How can rebirth exist when it goes against scientific laws?

TheEccentric

And science is fact.

vinlyn

I'm not at all convinced of rebirth, but how does it go against scientific laws?

robot

TheEccentric said:

And science is fact.

Can you fill me in on which laws it's breaking?

TheEccentric

The fact that the mind is produced fron the brain, proof of this is that when people receive brain damage your mind changes e.g damage to the hipocampus causes memory loss.

Surely when the brain dies your mind must cease to exist as it comes from the brain.

federica

Re-birth happens every day, every moment...Cells die off, new ones replace....You are in no way shape form or matter, the same person you were 10 years ago. At all.
And your thoughts, opinions, PoV's and views change, sometimes frequently.

Voltaire once said "It should be no more surprising to be born twice, as it was to have beeen born once."

So yes, I'd also like clarification...
What Scientific Fact are you referring to?

vinlyn

TheEccentric said:

The fact that the mind is produced fron the brain, proof of this is that when people receive brain damage your mind changes e.g damage to the hipocampus causes memory loss.

Surely when the brain dies your mind must cease to exist as it comes from the brain.

As I said, I am unconvinced about rebirth. But you don't know what "scientific laws" are.

TheEccentric

federica said:

So yes, I'd also like clarification...
What Scientific Fact are you referring to?

The fact that conciousness comes from your brain, akso just the gneral fact that something can't just happen magically like a mind suddenly leaving and old body and entering a new one.

federica

You need to get your 'facts' right.
You're muddling 're-birth' with 'reincarnation'.

Try to sort out what you mean, before spouting controvertible comments....

karasti

Science is not always fact. Science is often theories that have been tested multiple times. Things go against what we know in science all. the. time. Just because aspects of the brain change due to any number of factors, including lifestyle, genetics, upbringing, education, meditation, medical problems/intervention, medication, and so on doesn't mean there still can't possibly be something else there that is deeper than what science can prove as fact.
That said, being Buddhist or practicing Buddhism doesn't mean you have to believe in rebirth if it doesn't work for you.

federica

Consciousness 'lives' in several sections of the brain. Therefore, it's not a simple case of brain-damaged people having 'no Mind' because they have proven that even people supposedly in a vegetative state respond very readily to some verbal suggestion and communication.

TheEccentric

federica said:

You need to get your 'facts' right.
You're muddling 're-birth' with 'reincarnation'.

Try to sort out what you mean, before spouting controvertible comments....

I do no the difference between the two rebirth is the mental continuum being reborn having no fixed or permanent self and reincarnation is your soul being reborn.

federica

Not quite.
but I'm not prepared to get into an argument here.
Suffice to say you haven't totally grasped it.....

person

It is assumed that the brain produces the mind, but so far it is only correlation that is shown and not causation.

It could be that brain (A) produces mind (B) A -> B

But it could be B -> A or

A <-> B or

O -> A and B or

it could even be neither like the convex and concave sides of a semi circle



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation

There are plenty of good reasons to assume that the mind is wholly a product of the brain but there is no explanation for how or why matter gives rise to immaterial experience. So all I'm saying it isn't a scientific fact.

robot

federica said:

Not quite.
but I'm not prepared to get into an argument here.
Suffice to say you haven't totally grasped it.....

An explanation of your view wouldn't hurt.
I often find myself thinking that folks who accept rebirth but deny reincarnation are somehow not grasping it.
I know birth has happened. My mom told me it did. Can I be born again? No way.
Maybe someone else who thinks he is me will be born. Who knows?

person

My personal opinion is that the brain controls the content of our consciousness but the basic fact of having qualia or the inner movie of our minds is due to what Buddhists call the fundamental clear light of mind. Kind of like a movie projector, the brain is the film, the clear, light mind is like the light source and then our experience is the movie on the screen.

David Chalmers talks about the "hard problem of consciousness", that we're more and more able to discern the contents of consciousness through brain scans but we have no way of explaining or even proving the fact of an individual being conscious. :mullet:

federica

Your consciousness is devoid of identity.
The 'someone' born with your consciousness will not be aware of you.
It will simply be aware.....
Your mother reliably informed you that you were born.
Could she with certainty say you were born before?
No.
Could she with certainty, deny it?
No.

