the case was investigated and medical protocols were improved. Currently, there is no single decisive test for 'proof of death'. A variety of tests are used.
And this probabilistic condition in fact obtains.
Macroscopic objects either exist or they don't. Recourse to probabilistic reasoning only occurs where the thing is difficult to verify. Thus, I think there is high probability that no one born in 1850 is alive today. I may be wrong.
You would be more likely to be living now if persons could live many times than if persons could only live once in the history of the universe.
Trump is more likely to be POTUS if there were billions of POTUSES. This makes it likely that I am the President of America.
Whether we take a Permissive or Restrictive theory of personal identity has no effect on the probability of there being a person qualitatively like you existing at the present time – but a Permissive theory makes it more likely that such a person would be you.
No. The probability remains 1. Direct confirmation is available and is repeatable.
In fact, as I shall presently show, given an infinite past and a Restrictive theory of persons, the probability of your being alive now would be zero.
That may be true. Cosmologists may explain why if the universe has an infinite past, neutrino decoupling could not have occurred and the conditions for life to emerge would not have been met.
We start with a general lemma about unrepeatable events. Let E be any event that may occur at a particular time. Suppose we are given the following: i. E can occur at at most one time in the history of the universe.
Like neutrino decoupling?
ii. The history of the universe is infinite.
This may contradict (1). A physicist may be able to explain why.
iii. E is initially no more likely to occur at any given time than at any earlier time.
Again, this may contradict (1). If there are 'dissipative' processes it is highly unlikely.
Conditional on just these assumptions, the probability of E occurring now or in the recent past is zero.
It approaches zero. One divided by infinity is undefined.
Why zero? If it occurs at all, E must occur within some particular century, either the present one or an earlier one. (By stipulation, count the last 100 years as “the present century”. A century is an arbitrarily chosen time interval; any nonzero time interval will work for the argument.) Suppose the prior probability that E would occur in the present century is said to be 1%.
This just means we believe the thing would be rare. But if we see the thing, the probability becomes 1.
Given assumption (iii) above, the prior probability of E’s occurring in the previous century must be at least 1%, and in the century before that also at least 1%, and so on.
This is so because it is an absurd assumption. What is happening here is a reductio ad absurdum.
Given assumption (i), these probabilities are additive: the probability of E’s occurring in the previous two centuries would be at least 2%, in the previous three centuries at least 3%, and so on. That means that the prior probability of E’s occurring within, say, the past 200 centuries would be at least 200%, which is absurd.
No. Once you hit hundred percent you say- if my hypothesis is correct, the thing must have already happened. But your hypothesis is not correct. We might as easily say the fact that aliens have not made contact with us proves aliens don't exist. But we haven't made contact with aliens (to whom we would be the aliens) and we do exist.
The same problem occurs if we instead choose a probability of 0.1% (just consider the previous 2000 centuries), 0.01% (consider the past 20,000 centuries), and so on. Given an infinite past, the problem can be generated for any nonzero probability. The only way to avoid probabilities adding up to more than 100% is for the probability of E’s occurring in the present century to be zero.
We only believe that things we currently think off as impossible- e.g. a flying pig- have probability zero. We may be mistaken.
If a theory predicts, with probability 1, that some event should not occur, and that event in fact is known to occur, then the theory is thereby conclusively refuted.
Sadly, there may be a supplementary hypothesis which makes it unfalsifiable.
As just discussed, the conjunction of (i), (ii), and (iii) predicts, with certainty, that E does not occur in the present century.
By a supplementary hypothesis, we may say the E which occurs is not the E we meant.
If we know for certain that E has occurred in the present century, then we must reject the conjunction of (i)-(iii). If we are confident of (ii) and (iii), we should reject (i). If we have some initial credence in each of (i)-(iii) but are unsure of each, then we should lower our credence in all three. Now substitute your being incarnated (that is, beginning a life as a conscious being) for E. According to Restrictive theories, (i) you can only live once in the history of the universe.
An even more restrictive theory may be that you are only truly alive at one moment of that life.
As discussed above (section 2), it is plausible that (ii) the history of the universe is infinite.
but is it useful?
Finally, (iii) a priori, if you were to live in some century, it is no more likely that it would be the present century than that it would be any given previous century.
No. If you are alive it can only be in the present.
On the Restrictive view, your living in any past century would have prevented you from living now.
I was alive in the twentieth century. But I am not living there now.
Since there are infinitely many past centuries, this should have happened long ago, unless the probability of your being born in any given century is zero. But in that case, the probability of your being alive now would be zero. Since you know for certain that you are alive now, you must reject, with full confidence, the conjunction of (i)-(iii).
You could reject it anyway because it isn't useful to you. If you want people to believe in reincarnation tell them about the child in America who had perfect recall of having been a fighter pilot during the second world war. He was only 2 years old when he started talking about how his plane crashed.
