Classes on Death, from Philosophy 176, of Yale University.

Table of Contents

1. The Existence of Soul
2. Can soul survives the death of the body ?
3. Personal Identity
4. Death
5. Rest parts (and Summary)

1. The Existence of Soul

1.1 Dualism and Physicism

The relationship of body and soul(mind).

• The body and the mind are different representations (or cognitions) of the same thing.
• Dualism (interactive) : The body and mind are two seperate things with very tight connection. And death might be the seveing of the connection.

In the assumption of the Dualism:

• Are body and soul distinct. (i.e. are there soul?)
• If there are soul, can soul survives the death of the body?
• If survive, how long? Does it continue to exist forever?

Soul are reserved for immaterial stuff, it may not have a physics location.

Materialist view : people is just a material object, just a “body” (but not any old body) that can do some amazing things. For example, “smile” ( “mind” in our case here), the materialists don’t deny smile. Talking about smile, is actually talking about the body ability to smile. There is mind, and talking about “The Mind”, is actually talking about the body ability to do various things. Death is just the breaking down of the body, so it will not function any more.

“Mind” is talking about the abilities of the body. And we all admit its existence.

(Metaphysics : a division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being and that includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology)

1.2 Is there soul?

1.2.1. Inference to the best explanation

Inference to the best explanation. Something we say exist, is that we can see, touch or feel it. How can we tell the existance of “soul” when we can’t feel it. For an example “atoms”, we infer the exitence of atoms, because it can explain things (physics laws). We infer the existence of thins we cannot see, to explain something we can’t otherwise explain. So, we should always choose the best explanation. So we will infer to the “Inference to the best explanation”, to find something to which “soul” could offer a best explanation.

For the existence of soul : Are there things about us that the physicalist cannot explain? could give us some reason to believe the soul. Feature P (people) : One aspect, the ordinary thing about us, another aspect, the super-nature things.

1.2.2. Ordinary things

Ordinary things :

• What animates the body? Must there be something outside the body that control the body? We are different from the robots, do we need soul to explain free will ?
• The ability to think, reason, brief, desires, make strategies, etc. For example, the computer playing programmings. What grouds are there for withholding ascriptions of beliefs and desires to the computer? Are we just using asumptions to “argue” the argument? That’s far from obvious. Are these just illusions? Maybe there is a action side and an emotional side of the desires (that machines don’t have). Then it lead to the question : Could a purely physics being feel emotions?

1.2.3. Emotion

Emotion : we have the behavioral aspect of feeling, and the sensation part of what the feeling feels like (or we call it qualitative experiences ) . For dualism point of view, a pure physice body cannot have the sensation part of emotion. For example, can blind people “feel” red? He have the notation of the red color, knows the apple is read, while in the mean time, he cannot actually have the feeling of feel red (as he cannot really see). The materialist may argue : we are not yet able to explain soul in physical view, is not equal to we won’t possibly able to explain it (For an example, life in 14th century) . And we don’t want any explanation, we want a better explanation. So one may ask : how soul can have conciousness? and we cannot answer it. This is actually a tie.

1.2.4.Creativity

Creativity : could there be a pyhsics object that is creative? Chess playing programs could create strategies, there are mathematical theorem proving programs, and programs could create music and arts.

1.2.5. Free Will

Free Will : But all the programs are automatically, mechanically following the code. It seems that it does not have free will. And the assumption that we (human) have free will is based on the following arguments.

• We have free will.
• Nothing subject to determinism has free will (Incompatibilism). While many people hold the compatibilism, that the determinism and free will are compatible.
• All purely physical systems are subject to determinism. However, the fundamental laws of physics are not in fact deterministic. Instead, it is probabilistic, according to the standard inerpretation of quantum mechanics.
• So, we are not a purely physical system.

1.2.6. Near Death Experiences

Death experiences, while then drawed back to life.

