哲学-死亡（一）

发表于 更新于 分类于 本文字数： 22k 阅读时长 ≈ 40 分钟
《哲学-死亡》第一部分（形而上学）

source: BV1P7411C7Gz
Philosophy Of Death

Metaphysics

  • my surviving my death
  • how I build
  • what’s the idea of surviving

What is a person

Dualist view

Interactionist view
A person is a combination of a body and something else, a mind, a soul

  • the mind is this immaterial substance, is based in, or just something nonphysical, call it soul, a mind, a psyche
  • soul & body, a two-way interactionist dualism
  • “What I am strictly speaking is a soul”, the soul has a very intimate connection with the body but the person is not the soul plus the body.
  • three issues:
    1. Are bodies and souls distinct?
    2. Does the soul, even if it exists, survive the destruction of the body?
    3. If it survives, how long does it survive? Forever? Immortal?

Physicalist view

Materialist view
A person is just a certain kind of material object, a body

  • physicalist doesn’t mean that as a person is just any old body
  • A person is a body that has a certain set of abilities, can do a certain array of activities.
  • P-functioning body
  • Mind is a way of talking about various mental abilities of the body.

Idealism

There a soul but there are no bodies, all that exists, are minds and their ideas

Argument for the existence of the soul

What argument might be offered for the existence of a soul?

  • Inference to the best explanation（最佳解释推理）
    • Are there things that we need to appeal to the soul in order to explain these things about us?

Consciousness

  • Argument:
    • the animation of body
    • the ability to think, to reason. People have believe and desire, etc.
    • an aspect of desires, the emotional side — emotions, feelings (love, afraid, fear)
    • two aspect of emotions, behaviors and sensations (feelings, which is different from previous one) inside
    • the qualitative aspect of experience —— qualia （感受性）, consciousness （意识）

    It’s not just the question, “Who’s got an explanation?”, but “Who’s got the better explanation?”.
    But how soul can create the consciousness? As far as i can see, right now nobody’s got a good explanation about how consciousness works. The soul theorist don’t have a very compelling theory of this argument.

Free will

  • Argument:
    • the creativity? but the machine can also have creativity
    • but machine is follow the program. It doesn’t have free will, but we have.（自由意志）
    • People have free will! We must something more than a merely physical object. It must be something immaterial about us, the soul.
  • Argument from free will and determinism（决定论）
    1. We have free will
    2. Nothing subject to determinism has free will
    3. All purely physical systems are subject to determinism.
    4. 1+2+3 = conclusion: we are not a purely physical systems .
    • free will and determinism are incompatible
  • Are the three premises true?——rejected!
    1. There are philosophers who have said we believe that we have got free will, but it’s an illusion. Free will isn’t something that we can see.（有些人相信，但有些人反驳并且论证）
    2. It was a incompatibilism claim. But there was a theory called compatibilism says that the idea of free will is not compatible with determinism.（相容主义）
    3. A claim about empirical science. But the quantum mechanics says that the fundamental laws of physics are not deterministic. （决定论在量子力学范畴内不正确）

Supernatural

ghosts, ESP（第六感）, near-death experiences

  • example about near-death experiences

    Schick and Vaughan

    • experiences about already dead, leave the body, see some light … (two-room notion）
    • Objection: Near-death is the real dead which is permanently die. Whatever unusual experience they may be having, they a not reports of the afterlife.
    • Point2 is a misguided objection. The border between real death and near-death isn’t very clear. They didn’t stay death, they had some experience of being dead. Isn’t relevant to what it would be like to be dead? They are on the border looking in.
    • Two-room explanation (dualist) and One-room explanation (physicalist, in science).
    • The scientific explanation sufficiently persuasive and compelling.

