reincarnation: do the math

If there aren't enough bodies for the souls of the dead, the problem is ghosts.

If there aren't enough souls for the bodies of the living, the problem is zombies.

If there are more dead ancestors than living descendants the problem is grave.

If there are more living descendants than dead ancestors, and every descendant is named after an ancestor, the problem is sorting mail.

It's not true that every body implies at least two other bodies. Sex isn't the only way to reproduce, though it's more fun than gene-splicing. Progenitors can and do produce multiple offspring, and are frequently alive during the lifespan of their offspring, though they mostly wish they weren't. And what about weird stuff like in vitro fertilisation, cloning, parthenogenesis, toner-less photocopying, and virgin birth?

In theory, one could count the number of living vs dead body/soul ensembles but that's practically impractical for anyone with less than eternity to play with.

There must be a mathematical function or algorithm linking descendants and ancestors, but I don't know what that function might be. It's gotta involve sex though, unless you're a whiptail lizard. Actually an actuary might be able to help if ze were getting enough, which seems unlikely.

For the algorithm to work you'd need to make a number of assumptions relating to

• soul-ular polyvalence within an individual, ie the number of souls that can inhabit a single body (multiple personality syndrome[?])
  
• the number of bodies that can host a single soul (eg as in hive-minded species such as the Borg)
  
• whether a soul can inhabit the body of any organism, including that of a 'lesser organism' such as a flea, a louse, a bacterium, a lawyer etc)
  
• whether a soul can inhabit an inanimate monad (eg a rock, a puddle of water, a politician, etc).

From the gestalt perspective, Everything That Is comprises one monadic living entity integrating every chunk of body and soul, matter and energy, in all the known and unknown realities. So the answer may be, one of the answers may be, an answer may be that everything is always alive at all times in all places in one form or another. It's the law of the Conservation of Everything: that Everything and every thing, can change form, can manifest differently, incarnate differently, but cannot be created or destroyed.

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NIGHTMERRIES: THE LIGHTER SIDE OF DARKNESS This so-called "book" will chew you up, spit you out, and leave you twitching and frothing on the carpet. More than 60 dark and feculent fictions (read ‘em and weep) copiously illustrated by over 20 grotesque images you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.

AWAREWOLF & OTHER CRHYMES AGAINST HUMANITY (Vot could be Verse?) We all hate poetry, right? But we might make an exception for this sick and twisted stuff. This devil's banquet of adults-only offal features more than 50 satanic sonnets, vitriolic verses and odious odes.

MANIC MEMES & OTHER MINDSPACE INVADERS A disturbing repository of quotably quirky quotes, sayings, proverbs, maxims, ponderances, adages and aphorisms. This menagerie holds no fewer than 184 memes from eight meme-species perfectly adapted to their respective environments.

MASTRESS & OTHER TWISTED TAILS, ILLUSTRATED: an unholy corpus of oddities, strangelings, bizarritudes and peculiaritisms

FIENDS & FREAKS Adults-only Tales of Serpents, Dragons, Devils, Lobsters, Anguished Spirits, Gods, Anti-gods and Other Horse-thieves You Wouldn't Want to Meet in a Dark Kosmos: 4th Edition

HAGS TO HAGGIS Whiskey-soaked Tails of War-nags, Witches, Manticores and Escapegoats, Debottlenecking and Desilofication, Illustrated