One explanation : the person dead, then went to another “world”. The objection goes that they never really die, how can they tell “the permanently dead”. While the experiences should still count for some degree.

Physics explanation : “One room(world)” metaphom, death, go close the wall of the room, everything will be a bit different. Life is a biology process, near death will trigger some different biological process. Still waiting for scientific evidences.

Seance

So far, no good reason to go beyond physicism.

1.2.7. Cartesian argument

Cartesian thought experiment, we could imagine that our mind exist without the body. If the body and the mind are the same entity, we cannot imagine such things (we cannot tell a story that the table exist while the table does not exist). If we can tell a story that A exists while B does not exist, does it follow that A and B are not the same thing ? If B is just another word to express A, it cannot happen that A exists while B doesn’t exist. So talking about my mind cannot be just talking about my body?

We could consider the examples:

• A : left hand, B : right hand;
• A : body, B : smile;
• A : nom, B : prenom;
• A : mind, B : body;
• A : evening star, B : morning star

For the case of evening star and morning star, we know that they are actullay the same entity, the Venus, whether I am aware of it or not. But maybe something went wrong here, otherwise the Descartes’s argument won’t hold (actually the Prof think the argument doesn’t work in person). Many people argues about where this statement goes wrong:

• This statement may be misdescribed that the world you are imagining went wrong.
• Imagining doesn’t mean logically possible (For an example, try to imagine a round square, we will start to trying).
• Identity is not necessary, but contingent.

1.3 Summary

No satisfying statement achieved.

2. Can soul survives the death of the body ?

2.1 Phaedo, Plato

The main driving of the Phaedo : Do we have any reason to believe the soul could survive the death of the body? The existance of the soul is taken for granted in the dialogue. And Plato is a dualist, so he built Socrates to be dualist, and believe that the immortality of the soul.

Body do the sensation stuff, soul do the thinking stuff. The soul can think of certain concepts, or ideas. There is nothing in this world that’s perfectly beautiful, yet we can think about perfect beauty itself (same for perfect justice, perfect circularity). The mind has some kind of handle on these perfect “Platonic ideas”, “Platonic forms” (Platonic Forms). Plato’s thought that he puts in Socrates’ mouth : what the philosopher tries to do is to free himself from the distractions that the body poses , all these distractions get in the way of thinking about the Platonic forms, so the philosopher would want to separate his mind as much as possible from the body. And he believe, when the death come and the final separation occurs, his mind gets to go up to Plato’s heaven.

For an example, think of mathematics. When we talk about math, we are talking about numbers that the mind trying to grasp, while numbers are not physical objects. They are Platonic abstract entities that don’t exist in space and time. Yet for all that, the mind can think about them.

Based on these, Plato try to argue that the soul can be immortal. As the physical world is constantly changing, from form to form, while the mind can grasp the platonic ideas that are constant, stable and realible. If we distance the soul from the distractions of the body. we get focus on the platonic ideas and forms. If we train to separate, when we dead, our soul will go up to the platonic heaven. While if you are not trying to, your soul may reincarnate to another body. We are living in the dark, somehow mistake about our reality.

While How do we knoe that the soul won’t be destoried with the death of the body? It could be that we need the body to continue thinking, we may want our body to exist to allow us to think.

2.2 Forms

• Ideas(Forms) are eternal/nonphysical.
• Eternal/nonphysical can only be grasped by the eternal/nonphysical. The impure cannot attain pure. It takes one to know one.
• So that, which grasps the Ideas(Forms) must be eternal/nonphysical. -> nonphysical: not the body; eternal : immortal.

Objection: (mainly for the second argument.) It doesn’t need to france to know the franch people. The biologyists can study cat without being cat. While the eteral/nonphysical objects maybe speical cases, and we only need a special case to support the argument. And we not yet see good reason to believe argument 2.

