I've left the essay as it was when I wrote it, meaning that I did not edit the content further after I had written it. I'll be adding the comments, but that will be it. I have edited the HTML slightly, as having the wordprocessor insert it's own HTML tags isn't always a good thing. The font is AGaramond, and that's also what I handed the essay in as. Any comments, rants or questions can be directed here.

CMSWilliston
Prof. D.E. Dubrule
Philosophy of Paranormal
June 22, 2000

I feel that reincarnation of a personality, in whole or in part, from one body to another, is possible. Reincarnation of a personality does not seem, however, to occur with any great frequency. While there are some people who claim to have memories of 'other lives', and at least one case has occurred of a whole personality reincarnated, skeptics have taken advantage of the relative infrequency of reincarnation events to disprove it's possibility. If reincarnation is a possibility, they say, than why would it occur so infrequently, when there are proportionately great numbers of people who die, to those who reincarnate? This seems to indicate that the people who have these memories must be mistaken in their claims, and that reincarnation is not a possibility. In the following sections, I will attempt to indicate that reincarnation could be possible, even with the seeming infrequency of reincarnation events.

Terms and My Meaning By Them
Personality I shall use mostly to indicate that which could reincarnate from one body to the next. This is to be considered my name for the set of memories and thought processes by which we come to define a 'person'. This is more or less in correlation with my usage of the word mind. Memories are the interpreted stores of images, events, feelings about those events and images, and the relations between events/images/feelings. Thoughts are the actual interpreting of events and images, as well as recalled memories. Though processes are the ways of interpreting events, images and recalled memories. These terms are generally not used with these exact meanings associated with them, so please keep my usage of them in mind, if something seems strangely worded or incomprehensible.

Section 1 - The Mind and Thought
Thought occurs in the mind. Humans and most (if not all) other animals have thoughts to some degree. Thought and mind are often talked about as the same thing, though I find that there is more to the mind than just thought. Thought is believed to be indication of a personality, or a 'soul', and these things have all been used more or less interchangeably as meaning the same. I feel that mind (or personality) is the group of thought processes and memories, which change and are appended to on a somewhat random basis, and is what makes something a 'person'. Thoughts occur 'within' the mind, through the thought processes, and are stored as experiences, or memories.

Section 2 - The Brain/Body vs Personality
There are only three possibilities for the connection of the personality and the brain (and thereby, connection to the body). People's beliefs about the connection of brain and personality tend to fall generally into one of these three categories.

The first is that the brain and the personality are one in the same, or that the personality arises from the brain. This is generally the view that 'science' holds, and is generally believed by people who consider themselves to be 'scientific', 'realistic', or atheist in their beliefs. In this view, the personality is a result of having been alive, and of having a brain and body. Everything is attributable to physical stimuli, and the personality is nothing more than a set of learned behaviors and chemical interaction. The body is the root of who the person is. In this view, reincarnation events cannot occur, ever. When the body dies, the personality ceases to exist, having been derived from the brain, it's chemicals and electrical impulses, which are no longer taking place. The personality cannot have entered another body, as it's chemicals and electrical movements do not occur in the same manner as the personality's body of origin. Attempts have been made to change a brain from one body to another, but this would not count as reincarnation, as the person can only be considered dead (pronounced legally dead) if the brain has ceased to function.

There is also the fact that there are human bodies, whose brains still are considered alive, but who have lost their personality. People who are considered to be living in a 'vegetative' state are considered alive, and are considered 'people', but the actual 'person' seems to have died, i.e. the personality is gone. This seems to indicate that the personality arises from the brain, and that certain damages to the brain will cause a person to loose memories, to loose, change or lessen in thought processes, and generally, that things which affect the brain will equivocally change or lessen the personality. However, this is not necessarily the case. Many people who receive great damage to the brain, continue to exist with only some memory loss and some or no change to their thought processes. Still others who may receive only small amounts of damage to the brain may loose great amounts of memory, and greatly change in their thought processes. There are also cases of people who forget most of their memories, or even all of their memories, and who then form new memories (and thus, personalities), with no damage to the brain recorded.

