Science fiction and fascinating halachic implications
Hello Rabbi,
Science fiction books present an idea that an invention may be possible in… years, in which scientists will be able to cause souls to be transferred from body to body by the touch of a button.
This means that Reuven will agree with Shimon that they will both exchange their souls for two hours. They will both press a button and behold, Reuven’s soul will move into Shimon’s body, and vice versa.
Reuven’s body will continue to function as usual, but the soul that will operate within him will be Shimon’s.
Shimon will remain with all of his information, style, character, knowledge, nature, and mindset, but he will receive the physical strength of Reuven’s body.
Such an exchange would help us move from Jerusalem to the US with the click of a key, for example, or break into a bank in the body of a fearsome robber…
If, in the coming of the Messiah, towers blossoming in the air are depicted (see the Torah section among them, which explained this matter as clarifications of laws that are unrealistic from a practical perspective), etc., such a thing might be possible (interventional medicine is already busy today with transmissions from the therapist to the patient’s soul. Perhaps one day they will also succeed in replacing the soul in the body with another soul…), we will discuss its many halakhic and Torah implications, such as:
– Is the owner of the body obligated by the commandments, or the owner of the soul?
– Who will be punished for damages or offenses committed by a body, when the soul within it belongs to another person?
And of course, thousands of questions, such as prohibitions on incest, commandments concerning the body, the exchange of a man’s soul with a woman’s body, and so on and so forth.
Even today we know about the world of reincarnation, fertilization, etc., etc., but what is seemingly different is Nid’od, in which the soul owner continues his life routine completely, with the same powers, information and thoughts, feelings and emotions, qualities and traits, only in the body of another person.
By the way: The brain is a physical organ, not (only) mental. But according to the aforementioned science fiction, the brain powers of body A can also be transferred to body B…
What do you think, our dears?
In friendship
The question is not defined. Usually, researchers assume that a person does not have a soul and that mental phenomena “emerge” from the material whole. In such a situation, it seems that nothing has passed from one to the other except the information accumulated in the brain. But if a person has a soul, then in order to answer the question, it is necessary to know whether the soul has really passed or whether only the information has passed and the soul has remained. If only the information has passed, then the person remains as he was, and if the soul passes, then it is only a transfer of a body from one person to another and not a transfer of a soul. Just as we would transfer an organ from one person to another in surgery (as a transplant) and in the end the entire body has passed (see Wikipedia, on the Ship of Theseus). And would it occur to you that if we transplant an organ into a person, he will become another person? And this includes a brain transplant. In principle, the brain can be fed with the information that was in it and thus turn it into another “person.” Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that this is not a change to another person.
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