2.2.1 Recycling

The parts of a car existed before the car is assambled. The parts existed prior to the existence of the car itself. The parts continue to exist after the car cease to. Things coming to being composed of previously existing parts. When those things cease to have the form they had the parts get used for other purposes, they get recycled.

Objection : some parts may continue to exist after the death of the body, but we cannot sure that soul is one of these recycling parts. Take my heart as an example, came to exist along side with my body.

2.2.2 Recollection

The reminding of something by something else that resembles it but is not the thing it reminds you of. Looking at the photograph, even not very good, will remind us of the person.

We all know about Platonic Forms, which not exist in the physical world. While various things we could found in this world, make us thinking about the Platonic Forms themselves. Ordinary objects in the world participate to a greater or lesser degree in the Platonic Forms. These things remind us of the Platonic forms.

To allow the photograph remind me of the person, we must have already been acquainted with the person. For the round plate to remind of perfect roundness, we must have already met perfect roundness itself. But this cannot happen in this life, this world. So it got to happen before, the soul must be around before we are born.

Objection : our acquaintance with the Platonic Forms could come about in this life for the very first time.

Objection : even soul could exist before body, it doesn’t mean that it will exist after the death of body. Sometimes, the car destories the engines get destoried right after. We need to show the soul won’t decompose/decade after the death of the body.

2.2.3 Simplicity

What kind of things can break, What kind of things won’t break. Composite things can be destoryed, while the Platonic Forms cannot be destoryed (You cannot destory number, perfect circle). Because they are simple, they are not composed of anything (they have no part to take apart). Things that change are parts, things with parts can be destroyed.

• only composite things can be destoryed.
• only changing things are composite.
• invisible things don't change.
• So, invisible things can't be destoryed. Objection (Simmias), for an example harmony (music), harmony is to the harp as the mind is to the body ¹ . Might be a different conterexample.
• But soul is invisible. Can the soul be detected (considering the definition 3 of invisible)?
• So soul can't be destoryed. (“or nearly so”)

The harmony metaphor are often used by physicists, as they talk about the mind as a way of talking about what the body can do when it’s working properly. It’s dependence is just the same way as harmony is dependent upon the physical instrument.

Soul could change. and in other arguements of Plato proposed that soul has three parts. The simplicity of the soul won’t stand.

Invisible (Socrates’ arguments turn on) :

• can’t be seen.
• can’t be observed (5 senses).
• can’t be detected.

Harmony metaphor :

• It cannot exist before the existence of the physical instruments. Plato argue that the soul can exist previous to the body. while his arguments are not persuasive.
• Harmony can vary. but we found mind can come in degrees.
• Soul can be good or evil. we say a good soul being harmonic, while we don’t talk the harmony of harmony. But we can also talk about different kinds of harmonies.
• Soul is capable of diecting the body, and opposing the body. If we talking about the physicism, talking about the soul is talking about the functional of the body. How can the abilities of the body affect itself ? Some parts of the body can order other parts. It’s just one part of the body affecting other parts of the body.

2.2.4 Essential Property

We need to firstly distinguish between the essential property(object must have) and the contingent property(object may have). Plato gave an example, fire and being hot. But is there really essential property? and what are they? (but if there’s no duality, there won’t be any property, we won’t talk about this subject here).

Soul: wherever there’s a soul, it’s alive (alive means : it’s thinking or capable of thought). As mind has the ability to think, and it seems essential for thought. Essential property: either the fire exists and it’s hot, or it is destroyed. there’s not a third possibility that a cold fire. So for the soul, either you have a soul and it can think. or the soul no longer exists. And Plato rule out the second possibility with the idea of be essentially alive.

• Life is an essential property of the soul.
• So soul is deathless.
• So soul cannot die, indestructible.
• So soul cannot be destoryed.

However there is ambiguity in the idea of being deathless.

• A : can’t be that : soul exists and is dead. (for the first arugment)
• B : can’t be that : soul was destoryed. (for the arguments following)

2.3 Summary

No good enough reason to believe in souls. So the prof conclues : there is no soul.