Suppose there are two demons, Q1 and Q2, who periodically kidnap people. Q1’s procedure is as follows: After kidnaping a victim, he flips a fair coin ten times within an hour. If it comes up tails at least once, he kills the victim. If it comes up heads all ten times, he releases the victim unharmed. Q2 is even more diabolical. After kidnaping a victim, Q2 flips a fair coin an infinite number of times within one hour, using his demonic supernatural powers.
God may intervene in each of those infinite coin tosses.
If it ever comes up tails in this infinite series, he kills the victim. If it comes up heads on all flips, he releases the victim unharmed. 10 Now suppose you have just been kidnaped by either Q1 or Q2; you can’t tell which, and you assign a nonzero chance to each. You anxiously await your fate. One hour later, you find yourself being released unharmed. Given this experience, which demon kidnaped you?
It doesn't matter. If you are released by a demon, God must have worked the miracle.
The answer is Q1. It is initially unlikely that you would still be alive an hour after being kidnaped by Q1. But it is much less likely that you would still be alive after being kidnaped by Q2.
If a demon has a supernatural power in tossing coins, God must have an even greater power to determine the outcome. Indeed, perhaps the demon is constrained to do only what God wants him to do. He set a test for you. By giving thanks only to God, you pass the test.
In fact, though it is logically possible for the coin to come up heads infinitely many times in a row, the probability of this happening is zero.
Not if we are talking about gods and demons.
Similarly, the probability that you would be alive now, if persons were unrepeatable (could not be reincarnated) and there were an infinite past, is zero.
God can perform miracles- i.e. cause a state of the world to be which has zero probability.
Therefore, once you find that you are alive now, as long as there is a nonzero initial probability that persons are repeatable or that the past is finite, you can infer with certainty that either persons are repeatable or the past is finite.
From stupid nonsense any stupid nonsense may be inferred. This is 'ex falso quodlibet' aka the 'principle of explosion. What is at work here is the 'intensional fallacy' relating to 'non zero initial probability'. It sounds as though it has a well defined extension. But what is that extension? Is it the number of 'repeatables' as a proportion of the population? But to find that number you have to identify at least one repeatable. Has any such person been found? True, there may be people who say the remember their past lives. Perhaps, that number is higher in rural India than urban America. But there is no way to prove the 'reincarnation' is genuine.
If you think the past is infinite, you should infer that persons are repeatable.
Provided you make some additional assumptions. But you could also hold that every moment is a unique theophany. The book of the Universe never falls open at the same page twice, nor does the same soul endure more than for a moment (this is the Buddhist doctrine of 'momentariness')
And if they are repeatable, then they will repeat, given sufficient time. That is how existence is evidence of immortality.
It is also why dinosaurs still roam the earth.
Reincarnation indeed precludes viewing persons as ordinary material objects, given our current conventions for the individuation of ordinary material objects.
A Doctor may believe in incarnation while viewing his patients as 'ordinary material objects' of a particular type.
A physicalist can, however, view persons as temporally gappy spacetime worms.
He can also view the Sun as having its hat on.
Such gappy spacetime worms are not recognized in our everyday conceptual scheme, but there is nothing absurd and, moreover, nothing particularly non-physicalist about recognizing such objects.
As a matter of fact the law may identify the beneficiaries of a trust in this matter.
To explain, notice that some material objects may be spatially scattered. For instance, if I own a suit, I might at a particular time have the pants in the closet and the jacket at the dry cleaner. There would thus be a spatial gap between the suit’s parts.
There is always such a gap. You don't tuck your jacket into your pants.
No one thinks that this requires the suit to possess some special, non-physical component that explains how the two parts can be separated from each other yet be parts of the same suit.
That is merely a matter of convention. When I was young it was customary for the tailor to give you two pairs of trousers along with the jacket. This was because trousers need to be replaced more often. As affluence increased and suits got cheaper- even for lowly clerks like myself- this ceased to be the case. People bought suits in different colours and styles. By the time the trousers wore out, fashions would have changed.
Similarly, perhaps the life of a person may be temporally scattered, containing multiple sub-lives that occur in widely separated time periods.
Also, the person may be spatially scattered. The head may be up in the clouds unless it is lodged up the person's rectum.
The Principle of Indifference and A Priori Probabilities Some would object to the probabilistic reasoning used above in establishing zero probabilities. For instance, I claim that because there is no a priori reason why one should expect to have been born in the present century rather than the previous century, it is initially at least as likely that one would have been born in the previous century as in this century.
Only if it is just as likely that today is yesterday or the day after tomorrow.
Some would object to this sort of reasoning because it is reminiscent of the controversial Principle of Indifference, which holds that when there is no reason for preferring any of a set of alternatives over any other, all the alternatives are equally likely. (This principle is of course meant to apply to epistemic probabilities, not objective chances.)
Thus, I might say 'Hindu reincarnation is just as likely as the Christian Heaven or Hell'. I might 'hedge my bets' by performing both Christian and Hindu rituals. Sadly, if Christianity is the true religion, I may be punished for this.
The Principle of Indifference is controversial because it is possible to divide up the same space of possibilities in different ways, and one can then generate inconsistencies by assigning equal probabilities to “all the alternatives,” for different ways of classifying the alternatives.
