Shifting Gears #5: What If This Storm Ends? Feraco Myth to Science Fiction 23 April 2010

What is Death?  What is Death?  Monism and Dualism II  Why Fear Death?  How Should We Greet Death?  Plato’s Take on the Soul (and Death)  The Moral Argument Against Annihilation  What If There’s Nothing Beyond This?  Is There Hope for Existence After Death?  Our Own Valhallas

What is Death?  Numerous cultures and theologies provide different explanations for what death actually is  Why don’t we have a “Unified Theory of Death”?  However, it’s useful to begin with our old logic  Not Cherry or Stacey or Amy and their midterms – merely the Law of the Excluded Middle and the Law of Noncontradiction  Either something lies beyond death – regardless of what it is – or nothing does  Either P or Not P is true, and P and Not P cannot be true simultaneously  For the sake of our exploration today, we’ll consider both

The End of the Storm  Scientifically speaking, death represents the end of corporeal existence  “Corporeal” = “Physical” – “Corpus”  Body  Corpse  It seems like such a simple deal  To a materialist, it is – but to others, not so much  If you are a materialist, you don’t believe in a division between realms – you think this is it  This doesn’t mean that a dualist can’t believe this is it – just that dualism is a prerequisite belief if one wants to believe in some sort of afterlife or reincarnation

Monists  As you might expect, a monist doesn’t think anything happens after death – or happened before life  Notice this isn’t a debate about when life starts  This works for idealists (who believe we’re nothing but mental energy and projections) as well as for materialists  The idealists, after all, recognize that death “happens” – and so assume it represents the fundamental ending of a consciousness

Dualists  A dualist, on the other hand, operates under the principle that there’s more to us than meets the eye  Again, you don’t have to believe in an afterlife if you’re a dualist  However, a belief in something after death requires you to assume that humans are more than sacks of meat and bones

The Shape of the Fear  If you’re a monist, can you fear death?  Sure – there’s a push and pull between accepting what you see as the natural necessity of death and facing the overwhelming terror of oblivion  Plus, an interesting possibility: What if you’re wrong?  Is this a good or bad thing?  I suppose it depends  If you’re a dualist, should you fear death?  Sure – What if you’re wrong?  Plus, who’s to say you live well even if you’re a dualist?

We Fear, In No Particular Order…  “Man is the only animal that contemplates death, and also the only animal that shows any sign of doubt of its finality.” William Ernest Hocking  The realization of a deep-seated fear – that something we did in life will come back to haunt us  The possibility that nothing we do will impact our fate  That the end will involve suffering  The fact that the end remains unknown to us – a mystery  The possibility, in turn, that nothing awaits us  Finally, the possibility that your deeply-held belief about the end is wrong – that something else will happen

The Questions…  If you’re wrong about death, were you wrong about life?  How should one greet death?  Really, the flip side to that question is “How do we greet life?”  Do we tread more or less carefully, depending on how we feel about the end?  Should we?

The Approach  You can approach death fearfully (understandably so)  You can approach death calmly  After all, all of us die  For that matter, none of us even know it’s an unpleasant experience  You can even take the Epicurian approach  “Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist, death is not present, and when death is present, we no longer exist.” Epicurus

Plato Approaches Death  The great philosopher Plato took a physically practical approach to the study of death  The philosophical equivalent of the “21 Grams” experiment, hundreds of years ago

The Argument  He argued physical objects don’t just stop existing  If you want to “kill” a chair, what do you do?  Breaking it up just separates it into its components  Even burning it leaves ashes – the chair’s been transformed into something else, but not eradicated from existence  The same thing holds true for a statue – if it falls over, it breaks into little shards, but the stone remains  This, he argues, is how things get destroyed in our world – they break down into components, but they aren’t eradicated  Plato, a dualist, then goes on to argue that since the soul is not substance, it cannot be broken down into parts  Since it can’t be broken down, it cannot be destroyed

Idealist Objection  Plato’s thought process may hold true for physical things – but is everything in this world physical?  This is the sort of question that makes a materialist angry  One would insist that everything is physical, and that it therefore makes no sense for there to be this mysterious thing composed of something unknowable beyond sensation  If you’re not a materialist, however, you acknowledge that there are a variety of different “substances” in the world  Is the beam from my laser pointer made from the same “stuff” as the grass on the library lawn?

Stopping Existence  Things do exist that stop existing  Where does light go when you shut off its source?  Possibly nowhere – possibly everywhere  If I play a note on the piano, does it play forever?  What if I destroy the piano? Can the note live on without its host – its source?

Linking the Soul  How does Plato know that the soul isn’t made of something as transitory as a musical note – or a physical body?  Then again, if the soul isn’t meant to endure, what’s the point of one?  With death – as with many other things – human questions lead to more questions

The Moral Argument Against Annihilation  We often wonder about the meaning of life in the context of the meaning of death  If there’s no “beyond,” many wonder, is there any point to the “here and now”?  Some would argue that the lack of a “beyond” makes the good we perform in this life even more important; if this is all we get, why not make it as wonderful for everyone as possible?  “I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.” William Penn William Penn

Nothing Could Be So Cruel  Others, however, argue that life must have meaning – and that, if life has meaning, it is meaningful because of goodness  They submit that in a moral, meaningful universe, goodness cannot be annihilated – it wouldn’t check out morally  What a waste, we think – nothing could be so cruel

What If There’s Nothing After This?  How would our lives in this “plane” (using the dualist system) change if nothing lies beyond?  Is Penn’s philosophy best?  Should we throw morality out the window?  Does the mystery surrounding death actually help us live better lives?  It depends on your view regarding fear, I suppose – is it a positive or negative force?

Is There Hope For Existence Beyond Death?  Many theologies and cultures account for some sort of continued existence  One wonders if this shared tendency towards a reverence for an “afterlife” is meaningful in and of itself, or if it merely reveals something interesting about the human character – whatever that interesting thing may be  We have people who claim to have been contacted from beyond, or to have come back from the brink of death  In some cases, people insist that they remember previous lives – previous revolutions of the Samsara cycle, perhaps

Hope in the Mystery  In any event, the mystery surrounding death – the sheer enormity of all that we don’t know – isn’t necessarily a prescription for negative possibilities  After all, if we don’t know whether we continue beyond our corporeal end, we don’t know that we can’t continue  Perhaps that’s part of the meanings of life and death: that we have an opportunity to explore the infinite possibilities of existence – and, in turn, the infinite possibility for discovery, both of new answers and new questions  Remember the lessons of last week: Don’t aim for a target with the intention of hitting it and stopping – always aim toward, through, and beyond

Now It’s Your Turn!  You’ve already discussed choice, morality, happiness, and the soul.  Today, I’d like you to articulate your personal philosophy regarding death – what death means, what you believe happens when we die, etc.  Good luck!