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death.html
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<!DOCTYPE html>
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<title>Death</title>
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<p><em>Published:</em> March 15, 2022</p>
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<h1>Death</h1>
<h3>Lecture Notes of the 2007 Series at Yale taught by Shelly Kagan along with some
personal opinions.</h3>
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<p><em>Published:</em> March 15, 2022</p>
<p><em>Status:</em> Stranded</p>
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<h2>Contents</h2>
<ol>
todo
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<article class="big">
<p><em>There is one thing I can be sure of: I am going to die. But what am I to make of that
fact? This course will
examine a number of issues that arise once we begin to reflect on our mortality. The
possibility that death may
not actually be the end is considered. Are we, in some sense, immortal? Would
immortality be desirable? Also a
clearer notion of what it is to die is examined. What does it mean to say that a
person has died? What kind of
fact is that? And, finally, different attitudes to death are evaluated. Is death an
evil? How? Why? Is suicide
morally permissible? Is it rational? How should the knowledge that I am going to die
affect the way I live my
life?
<br><br>Note: The file was originally hosted on GitHub<input type="checkbox"
id="cb-1" /><label for="cb-1"><sup id="footnote-1"><span
class="node-link">1</span></sup></label><span><br><br>1: <a
href="https://github.com/kyscg/Paper2Pulp/blob/master/notes/DeathShellyKagan.md">Death
with Shelly Kagan</a></a><br><br></span></em>
</p>
<h2 id="the-nature-of-persons-dualism-vs-physicalism">The nature of persons: dualism vs.
physicalism</h2>
<h3 id="-is-there-life-after-death-asking-the-right-question">"Is There Life After
Death?" Asking the Right
Question</h3>
<ul>
<li>Before asking, "do I survive?", it is important to ask, "who am
I". Or more generally, what
is a person? The second thing we need to be clear about is, what is the concept of
surviving? <em>What does it
mean when a person existing today exists at some other time in the future?</em>
</li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<p>Recommended Reading: Rosenberg, Jay. “Life After Death: In Search of the Question.”
In Thinking Clearly About
Death. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1983. pp. 18-22</p>
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Here, we have two objections. If death is defined as the end of life, then asking
whether there is more life
after death is "stupid". Thus, there couldn't possibly be life
after death. Maybe now, we
ought to ask the question in a different manner, "might I survive my
death?" Again, the answer is
no, surviving is the act of not dying when you were supposed to. Kind of in a
twist here.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>What happens when a body dies? Forgetting the initial cause that set's in the
condition of death. We
usually have the following things happen: oxygen stops moving through the body,
cells don't metabolize
anymore, blood doesn't circulate, the body stops repairing damage, decay
sets in, yada yada. This entire
sequence is a characteristic of <strong>bodily death</strong>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Next question, do I still exist after the abovementioned - in graphic detail -
bodily death. The answer could
be <em>nyet</em> but it's not obviously <em>no</em>. Now that we sorted out
these nitty-gritty details,
we'll just ask, "Is there life after death" instead of messing
around with words.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="ways-to-conceptualize-self-identity">Ways to conceptualize self-identity</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>What kind of an entity is a person? One answer is that a person = body +
something else that is separate,
immaterial and distinct from the body (people like using the word <em>soul</em>
to describe the latter
part). This is the dualist view.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The monoist view is, as the name suggests, the idea that a person is just a body.
And it's a special sort
of physical object which can do all sorts of crazy things (think, play footy
etc). Another monoist view is
idealism, the idea that all that exists is the soul and the body is just an
illusion that we entrap
ourselves in.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="dualists-the-body-soul-perspective">Dualists: The Body-Soul perspective</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The soul directs the body and body generates input that is felt by the soul.
<em>Where is the soul located in
space by the way?</em> The attraction of this view is that, once the body is
non-functional, the soul
still exists. So, maybe death is the severing of the connection between the body
and the soul.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Suppose that a person = body + soul. Now, once the body dies, by definition, the
person dies. Ergo, in order
for the concept of life after death to have validity, we need the person to be
strictly defined by only the
soul. The first question with regards to this point is whether souls and bodies
are actually distinct. And
secondly, does the soul survive the destruction of the body? And if it survives,
how long does it survive?
