The Ovesonian Twin Brains Thought Experiment: A Priori Evidence in Support of Reincarnation Theory

Comments on the latest post inspired a thought experiment I consider helpful in explaining the likelihood of my consciousness reincarnation theory. The theory is poised most critically on two key assumptions about brain-mind interaction:

1. Specific physical arrangements of matter- brains- result in consciousness formation.

Hopefully we can all agree here.

2. Any given consciousness is formed- and perceives through- not one exact arrangement of physical matter, but a range of different physical arrangements that share certain necessary physical characteristics (though the nature of these is not yet precisely understood), but differ in other ways physical.

This one's a little rougher. But I think you'll find that you agree.

Consider what we know about the brain from modern science. Scans reveal that chemical and neuronal movements are constantly occurring, thereby changing- at every moment- its precise physical construction. Consider another thing you know about your brain by way of common sense: hardly a second goes by when it doesn't slightly change its position (you have merely to wiggle your head).

Every moment the physical location and composition of your brain alters, and the time during which it exists changes. Yet *you* remain "inside." You, the consciousness, the perceiver, remain conscious and perceptive through innumerable brains that, though maintaining many physical similarities, are physically different in particular respects.

But it's a limited range. The physical change can only go so far. We can predict that if a bullet changed your brain's physical composition to a certain degree, you wouldn't perceive through it any longer.

Let us label the range of brains that form your consciousness, and through which your consciousness can perceive, as x - x'

Reincarnation theory then goes on to assert that the range of any given consciousness is not arbitrarily limited by a certain time. That after you die, a brain is bound to reform amidst the infinities that contains the necessary physical characteristics as to fall within x - x', and so you will be repeatedly reborn forever.

One problem had by some is the non-intuitive implication that, by this theory, it is possible to be conscious of and through multiple brains simultaneously, provided each falls within x - x'. The purpose of my thought experiment is to prove this as logically possible.

THE OVESONIAN TWIN BRAINS THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

Imagine you're in a room, where across from you is a brain in a vat. You're told the brain in the vat, BIV, has a physical composition exactly identical to the brain in your head, BIH. At time T, you (and likewise BIH) are located at position A, while BIV is located at position B.

Before you entered the room, you were told to flip a coin. If the result was heads, you were to walk through one entrance into the room and end up at position A. If the result was tails, you were to walk through the other entrance and end up at position B. So the result was heads.

BIH at position A at time T is physically different from BIV at position B at time T in exactly and only one respect- its position.

If, however, you had flipped tails before entering the room, BIH would be at position B at time T, and would therefore be exactly identical in every physical respect to BIV when you flipped heads.

Is the brain through which you are conscious dependent on a coin flip, or do you accept being conscious of both?