Soul & Cloning - Jaina View
Two interesting brainteasers have been put forth.
1. What is the proof that soul exits?
2. How does one explain the process of cloning from Jain point of view?
Very intelligent and interesting explanations have been offered. The following is the view of Jainism: The soul in its (his/ her) free state cannot be perceived by senses but the bodied souls such as human beings can be. The bonded ones can be detected by the living traits (Pran) such as respiration, electrical impulses etc. The sensory knowledge is imperfect conditioned as it by the colour of thoughts, limits of detection and indirect whereas non-sensory one is direct and all-powerful. The average bonded souls make use of both sensory and non-sensory means most of the times. The proof of its existence can thus be obtained only through positive hypothesis followed by introspection towards this end.
If we consider from Jaina point of view, there are quite a few treatises on taxonomy (Jivasthana) and psychological classification (Gunasthana), mental thought spectrum (Leshya) of living beings. According to Jainism, cloning is possible though one did not get this term or its closest. One may consult Tattvartha Sutra and Gommata sara among Jain treatises. I have done some analysis on this topic a couple of years ago. We can have more discussion, if need be.
I think you are assuming by 'scientific explanation' you mean the kind of explanation that was introduced by Galileo where measurement and experimentation was made central in verification and which recently was further elaborated by Popper in terms of 'refutability' as the central feature of science. This was also the philosophicla presuppositions of Hume and Kant and the leadining philosophers in the West. And this means there cannot be any Absolute Understanding at all, there are paradigms in terms of which we hypothesis and seek confirmation and in the course of which there may be paradigm shift etc( Thomas Kuhn). Again only floating and nonanchored kind of understanding is ever possible for man!
If this were true then we cannot have any Fundamental Ontology at all and which goes against the bulk of Indian philosophies. While there may be many differences among the different schools, there is one thing in which most of them agree i.e there is Moksa and all human beings ( including the lower creatures) knowingly or unknowingly are striving towards attaining it. There is no paradigm shift here though the individuals may graduate from that of patamukti to paramukti, asattu to sattu, the seemingly true to the really true.
There are absolutes, nontransitory truths that remain there always as Nityam, permanent and absolute and certainly Not mythological. There are mythologies but which we must interpret and get the messages encrypted and go beyond them. This is the essence of Icon Thinking that we see everywhere and from from very ancient times!
The problem is with the methodology of Western Science since the days of Galileo which has submerged another more primordial and inclusive sense of science viz. Hermeneutic Science. This is re-emerging as the Interpretive Social Sciences of various kinds: Converstional Analysis, Discourse Analysis, Ethnomethodolgy and so forth. In India this was developed to a rigorous level by Tolkaappiyar (c. 300 BC) who analyzed the use of language both for speech and literary compositions. The naturalistic study of language use would lead us to SEE the presence of the anma and of course not in the sense of seeing with the senses but seeing with the mental eyes.
Hermeneutic Science : A hermeneutic inquiry Clarifies understanding, displaces the initial nintelligibility, uncertainty, ambiguity, vagueness, indeterminateness, undecidability; corrects erroneous understanding or misunderstanding, discloses that an initial understanding is an illusion, a pure fancy, an unwarranted belief, a mistaken opinion and so forth. Now if a hermeneutic inquiry does all these and perhaps more, clearly there is something which is the Ground for all these happenings. We shall use the term Lumen ( Ta. Citsakti) to capture that outcome of Hermeneutic Inquiry, what the practices furnish us with and on the basis of which we do all that we listed above. Lumen is what il-lum-inates our understanding, that which lights up a hitherto inaccessible region of understanding; that which introduces Clarity in perception, removes a certain ignorance that has been there primordially with us and so forth. Now on the basis of
(i) Lumens are first of all Truths and hence the essence of Truth-Experiences (Ta. May Unarvu). The lumens we attain in the interpretive exercises of a Text, pertain to what is the there in the Text, hence truths in the Text. Now Lumens must be Truths for otherwise clearly they cannot correct misunderstandings, displace falsities, evaporate illusions and delusions, show an initial understanding as pure fancy, purely imaginary, a groundless opinion and so forth.
(ii) Lumens by virtue of being Truths, are absolutistic in the sense that they are unsubvertible, incontrovertible and irrefutable. A Lumen cannot be a Truth now but later a falsity; truth to one person but not to others and so forth. They are universal, absolutistic and once discovered by even a single person, they are capable of being the permanent possession of the whole of humanity.
(iii) Now in virtue of (i) above, we can see that a system of Lumens cannot be self-contradictory, logically inconsistent, incoherent among themselves and so forth. One Truth cannot contradict or controvert another for if they do, then they cannot be Truths. What is falsified, controverter and so forth is an Untruth and hence outside the realm of Truths; they are not Lumens but rather Non-Lumens
(iv) Lumens are linguisticalizable (perhaps not all). Certainly this is not a distinctive property of Lumens - even fantasies and fictions can be linguisticalized. But this has to be stated explicitly to show that Lumens as such, can be communicated and thereby transferred to and shared with others. Though it is a kind of insight, a grasp, an understanding, it is not idiosyncratic characterized by certain exclusiveness, inalienability and so forth. It can be named, described, articulated and we can add here: form the essential content of met discourses. The metadiscourses should in fact be articulations of Lumens that a certain approach to the Text has unearthed.
More articles on this subject available at the following addresses : http://ulagank.tripod.com/hermscience.htm & http://ulagan.tripod.com/boint-e.htm
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Article Courtesy : Mr. C. Devakumar (Jain-List group on Yahoo.)
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