Descartes

A purely philosophical argument

  • Descartes view
    • imagine a story about ourselves/myself
    • “my body doesn’t exist, but my mind does exists”
    • It shows that the mind and the body must be two logically distinct things. Because what I did was imagine my mind existing without my body. Talking my mind cannot be just talking about a part of my body.
    • A exists but B doesn’t exist ⇒ A and B are not the same thing.
    • NOT saying, “If something is possible if I can imagine it, it’s true”
    • Since I can image my mind without my body, it must be the case that my mind is something separate and distinct from my body.
  • Counter Example
    • Evening Star & Morning Star
    • “If I can imagine a Evening Star without a Morning Star, that shows that the ES and the MS must be two different heavenly bodies.”
    • but they are the same heavenly bodies —— Venus.

the Cartesian argument does fail.

  • Contingent Identity

Argument for the immortality of the soul

the Phaedo, Plato

  • Plato’s view
    • the immortality of the soul
    • Socrates thinks that there is a soul, it will survive and it’s immortal. He think he will go to heaven when he’s died.
    • The body takes care of all the bodies sensations, all the desiring and the wanting and the emotions, that’s all body stuff
    • The soul takes care of the thinking side of things.

Plato’s metaphysics

  • basic idea

    Platonic Ideas, Platonic Forms（柏拉图理念、柏拉图型相） : the soul can think about certain pure concepts or ideas itself, like justice, beauty, goodness, health itself.

    • In addition to the ordinary empirical physical world, we have to posit the existence of second realm, in which exist the Platonic forms. The sorts of things that perhaps we might call as abstract objects or abstract properties.
    • The reason for positing these things is because we’re clearly able to think about these ideas.
  • Example about justice
    • There are various arrangements that can be just or unjust to varying degrees. But we don’t think there is any society that’s perfectly just.
    • The mind can think about perfect justice.
    • And notice how ordinary social arrangements fall short of perfect justice.
    • Perfect justice isn’t not one more thing in the empirical world.
  • It’s the soul that thinks about the Platonic forms.

Argument

We want to free ourselves from the distractions of the body, but we don’t want the body to die because when the body dies the soul dies as well.

  1. The argument from the nature of the forms （型相本质论）

    the forms are not physical object, so the soul must be something non-physical.

    • a fuller version of the argument:
      1. Ideas, forms are eternal and non-physical
      2. Eternal / non-physical can only be grasped by the eternal / non-physical.
      3. So that which grasps the Ideas / Forms must be eternal / non-physical.
    • Number2 might be wrong.
      • General claim “Take one to know one” is false. but the particular claim my be right.
      • OBJECTION: We haven’t been given any adequate argument for the conclusion.
  2. The argument from recycling （循环观点）

    Parts get re-used.

    • Things come into being by being composed of previous existing parts. And then, when those things cease to have the form they had, the parts get used for other purposes. —— get recycle.
    • We can’t conclude that the soul is one of the parts that’s going to continue to exist after our death, as if my heart, even if the atoms will be recycling take place.
    • OBJECTION: We have no good reason yet to believe that the soul is one of the recycle part.
  3. The argument from recollection （回忆论）

    If seeing things that participate in the forms remind me of the forms, it’s got to be because I’ve met or been acquainted directly with the forms before.

    • Ordinary objects in the world participate to a greater or lesser degree in the Platonic forms. “These things remind us of the Platonic forms.”
    • Before “remind”, I have to have already been acquainted with the ideas for forms.
    • But we don’t meet, see or grasp or become acquainted with the forms in this life, so it’s got to have happened before this life.
    • OBJECTION1: Something (partially just or partially beautiful) trigger our minds in such a way that we begin to think about the forms in this life for the very first time.
    • OBJECTION2: Even if the soul existed before birth, it doesn’t follow that it exists after death.
  4. The argument from simplicity （精简论）

    What kind of things can and can not break? (deal with OBJECTION2)