Reincarnation is a different concept altogether; there is (apparently) residual memory and some traces of the previous existence.
I am sceptical on this score, but as for rebirth, I am open-Minded.

Who - or what have I been before THIS existence?
I cannot say, but my consciousness and willingness to accept the possible, leaves me open to finding my way back, should such an opportunity present itself......

Beej

if the mind is produced from the brain, as you state, then we should be able to cut a brain open and point to exactly which part of it is the "mind", right? nope. we can't.

robot

federica said:

Your consciousness is devoid of identity.
The 'someone' born with your consciousness will not be aware of you.
It will simply be aware.....
Your mother reliably informed you that you were born.
Could she with certainty say you were born before?
No.
Could she with certainty, deny it?
No.

Reincarnation is a different concept altogether; there is (apparently) residual memory and some traces of the previous existence.
I am sceptical on this score, but as for rebirth, I am open-Minded.

Who - or what have I been before THIS existence?
I cannot say, but my consciousness and willingness to accept the possible, leaves me open to finding my way back, should such an opportunity present itself......

Thanks for that. It makes sense to me.

Jeffrey

Yes I think you have to ask about how matter produces mind before you can conclude that losing rupa/form leads to the end of mind. The brain is the physical of the mind sense. Mind sense needs the organ, the brain, but it also needs the phenomenon examined and the sense. For example if I am thinking of a rose I need the organ, the content (a rose), and the sense (the phenomenon of thinking).

As you see there needs to be those three things. Mind and body are not two, rather they interpenetrate.

Beej

and, just to clarify, science is faith in almost all cases, not fact. until you yourself do the science, take the measurements, test, re-test, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, etc, then you are "believing" what you claim is fact in a "faith" based manner. just because a Phd says so, you choose to believe?

karasti

For me, there is enough evidence out there that *something* that exists in us, has the ability to leave our physical bodies and still exist. Too many cases of near death experiences where a "person" wakes up and is able to detail things that happened to them and things that were said and done that they would not have been able to see. Details about what was happening on areas of their body that they couldn't have seen even if their eyes were open and so on.

I don't claim to know exactly how it works, nor do I just believe every story out there. But there have been enough of them with people who I know personally and other experiences that leads me to believe there is something that is apart from our physical body.

But it also seems to be that regardless of what this other part is, it does retain at least some of what is experienced in each life, it's not a blank slate each time otherwise we'd never make progress towards enlightenment (or anything else). I do believe what we do in our present life, makes a difference on this consciousness (or whatever you want to call it) so that when it chooses a new host body, it is obviously not the same as it was when it chose this body.

Dakini

TheEccentric said:

And science is fact.

Science is a work-in-progress. It's constantly evolving, with new discoveries being made all the time, revolutionizing our understanding, and making previous theories obsolete (Einstein's "God does not play dice with the universe" claim is now obsolete).

Furthermore, science can't explain consciousness yet. Science has its blind spots and inadequacies. Give it time. It may get there within your lifetime.

vinlyn

TheBeejAbides said:

and, just to clarify, science is faith in almost all cases, not fact. until you yourself do the science, take the measurements, test, re-test, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, etc, then you are "believing" what you claim is fact in a "faith" based manner. just because a Phd says so, you choose to believe?

There are a lot of reasonable criticisms of science. This is not one. It's totally impractical.

Jeffrey

If you have a moon reflected in a pool of water you cannot say that the moon is the only source of the image, because without the pool you would have no image. Just like that you wouldn't have any mind without the organ AND the other parts: object of the mind and mind sense.

The yogacara says that there are not just six mind senses (five sense and mind). It says that the seventh sense is the whole problem in that it is an 'I' sense. This mind needs to be transformed. The eighth mind sense is the alaya or seed consciousness where all of the non-manifest seeds of consciousness are stored. I think the alaya is what is reborn but I am not sure.

DaftChris

No it doesn't.