Do we need to turn to the physicism Give me some reason not to believe in souls? Let’s consider that, when do we need to prove that somethong doesn’t exist? For an example, the dragons. To justify your skepticism about dragons, is to refute all of the arguments that might be offered on behalf of dragons.

We don’t need to disprove the existence of soul, instead we need to take a look at the arguments on behalf of soul. We don’t need to prove the existence of soul is impossible, we just need to undermine the case for souls. We don’t believe the existence of soul, while we don’t argue for that it is impossible.

3. Personal Identity

3.1 Identity

We assume the soul doesn’t exist in the following sections. What is it, for me, to survive a period? Is the person here next week, the same person? For me, to survive next week. And think for a longer period, for an example 40 years. For clearify them, we must figure out some concepts : Identity across space and time, personal identity.

3.1.1 Space Identity

Example : the extended-through-space train. We pointing the locomotive to identify the same train as we pointing the caboose. Are they the same train?

What if some part of the train is blocked.

If we have X-ray to look through the block.

• It could be the train is seperate in the middle, there are actually two trains.
• Or it is the same extended-through-space object.

3.1.2 Time Identity

Example: the extended-through-time car. when pointing the car, we are not pointing the slice of car, but the entire extended-through-time object. The slices aren’t the same, the cars are the same.

Same for the “blockage”, if we lost the car in a period, then find ‘the car’. If we cannot figure out what happened this period, we cannot sure if it is the same extended-through-time car, or it is another car.

And we may ask : What makes two stages, stages of the very same thing?. The trian connection make them the same object.

• What is the metaphysical glues for the extended-through-time car : being the same hunk of stuff (even the consistuent atoms are changed, even bigger parts).
• How many changes of the consistuent parts can you have and still be the same hunk of stuff ?

3.1.3 Personal Identity - Soul

Is SK 2007 the very same person as the extend-through-time person (space time worm) that you got in mind when pointing to Mr.X 2050 (we are not asking the person stages/slices). Answer : it depends on whether the stages are glued together in the right metaphysical way. ( Can we survive the death of the body? to answer it we need to clear about what does it take to have identity across time.)

• For dualism, the key is having the same soul. Think about God takes my soul, and replace it with another soul, with all my memories, my experiences, my desires, etc , pluged in. In the dualism view, he won’t be me, as he has a different soul. While there will be no way at all for him to know that. How do we know if it happens? (raised by John Locke) . It is not plausible. So we concludes here, even if the soul do exists, they may not be the key to personal identity.

3.1.4 Personal Identity - Body

The body theory of personal identity. That same body means same person. In that case(not contradict with dualism), we could still “survive” the death of the body, if we believe in body resurrection.

• Support example, the jeweler take down the watch then fix it.
• Objection, I build exact the same woldden tower (duplication) as my son did. Can the body be decomposed then be recomposed. we don’t have the every same object as we start with. (from Van Inwagen) So even the judgement day comes, that God reassembled all the molecules, that won’t be the every same body. I will have a duplicated me, but not me.

Obviously we can accept some change of the body. But which changes in the body make a different body, and which changes make for the same body. Not all the parts of the body are equally important. The most important part is the brain. Enough part of the brain to keep the personality.

3.1.5 Personal Identity - Personality

• Think about organic transplant. You get a brain transplant, it actually someone else doing a torso transplant.
• Is there redundancy in the brain? It seems that some part of the brain can be lost, to still keep or person identity.

The Prof thinks the best part of the body view, is the brain view. Because the brain is the house of personality. So why not say the key to person identity is the sameness of personality (instead of body): believes, desires, goals, fears, ambitions, memories, etc. Sameness of body gives the same personality, and same personality gives the same identity. Personality and body could come apart. Can same personality has different body? This theory can be accepted by both the physicism and the dualism.