Forever? Am I immortal?</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="physicalists-the-body-is-a-body">Physicalists: The Body is a Body</h3>
<ul>
<li>People are just objects for doctors and biologists to play aound with. The body
however, is not just any body.
It is a very sophisticated body. My pencil is a body which is less sophisticated
than my laptop which is less
sophisticated than me who is probably less sophisticated than Richard Feynman or
Ramanujan. <em>I'm starting
to think sophistication might not exactly convey the right meaning here but
eh.</em></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="arguments-for-the-existence-of-the-soul-part-1">Arguments for the existence of the
soul, Part 1</h2>
<h3 id="the-mind-according-to-physicalists-and-dualists">The Mind according to Physicalists
and Dualists</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>To talk about a mind is to talk about the various mental abilities of the body
according to the physicalists.
But the mind isn't exactly the brain. A dead person has a brain. Death is
just the inability to
function.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The dualist view is that the mind is a soul and it is immaterial. When we want to
choose between the two
factions, the question we need to answer is, "should we believe in the
existence of a soul?"</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="inferencing-to-the-best-explanation-to-prove-the-soul-s-existence">Inferencing to
the Best Explanation to Prove
the Soul's Existence</h3>
<ul>
<li>What reasons do we have to believe in anything? How do we prove the existence of
things? Trivially, by using our
senses. That isn't going to work for our souls. Another approach is to prove
assumptions about things we
can't sense by relating them to things we can. Example, atoms, quarks, x-rays
etc. <em>Demon-theory vs germ
theory of disease</em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="can-only-the-soul-justify-feature-f-">Can Only the Soul Justify Feature F?</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Are there things that need to be explained that we could explain if we posited
the existence of a soul?
Another way to ask this question is, "are there things about us that the
physicalist can't explain
or does a bad job of explaining?" Call these things, Feature F.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Explanation of the animation of physical bodies could be a candidate for feature
F, but the physicalists will
immediately say, the reason a dead body isn't animated is because the
physical parts are broken.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>What about free will?</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="abilities-desires-emotions-candidates-for-feature-f">Abilities, Desires, Emotions --
Candidates for Feature F
</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Ability to think, reason, planning etc. No mere machine could do these things.
Lawnmowers don't
<strong>want</strong> to cut grass and certainly don't plan in advance as to
how they're going to go
about it. But with computers, this argument is falling apart. AlphaZero is an
example.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>We get emotional rewards to our actions, while computers will never get emotional
rewards to their actions.
No matter, how much they strategize etc.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="introduction-to-plato-s-_phaedo_-arguments-for-the-existence-of-the-soul-part-ii">
Introduction to Plato's
<em>Phaedo</em>; Arguments for the existence of the soul, Part II
</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Recommended reading: Phaedo by Plato</p>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="introduction-to-plato-s-_phaedo_">Introduction to Plato's <em>Phaedo</em></h3>
<ul>
<li>About Socrates' death. Debate between how much of the character Socrates'
dialogues are Platonic or
Socratic.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="feelings-in-machines">Feelings in Machines</h3>
<ul>
<li>Could a chess playing computer feel fear when it is losing to a very strong
grandmaster? What does feeling mean,
if we ascribe the act of trying to protect its pieces to fear, who is feeling like
something wrong is being
done?</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="-qualia-in-emotion-and-consciousness-the-dualist-s-defense-and-its-weakness">
"Qualia" in Emotion and
Consciousness: The Dualist's Defense and Its Weakness</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The dualist would say here that there are in fact, two qualities to emotions. One
is the behavioural aspect
of feeling emotions, where we react to situations and plan accordingly. Another
is the "feeling"
aspect, what's happening on the inside? The machines work very well
behaviourally but not the feeling
part. For example a blind scientist could know that an apple was much redder
than a tomato (using a light
frequency reader or something) but never feel the colour red.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>No machine could have qualia, or qualitative experience. That's a pretty good
objection. For a
physicalist to respond to this, they would have to provide a recipe for building
a machine that can have
qualitative experience. Unfortunately, we aren't anywhere close to doing
that. We don't know enough
about consciousness yet.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The dualist is standing on some pretty high ground but the height is just an
illusion. True, the soul theory
has a better explanation. But it is not even an explanation of consciousness. It
just says consciousness is
just due to a soul and runs out of points. It's no better than not having a
soul. The jury's still
out.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Shelly Kagan loves to play and follow chess.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="free-will-as-a-defense-of-the-soul">Free Will as a Defense of the Soul</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Even is we had programs that can be creative, all they can do is follow
instructions. We can deviate.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>We have free will, and we know that nothing subject to determinism has free will
because the determinism
states that given a certain initial conditions and input, the machine or system
<strong>will</strong> end up
at a known final state via known paths. All purely physical systems are subject
to determinism. And so it
follows that we are not a purely physical system.
