[Fwd: Re: REQUEST:Cloning of sheep:Duplicate Souls?]

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Op 19-apr-97 schreef Vidyasankar Sundaresan:



>>  cloning however, raises the question of the relation between life and
>> soul...and maybe time and knowledge.  

>I don't think this is a very appropriate subject for this list, but here
>are my $0.02 anyway. 

so i hope you'll forgive me if i don't answere all the interesting points you
made.
another reason is that since each darZana has it's own answere, the discussion
could go on endlessly.

>> and that excludes causal explanation. i want what i want because i want it.
>> another question is wether we would call a soul an event or a thing.
science
>> can only create things and events. if a soul is no such thing, what else? 
>> i would suggest to define the soul as the meaning of a personal name, so
the
>> birds in the tree outside your window don't have souls, but your cat minny
>has
>> one. soul would then be a sociolinguistic phenomena.

>This is just one step away from Descartes' argument about human beings
>having souls. Are you saying that the sparrow on the tree does not have a
>soul, but your parrot Polly has a soul, just because you gave her a name? 
>If it were that easy to define soul as you do, the soul's existence is
>based on a whim, and is effectively removed both from the domain of 
>science and the domain of religion. Are you sure that is such a good
>thing? 

descartes never could have seen the ego as a sociolinguistic phenomena since
he believed it's a substance, 'something existing and being known by itself'
(spinoza). my point is that a soul needs a community and a history (or karma
if you want) in order to be aware of itself and to exist. to exist in a
community means to have a name. think of the patiens of psychiatrist Oliver
Sax who were cured of a kind of sleep during some 20 years. they found they
couldn't live in this time because their memories stopped 20 years ago. some
of them committed suicide others begged to stop the treatment. of course in
everyday language people talk about souls as things hidden inside bodies, but
i don't have to explain how problematic this view is.

erik