"Reincarnation is a more plausible account of life after death than disembodied existence"

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“Reincarnation is a more plausible account of life after death than disembodied existence”. Discuss.

     Death is the cessation of life and the failure to survive. Life after death (LAD) is the belief that at least something of person’s “ego”/ conscious self survives the physical death of the body. Beliefs in LAD can be divided into 5 broad groups- Reanimation, Otherworldly embodiment, Disembodied existence (DE), reincarnation and mystical union. In this essay I am going to focus on the plausibility of reincarnation and DE, in relation to LAD. Reincarnation is the claim that the soul migrates after death to another body and DE is the view that the soul survives death without either the earthly body or a new body. Reincarnation is presented by Hindus, Buddhists and also by Plato in the Myth of Er. Thinkers which are associated with DE are Plato, Lewis and Price. I disagree with this statement and believe DE is a more plausible account of LAD than reincarnation.

     Some people such as Hindus may agree with this statement and state that reincarnation is a more plausible account of LAD than DE. Hindus believe in an indestructible soul, which is incarnated in a series of bodies. The soul also has many layers to it. A memory- bearing layer, which collects memories from the many lives that the soul leads. A conscious layer i.e. the sense of self-being in this particular body, being male or female, being in a certain building at this moment in time etc. This is new to each incarnation and is shed when the soul leaves and gains a new body. For example, John would have access to the new “conscious layer” of his soul; he would think he is a man and would be aware he worked for a car company. However John would not be able to recall being Sarah although her memories would be part of his soul. For Hindus the criteria for preserving personal identity are the memory, personality and beliefs. Hindus also believe birth situation reflects behaviour in previous lives. This is because of karma, which is the doctrine that the sum of a person’s voluntary actions in previous states of existence controls his or her fate in future existences. From this method suffering can be explained, so some people may find this view more appealing that views of DE, which cannot explain suffering. So from the views of Hinduism some people may believe reincarnation is a more plausible account of LAD than DE because it explains suffering and also there is psychological continuity of a person.

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     However, I disagree and do not believe this is more plausible. This is because as we see from Bernard Williams the reliability of memory is questionable. We often forget details and there is also false memory syndrome. Also if we use beliefs and personality as part of preserving personal identity then this is not a more plausible account of LAD than DE because of the variation of beliefs in a lifetime. Also personality is largely affected by circumstance and this is too broad and not unique to a person. For example, if John and Sarah are intelligent, proud, ...

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