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Published byMadeleine Phillips Modified over 8 years ago
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Shifting Gears #5: What If This Storm Ends? Feraco Myth to Science Fiction 23 April 2010
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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?
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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
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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?
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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
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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
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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
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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?
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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?
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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
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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
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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
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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?
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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
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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
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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!
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