Science and spirituality are always changing; just becasue science shows us how our physical world works, it by no means is the final reason for why anything is the way it is. The science of today is different from the science of even 100 years ago and it will more than likely be different in another 100.

To me, the people who back behind only science (or religion for that matter) and claim is has every single answer in the world are deluded and not open to other possibilities. They can't stand the possibility of being wrong and must always be on top.

Beej

vinlyn said:

TheBeejAbides said:

and, just to clarify, science is faith in almost all cases, not fact. until you yourself do the science, take the measurements, test, re-test, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, etc, then you are "believing" what you claim is fact in a "faith" based manner. just because a Phd says so, you choose to believe?

There are a lot of reasonable criticisms of science. This is not one. It's totally impractical.

It was not a criticism of science. it was a criticism of perspective.

aMatt

TheEccentric said:

And science is fact.

False consensus and premise? Isn't science a process?

Monkey fishing?

Namaste

Jason

TheEccentric said:

federica said:

So yes, I'd also like clarification...
What Scientific Fact are you referring to?

The fact that conciousness comes from your brain, akso just the gneral fact that something can't just happen magically like a mind suddenly leaving and old body and entering a new one.

A. That's not how the process of rebirth is generally understood. B. While I don't think it can be denied that specific mental events appear to be contingent upon corresponding physical events in the brain, and that there's a link between consciousness and the body via the brain, I'm not convinced that this in and of itself proves that consciousness is merely an emergent property of the brain, or that it ceases to exist when the brain itself no longer functions. Correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation.

One reason for my skepticism is that neuroscience is a relatively new field, so who knows what discoveries will be made in the future as both the field and the technology available to neuroscientists advances. Another reason is that many people approaching this issue who get the most attention (e.g., Sam Harris) are doing so from a physicalist perspective, but there are others who aren't as convinced; and when I read things like The Holographic Universe, Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer, or even some of Rupert Sheldrake's crazy ideas regarding morphogeneic fields, I can't help but think that maybe it's not the whole picture. In addition, I think B. Alan Wallace makes an interesting point in an interview with Steve Paulson when he says:

This very notion that the mind must simply be an emergent property of the brain — consisting only of physical phenomena and nothing more — is not a testable hypothesis... Can you test the statement that there is nothing else going on apart from physical phenomena and their emergent properties? The answer is no... If your sole access to the mind is by way of physical phenomena, then you have no way of testing whether all dimensions of the mind are necessarily contingent upon the brain.

Just some things to consider.

lobster

Reincarnation is outside of our experience, like heaven or other dimensions.

If anyone should say “I will not follow the teachings of the Buddha until he tells me whether the world is eternal or whether after death an enlightened person exists or does not exists” these questions will remain unanswered until that person should die.

Suppose a man were wounded by an arrow thickly covered by poison, and his friends and relatives brought a surgeon to treat him. The man might say “ I will not let the surgeon pull out this arrow until I know whether the man who fired it was a warrior, priest, merchant or farmer. Until I know the name of his tribe. Until I know whether the man who fired it was tall, short or medium height. Until I know where he lives.”

All this would remain unknown and meanwhile the man would die. So too, if anyone should say “I will not follow the teachings of the Buddha until he declares whether the world is eternal or whether after death an enlightened person exists or does not exists” that too will remain undeclared and meanwhile that person will die.
http://thinkingspace.com/post/view/id/4/title/Buddhist+Philosophy

Death is a fact. Life is a fact. Enlightenment is [insert current situation].

karmablues

Some views of famous scientists on reincarnation/rebirth:

Benjamin Franklin:

Thus, finding myself to exist in the world, I believe I shall, in some shape or other, always exist; and, with all the inconveniences human life is liable to, I shall not object to a new edition of mine, hoping, however, that the errata of the last may be corrected.