    • The kinds of things that can be destroyed have parts. The are composed.
    • NUMBER-3 can’t be destroyed —— Platonic forms are eternal, changeless——because they are simple (no part to take apart).（单一性）
    • Arguments:
      1. only composite things can be destroyed
      2. only changing things are composite
      3. invisible things don’t change (need a definition of invisible)
      4. So invisible things can’ be destroyed
      5. But soul is invisible
      6. → Soul can’t be destroyed! (or nearly so)
    • OBJECTION: invisible things can be destroyed —— harmony, you can destroy it by destroying the musical instrument on which it depend. (like mind & body)
    • what do we mean by “invisible”? 3 claims:
      1. can’t be seen (but can be sensed by another way, another sense)
      2. can’t be observed (5 senses)
      3. can’t be detected (it doesn’t leave traces behind)
    • if we use Claim3, the Point5 is no longer clear. ( Is it still invisible if by invisibility we mean can’t be detected?)
      • Example: radio & radio wave
      • We can detected the soul through the effects on our body.
      • → Soul isn’t invisible.
    • OBJECTION of OBJECTION soul isn’t harmony, soul is like harmony. It’s an analogy (said Plato)
      1. harmony cannot exist before existence of the harp itself. / the soul exists prior to the body ( argument from the recollection, POINT-3)
      2. harmony can vary / soul doesn’t come in degrees
      3. the soul can be good or wicked / the harmony of harmony …?
      4. soul can oppose the body / harmoniousness of the harp doesn’t affect the way the physical object the harp is
  5. the argument from essential properties （基本属性论证）

    the distinction between an essential properties and a contingent properties. （偶然属性）

    • Wherever there’s a soul, it’s alive (capable of thought)
    • Argument
      1. life is an essential property of the soul
      2. → soul is deathless —— ambiguous
        1. can’t be that soul exists and is dead ——Plato’s mean
        2. can’t be that soul was destroyed —— OBJECTION
      3. → soul cannot die, indestructible
      4. → soul cannot be destroyed

Conclusion

  • Souls are not impossible, but I think I’m believing there aren’t any.
  • Do I, as a physicalist who does not believe in the existence of the souls, immaterial entities above and beyond the body, do I need to disprove the existence of souls?
  • What I need to do is to rebut the arguments that get offered for the existence of a soul, and explain why those arguments are not compelling.
  • I don’t need to prove that souls are impossible, to undermine the case for souls.
  • If there’s no good reason to believe in souls, that actually constitutes a reason to believe there are no souls.
  • I’ll be assuming the physicalist view is correct, and will be thinking about the issues of death as they’d be understood from the physicalist point of view.

Personal identity

the nature of personal identity across time, 人格同一性

  • what am I
  • what’s the idea of surviving

space-time worm

  • object that extend not only over space, but also over time.
  • we should think about extension over time analogously to the way we think about extension over space.
  • Points
    1. “Don’t confuse the stages with the entire space-time worm.” The stage can differ without the entire space-time worm being a different worm
    2. “What’s the relevant glue?” What make two stages stages of the very same thing?

the key of personal identity

  • Questions

    1. Is it the same space-time worm or different as the one we mention about?

      —— It depends on getting clear on whether the stages are glued together in the right metaphysical way.

    2. what does it take for two person stages to make up or be part of the very same extended-through-time person? what’s the metaphysical glue that underlies being a single extended-through-time person?

      —— the key of personal identity

    3. could I survive my death?

      —— we can’t answer that question until we are clearer about what does it take to have identity across time. What’s the key to personal identity? What the metaphysical glue?

the soul theory

  • natural thing for a soul theorist to say ( not the only thing a soul theorist can say) the key of personal identity is having the very same soul. Same soul, same person.

    —— If God were to replace my soul sometime, I die. But THAT I have no way to know that.

    —— how did you know this didn’t happen to you last night? LOL!

    —— even if souls do exist, they may not be the key of personal identity.

    —— what the alternative?

the body theory

  • the secret to being the same person is having the same body

    —— we could believe in the possibility of surviving one’s death, the death of one’s body, if we’re willing to believe in bodily resurrection

    —— if I put my body back together, is that still my body?

    —— the WATCH case and the TOWER case.

  • there can be changes in your body that are compatible with it still being the same body.

    —— which changes?

    —— the parts of the body are not equally important

    —— brain is the most important part, the house of your personality

    —— the crucial part of the body for personal identity is not sameness of torso, but the sameness of brain

  • the best version of the body view was the brain view

    —— enough of the brain was good enough, what counts was good enough?

