Aug 16, 2015 02:27 AM
http://www.ashishdalela.com/2015/07/23/t...-falldown/
EXCERPT: I generally refrain from commenting on theological topics, and restrict myself to issues in science, but in this post I will make an exception.
The issue of interest is whether a soul “falls down” into matter. There is often confusion around this topic, which, in my view, rests upon a misunderstanding about nature of knowledge about our past. There are three broad theological views on this issue: (a) the soul is an individual; he falls down into matter and can get out of it; (b) the soul is an individual but has always been in matter, although he can get out of the material laws; and © the individuality of the soul is an illusion; the creation of individuality is itself the falldown, although there is a universal transcendent observer.
Quite separately, there is the materialist / scientific position which denies both individual and universal transcendent observers. These views about the soul’s position and existence are tied to the views about matter, space, and time, and these ideas are therefore not just ideological commitments that can only be accepted on faith, but can also be discussed scientifically.
If the falldown occurred, it must have been in the past, and to know whether it occurred we must know when it occurred. But how do we know what happened in the past? In Indian philosophy, living beings carry their past in their unconscious, which then produces the present under different times, places, and circumstances. The past exists materially in the present as history and carries the imprints of the prior time, place, and circumstance when it was created. When a similar kind of time, place, or circumstance recurs, these prior impressions are automatically excited much like a vibrating string can excite another string if they both have the same kinds of frequencies. The string that was not previously vibrating also exists, but its existence is unknown unless it is excited, and similarly the history exists as the “unconscious” and manifests our personality and behaviors only when subjected to different times, places, and circumstances.
This history is however not fixed. As we undergo new experiences, new impressions are created and the old ones are destroyed. This is not to say that the past is changed; it only means that the knowledge of the past—which materially exists as the history of the individual through impressions—is created and destroyed. In principle, we can only know the past through the materially existing history, because we cannot actually go into the past. We have access to the past through its historical imprint, but if the imprint has been destroyed then we have no way of knowing what happened in the past (unless, of course, the past resides as an impression in someone else’s memory).
[...] The very fact that history can be created and destroyed entails that we have no way of knowing any past events beyond the oldest historical record. If you fell into the material experience only 5 minutes ago, and your history is therefore only 5 minutes old, you still cannot assert that you just fell 5 minutes ago, because you have no way of knowing that you might have actually fell long before and all the prior historical records have been erased. There is, hence, no way of knowing when the material experience started because the historical record of that experience may itself have been destroyed. Since we also cannot know if it were destroyed, we can never be sure that it wasn’t. Your historical records of the past are a material entity and not time itself.
Many people don’t understand the distinction between history and time. Time is eternal whereas history is created and destroyed. We have no access to time, but we can know about time through history. If things were not changing in this world, we could not know if time were passing. We could not measure time and we certainly could not talk about past, present, and future. The measurement of time therefore depends upon change, and change implies that things that existed in the past may not exist right now. History is also changing, and therefore our knowledge of the past changes, although the past itself does not. While the past is fixed, our knowledge of it is variable.
This point is important because causal effects depend on the historical imprint and not just on the past events. If the history has been destroyed, all its effects are also gone. The past which does not exist in the present (as a material entity) also has no effect on present or future. This is the reason that we can talk about a person becoming free of the natural laws—the entire sequence of events in the past doesn’t matter; what matters is the history of events that currently exists on record. In short, history is the past that exists in the present, and that history is causally efficacious. Everything else in the past is irrelevant....
EXCERPT: I generally refrain from commenting on theological topics, and restrict myself to issues in science, but in this post I will make an exception.
The issue of interest is whether a soul “falls down” into matter. There is often confusion around this topic, which, in my view, rests upon a misunderstanding about nature of knowledge about our past. There are three broad theological views on this issue: (a) the soul is an individual; he falls down into matter and can get out of it; (b) the soul is an individual but has always been in matter, although he can get out of the material laws; and © the individuality of the soul is an illusion; the creation of individuality is itself the falldown, although there is a universal transcendent observer.
Quite separately, there is the materialist / scientific position which denies both individual and universal transcendent observers. These views about the soul’s position and existence are tied to the views about matter, space, and time, and these ideas are therefore not just ideological commitments that can only be accepted on faith, but can also be discussed scientifically.
If the falldown occurred, it must have been in the past, and to know whether it occurred we must know when it occurred. But how do we know what happened in the past? In Indian philosophy, living beings carry their past in their unconscious, which then produces the present under different times, places, and circumstances. The past exists materially in the present as history and carries the imprints of the prior time, place, and circumstance when it was created. When a similar kind of time, place, or circumstance recurs, these prior impressions are automatically excited much like a vibrating string can excite another string if they both have the same kinds of frequencies. The string that was not previously vibrating also exists, but its existence is unknown unless it is excited, and similarly the history exists as the “unconscious” and manifests our personality and behaviors only when subjected to different times, places, and circumstances.
This history is however not fixed. As we undergo new experiences, new impressions are created and the old ones are destroyed. This is not to say that the past is changed; it only means that the knowledge of the past—which materially exists as the history of the individual through impressions—is created and destroyed. In principle, we can only know the past through the materially existing history, because we cannot actually go into the past. We have access to the past through its historical imprint, but if the imprint has been destroyed then we have no way of knowing what happened in the past (unless, of course, the past resides as an impression in someone else’s memory).
[...] The very fact that history can be created and destroyed entails that we have no way of knowing any past events beyond the oldest historical record. If you fell into the material experience only 5 minutes ago, and your history is therefore only 5 minutes old, you still cannot assert that you just fell 5 minutes ago, because you have no way of knowing that you might have actually fell long before and all the prior historical records have been erased. There is, hence, no way of knowing when the material experience started because the historical record of that experience may itself have been destroyed. Since we also cannot know if it were destroyed, we can never be sure that it wasn’t. Your historical records of the past are a material entity and not time itself.
Many people don’t understand the distinction between history and time. Time is eternal whereas history is created and destroyed. We have no access to time, but we can know about time through history. If things were not changing in this world, we could not know if time were passing. We could not measure time and we certainly could not talk about past, present, and future. The measurement of time therefore depends upon change, and change implies that things that existed in the past may not exist right now. History is also changing, and therefore our knowledge of the past changes, although the past itself does not. While the past is fixed, our knowledge of it is variable.
This point is important because causal effects depend on the historical imprint and not just on the past events. If the history has been destroyed, all its effects are also gone. The past which does not exist in the present (as a material entity) also has no effect on present or future. This is the reason that we can talk about a person becoming free of the natural laws—the entire sequence of events in the past doesn’t matter; what matters is the history of events that currently exists on record. In short, history is the past that exists in the present, and that history is causally efficacious. Everything else in the past is irrelevant....