ATMAN
Atman, it seems to me, is simply the Hindu term for the primordial self as opposed to the external self one shows the world or the ego and internal thoughts that superficially appear to be oneself. The pure awareness or consciousness of the untroubled, disinterested deeper self is beyond actions, ethics, and possibly even bliss – so pure that no adjectives seem to apply at all.
However if we can reach down to it, we intuit its co-extensiveness (although perhaps not identity) to the whole of reality and the universe. This is how I interpret ātman = Brahman. Meanwhile the scientist might note that the subatomic particles that make up a person and the natural laws that apply to that person are the same as those of all physical entities, again confirming a kind of oneness of humans and the cosmos.
SAMSARA
Next we must make sense of the Upanishads’ doctrine of samsara. Reincarnation depends on three controversial tenets: (1) humans (and other species) have a soul or immaterial essence independent of the physical body, (2) the soul is perpetual, and (3) the soul can transmigrate at death to a newly appearing living thing or one formed at a later time.
I discussed in detail the existence of the soul in an earlier section on this site.3 In that analysis I concluded that the concept of ‘soul’ is best understood as representing the immaterial features of an individual which added to the physical body define a complete human being. The soul then is our most intangible features, particularly the mind, will, personality, identity, and self. However since biological immortality is not viable as it has never been demonstrated for multicellular creatures, this modified notion of soul cannot be ‘perpetual’ or immortal.
In another earlier section I addressed the subject of reincarnation.4 I concluded that philosophically reincarnation appears implausible since it requires a ‘soul’ divisible from the body, not the more viable concept of soul outlined above. But even if we grant humans an immortal spirit, the migration of souls to other living things still seems farfetched due to: (1) insufficient evidence, (2) the total absence of any explanation of how the soul is preserved and placed in another creature, (3) the inconsistency inherent in the soul’s ignorance of its prior lives, and (4) the increasing number of human beings over time since souls are supposed to be eternal (i.e. retroactively perpetual). In addition, pragmatically, the fact of reincarnation would make little difference to our choices as the best possible life requires the very actions that lead to supposedly better karma and the presumed escape from the cycle of death and rebirth.
However, I see three metaphorical interpretations of reincarnation for the philosopher’s consideration. First it can be seen as the phases of a single life. Given the length of modern human life, many of the immaterial aspects of a person (the ‘soul’) change under the influence of experience and environmental changes. Reincarnation can also be recast as the passing of our genes to our offspring or of learned values, prosperity, and intellectual advancement to our offspring and to future generations. Last, human reverberations within the universe occur via the recycling of our material make-up and the chains of causation we initiate.
(further continued next post)
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3See the section titled Body and Soul – posts dated 4/3/19 to 5/6/19 – on this site, especially the last three which synthesize this philosophically defensible idea of ‘soul.’
4See Traditional Concepts of Immortality – Part I – Reincarnation dated 5/20/19 on this site.
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