The second type of connection that could be said to be between the brain/body and the personality, is that the personality is completely separate from the body. Perhaps this exists in religious type beliefs, but I cannot think of any which directly state this. However, I have attributed this to religious type beliefs, due to what the relation between the personality and the body would consist of, if this were the case. If the personality was separate from the body, then it would not matter if it had a body or not. The personality would experience no change at the death of the body, and would continue to exist intact in un-embodied form. This corresponds to many religious type beliefs, with their images of what occurs after the death of the body. In most religious beliefs, the personality continues on in non-body form, often in a non-physical body-metaphor, and goes to exist somewhere for a time, either indefinite, or for a length of time which has a specific end. While this is taking place, the personality generally is assumed to continue with thought, and can add to memory, or reassess existing memories. This existing after death sometimes carries with it ideas of the personality returning to life, either to work up to some state of existence that the personality ('soul' here) can move onto a better 'place' than inside a body (escaping some cycle of reincarnation and death), or that the personality will go back to it's original body to live again (self-reincarnation, or resurrection). However, if this were the case, that the personality was not in requirement of the body in any way, why would it stay with the body at all?

The third one, and the one I feel is more likely, is that the personality is connected to the brain in a sort of way which I can only describe as symbiotic/parasitic. (Unfortunately for me, I recently discovered that this idea is somewhat similar to Plato's idea of the soul's relation to the body, even though I developed this idea years ago, and without awareness of Plato's writings on the matter. In fact, until the other day, I had managed to avoid most of Plato's writings entirely. So now, this idea of the personality's connection to the body will sound like it was cobbled from that person's ideas, even though I had honestly never heard of them until June 19th of this year.) The personality is in existence because it needs something it can only get from being incarnated in a body, namely experience and knowledge. Through experience, it develops better and better thought processes, all the better to help it gain knowledge. It incarnates itself through the body, as the body is in complete existence in, and contact with, the physical world. The physical world hold knowledge, and through events which take place in it, the personality can acquire memories and the experience it needs to better gain knowledge from these events. The personality could very well be possible of reincarnation, in whole or in part, as it is not likely to gain all the knowledge it wants in the lifetime of one body. I cannot explain why sometimes only partial personalities reincarnate (such as memories), while other times a complete personality will reincarnate. Perhaps it could be said that the people who claim only memories of other lives have memories that they did not actually gain through their personality's other incarnations, or that they just don't tend to report or claim that their thought processes are the same as those of the other life.

Section 3 - That People Want To Continue After Bodily Death
Humans generally do not want to cease to exist. For the purposes of not delving too far into psychological arguments, I will assume that suicidal persons do want to continue to exist, they just don't want to exist in their current situation. Humans sometimes turn to religious type beliefs, even if they claim to be not religious, for the 'comforting' idea that they will not cease to exist, but will instead go on to some 'after life', or continued existence after their bodies die. This could be indicative of the will of the personality to continue to gain knowledge, or it could simply be an animal fear of the unknown. In any case, it does not seem to in any way influence the possibility that a specific personality will reincarnate.

Section 4 - Cultural Influence On Personality
Various cultures have been developed (and continue to develop), and seem to mimic thought processes. The members of each of these cultures tend to have their thought processes changing to seem more like the mimicked thought processes of their society. This in turn seems to influence the personality's possibility of reincarnating. This might actually not be the case, however. It could be that the culture simply influences the possibility that the person will report or acknowledge such memories to anyone besides family members or friends, who may or may not be likely to pass on or believe the words of this person. I find this latter statement to be more likely to be the case.

Section 5 - On Memories
As thought processes seem to be less likely to be reported or noticed as reincarnation events, memory reports seem to be the only way people hear of reincarnation. Memories are stored information about events or images that the person experienced, thought about, and processed. They can be of events or images that take place in the physical world, or even of imagined events, such as dreams, creations of the intellect, or even hallucinations. There can even be memories of having recalled a memory (perhaps they could be called metamemories...). People tend to think of memories as being categorized by a sense of time passing, but I find such to not be the case. I have little concept of time in my memories, except by a vague sort of metamemory table, in which certain events are associated with 'dates' or relational timeframes, and objects in other memories can be compared to this table to see when the memories may have occurred. I have no idea if other people experience this, as I have not deemed it necessary to ask anyone else about it. I imagine it is the case that most other people have a time-passing reference upon which to judge when their memories have occurred. Memories are related to reincarnation very closely, or at least, to our concept of reincarnation, because without memories, how would a persona ever be aware that they have lived in another body, unless they had some sort of a metamemory, or referential time scale, which seems to go back longer than they have actually been alive.

Conclusion
I feel that I have given enough information that a person could judge for themselves, based upon what I have put forward, as to whether or not they chose to believe that reincarnation may or may not be a possible event. I have given reasons as to the seemingly few numbers of reported events. In my opinion, reincarnation events are possible, it's just that in many cultures today, such a thing is not likely to be believed or reported, even if it is a true event.