Thomas Huxley, a biologist:

In the doctrine of transmigration, whatever its origin, Brahminical and Buddhist speculation found, ready to hand, the means of constructing a plausible vindication of the ways of the cosmos to man... Every sentient being is reaping as it has sown; if not in this life, then in one or other of the infinite series of antecedent existences of which it is the latest term. The present distribution of good and evil is, therefore, the algebraical sum of accumulated positive and negative deserts; or, rather, it depends on the floating balance of the account. For it was not thought necessary that a complete settlement should ever take place. Arrears might stand over as a sort of 'hanging gale'; a period of celestial happiness just earned might be succeeded by ages of torment in a hideous nether world, the balance still overdue for some remote ancestral error.

Whether the cosmic process looks any more moral than at first, after such a vindication, may perhaps be questioned. Yet this plea of justification is not less plausible than others; and none but very hasty thinkers will reject it on the ground of inherent absurdity. Like the doctrine of evolution itself, that of transmigration has its roots in the world of reality; and it may claim such support as the great argument from analogy is capable of supplying.

Thomas Edison:

Man is not the unit of life. He is as dead as granite. That unit consists of swarms of brilliant, highly structured entities which live in the cells. I believe at times when a man dies, this swarm deserts the body - goes out into space; but keeps on and enters another cycle in life and is immortal.

Sir Julian Huxley, a biologist:

There is nothing against a permanently surviving spirit-individuality being in some way given off at death, as a definite wireless message is given off by a sending apparatus working in a particular way. But it must be remembered that the wireless message only becomes a message again when it comes in contact with a new, material structure — the receiver. So with our possible spirit-emanation.… I can think of something being given off which would bear the same relation to men and women as a wireless message to the transmitting apparatus; but in that case ‘the dead’ would, so far as one can see, be nothing but disturbances of different patterns wandering through the universe until either they were destroyed or came back to actuality of consciousness by making contact with something which could work as a receiving apparatus for mind.

Carl Jung:

I could well imagine that I have lived in former centuries and there encountered questions I was yet unable to answer; that I had to be born again because I had not fulfilled the task that was given to me. When I die my deeds will follow along with me - that is how I imagine it. I will bring with me what I have done. In the meantime it is important to ensure that I do not stand at the end with empty hands.

JohnG

So, is fact law? Or is law fact? :coffee:

lamaramadingdong

Nature is a fact.
Science is an educated guess. One that is often right, but not to be confused with the stuff and processes it describes and the stuff and processes themselves.

Cinorjer

TheBeejAbides said:

if the mind is produced from the brain, as you state, then we should be able to cut a brain open and point to exactly which part of it is the "mind", right? nope. we can't.

That's like claiming if the mind is separate from the brain, then I should be able to remove a big hunk of your brain with no observable difference to your mind. And we know that isn't true.

Jeffrey

What if scientists hook you up to a machine that records your brain waves. They say that you must be thinking about sex. But you know you were having a memory of your old dog.

Do you believe your own mind sense? Or do you believe the scientists.

Which one is more fundamental? Awareness?

rivercane

How can ghosts exist? What about clairvoyance and precognition? These go against scientific law.

Not everyone believes of course, but many do. Just because it doesn't fit into our current scientific paradigm doesn't mean it's not true.

Beej

Cinorjer said:

TheBeejAbides said:

if the mind is produced from the brain, as you state, then we should be able to cut a brain open and point to exactly which part of it is the "mind", right? nope. we can't.

That's like claiming if the mind is separate from the brain, then I should be able to remove a big hunk of your brain with no observable difference to your mind. And we know that isn't true.

if you ask a Tibetan where their mind is, they will point to their heart. and almighty science has just discovered that there are thousands of nuerons in the heart. so.... where is the mind, now?

robot

People who have heart transplants do not change into different people, to state the obvious.

TheBeejAbides said:

Cinorjer said:

TheBeejAbides said:

if the mind is produced from the brain, as you state, then we should be able to cut a brain open and point to exactly which part of it is the "mind", right? nope. we can't.

That's like claiming if the mind is separate from the brain, then I should be able to remove a big hunk of your brain with no observable difference to your mind. And we know that isn't true.

if you ask a Tibetan where their mind is, they will point to their heart. and almighty science has just discovered that there are thousands of nuerons in the heart. so.... where is the mind, now?