    —— enough to keep the personality

    —— so the personality is the key of person identity

the personality theory

it can be accepted by physicalist and can be accepted by dualist

  • Doesn’t require item for item, having the very same belief, memories, desires and so forth. But instead requires enough gradual overlap, the same slowly evolving personality.

  • thought experiments

    • Which one do I think is me when my body goes one way and my personality goes another way? Where do I go?
    • What I’m going to do once I’ve separated the body and the personality this way is torture one of the end products.
    • “Which one do I want to be or not to be tortured?”

  • Objection to the personality theory

    • someone said he is Napoleon, he is Napoleon? Even if he has Napoleon’s personality, memories, beliefs, desires?

      —— Personality theory is NOT saying that anybody who has any elements at all of my personality is me.

      —— he think he has, but it’s an illusion, delusion, because he didn’t really have the genuine memory.

    • what if there are two man that declare themselves are Napoleon living in the world? Saying that one of them is Napoleon and the other one isn’t seems very hard to believe.

      —— they are both Napoleon, then Napoleon split into two!

      —— metaphysical thinking about how people work speaking, people can’t be in two places at the same time

      —— neither of them are Napoleon, but they have Napoleon’s personality. So it means that the personality theory is false.

      —— Rejected!

  • Revision of personality theory - No branching clause

    • same personality’s good enough, as long as there’s no branching. If there is branching, neither of the branches is me.

    • the nature of identity seems like it should be depend only on intrinsic facts about me or relational facts about the relations between my stages. But it shouldn’t depend on extrinsic, external facts about what’s happening someplace else.

      —— with the no branching rule, identity ceases to be a strictly internal affair. It become , in part, an external affair.

    • the body theory is in exactly the same problem (the fission case), but the soul theory doesn’t

    • soul can be split?

      —— if true, then the soul theorist must accept no branching rule

      —— else, there is no way whether from outside or inside to find out who has the real soul.

      —— But according to the soul-theory argument for soul, you need to believe in soul in order to explain how you could have a person. Then what about the B who doesn’t have the soul? (fission case)

Arguments

Will I survive? What matters? What do we care about?

  • the soul theory

    —— Assumption: imagine that when the soul is reincarnated , it’s scrubbed completely clean

    —— When you think about the possibility of bare survival of the scrubbed, clean, erased soul, you see that survival wasn’t really everything you wanted.

    —— what I want is not just survival, but survival with the same personality.

  • the body theory

    —— that thing that wakes up after this complete irreversible amnesia will develop a personality

    —— that’s ME

    —— mere bodily survival isn’t enough to give me what I want.

    —— what I want is not just survival, but survival with the same personality.

  • the personality theory

    —— I have lived so long that my personality has changed a lot, even gradually. It’s not ME.

    —— what really I want?

    —— It’s not just survival as part of the same ongoing personality. It’s survival with a similar personality.

  • What does it take to survive?—— misguide us

  • What matters to me isn’t survival per se. It’s having the same personality.

What is Dead

Question

  • Which functions are crucial in defining the moment of death?
  • when do I die? what is death?
  • when did I cease exists?
  • what’s the nature of death?

When do I die?

Cases

  1. Case One

    P-functioning and B-functioning stop at the same time.
    Phase A —— B-functioning only; Phase B —— B-functioning and P-functioning; Phase C —— corpse

  2. Case Two

    P-functioning stops earlier then B-functioning
    Phase A —— B-functioning only; Phase B —— B-functioning and P-functioning; Phase D —— B-functioning only ; Phase C —— corpse

Explanation

  • As a body theorist
    • I die at the end of Phase B in case one or phase D in case two.
    • “Me” still exist as a corpse (phase C)
    • Existence wasn’t good enough for the body theorist, he want to be alive, especially in Phase D, he want to be a person!
    • Am I still a person?
  • As a personality theorist
    • I die at the end of the P-functioning (Phase B)
    • I don’t exist in phase D, because nothing have my personality
    • but my body still be alive at the end of phase B
    • —— I don’t exist, but I still be alive …? (C & D)
    • —— have a distinction between “my being alive” and “my body being alive”
  • Argument about Phase A

    • body view —— the stage of my existence before I become a person

      • the brain view

        —— Until late A, when the brain gets put together, that I start to exist.