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2
id="arguments-for-the-existence-of-the-soul-part-iii-free-will-and-near-death-experiences">
Arguments for the
existence of the soul, Part III: Free will and near-death experiences</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Recommended Reading: Schick, Theodore and Lewis Vaughn. “Near-Death Experiences.” In
How to Think About Weird
Things. New York: McGraw Hill, 2005. pp 307-323</p>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="determinism-and-free-will-cannot-coexist-inspecting-incompatibility">Determinism and
Free Will Cannot Coexist --
Inspecting Incompatibility</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Some philosophers argue that we dont have free will and I find myself partially
agreeing with them. This
sorta avoids the whole argument. But let me satiate the part of me that thinks
we have a free will and go
on.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Quantum mechanics says that the fundamental laws of physics are
non-deterministic. So, maybe physical systems
aren't really deterministic after all. Determinism is not true. There falls
apart the dualist's
argument. Let's actually destroy it further.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>Why can't we have both determinism and free will?</em></p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="positing-the-soul-s-existence-for-near-death-experiences">Positing the Soul's
Existence for Near-Death
Experiences</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The remarkability of near-death experiences lies in the fact that almost all the
stories are alike. What
explains the correlation? An easy answer is to posit that there exists a soul
that leaves the body on death.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The objection is trivial. They haven't died. Death is the permanence of no
life. If these people have not
died permanently, how can their experiences count for anything. The objection is
also, quite stupid. You
don't invalidate a person's experience of Norway because they didn't
permanently move there.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The physicalist will argue that near-death experiences can also be looked at as
just technical glitches in
the body but even as I write it, for the first time, I am not convinced by the
physicalist argument.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="does-a-physical-understanding-of-supernatural-phenomena-exist-">Does a Physical
Understanding of Supernatural
Phenomena Exist?</h3>
<ul>
<li>When the body is in stress, it releases certain endorphins. Is this a good
explanation for all the visions that
people see? Well, this seems more convincing. Dreams could be just dreams, not
callings from the otherworld.
</li>
</ul>
<h3
id="introduction-to-descartes-s-cartesian-argument-the-mind-and-the-body-are-not-the-same">
Introduction to
Descartes's Cartesian Argument: The Mind and the Body Are Not the Same</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Imagine a scenario where one fine day, you get up from bed and go to brush your
teeth. You look at the mirror
and don't see your reflection, you look down at yourself and see nothing.
What's more, you don't
even feel any sensation in your body. Is this an imagination of your body
ceasing to exist? We're
thinking clearly, we're experiencing strong emotions, namely fear (I guess
panic is the right term) and
yet, our body doesn't exist.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Descartes says that this thought experiment is enough to show that there is
clearly something beyond the
body. Because after all, we just imagined existing without our body. If we tell
a story in which A exists
and B does not exist, it follows that A and B are quite different things. And
thus, it means our minds and
bodies are quite different.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>It is important to understand here that the argument is not saying that since we
can imagine unicorns,
unicorns exist. It only says that imagining one thing without the other gives a
reason for believing that
the two are not the same. We can't imagine a smile without any accompanying
body parts but Descartes
says it is quite easy to imagine the mind without a body.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="arguments-for-the-existence-of-the-soul-part-iv-plato-part-i">Arguments for the
existence of the soul, Part IV;
Plato, Part I</h2>
<h3 id="refuting-the-cartesian-argument-the-morning-and-evening-stars">Refuting the
Cartesian Argument: The Morning and
Evening Stars</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>It's quite hard to provide a counter-example to Descartes' conjecture
because it's hard to pin
down where it went wrong. One one hand, we can argue that imagination is not a
substitute for possibility
checks. In other words, our imagination needn't be correct. On the other
hand, isn't imagination our
greatest weapon while fathoming the mysterious?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Here's my two cents worth as to where this fails, *the argument that if
something can be imagined, then
it is logically possible is nonsense. This is trivial since we have no concept
of the mind except an
intuitive one, rooted in language. This argument is allowed only because of our
ability to equivocate on the
word, not because of knowledge of it -- i.e. the argument is built upon our
ignorance of these matters, not
knowledge of them. <strong>Also, how do you see without a body? How does your
