Lesson 6 Flashcards
The possibility of physical existence after death
For those who think that personal identity lies in the physical facts about the body in the brain, four conclusions might be drawn concerning the possibility of continuing personal existence after death
There is no continuing personal existence after death
-This clear conclusion is adopted by physicalist and materialist understanding of the nature of persons
the body and brain decay after death and no longer exist in any recognisable form
-Russell says the self is bound up with what happens in the brain but cannot entertain the idea of an existence that can out-live its dissolution.
Science on technology may allow us to survive death
-The science of Cryonics – deals with the low temperature preservation of people whose lives cannot be saved by conventional medicine
-the heads can be preserved at -196 degrees, waiting for resuscitation and reattachment to a body as in when science permits
-another physicalist suggestion is provided by Daniel Dennett - information presently stored in the brain could be uploaded onto a different platform such as a computer
The Christian concept of resurrection of the body
-there is disagreement within Christianity concerning whether resurrection will be spiritual or bodily the idea that resurrection in a bodily form is a coherent, philosophical view of continuing life after death
-the obvious difficulty with such a view is that bodies rot and the material of any one body becomes part of other physical systems
-if a body of some form as necessary in order to be recognised as a person how are we to understand identity, if a body available after death is not to be physically identical to the one that dies
John Hick
Materialist.
Body & Soul are one.
Both die at death.
an exact replica of a person could be created.
Hick believes this is the same person.
God is omnipotent - he can do this!
The Problem of Personal Identity and a Replica Theory
A replica is not the original.
Which of the following statements is correct?
• First I existed in this world, then I died, and then I existed again the next world.
• First I existed in this world, then I died, and then God created someone else who is exactly similar to me.
Hicks response
He imagined a man called John Smith who lived in the US.
One day, his friends watched as Smith suddenly vanished. At the same moment as his disappeared, a replica Smith appeared in India.
A replica is not the original. Hick says this John Smith…
*is exactly similar in both physical and mental characteristics to the person who disappeared in America.
Summary of hicks replica theory
He sets out to defend the Christian idea of bodily resurrection
Supports that God is omnipotent
God can resurrect a replica of the human body-soul
‘Mr X’ thought experiment – shows that bodily resurrection is ‘logically possible’ (a posteriori proof)
Personal identity is psychological continuity of personality and memory
Bundle theory
The Bundle Theory – Derek Parfit (1984)
-Argues against finding single, definitive feature that enables a person to maintain his or her unique identity
-As we pass through life, many things change and often do so gradually identity therefore depends on a number of features not on some core of self
being spatio temporally connected
-If you consider yourself as you are now, with the developed conscious awareness the developing memory in personality you are psychologically spatio-temporally connected (through your brain and body) with all your past and future states of existence but no time is there an identity between different states the neurons in your cerebral cortex will not change, but your body, memory in personality will change over the course of your life
Parfit concludes that we have to abandon any idea of some enduring ‘identity’ in persons.
What matters is what Parfit calls ‘Relation R’ – psychological connectedness, including memory and personality.
On this account of a person, you do not survive death as the ‘same person’
You have continuity with your ancestors through genetics and with your immediate ancestors through psychological connectedness
Equally, when you die your children will be psychologically connected to you, but you do not survive in any deeper sense.