        —— It’s a body but not me in the early A

    • personality view —— I did not exist when that fertilized egg came into being

  • Argument about Phase D

    Who or what has the right to life? I or my body?

    • Question: Is there something immoral about removing the organs during D?

P-functioning and death

  • If I’m not P-functioning, do we have to then say I’m dead?

    —— when I’m sleep that none of the P-functioning is occurring, I’m dead.

    —— revise this theory

  • If you will P-functioning again, that you are not dead.

    —— On Judgment Day, God resurrects the dead.

    —— then it turn out to the dead weren’t really dead after all. They were only temporarily not P-functioning, just like sleep

    —— Proposal that death is a matter of permanent cessation of P-functioning versus temporary isn’t going to do the trick.

  • You still can be P-functioning, you had the ability to engage in P-functioning

    —— Abilities aren’t always actualized.

    —— Dead is to be unable to engage in P-functioning

    • Somebody who is in a coma, not engage P-functioning

      —— can they engage P-functioning?

      —— this might be a persistent vegetative state with no possibility of engaging P-functioning

    • Somebody is in a state of suspended animation

      —— cooling someone and wake him up few years later

      —— The structures in the brain which would underwrite the ability to engage in P-functioning didn’t destroyed by the suspended animation

      —— the person can engage in P-functioning, they’re not dead.

    —— It seems like he’s not alive either

    —— death, alive and suspended?

  • Physicalist view

    • The body is able to function in a variety of ways. When some of those lower biological functions are occurring, the body is alive. The body is also capable of engaging in higher order personal P-functioning. And then you got a person.
    • The body begins to break, you get the loss of P-functioning. You no longer exist as a person. When the body breaks some more, you get the loss of biological of B-functioning, and then the body die.

Do believe that you will die

  1. Nobody believes that they’ll ever cease to exist as a person

    • It’s impossible to picture being dead, nobody believes that the are going to die

      —— I can’t picture being dead.

      —— There’s no mystery about what it’s like to be dead. It isn’t like anything. When you dead, there is nothing on the inside to be imagined.

      —— BUT, it’s not possible to picture or imagine a dreamless sleep or fainted

    • You can’t picture being dead from the inside, but you can picture it from the outside

      —— Every time I try to picture myself being dead, I smuggle myself back in conscious and existing as a person. Hence, not death as a person

      ——Freud conclude at some level none of us really believes we’re going to die

      —— OBJECTION: try to imagine a meeting without you.

      —— Viewing the world without you from a point of view doesn’t mean you’re in the world

  2. Nobody believes their body is going to die

    • People do all sorts of behaviors which become very hard to interpret if they don’t believe their bodies are going to die

      —— Many people write wills, take out life insurance

      —— they believe they are going to die

    • Death seems not vivid for us

      —— People who have brushes with death change their behavior in significant ways.

We die alone

It seems like a deep insight into the nature of death. What could it possible mean when people say “everyone dies alone”?

  • Not being with others or things I do by myself

    1. The most natural, straightforward interpretation, to say that somebody do something alone means they do it not in the presence of others.

      —— Sometimes people die in the presence of others.

    2. Even if there are others with you, dying is something that you’re doing alone.

      —— We could have battlefields in which many people are dying along with others

    3. People dying alone in the sense that he’s doing it by themselves. It can’t be a joint undertaking.

      —— Some sort of suicide pact.

    4. Even if I’m dying with other, nobody can take my part. Nobody can die your death for you.

      —— It seems that somebody could take my place at the guillotine. (?

      —— Nobody can take my place at my death. My death is something that only I can undergo.

  • A kind of metaphor, being alone

    • When we die, it’s as though we were alone. It’s like being alone.
    • Maybe a psychological claim that the psychological state we are in when we die similar to loneliness
    • Is it true that everybody dies alone in this psychological sense?