mind focus light onto the
hypothetical optic nerve?*</strong></p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="platonic-forms-and-the-immortality-of-the-soul">Platonic Forms and the Immortality
of the Soul</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>In the <em>Phaedo</em>, Socrates is in a pretty jovial mood even though it is his
last day on earth. That
happiness arises from the fact that he believes in a good heaven and an immortal
soul. Socrates says that
the soul can think and all other emotions like happiness, anger etc are the jobs
of the body. The soul can
think about abstract concepts like justice, health, beauty etc.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>These abstract concepts are called Platonic forms and Socrates says that the job
of philosophers is to forget
material/bodily hungers and think about Platonic forms</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="plato-part-ii-arguments-for-the-immortality-of-the-soul">Plato, Part II: Arguments
for the immortality of the
soul</h2>
<h3 id="concerns-and-issues-leading-to-the-development-of-platonic-forms">Concerns and
Issues Leading to the Development
of Platonic Forms</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Reiterating, Socrates says that in life, the goal should be to separate ourselves
from our bodies so much
that the final separation (death) can be viewed as an entry into heaven where we
can spend all our time
thinking about Platonic forms.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The first objection raised in the dialogue is as follows, "Okay, you've
been training all your life
for this final separation under the assumption that your soul will go to heaven,
but where's the
guarantee that your soul won't get destroyed due to this separation?"
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="the-argument-from-the-nature-of-the-forms">The Argument from the Nature of the Forms
</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Why can't the body grasp the Platonic forms? This is the second objection
raised in the dialogue. An
answer can be provided here, ideas and forms are eternal/nonphysical. That which
is eternal can only be
grasped by the eternal. This implies that whatever grasps the forms is
definitely non physical (not the
body) and eternal (which means the soul is eternal and will not get destroyed by
the separation.) <em>Is the
second assumption really true that only eternal entities can grasp eternal
forms?</em></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Elon Musk studies cars, but that doesn't mean he's a car. Ohhh, but cars
aren't eternal. We
don't have a counter-example yet for eternal forms. And again, the score
favours the side I don't
support.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="the-argument-from-recycling">The Argument from Recycling</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Our body parts existed before we existed and will exist forever after we're
gone. Everything is recycled
in nature. In a similar vein, the argument states that the soul existed long
before we existed and will
continue to exist after we're gone.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The counter-argument is simple here, we can't just conclude that the soul
exists after our death without
further evidence. For the body though, mass balance will suffice. This isn't
very good either.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="the-argument-from-recollection">The Argument from Recollection</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>What does it mean to be reminded of something? A photograph of Feynman reminds us
of the great man but no one
would ever feel like it is Feynman himself. What if I showed you a picture of
someone you never met? In that
case, you wouldn't have any recollection whatsoever. We need prior
acquaintance and then we recollect.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>We all recognize platonic forms, but they aren't physical objects. Plato says
that certain objects in the
physical world remind us of platonic forms. We've never encountered perfect
justice, perfect circularity
etc in this life. So it must have existed before. The soul must have existed
before our birth.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="do-plato-s-arguments-suffice-">Do Plato's Arguments Suffice?</h3>
<ul>
<li>Is it really true that we need to have encountered perfect straightness in order to
think about it? It certainly
helps, but is it necessary? We come across things that are bent, some are straighter
and some look really
straight in this life. Can't we extrapolate from there?</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="plato-part-iii-arguments-for-the-immortality-of-the-soul-cont-">Plato, Part III:
Arguments for the immortality
of the soul (cont.)</h2>
<h3 id="frailties-in-recycling-and-recollecting-arguments">Frailties in
"Recycling" and
"Recollecting" Arguments</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Reminder from where I left off, we don't really need a memory of perfect
forms for us to think about
them. We could have an idea of an incomplete or an imperfect form and
extrapolate from there. And even if
this premise is true, it only shows that the soul existed before death and says
nothing or close to nothing
about what happens to it after death.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Aha, but by saying that, we have forgotten our earlier argument about recycling.
