surviving death: a guide for beginners michael lacewing enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk

Surviving Death: A Guide for Beginners

Michael Lacewingenquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk

What am I?

What is it for me to continue being me over time?

Am I a kind of thing, e.g. a mind or a body? What is it for a mind or a body to continue to exist?

We know bodies can exist without minds (corpses). Are minds able to exist without bodies?

Dualism and Monism

Substance: needs no other thing to existDualism: there are two sorts of

substance, mind (or soul) and matterMaterialism: there is just one sort of

thing, matter

The options

Suppose dualism is true, and my mind can exist without my body. Do I continue to exist just as a mind after death (=death of my body)? Or am I essentially a mind-and-body combination?

Suppose materialism is true, and we don’t have souls. Can we survive death at all? Can my body ‘survive’? Can my mind survive?

Surviving death: Resurrection

In the graveyard or somewhere else? How does my body get there?

Christ had an intact body; I won’t!

Putting the old body back together

A Corny Tale

Materialism and personal identity

Am I…

My brain?

Or is what makes me me different from what makes my brain my brain?

Teletransportation (or travelling light)

Same mind, different body

Teletransportation suggests that I can still be me – the same person – without having the same body.

Materialism claims that everything that exists exist in a material form, i.e. is made from matter. It doesn’t have to claim that persons just are their bodies; but persons must have bodies to exist at all.

Surviving death: Recreation

Resurrection resurrected

Not all bodies are the same: I Corinthians 15

But what makes it ‘the same’ body?

Will we still have problems with starting from the original body?