As our memories (and other parts of personality) are constantly changing, so the personality theory only requires gradual overlaps (evolving), accepting some changes of the elements.

3.2 Imagination experiment

Imaging this is happening to you (the separation of body and personality), and ask yourself, which one do you want to (not) be tortured. This will give you some evidence that which one do you take to be “you”.

Imagination “Mind transform machine”.

• Case 1 My mind and Linda’s body, Linda’s mind and body. Which one do I choose to be tortured. It seems that we are following the “personality theory” to make our decisions.
• Case 2 Mad scientist wants to torture me, but give me perfect amnesia before. He will drive me crazy, and delude me into thinking I am Linda, with all Linda’s memories (so this won’t be my personality, it will be Linda’s personality that will be tortured). After he will do the same thing to Linda (fill Linda’s body with my personality). However, in this expression none of these makes me feel well. It seems that we are following the “body theory” to make our decisions.

They are actually the very same case, being told in different ways. This method can not offer us a way to choose between body view and personality view.

Another approach : possession : start by raising a certain philosophical objection to the personality theory.

• Somebody in an insane asylum who think he is Napoleon, but he doesn’t have Napoleon’s personality.
• Assume he has Napoleon’s personality (the complicate set of beliefs, memories, etc), and he has no original memories. Is he Napoleon?
• If this happens to two people. There is no reason to feavor any one of the two. Or maybe Napoleon splitted into two “Napoleon”. Or neither is Napoleon (with the personality theory get rejected).

We may need to fix the personality thoery to deal with the splitting cases : no-competitors clause (no branching rule). Same personality same person as long as there’s no branching. If there’s branching neither of the branches is me. Objection , this rule is bizzard: whether I am myself depends on if there exist another “me” else-where.

Body Splitting in sci-fiction. In this case, the body theory faces the same problem. Same thing happens to “Soul theory”, while following Plato’s theory soul cannot be splitted but we cannot say.

3.3 It dosen’t really matter

What matters in survival? Imagining the reincarnation of the soul (suppose it is possible), with the soul being scrubbed completely clean, like a blackboard been completely erased. This survial doesn’t give me anything that matters to me. Same happens to the body theory.

I want to survive with a similar personality. Even if my body, my brain or my soul couldn’t survive. My personality is all what matters for me. If my personality continue to exist some where, it gives what matters to me.

4. Death

4.1 what is death?

Human is a P-functioning body. Which functions are crucial in defining the moment of death (body functions / personality functions)?

• In C, I exist but not alive, in cropse.
• In D, I alive (bodily) but not as a person. There is no personality exists.
• In A, it is my body, but not me.

Is there something immoral about removing the organs during phas D, when the person is dead and the only thing that’s still alive is the body.

Death: the end of P-functioning :

• Question: While you are not dead all the times when you are unconscious and not dreaming.
• Proposal: When the lack of P-functioning is temporary, you are still alive. But what will that be if God resurrects the dead on Judgment day.
• Proposal: When you are capable of engaging P-functioning, you are still alive. For the case, someone in coma.

4.2 Others

Death is unique. From the physicists’ point of view, there may not be anything unusual about death.

At some level nobody really believe they are going to die at all.

• Noboby really believe they are going to cease to exist as a person.
• Nobody really believe they are under going the death of their bodies.

Since it is impossible to picture your own being dead (even though the assumption is questionable that : we have to picture something in order to believe it, objection: we cannot picture a dreamless sleep). When you are dead, there are nothing left to be imagined or pictured. Objection : we cannot picture our own dead from inside, while we can picture it from outside.

Objection: when we try to imagine my death (no thinking no personality, etc) from outside, I actually smuggle myself back in with my thought. So may be I am imagining my body’s death, I am actually not dead as a person. -> I don’t really believe I’ll ever be dead.