So, if we assume that the
soul is also recycled like all other atoms in the body, the soul also has to
exist after death. <em>Okay, in
vein of all the cynicism running rampant throughout this thought process,
what proves that the soul
doesn't decay after death? In other words, immortality of the soul
isn't answered by just giving
it's states before birth and after death.</em></p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="the-argument-from-simplicity">The Argument from Simplicity</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>How do we know the soul can't come apart? Here, Socrates starts a discussion
about the kinds of things
that can break and the kinds of things that cannot. Things that have parts can
be destroyed, cars, books,
bodies, trees etc. The number 7 can't be destroyed, the name and form could
be, but the abstract concept
cannot be touched.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The argument from Socrates is as follows: only composite things can be destroyed.
Only changing things are
composite and invisible things don't change. This means that invisible
things can't be destroyed.
Since the soul is invisible, it follows that it is eternal. <em>Why don't
invisible things change? Why
can't they be destroyed.</em></p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3
id="does-indestructibility-and-invisibility-of-the-soul-necessarily-mean-immortality-objections-from-cebes-and-simmias">
Does Indestructibility and Invisibility of the Soul Necessarily Mean Immortality?
Objections from Cebes and Simmias
</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Cebes pipes in now, even if the soul is indestructible, it doesn't guarantee
immortality. Socrates
doesn't answer this.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Simmias says that invisible things can be destroyed. He gives an example of the
harmony of a harp, it is
invisible but some careless tuning will destroy the harmony. Again, Socrates
doesn't answer this. He
spends some time wondering whether we could compare harmony to a soul which is a
stupid thing to do because
even if he proved his point, it still remains that harmony is invisible. The
correct thing to do here is to
argue that harmony isn't invisible.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="harmony-as-a-counter-analogy">Harmony as a Counter Analogy</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Using harmony is a great weapon for physicalists here. Because the argument
essentially states that perfect
harmony arises out of the perfect state of the harp and not anything alien.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>When we were asking whether invisible things could be destroyed, we need to
understand invisibility. The
first interpretation is that anything that can't be seen is invisible,
second, anything that cannot be
observed. And third, can't be detected. I hope the difference is clear. I
think Socrates meant
interpretation number 2 when he was talking about invisibility. Harmony no
longer works as a
counter-example.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="radio-waves-to-detect-rather-than-to-sense-the-soul">Radio Waves - To Detect Rather
Than to Sense the Soul</h3>
<ul>
<li>Radio waves are invisible to our sensible but they can be detected. The number 7 is
truly invisible. Is it true
that the soul can't be detected? It ain't, we detect souls every day, all
the time. Woe to thy argument,
Socrates.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="plato-part-iv-arguments-for-the-immortality-of-the-soul-cont-">Plato, Part IV:
Arguments for the immortality of
the soul (cont.)</h2>
<h3 id="assumptions-made-in-the-argument-from-simplicity">Assumptions Made in the Argument
from Simplicity</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Plato suggests that in order to be destroyed, you need to have parts. So, does
the soul have parts? is it
changeable? Also, there is no reason to suggest that the soul is simple. In the
<em>Republic</em>, Plato
himself argues that there are three parts, a rational part, spiritual part and
one responsible for appetite.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>And if the soul is simple, it doesn't follow that it is indestructible.
Breaking apart something is not
the only way to destroy something. The soul could very well just go out of
existence.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="plato-s-defense-against-the-harmony-analogy">Plato's Defense against the Harmony
Analogy</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The analogy is characteristic of the physicalists. Harmony clearly cannot exist
before the existence of the
harp itself. Also, harmony can vary. We can have varying degrees of
"soulfulness". The soul could
be good/evil, and similarly, certain harmonies are good/bad.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>More important is the point is that the soul can direct the body but this
doesn't work for the harp and
its harmony. Maybe the harp is too simple a machine to have a good analogy. If
we really wanted to side with
Simmias, we could say that plucking two or more strings together is a way of
directing harmony. But this is
too complicated.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="essential-and-contingent-properties-and-the-argument-from-essential-properties">
Essential and Contingent
Properties and the Argument from Essential Properties</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>We need to keep in mind that Plato wasn't as well equipped as we are. Now
comes the difference between an
essential property and a contingent property (<em>I hate jargon</em>). An
essential property is a property
that the object needs to have while the latter is a property that isn't
really necessary for the
existence of the object. The paint of a car is a contingent property and the
engine is an essential
property.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Here's an essential property for the soul according to Plato, whenever
there's a soul, it is alive.