Beej

what you are describing is brain functionality. you are not describing mind. mind is what jeffrey so aptly described up above. mind is the co-op between all that you observe and the tools that you use to observe theses things. its an inseperable expression that requires more than the scientific method to understand.

zsc

For people bringing up the problem of consciousness:

If the mind isn't necessarily dependent on the brain, why is it when a person's brain is completely destroyed they are completely and utterly dead. I don't mean brain damage that turns people into vegetables. I'm talking a severed head. If someone's brain is disconnected from what keeps it alive, why doesn't the mind continue to animate the rest of the body and have that unlucky fellow go about his merry way?

Beej

gah.... i'm overmatched. i bow out. i think what i have read about mind, as it pertains to buddhism, isnt really what most people in this discussion are talking about.

robot

TheBeejAbides said:

gah.... i'm overmatched. i bow out. i think what i have read about mind, as it pertains to buddhism, isnt really what most people in this discussion are talking about.

Hang in there.
A picture tells a thousand words.

karasti

@zsc how the brain makes the body work, the autonomic nervous system is not the same as consciousness or mind...it's a pretty complex organ. Once the body can no longer play host to the mind/consciousness, that aspect departs.

robot

karasti said:

@zsc how the brain makes the body work, the autonomic nervous system is not the same as consciousness or mind...it's a pretty complex organ. Once the body can no longer play host to the mind/consciousness, that aspect departs.

The word "departs" causes confusion for me. But it probably describes the way a good percentage of people see things.
My understanding is that mind and body arise in dependence on each other. So when the body dies the mind subsides. The connection to any subsequent arising is beyond my understanding by far.

Beej

okay, i'm back. but this time i have science on my side. lol! @Cinorjer- sorry i can not post the link because my device doesnt copy from the browser, but its from ScientificAmerican.com and its titled, "Strange But True: When Half a Brain is Better Than a Whole One". Here's an excerpt:

"The surgery is known as hemispherectomy.....Unbelievably the surgery has no apparrent effect in personality or memory".

Thats half of the brain, removed. Thats a big hunk of brain.

The point of what i was ineloquently saying earliear, is that "mind" isnt one thing.... its all things, and science tries to boil things down to singular expressions, which is fine for papers or lectures or grant writing or careers but its not fine for explaining rebirth. I am not an anti-science religous freak. But i am smart enough to know that blind faith in science, the faith that calls it irrefutable fact, is just a gap filler for the lack of faith in a revealed religion. I am not saying that science isnt a fabulous tool for getting to know aspects of the world and universe.... but it is limited as we know it right now. Science is still getting its sea legs, and its a choppy freakin ocean out there filled with a begingless cycle of rebirth and giant squid yet to be observed. Thats what I was really trying to say. Science is an accepted measurement until we devolop tools that can measure in even tinier magnification. Quarks, anyone?
EDIT: and for the record i dont consider "personality and memory" acceptable definitions of mind, but apparently science does. its a different language and that is perhaps where the differing viewpoints of "mind" stem from?

pegembara

TheEccentric said:

The fact that the mind is produced fron the brain, proof of this is that when people receive brain damage your mind changes e.g damage to the hipocampus causes memory loss.

Surely when the brain dies your mind must cease to exist as it comes from the brain.

This body and mind belong to nature. They aren't yours to begin with. If you identify them as yourself, you will either be a nihilist (body dies and you also die) or an eternalist (body dies and your soul/mind/consciousness carries on). Both views are wrong.

"Bhikkhus, held by two kinds of views, some devas and
human beings hold back and some overreach; only those with vision see.

"And how, bhikkhus, do some hold back? Devas and humans enjoy being, delight in being, are satisfied with being. When Dhamma is taught to them for the cessation of being, their minds do not enter into it or acquire confidence in it or settle upon it or become resolved upon it. Thus, bhikkhus, do some hold back.

"How, bhikkhus, do some overreach? Now some are troubled, ashamed, and disgusted by this very same being and they rejoice in (the idea of) non-being, asserting: 'In as much as this self, good sirs, when the body perishes at death, is annihilated and destroyed and does not exist after death — this is peaceful, this is excellent, this is reality!' Thus, bhikkhus, do some overreach.