It may be a useful enough heuristic device. I get lost in a foreign city. Should I turn left or right? Or should I sit down and begin weeping? I think I'd pick one road or the other and hope for the best.
The Principle of Indifference therefore requires a privileged way of dividing up a space of possibilities.
It requires a useful way of doing so. But this is true of all Principles. Either they are useful in a particular context or they are irrelevant.
Consider an analogy: suppose you flip a coin ten times and record the results. You get heads, tails, heads, heads, tails, tails, tails, tails, tails, heads.
We say there is little Shannon information or 'surprisal' here.
The probability of getting that precise sequence of results is (1/2)10 = 1/1024. That’s pretty improbable! Should you therefore be surprised at the sequence?
No. It looks random. You would be surprised if you get ten heads. Maybe the coin is biased.
Presumably not, for that sequence is no less likely than any of the alternatives. Every possible sequence of ten coin-flip results has a probability of 1/1024. And the same thinking applies to the time that you find yourself living. Even if this particular century
he means a period of 100 years. Few people are older than a 100. If they are they wouldn't be surprised that they weren't born in this century.
had zero initial probability of being the one in which you were born, it would not be surprising to be born in this century, if every century had zero initial probability of being the one in which you were born. Or so one might argue. In reply, the issue is not really one of what observations should count as “surprising.” The issue is which observations justify probabilistic inferences about which theories. And what matters to the probabilistic reasoning is not the probability of an observation compared to the other possible observations. What matters is the probability of an observation given a particular theory, compared to the probability of that same observation given an alternative theory. In the case at hand, you observe yourself existing in the present century. This is a probability-zero occurrence given the Restrictive view of persons and an infinite past time.
It really isn't. I exist and know my existence to be probability equals 1. This would not change even if changed my belief about whether or not the universe has an infinite past. The two things are independent. One might say, people could have a different dogma about such matters but that they way they form expectations remains the same. One way of differentiating dogma from 'science' is that dogmas may be 'observationally equivalent'- at least for the moment.
In outline, the philosophical argument for reincarnation goes like this: 1. Infinitude of Time: Time is infinite in both directions.
This is a dogma which is compatible with pure materialism without any after life.
(Premise) 2. Infinitude → Recurrence: If the future is infinite, then every repeatable condition that obtains has obtained before, and will obtain again, infinitely many times.
This is a conjecture. It states that the Universe is non-dissipative. Sadly, scientific evidence points the other way.
(Premise) 3. Recurrence → Reincarnation: If every repeatable condition that obtains will obtain again infinitely many times, then you will be reincarnated infinitely many times.
This does not follow. What is required is some mechanism whereby the same soul reappears in another body for reincarnation to occur. The fact that you have infinite copies in the Universe doesn't mean you are any of those copies.
For: a. The probability of your being alive now, given an infinite past and given that the conditions required for you to be incarnated are unrepeatable, is zero. (Premise)
It is one because you know you are alive. Doctors can perform repeated tests to establish this is the case.
b. You are alive now. (Premise) c. The past is infinite. (From 1) d. Therefore, the conditions required for you to be incarnated are repeatable. (From 3a, 3b, 3c) e.
This is the condition for duplicates of you to exist. But if your soul does not enter their bodies there is no 'incarnation'- i.e. taking on of the flesh.
Therefore, if every repeatable condition that obtains will obtain again infinitely many times, then you will be reincarnated infinitely many times.
Not unless there is some mechanism by which the soul enters a body. The Indic religions have a complicated theory of how this happens. But they also offer a way to stop this endless cycle. They view the soul as evolving over successive lives till it attains liberation from re-birth. They don't stipulate that you will belong to the same species in each birth.
(From 3d) 4. Reincarnation: Therefore, you will be reincarnated, infinitely many times. (From 1, 2, 3)
In which case Indic religions are false. Whatever you do, you will keep getting reborn. Many would view this as a bleak prospect. As in 'Kavka's toxin' you gain by convincing yourself that liberation is possible. This is like 'Pascal's wager'. It is useful to have a belief you personally benefit from- e.g. believing in God and Heaven or believing in Liberation from the Cycle of Rebirth.
Premise 3a is the most likely target of philosophical suspicion; this premise embodies the most unusual type of thinking involved in the argument.
It is absurd to assign a probability other than one to your own existence when you can easily verify that you aren't a ghost.
That thinking is nevertheless correct. If you were to live at most once in the history of the universe, we cannot justify assigning any probability greater than zero, initially, to your living at the present time,
No. 1 divided by infinity isn't zero. It is undefined.
given an infinite number of past centuries in which you could have been born instead. The best explanation for your otherwise surprising present existence is that
Mummy & Daddy had sex.
you are repeatable, so that your living at an earlier time would not have prevented you from living now – in which case, your present life also will not prevent you from living any number of future lives.
Assuming there is no possibility of release from the wheel of re-birth. Indic religions give an explanation of how reincarnation occurs and then outline a method to become free of it. People have found it useful for millennia. What this author has written is not useful. It is foolish.
No comments:
Post a Comment