Past Lives as an Example of The Arbitrary

"My past ideas influenced my daily choices." What's your basis for that?

The easiest course for you to take is introspection. I hold such and such ideas, you see how they're influencing me today, and I can remember when I accepted them. So there's an idea accepted in the past; here it is influencing me today. Or even if I don't remember when I accepted it, I know that this was an idea put forth by Aristotle, without which I could not be functioning, etc. So I have conclusive direct Evidence, plus we can integrate it to the future: our present ideas lead to future choices. For example, I'm enraged at you right now, and then I hit you over the head with a hammer. That's my present idea influencing my future choice. Now that's an idea with a basis.

Let's contrast that with Shirley MacLaine channeling, and her claim is that her past lives influence her daily choices. This example is completely made up, but for instance, she says she hates her brother because he looks just like a slave that she hated when she was the pharaoh of ancient Egypt. You've got to have some reason to hate him, so why not that?: ^[1]

You object: But we know that the soul is intimately connected with the body and the brain and can't survive its destruction, so there can't be any past lives.

Shirley MacLaine: Oh yes, it can because you're talking about the prosaic soul of science. That's all. I'm sure it can't survive. Or you're talking about the Objectivist definition of consciousness. I'm sure that can't survive either. But who said that science or Ayn Rand knows everything about consciousness? We don't even know what consciousness consists of. It must have some kind of elements, and something can't become nothing, so these elements must have always existed in some form, even before this century. QED.

You say: But if you don't know about these elements, what they are, or how they survive by your own statement, how can you say what forms they take before birth?

Shirley MacLaine: I remember! I remember my past lives!

You: I don't.

Shirley MacLaine: I do, and you will. You will have the same basis that I have—once you die. Because you'll see God, you'll remember this conversation. So don't tell me about a basis; there's going to be real basis; it's coming. What's wrong with the basis coming in the future?

Shirley MacLaine continues: You know what? Science's whole thing is the hypothetico-deductive method. We put forth a hypothesis, and then we have a decisive observation to test it. But it can take years, and you never hold that against science and say, "Well, I don't have a Validation now; therefore, it's out!" Not at all. Well, I'm exactly like a scientist, just like Galileo. I'm making a future prediction. So what's the difference here? Why is everybody persecuting me because I make movies? (lol)

At this point, you say: I think there's a difference between you and Galileo. One of you has a foundation in present knowledge to make this hypothesis, and the other has not. One of them is able to define in sensory terms, or at least reduce to specific sensory terms, to observations now describeable, exactly what he's going to find and not find that are to be made in this world and how it's going to beg the question. But your case, Shirley, is undefinable because by definition, the senses aren't involved. There's no specific observations you can cite about seeing God; you use no means of carrying out this except your whole advice is 'die and see.' In other words, we're going to get this future basis only when by present knowledge we won't be around anymore. Therefore, I still say you have no basis.

Shirley MacLaine's side of the discussion consists of arbitrary hypotheses and assertions that evade the need for evidence. She dismisses the need for present evidence by arguing that future evidence will eventually validate her claims. However, the notion that we can't have evidence today but will somehow have it someday does not align with rational standards of cognition i.e. she fails to provide any concrete, observable facts or logical deductions that relate her ideas to reality.

In terms of what she actually said, not one jot of actual basis exists, even of an early contextual kind. Her argument is fundamentally detached from any perceptual or conceptual evidence, relying instead on the idea that evidence will manifest only after death, when it is no longer accessible to us. Consequently, her claims remain arbitrary and unprocessable by a rational mind.