"How, bhikkhus, do those with vision see? Herein a bhikkhu sees what has come to be as having come to be. Having seen it thus, he practices the course for turning away, for dispassion, for the cessation of what has come to be. Thus, bhikkhus, do those with vision see."

Iti 49

Dakini

JohnG said:

So, is fact law? Or is law fact? :coffee:

"Fact" is impermanent. It changes as scientific knowledge evolves. In the grand scheme of things, humans are still in their infancy. Or maybe--a petulant adolescence!

:ninja:

Florian

I prefer to examine the simple logic. Materialism does not work. This is not a scientific theory but a fact that anyone can establish. That it does not work is the reason why so many philosophers are not materialists. Consequently. the ideas that awareness/consciousness is entirely emergent from brains does not work. It never has and it never will. The logic of the problem does not change over time.

Clearly there is a interdependent relationship betwen mind and brain, but the 'problem of consciousness' arises when we attempt to reduce one to the other. It cannot be done. This has nothing to do with science, which must (or should) remain silent on this issue. It is an in principle logical problem. No amount of scientific data can solve this problem. It has to be solved by thinking about it or in direct experience.

The only logically sound solution is a 'middle way' theory for which mind and matter are co-dependent and arise from a third phenomenon. For such a theory rebirth becomes a possibility. Not a certainty, but something that cannot be ruled out.

The idea that consciouness is produced in its entirety, (ie. including even a non-intentional pure awareness) by the brain is not a scientific fact. It is a metaphysical hypothesis, one that causes well-known intractable problems for science and philosophy. These probems make the hypothesis utterly implausible.

If we are talking only about 'intentional' consciousness, and scientists usually are, then perhaps this is always dependent on some physical substrate. This would make much sense to me. But even if it is this would have no bearing on rebirth, which is an idea involving more then just intentional consciousness.

zombiegirl

How can rebirth exist when it goes against scientific laws?

I think what TheEccentric is trying to say is that science cannot prove rebirth and therefore, there is not evidence to support the claim.

So isn't the obvious answer just "faith"?

Believe in it or not, but without hard proof, it's just faith. But as others have stated, it's not necessary and it's actually not encouraged either. Rebirth is one of those pesky imponderables, after all...

seeker242

It doesn't go against scientific laws because there is no scientific law that says what does or does not happen after you die.

wrathfuldeity

Most of the discussion has focused on the presumption that consciousness arises from or out of the brain and its functioning. But a perhaps more logically plausible position is that the brain arises from consciousness...this would perhaps remedy some of the debate about rebirth...however the discussion about scientific laws still remains...however, imho the scientific approach...at least in current academia is driven by the belief/faith in the empirical/statistical model...which imho is a very narrow/limited measuring stick.

On another note, if bardo thodol is presumed to be true then imho/interpretation, consciousness selects the form or morphology that is of the most benefit or value or is perhaps karmically driven due to the consciousness's attachments.

Cinorjer

TheBeejAbides said:

gah.... i'm overmatched. i bow out. i think what i have read about mind, as it pertains to buddhism, isnt really what most people in this discussion are talking about.

I think my only point is that rebirth and the transmigration of the mind or continuation of the self after death has to be an act of faith, not something we can examine and explain in a laboratory. In the skandhas, "form" is the physical brain, the body, and so changing the brain obviously effects the mind. I do get what you say, in that our conscious self-awareness cannot be isolated to any one part of the brain. I agree with you. There are more connections in the brain between neurons than there are stars in the universe, and somewhere in that near-infinite pattern our consciousness emerges. We still don't know why or how, although scientists all have their own theories.

I have my own beliefs about our minds survival after death. Most of them boil down to, "It doesn't matter, because if something continues, it isn't me, the person sitting here. That me has memories, habits, and a consciousness, and those will be gone." But that's a result of the no-self teaching I've spent half a life comprehending. According to my Teachers, it's a liberating path but not the only one.