jond,
- I disagree. Science accepts that condoms and birth control pills prevent potential selves from becoming actual selves.
No. It doesn't. Science claims that birth control prevents zygotes from being viable pre or post fertilization depending on method.
Are you really going to claim that a single cell must have a self or selves? By that reckoning, bacteria would have souls. Brushing your teeth would be by definition an act of genocide.
Or are you going to claim that humans are somehow special in their act of procreation as opposed to all the other animals who do it in exactly the same way?
Or perhaps something else lobbed in as a post-hoc argumentative hand grenade?
Where exactly are all of these potential selves and how do you know? Do they form an orderly queue? Or is conception a metaphysical riot among the countless billions of selves for the privilege of conception? Does that mean the most evil, self centred and ruthless potential self is the most likely to get incarnated? Does that mean that all people are likely the dregs of all potential selves, those willing to trod on their fellows at all costs? If immortal, why would they even care about becoming incarnated in the first place? They can choose A: Be an immortal spirit without a care, or B: Have a mortal life encased in meatspace with all that entails.
Seems a no-brainer decision to me.
Of course, that all leaves aside the claim that all of these avaricious potential selves must be actively competing with each other for an existence which offers them nothing at all by way of advantage and that these entities cannot be shown to exist in the first place.