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Resurrection (Metaphysics). T1
(Text as at 16/09/2007 21:08:38)
I didn’t explain what I meant by “metaphysical possibility”. There are various forms of possibility. We usually mean practical possibility – it’s not practically possible for me to get to New York from Billericay in 30 minutes. But it is physically possible. Now it’s not physically possible to get to Alpha Centuri in a second, because that would break a law of nature (nothing can travel faster than light). But it is still metaphysically possible (the laws of nature might have been different … or at least we think they might, though there might be something deep about space and time that means certain things we think are possible aren’t). Then there are things that aren’t even metaphysically possible, that is, they are impossible whatever the laws of nature might be (I need to think of one of these … maybe something being red and green all over simultaneously, given what it is for something to have a coloured surface – and excluding the case where, looked at from different angles, something reflects light differently, so can look as though it’s red and green all over). Then there are things that are not even logically possible, because they involve a contradiction (it’s not logically possible to find the greatest prime number because it can be proved that there’s no such thing).
My research is into the persistence conditions of human beings (ie. “us”). Something persists if it continues to be the same thing from one time to the next. This seems to require three things; that it continues to exist, that it remains of the same sort, and that it remains the same exemplar of that sort. The second of these requirements may be the contentious one – can the very same thing change its sort? That is, even in a magical world can a frog turn into a prince? Or is the situation better described as a frog ceasing to be and a prince popping into existence in its place.
So, investigating what it is for us to persist first involves deciding (or, better, determining) what sort of thing we are. It seems obvious that we are human beings, but many Christians have thought that we are really immaterial and eternal souls temporarily wedded to human bodies (or maybe even to human beings). Some have said that we are “persons” that, while not souls, are still separable from human beings. My thesis is that human persons are temporal stages of human beings. (Sylvia’s Response1)
Once we know what sort of thing we are, we can then determine our persistence conditions; what is it for one human being to remain the same human being over time. The question is, can the same thing (one of us) really survive a period on non-existence and “come back” in a different body. (Sylvia’s Response2). I’m not saying is this physically possible (ie. could it be done), but, even if something like it could be done, would it really be the real thing? Or would it just look like the real thing. Even if the resurrection body is of the same sort as the body that died (and it’s not clear that it is), is it the same exemplar of that sort, or an approximate look-alike? This raises the same sort of issues as teletransportation, which I’ve discussed elsewhere3.
Presumably the idea behind resurrection is that we are self-conscious beings, and that this consciousness can hop from one infrastructure to another (Sylvia’s Response4) (or, on the dualist account, inhabit one body, then another). It seems empirically likely that our consciousness arises from brain activity. If that brain is destroyed and replaced by another (or some other consciousness-producing engine) is that the persistence of a single consciousness or the replacement of one consciousness by another qualitatively similar to it. The fact that one consciousness is qualitatively similar to another doesn’t make it the same (in the sense of “identical to”) – reduplication experiments combined with the logic of identity as an equivalence relation seem to forbid this. (Sylvia’s Response5)
I’m not sure what the Christian commitments are on all this. Do you have any idea? (Sylvia’s Response6). Does the Christian have any responsibility to consider whether they might be believing in absurdities7, or can they just say “it’s in the Bible and I’ll leave the details up to God”. (Sylvia’s Response8). I’m interested to know what the ontological commitments of Christianity are. Are Christians committed to the (deeply unfashionable) mind/body substance dualism? (Sylvia’s Response9)
Table of the Previous 4 Versions of this Note:
| Note last updated |
Reference for this Topic |
Parent Topic |
| 16/09/2007 21:08:38 |
386 (Resurrection (Metaphysics). T1) |
Resurrection (Metaphysics) |
Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note
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Summary of Notes Citing This Note
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Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note
| Author |
Title |
Medium |
Extra Links |
Read? |
| Shoemaker (David) |
Personal Identity and Immortality |
Paper  |
|
Yes |
| Todman (Theo) |
Thesis - Life After Death |
Paper  |
|
Yes |
| Todman (Theo) |
Thesis - Resurrection |
Paper |
|
Yes |
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