By alive, he means that it is capable of thought. We don't like minds that
aren't capable of
thinking. He says that life is an essential property of the soul and that means
that the soul can't be
destroyed and hence, it is deathless.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The part where is goes wrong is <strong>deathless</strong>. What does it mean to
say that something is
deathless? One possibility is that the soul can't exist and be dead at the
same time. Another
possibility is that the soul can't be destroyed. What's the difference?
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The first interpretation just means what it says but the stronger question is
posed by the second
interpretation. If Plato can convince us that the soul is indestructible, we are
set.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="kagan-there-is-no-good-reason-to-believe-in-souls-">Kagan: "There is No Good
Reason to Believe in
Souls"</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>From now on, we only care about the physicalist view because the whole burden of
proof lies with the
dualists. They aren't able to offer any convincing argument. Smell bias?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>When do we need to prove something doesn't exist? How do you prove the
non-existence of unicorns? So,
shouldn't we first disprove the existence of unicorns before doing anything
else? The way to debunk the
existence of unicorns is just to disprove the people who put forth evidence that
there are unicorns, not set
out to do it ourselves and wander throughout wherever unicorns could be. And on
we march.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="personal-identity-part-i-identity-across-space-and-time-and-the-soul-theory">
Personal identity, Part I: Identity
across space and time and the soul theory</h2>
<h3 id="introduction">Introduction</h3>
<ul>
<li>From now on, we're all physicalists. The reasons are listed above.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="what-does-it-mean-to-survive-the-train-metaphor">What Does It Mean to Survive? The
Train Metaphor</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>What does it mean to survive? Existence in multiple points of time? Suppose
there's someone alive 20
years from now, could that be you? Is that the same person as you are? What does
it mean when someone in the
future is the same person as now?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>One way to go wrong here is to say things like, "The person isn't the
same, he's bald and bent
over". So we need to get clear about identity across space and identity
across time. One example that
Kagan gives is of a train, when we're at the end of the train and point at
the train, it is quite
different from when we're at the beginning of the train and point towards
the engine. Even though
they're the same train, they look quite different. So by pointing, we're
pointing at the whole
extended space occupied by the train and not a single carriage.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Now, imagine a yard where they take the trains in for inspection and maintenance.
While walking across the
tracks, we come across the end of a train and after a while, we see the engine
on the other side. Since we
cannot see through the yard, we don't know if the end and engine are
connected or they're actually
two/more trains.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="the-aging-of-a-car-and-space-time-worms">The Aging of a Car and Space-Time Worms
</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Consider a brand new car bought in 2020, by 2030, it doesn't look so good and
by 2040, it's probably
not even working. But when we talk about the car, we refer to the same thing.
