In his 2005 book Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives psychiatrist Jim B. Tucker of the University of Virginia presents an overview of more than 40 years of research into children's reports of past-life memories. He argues that the cases give evidence for the reincarnation.
For example, a young child (called Sam in the study) born a few months after his grandfather’s death reported at the age of 3 as his father changed his diaper, that he remembered changing his father’s diaper. A few years later he recognized himself in old photos of his grandfather he had never seen and recalled the murder of his grandfather’s sister even though the boy had no knowledge of these events.
Is Sam the same person as his grandfather?
Despite his recollection of his memories, Sam is not the same person as his grandfather because they do not have body continuity. According to the memory definition of personal identity, Sam would indeed be the reincarnation of his grandfather, because he has psychological continuity with him. However, according to the body view, in which one must maintain physiological continuity, he is not. I believe that the body view is the end all be all of personal identity, as I am a bit more of a black and white traditionalist. Much of the discussion on this topic is the debate over loss of memory, or a significant psychological shift, but I don't believe that is a question of personal identity and more a question of personality, ones identity does not change, but their personality can.
ReplyDeleteReincarnation is the belief that we all experience a birth, death, and rebirth cycle. That one life is a short span in the existence of all of life and the soul returns after death to live in a new body. In the case study, a young boy reports feelings of familiarity and recalls certain events leaving the question of could this boy be his grandfather reincarnated? In my group, we reached a consensus that based on the little knowledge we have of these recollection incidents, the boy could not possibly be his grandfather. We focused on the memory view to further support our consensus. The boy has the same memories but we could say that the memories have come about it in the wrong way so does not prove that the boy is the grandfather. You could then say that the soul of the grandfather has been passed to the boy so that is how the boy remembers these facts. If you acknowledge the possibility of a soul than perhaps this is possible but the small amount of evidence given we do not think is conclusive to prove the existence of a soul or prove that Sam is the same person. In this instance the much more logical conclusion is that the boy has lied or is delusional. I believe that just because this case study was disproved, it does not mean that reincarnation couldn’t be possible in other cases. However, the topic is tricky and there are several fundamental questions that must be analyzed and answered in order to understand this topic of reincarnation a bit more deeply; How do we establish the truth of the other claim that the soul in person “A” now living is the soul of an ancestor? Can the same soul dwell in more than one body at the same or different times? And how is it decided which goes with which body?
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