Topics Existence

Question Hello everyone. Quixotic Question: has anyone written anything on a materialist versions of reincarnation? I mean, suppose you cut all the baggage, from karma to "reincarnation research" and the like, and keep strictly to a physicalist worldview (particles and field, say). If you do this necessary surgery, is there anything left to say on the subject (if so, I'd be happy to read about it, so long as the aforementioned surgery has been applied)? Gracias, just a bit curious...

Accepted:
January 31, 2013

Comments

I'm not sure who has written on the topic under the specific guise that you ask about, but a good deal of work on personal identity certainly bears on it. The philosopher's question would be whether reincarnation (or something like it) is possible on a physicalist view. And on at least one important account of personal identity, the answer is yes. That account is the "psychological continuity" view. It would say that if there's enough psychological continuity (apparent memories, beliefs, attitudes...) between an earlier person and a later one, then (depending on the version of the view) we either have a case of one and the same person at two different times or of two stages of one and the same person. This would be so regardless of whether we had bodily continuity, though there might well be added clauses about the later person/stage being causally connected to the earlier in the right sort of way, and/or that there not be any "competition" (i.e., no duplicates).

For example: suppose you step into a teletransporter that scans all the information about you, disintegrates your body, beams the information elsewhere and then uses it to assemble a person at the new location. Someone like Derek Parfit would say that so long as there's no duplicate at the end of the process, the newly-constituted being is you -- even though s/he is made of different matter. (Parfit would add that even if there is duplication, everything that's important for survival is still there; Parfit doesn't think identity is important for survival.)

There are other views that have the same upshot. In general, any view of personal identity that doesn't require bodily continuity will likely allow at least in principle for something like reincarnation.

We can close with a small, obvious caveat. The word "reincarnation" suggests the re-embodiment of a non-physical soul or whatnot. If someone insisted that this is what they meant by reincarnation, then what's been described above wouldn't count. But it' alreadt clear from the way you've posed your question that the notion you're interested in doesn't have that restriction.