Life After Death - the soul

Question 1

Materialism

Answer 1

No separate part of the body called the ‘soul’. an individual is a living, physical being and nothing else. At death the body dies and the personal identity ceases to exist - no personal existence in the afterlife.

Question 2

Hard materialism

Answer 2

Does not accept that an individual’s characteristics are anything more than physical ones. Any idea of consciousness is nothing more than brain activity. There can be no separation between the body and the mind. When the body dies, so does the brain.

Question 3

Soft materialism

Answer 3

Not all characteristics are physical ones, consciousness is more than just brain processes, mind and body are related and do not act independently of each other.

Question 4

Materialism and the body/soul relationship

Answer 4

No scientific evidence for existence of a soul, we can never prove it. We cannot locate the soul in any part of the body. They use ‘soul’ synonymously with ‘mind’. Generally for materialists the ‘soul’ is used in the sense of the immaterial ‘I’ that is distinct from the body.

Question 5

‘The Ghost in the machine’

Answer 5

Gilbert Ryle was a materialist - the idea of the soul (ghost in the machine) was a ‘category mistake’ - to speak of the soul was a mistake in the use of language. This resulted in people taking of the mind and body as different phenomena, as if the soul was something identifiably extra to the body.

Question 6

Ryle’s example of the Foreigner watching cricket

Answer 6

A foreigner is watching cricket, he asks “where is the team spirit?” the foreigner expected team spirit to be something identifiably extra to the players, umpires, scorers… Ryle argued that any talk of the soul was talk about the way in which a person acted and integrated with others in the world.

Question 7

Scientific support for materialism

Answer 7

Modern science has shown that there are links between the brain and the body and so the mind cannot survive on its own, one such scientist is Richard Dawkins…

Question 8

Humans as ‘robot vehicles’

Answer 8

There is no pre-existent soul. Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence; religious belief such as the concept of the soul are based on faith (no empirical evidence). Belief in the soul resulted from the human inability to accept that evil and suffering have no purpose.

Question 9

Dawkins - the purpose of life?

Answer 9

DNA survival and the only way in which humans survive in any way is through their DNA locked up, we are no more than DNA carriers.

Question 10

Dawkins quote about DNA

Answer 10

“The true utility function of life, that which is being maximised in the natural world, is DNA survival”.

Question 11

Dawkins quote about robot vehicles

Answer 11

“Robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes”.

Question 12

Dawkins believes in human dignity

Answer 12

Human dignity passed on to future generations through an individuals genetic code, the very fact that we have developed to a stage where are trying to find the meaning of life is far greater than any creation myth.

Question 13

Dawkins - why has human thinking gone awry?

Answer 13

People have tried to find the meaning of life, for example through religious doctrine that teaches the rewards of paradise. If people reject notions of an afterlife and a God and learnt to reason as scientists then we would be better humans.

Question 14

Dawkins - the meaning of meme

Answer 14

Evolution of consciousness has removed the need for gene replication. There is a new replicator, human culture, that Dawkins calls a meme. It is through a contribution to culture that the meme results in cultural survival within the individual.

Question 15

Dualism and the body/soul relationship - Plato and the forms

Answer 15

The soul belonged to a level of reality higher than the body, the soul is immortal. For everything in existence there is a perfect idea (form). Real identity of the person lies in the soul which pre-exists the body. The soul is capable of knowing eternal truths

Question 16

For Plato, what is knowledge?

Answer 16

All knowledge is recollection of previous lives, we do not learn things in life, we only have recollection of the knowledge gained when we re in the realm of forms before our immortal souls became imprisoned. All knowledge is the uncovering of universal truths.

Question 17

Plato - what happens at death?

Answer 17

Soul separates from the human body - the aim of the soul is to break free of the chains of matter and flee to the realm of ideas, where it will be able to spend eternity contemplating truth and beauty. The body does not survive death, but the soul - the real essence of the person continues and this is our personal identity, that makes the ‘I’ of the person.

Question 18

Aristotle and the soul

Answer 18

Did not believe in an afterlife or the immortality of the soul . He describes the mind (nous) as part of the soul which reasons, it is ‘the part of the soul by which it knows and understands’. He thought the soul was part of the body which gave it life. It is what turns the physical body into a living organism.

Question 19

Aristotle and the soul, part 2

Answer 19

Body and soul are inseparable, the soul develops the person’s skills and character but it cannot survive death. Body and soul are a unity and when the body dies the soul ceases to exist

Question 20

Aristotle quote about the soul

Answer 20

“It seems indeed to be the case that with most affections, the soul undergoes or produces none of them without the body”.

Question 21

Cartesian Dualism

Answer 21

Soul (mind) is distinct from the body and makes contact through the pineal gland. In the mind are all the feelings and sensations that we cannot locate - everything non-physical becomes part of the mind. We can doubt material substances but we cannot doubt our own existence “I think therefore I am”

Question 22

What ideas does Descartes’ dualism rest on?

Answer 22

The mind is ‘non-corporeal’ which is distinct from material.
The mind and body are different things.
Every substance has a special character - the mind is a substance ‘whose whole essence is to think’.
Unlike the mind, the body is extended.

Question 23

Descartes - where does identity come from?

Answer 23

it comes from our ability to think and reason, we do not need our bodies to live an intellectually aware and active life. Therefore Descartes believed the mind could survive the death of the body. The mind gives us personal identity which makes us who we are.

Question 24

Aquinas’ belief about the soul

Answer 24

The soul animated the body and gave it life, he called the soul the anima (animates the body). The soul operates independently of the body, through the link the soul has has the body, each one becomes individual.

Question 25

Aquinas quote about anima

Answer 25

“Now that the soul is what makes our body live”.