Here, we're referring to
an extended block of time that the car is occupying. Let's say we sell the
car in 2030 and get a new
one. Now, while driving past a dump in 2035, we see a car that looks a lot like
our old car, but we
can't really tell if it's our car because of the same issue from the
previous section. We're
blinded by the mist of time.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Points to takeaway: don't confuse the various parts/stages with the entire
space-time worm, what's
the glue that joins up the space-time worm? In the case of trains, it's the
links between carriages. In
the case of cars, what makes a 2020 car the same as a 2022 car?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>We definitely need some essential elements like the metal, plastic etc. But then,
we replace the tires, we
wear out the seats, the steering wheel etc. So what should a car have to
convince us that. How many changes
of the constituent parts could we have and still be the same car? He doesn't
talk about this.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="will-i-survive-my-death-the-dualist-s-soul-as-the-metaphysical-glue">Will I Survive
My Death? The Dualist's
Soul as the Metaphysical Glue</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Now, we have a framework for thinking about people across time. Are people glued
together in time. What is
the metaphysical glue? Suppose there's a person X in 2020 and he's
lively and fun until 2040, then
he dies in 2041. What does it mean for X to survive his death? It means, in
2042, could there be a somebody
who's part of the very same space-time worm that X occupied. We can only
answer this question if
we're clear about the metaphysical glue.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>One argument: the metaphysical key to having the same identity is to have the
same soul. That's the kinda
thing a dualist would say. For physicalists, the prospect of death and life
after it doesn't seem so
attractive now. Suppose that next week, while you're sleeping, by some
strange turn of events, your soul
gets replaced and this new soul has all your memories, desires etc. You wake up
and say, "Great
morning, I'm so and so". But according to the soul view, you're not
you. Your soul has been
switched. You'd be wrong and none the wiser about it. How do you it already
didn't happen?</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="is-the-soul-truly-the-key-to-personal-identity-">Is the Soul Truly the Key to
Personal Identity?</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>How do you know your soul isn't replaced every single night, every hour,
every minute, every moment? If
that's happening, people don't last very long, their bodies sure do but
the people don't. John
Locke's work, all this.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>This is not an argument against the existence of souls, it's an argument that
even if souls do exist,
they do a horrible job at explaining personal identity. More points to my tribe.
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="personal-identity-part-ii-the-body-theory-and-the-personality-theory">Personal
identity, Part II: The body
theory and the personality theory</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Recommended Reading: John Perry, A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality</p>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="the-body-theory-of-personal-identity">The Body Theory of Personal Identity</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>We're not rejecting the soul theory here, we're just asking whether using
the sameness of souls to
justify the continued temporal existence of man is right. Another way to go
about identifying the same
person is to ask whether they have the same body. Just like we did for cars,
same body same person without
getting too much into the details.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>So at first glance, the question, will I survive the death of my body? gives us
an obvious no. But there is a
logical possibility of me surviving the death of my body, all it takes is for
someone to put my body back.
Logically possible.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The important question here is, when someone puts back our body after we die, is
that still our body? Suppose
we take our phone to the repair guy because it stopped working, the repair guy
takes it apart, cleans it and
puts it back. Lo and behold, my phone's working again. No one's going to
say, "hey, that
ain't mine!" There was a time when the phone was disassembled when he
was cleaning it, it was
"dead" at that time, and now it's back and fine.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>An excellent counter argument coming up, so brace thyselves. Suppose my friend
wrote a very huge program that
could solve sudoku on my laptop for an contest because his was broken. He goes
to sleep all excited about
presenting it the next day. I am browsing around and I permanently delete his
files by mistake. As expected,
I panic and code the entire thing from scratch exactly as he did. I even get the
line numbers and variable
names correct. The next day, my friend gets all gung-ho about the contest where
he wants to present
<strong>his</strong> code. But is it though? The point is that putting back an
object doesn't make it
the original object.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I personally can't find fault with either the phone or the code example.
<em>What to do, what not to
do?</em> Like proper scientists, we need to find the difference that makes
one not a good example. And
then, we need to check whether the phone example is closer to what happens to
the body than the tower.
<em>Open problem.</em>
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>What parts of the body are allowed to change before the body isn't the same
as before? It's clear
that some parts of the body aren't as important as the others. Losing some
tummy fat doesn't make
you a different person, losing an arm doesn't make you a different person,
so what does? Is the most
important part of the body, the brain?</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="equating-the-brain-with-the-identity-implications-of-the-body-theory">Equating the
Brain with the Identity --
Implications of the Body Theory</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Liver, heart, lung transplant are all trivial. But what about brain transplants?
I'm inclined to say that
no one gets a brain transplant, the brain just gets a new body a.k.a the person
no existo.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Do we need all of the brain? Research says that you could lose a fair proportion
of the brain and still work
perfectly well. <em>This is getting crazy.</em></p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="physicalists-personality-as-the-key-to-personal-identity">Physicalists: Personality
as the Key to Personal
Identity</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>We could say that the key to sameness of the person was the sameness of
personality. This view is perfectly
compatible with being a physicalist. And also with dualists. Even if our soul
changes every second, as long
as our personality doesn't change, we're the same person. But even the
personality changes. So maybe
we just require enough gradual overlap.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>We have three theories right now, the soul theory, the brain version of the body
theory and the personality