Freud : “After all, one’s own death is beyond imagining, and whenever we try to imagine it we can see that we eally survive asspectators. Thus, the dictum could be dared in the psychoanalytic school: at bottom, no body believes in his own death. Or, and this is the same: in his unconscious, everyone of us is convinced of his immortality.”

Objection : this argument is horrible. For an example, imagine there is a meeting without you. The fact that I am smuggling as an observor doesn’t mean I don’t believe that I’m obesrving in my mind’s eye. It doesn’t mean you are in that world.

4.3 Everyone Die Alone

• Without the present of others. obviously wrong.
• Even with the presence of others, we complete this process alone. while we have cases in the battlefield.
• He is doing it by himself, not corporate with others. Contra example: Group suicide.
• When I die, even corporate with others, nobody could take my position. It seems true that we will and we can only experience our own death. But this seems uninteresting, not revealing anything deep. It is true about everything. If anyone eat my lunch, it will end up being their lunch. Nobody can eat “my” lunch.

It is just a trivial statement talks about “My”. This statement is talking about when we die, we are like being alone, feeling distant and lonely. But it is not for everyone.

5. Rest parts (and Summary)

5.1 metaphysics

5.1.1 灵魂肉体

• 一元论：灵魂是肉体的功能（～笑容）
• 二元论：灵魂是非物质的存在

证明存在：inference to the best explanation （创造力，感情，free will -> tie）

笛卡尔 二元论 (1） 我能想象出一个昏星存在而晨星不存在的世界； (2） 如果我们能想象出一个事物，那么它具有逻辑上成立的可能性； (3） 如果一个事物可以脱离另一事物独立存在，并具有逻辑上成立的可能 性，那么即使在现实世界中，这两个事物也一定是不相同的物体。 因此，通过三个前提的推导，我们能够得出结论：(4）（即使在现实世界 中）昏星和晨星也一定是不相同的两个天体。

柏拉图：理型、灵魂

这里是逐步推导的论证： (1） 理念是永恒的、非物质的； (2） 人的心灵可以领会理念； (3）永恒的、非物质的事物仅能被永恒的、非物质的事物所领会，（事物只能被同类理解） 所以：（4）人的心灵一定是永恒的、非物质的， 因此：（5）更确切地说，由于人的心灵一定是非物质的，也就是说，定是一个灵魂； 所以：（6）灵魂是永恒的。

柏拉图：单纯的事物不能被摧毁。肉体-收音机，灵魂不是无形的

5.1.1 同一性

同一性：灵魂，肉体，人格。 “活下来”的需要是同一性的主体才有意义。

“Die alone” “不相信会死去”

5.2 现实

5.2.1 死亡的坏处

死亡对于死去的人（不存在的人）有坏处:

• Intrinsically bad
• Instrumentally bad
• Comparatively bad

(1） 只有你存在，事物才会对你有坏处； (2） 当你死了的时候，你不复存在； 所以：（3）死亡不可能对你有坏处。 （“所有一切恶中最可怕的一—死亡与我们全不相干，我们活着时，死亡尚未来临：死亡未来临时，我们已经不在了。因而， 死亡对于生者和死者本没有什么千系。因为对于前者，死亡还未到来；对于后者，一切都已不再。”伊壁鸠鲁）

• 死亡没有发生的时间。
• 死亡的坏处在于剥夺了你生活中本应该得到的美好事物。
• 稳健的：对存在过的事物，坏事才有坏处。
• 出生前的永恒不存在。
• 永生未必是好事，因此剥夺也未必是坏事。

5.2.2 幸福

什么东西是因其自身本质而值得拥有（或避免）？

• Neutral/valuable/modest container theory: 用价值的函数来衡量生命。
• 享乐主义：只有快乐/痛苦。
• “体验机器”欠缺什么？

死亡其他特征：

• 接受死亡的必然性可以减少其坏处
• 死亡的差异性
• 死亡的不可预测性
• 恐惧死亡是否合理

自杀的合理性，是否道德