Topics Religion

Question An atheistic blogger recently responded to a question about reincarnation by saying that he was certain that the mind's energy simply dissipates impotently, once its host (the body) is no more. Why, though, is the concept of reincarnation any more ridiculous than it is for my wireless laptop to transmit an intangible email, and for another computer to receive and reconstitute it, in a similar form though not exactly the same?

Accepted:
November 6, 2005

Comments

There seems to be nothing incoherent in the idea of a mechanism that 'clones' structural features of one person's brain and produces another person with similar personality and dispositions (cf. the transporter on Star Trek). But there is no evidence whatever that such a mechanism actually exists.

It's also not clear why, if your mind were "cloned" in this way, the resulting creature would be you. If your thoughts and memories can be transferred in this way to another body, then they could presumably be so transferred while you remained as you are. That other person is not, I take it, you, so why should that person be you if your thoughts etc are so transferred but your current body is destroyed?

This kind of puzzle has been much discussed in the literature on personal identity. See Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons for a start on it.