Half an hour ago, I had a heated discussion with my friend over reincarnation, and though he understands things a little bit different, we agree that there is a dilemma around the subject reincarnation.
So, it brings the topic, why in the name of any curious god, we need reincarnation ? God, who is considered so almighty, that he created the Universe, made species like blue whale, polar bear, mosquito and humans etc. He gave us something to wonder about, diverse grasslands, steep mountains, long rivers and indomitable seas. And as a material witness, I would like to believe that he is something else. However, he cannot put just enough imagination in creating himself. So what does he do, he change essential parameters, like height, voice, caste etc. and bam!! there is your reincarnation.
I think there is an elaborate conspiracy going around, and
the conspirators are no one else but us. Hell, God himself is
confused. He, with so much hardship, thought of a nice character for
ongoing story-lines. He thought this is it. He thought it to be an
original masterpiece. But people down there, are calling it up a
sequel. And he cannot protest, cause technically he has no voice of his
own.
Before, I argue about my convictions, I want to make clear understanding, of what I mean by reincarnation. It is revival of a soul, or revival of conscious, that was known to exist, before the arrival of a new being. It is to be noted, that revival doesn't mean exact replica, however there is a sub-part, that must match in order to call it reincarnation.
Now basically, there are two approaches, either our soul/conscious is infinite, or otherwise. Due, to lack of substantial proof, and our understanding of issues, my premise of argument is that soul can be represented in finite terms.
Consider a program, that prints itself. Lets call it a reincarnation program(Or
Quine in programmer's jargon).
#include <stdio.h>
char *program = "#include <stdio.h>%cchar *program = %c%s%c;
%cint main()%c{%cprintf(program, 10, 34, program, 34, 10, 10,
10, 10, 10, 10);%c return 0;%c}%c";
int main()
{
printf(program, 10, 34, program, 34, 10, 10, 10, 10,
10, 10);
return 0;
}
So, to write such a program, we need to know everything before, so that we can alter our corresponding program string. Since concious, is way complex then this simple program, and the way it interacts with non-replicated parts make its nature chaotic. But still, this chaotic program has to be written.
Now in mythological terms, either Lord Brahma, is too efficient to write such a program or people are taking reincarnation for granted. And as Einstein said,
genius might have limit, but stupidity is limitless.
Our refutations and our premises are all assumptions, but the understanding of process and computational intractability is not. We still may discover some way to write such a program, which considers every possible combination of events, and able to execute it on some machine. However proven mechanisms of understanding, restricts us to believe in what reincarnation stands for.
Reincarnation, it is a lore, it gives us hope and it acts like amendment in sacred religious scripts, but claim is too out there.
