[INDOLOGY] sources for the idea that reincarnation is a semi-random process?

[Dominik Wujastyk]

On Wed, 18 Nov 2020 at 20:24, Dean Michael Anderson <
eastwestcultural at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> My response: I see the main objection would be the current scientific
> paradigm of materialism or physicalism which assumes that only material
> phenomena are real. Mental states, which would be how past or inter-life
> experiences would tend to be viewed, are considered to be epiphenomena
> which have no inherent reality but are mere outgrowths of physical brain
> functioning.
>
>
I'm not sure this is a fair representation of the current scientific
paradigm.  Of course it depends on whom in the scientific community you
listen to.  I've been watching some of the online lectures by Roger Penrose
recently (he just got a Nobel).  He's proposing some very interesting and
definitely non-physical speculations about the non-computable nature of
consciousness.  He's not mainstream on these topics, at least amongst
physicists, but he is a major voice.  And there are others too, in the
rapidly-evolving field of consciousness studies.  There has always been a
philosophical stream in Physics that thinks creatively about the
consequences of quantum mechanics, such as non-locality, quantum
entanglement, etc.  Henry Pierce Stapp, David Bohm, etc.  And anyway, is
electromagnetic radiation, for example, best thought of as a "material
phenomenon"?  Perhaps the science paradigm is not best thought about as
material vs. nonmaterial, but as falsifiable vs. metaphysical.

Best,
Dominik

--
Professor Dominik Wujastyk
<https://apps.ualberta.ca/directory/person/wujastyk>
,

Singhmar Chair in Classical Indian Society and Polity
,

Department of History and Classics <http://historyandclassics.ualberta.ca/>
,
University of Alberta, Canada
.


South Asia at the U of A:

sas.ualberta.ca

SSHRC research: The Suśruta Project <http://sushrutaproject.org>


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