2001, 2002.
Throughout time it has been part of the human culture to recognize some kind of distinction between the physical body and the soul. John H. Hick summerizes that it is unclear as to where, when and how this distinction began, but archeological discoveries show that for thousands of years humans have burried their dead in a manner suggesting preparation for another life beyond death (Philosophy of Religion 120). Interestingly enough, it can be found that one doesn't have to believe in God to believe in some kind of survival after death. Survival may take the form of progenies, memories, or influences left behind. So, in order to stay on track, I will contemplate the possible "personal" existance of life after death.
First of all, to contemplate the existence of life after death, one would have to contemplate the existence and identity of a soul.According to Curt J. Ducsse in Is Life After Death Possible?, arguments against survival after death suggest that the soul is the mind, the mind is the brain, and the brain is "matter". Therefore, since matter can be destroyed, "death must extinguish the mind, since all manifestations of it cease" (Self, Cosmos, God, Daniel Kolack 118). The argument is backed by cause and effect evidence which concludes that states of consciousness are "modified in characteristic ways when certain regions of the brain are destroyed..." (116).
In A Dialogue On Persoanl Identity, John Perry writes of the recorded conversations in a hospital between a dieing woman, Gretchen Weirob who is a philosophy teacher, and her friend, Sam Miller who is a chaplain. In the dialog, they debate the "nature of personal identity and its relevance to the question of survival of bodily death" (Self, Cosmos, God, Daniel Kolack 90-112). Miller has three days to convince his dyeing friend that survival after death is possible. Perry describes Miller's two points of proof as the "metaphysical view" which states that "you are your soul". and the "psychological view" which says "your identity is sustained by psychological links" (90). Even on her death bed, Weirob is quite the arger and presents the example pf a woman in California who underwent a surgical procedure called a "body transplant" (107). Woman A's brain is transplanted into woman B's head. When woman B regains consciousness with her new brain, she retains the thoughts and memories of woman A. So, one would think that woman B was the survivor, but instead woamn A was the survivor (107-108). After three days, Weirob dies with what Perry describes as the "physical view" that personal idnetity is bodily identity (90). Oddly enough, Weirob was offered the same surgery by the same doctor who performed the transplant. She turned it down.
Ducasse finds all the arguments against possible survival "logically weak", but finds that the particular assumption "to be real is to be material" isn't even useful or congruent to the argument (123). First of all he points out that we can't be concious of being unconscious because it is a "contradiction" (113-114). Then he explains that the assumption is relative only to its own particular purpose of probing the "material world and acting upon it" (123). Ducasse supports a dualistic view that mental processes and bodily processes are not the same, and the material world is one of many parts of consciousness.
According to Yeager Hudson in The Philosophy of Religion, Plato supported the dualistic theory that the soul isn't a material substance because it has no parts, it is "self-identical", and can't be "dissolved" (300). In Life After Death, Terence Penelhum notes that Descartes taught such dualism also (Self, Cosmos, God, Daniel Kolack 131). Penelhum's position is that "disembodied survivors might have mental lives" (129). He points out that we mistakenly base our judgements of identity on "physiacl appearance" (135), and we are aware of waht is in our minds, but our senses can sometimes dceive us (131). Ducasse gives two examples to illistrate this on pages 124 to 125. First he uses the example of the reflections in a mirror. When you walk into a room where an entire wall is mirrored, you initially perceive material objects in the room that really aren't there at all. We are merely given what he calls "visual sensations" and initially interpret them as actual material objects until we realize that it is a mirror. His next example is when we dream. Again, we initially take the objects as physical until we wake up to realize it was a dream.
Further realizations come to my own mind with these examples. When I look into a mirror, can I say that what I see is not me? No. When I dream, can I say that the smells, colors and instances were not experienced. No. The reflections I see, and the dreams I experience do exist, but they exist in another space or realm. Therefore, it must be possible for an identity to exist in more than one particular place.
Ducasse notes that the popular forms of evidence used to prove that death does not extinguish the mind (soul) comes from "psychical research" (118-120). Testimonies of communication with dead persons is one thing, but the most convincing is when apparitions of dead persons are experienced by those who are yet unaware that the dead person had passed away. Ducasse also mentions instances where an apparition tells the person a specific fact that until then was unknown. Ducasse says, however, that "to explain these facts is quite another thing" (120). He offers two hypthosis on page 120. First, communications are actually happening and coming from dead persons who have survived death. His second hypothesis is "telepathy", but he adds that "this hypothesis has to be stretched very far...". It would seem that this second hypothesis would consider a personıs premonitions of death, either their own or someone elses, to be wishful or willful thinking that brings these instances about.
I have a big problem with the second hypothesis because of my own personal experiences. For three years I experienced both unconscious night dreams and conscious day dreams of an officer coming to my door and saying, "Iım sorry Mrs. Landen, thereıs been an accident". In 1991, an officer came to my door early one morning and said those exact words to me. I knew what he was there for before I even opened the door. I donıt know where these thoughts came from, and I did not willfully conjure them up. As I look back, I find those thoughts as preparations that helped me handle the situation when it did actually happen.
With all these facts in mind, several questions can be answered. Can one identity exist in two places? Yes. Does it exist because it has identity, or does it have identity because it exists? Yes. Does it have to have identity to exist? No. According to the theory of contradiction, Itıs either a pencil, or itıs not a pencil. So, is it a pencil? Yes, but only under a certain condition. Depending on the imagination and its use, it could be a toothpick, a bookmark or even a weapon. Thus, I will agree with Ducasse when he says that if life after death exists, "it is just another region or dimension of the universe..." (115). Is "personal" existence of life after death possible? Not as we know it in the physical world.
2001, 2002.
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