Proof of existence of Soul

This is the most convincing argument about the existence of Soul that I have read. 

Hypothesis:  When man is dead, the soul yet exists and has force of intelligence.

Proof:  Ideas of opposites such as good x evil, just x unjust, greater x lesser, hot x cold, weak x strong generate from one another. 

Life is the opposite of death, just as sleeping is opposite of waking.  Waking is generated from sleeping and vice-versa.  Similarly death as all of us know is generated from life.

=> life is generated from death; let it be called revival i.e. birth of dead into world of living.

If this is held true then souls of deceased must be held in some place before being born.

If its assumed that living do not spring from dead, then all living shall come from other than what is dead. We know that everything that lives dies.  The process of life from what is 'other than dead' continues till the time the reservoir of 'other than dead' is exhausted.  This means that everything will be converted into dead after some time, which is not the case.  

Hypothesis: Soul is immortal

Proof:  Knowledge is simple recollection (proof here)

We had this knowledge at birth or learnt by remembering after birth.

=>our souls acquired this knowledge before birth

=>souls existed before birth in the form of men(/animals/living things) without bodies and must have had intelligence.

That soul exists after birth is known, but does it exist after death?

The abstractions of ideas or essences are unchangeable with time and are unseen, and immortal.  The objects which partake in the ideas are seen, changeable and perishable.  Similarly body is seen and changeable with time.  Soul is more similar to the unseen and unchangeable.  Truth of existence or nature of existence can only be known through the medium of ideas.

Inherence of which the body is rendered alive is the soul.  

=> Soul brings life to anything which it possesses

-Death is the opposite of life

=>Soul never allows death to anything it possesses

=>Soul never admits death

=>Soul is immortal

-The nature of immortality is that of which cant perish.

Therefore immortality is imperishable.

=>Soul when attacked by death cant perish.

Therefore soul is immortal and imperishable.

Immortal is that which is eternal => it cant perish.

=>Essential form of life, and immortality will never perish.

Therefore when death attacks a man, the mortal portion of him dies, but the immortal portion goes out of the way of death and is preserved.

Budhdhi Jnanam

‘Budhdhi, Jnanam ledu’ is a sentence we often listen from people in telugu.  I often used to wonder as a kid what budhdhi and jnanam meant.  An understanding of their meaning from the Nyaya and Vaiseshika schools of philosophy is given below.

Knowledge(Jnanamu) is a representation of reality and could be true or false.  The acquisition of this knowledge involves three elements in a human being.  Firstly the self, defined as an all pervading consciousness i.e. a ‘spruha’ which is present in each and every particle in our body.  Secondly the mind , which is like a mediator between the self and the senses, and thirdly the sensory organs(sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste).

Cognition is a property of the self and it makes things understood.  We can say that cognition is like a vehicle which captures reality as best as it can and brings the catch to the mind.  The mind then processes the captured reality and conveys it to the self.

There are three elements in the process of cognition- object of cognition, the process of cognition and the cognizing self.  Let me illustrate with an example.  When we see a chair , we say ‘this is a chair’. Here there is an object of cognition viz., the chair, the process of cognition which is performed by our eye, and the cognizing self i.e. Myself. When I   say ‘this is a chair’, what it really means is ‘I know that this is a chair’.  This implies that ‘I’ i.e. the myself or self has passed a judgment(budhdhi).  

Let us examine what this judgment means.  Every human being has two worlds.  One is the world of reality (I am not sure if I can call it so) as we experience, and the other a world of ideas (uha prapancham).  There are innumerable ideas already formed and floating in the world of ideas: idea of a tree, idea of beauty, idea of courage, idea of a chair, idea of jealousy etc.  In this example, the image brought to the mind by our optical nerves took part in one such ideas viz., the idea of a chair.  As soon as this image partook of the idea of a chair the mind passed a judgement that it’s a chair.

When our cognition captures an image of reality and brings it to our mind, the mind processes it and arrives at a judgment.  In each judgment we express there is an object of knowledge (chair) which in reality possesses certain attributes.  If the judgement has to be true these attributes have to be represented as in reality by the judgement.

Every time the vehicle of cognition brings some reality it captures, there could be some error.   It is however assumed that cognition carries with it self-evidence. If cognition is bringing an image of a chair, it is assumed that the proof is also brought along with it.  Whatever is brought home by cognition can be proved wrong only in two cases.

1)     Discovery by other means the real nature of the object(microscopes, telescopes, mathematical models etc.)

2)     Discovery of defects in the instruments of cognition(hearing impairment, defects in vision, etc.).

Therefore budhdhi as I understand is the judge who sits in each of us and keeps passing judgments without we even realizing.  So can we call the compilation of all these judgments in our life as the knowledge we possess?