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Personal Identity
Life After Death
(Text as at 24/05/2018 20:03:50)
*** THIS IS NOT THE LATEST VERSION OF THIS NOTE ***
(For the live version and other versions of this Note, see the tables at the end)
Plug Note1
- This is an umbrella-note for the ways in which post-mortem survival might be actualised, namely:-
- To this list might be added the collection of hopeful possibilities expected by the Transhumanists6.
- It will discuss broad issues rather than the specifics of the particular options. It ought to discuss whether life after death – in the sense of eternal, or at least unending, life is to be desired, though this can mostly be hived off to the Makropulos Case7.
- I’m not interested in cases of resuscitation8, which are commonplace these days. The paradigm cases are after the total – or near-total – destruction of the body.
- Johnston thinks (in "Johnston (Mark) - Surviving Death") that there’s a forensic9 need for post-mortem survival of some sort, as otherwise there’s no incentive to be good, and hopes to provide it by a radical redefinition of what the person is. But this strikes me as changing the subject.
- I have some other notes on this and related topics as part of Philosophy of Religion10 and my Blog11:-
- For a page of Links15 to this Note, Click here.
- Works on this topic that I’ve actually read16, include17 the following:-
- "Almeder (Robert) - Death and Personal Survival: Evidence for Life After Death - Preface", Almeder
- "Badham (Paul) & Badham (Linda) - Immortality or Extinction: Introduction", Badham
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - When Do Persons Begin and End?", Baker
- "Blackmore (Susan) - And After Death?", Blackmore
- "Cooper (John) - Body, Soul and Life Everlasting: Preface to the Second Printing", Cooper
- "Corcoran (Kevin) - Soul, Body and Survival: Introduction - Soul or Body?", Corcoran
- "Dennett (Daniel) - Thank Goodness!", Dennett
- "Feldman (Fred) - The Survival of Death", Feldman
- "Fenwick (Peter) & Fenwick (Elizabeth) - The Truth in the Light: An Investigation of Over 300 Near-Death Experiences", Fenwick
- "Gasser (Georg) - Personal Identity and Resurrection: Introduction", Gasser
- "Graham (George) - Death and Identity", Graham
- "Graziano (Michael) - Endless fun", Graziano
- "Hershenov (David) - Review of Nancey Murphy's 'Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies?'", Hershenov
- "LePoidevin (Robin) - Arguing for Atheism: Preface / Introduction", LePoidevin
- "Loose (Jonathan) - Constitution and the Falling Elevator: The Continuing Incompatibility of Materialism and Resurrection Belief", Loose
- "MacKay (Donald) - Computer Software and Life After Death", McKay
- "Olson (Eric) - Immanent Causation and Life After Death", Olson
- "Olson (Eric) - Life After Death and the Devastation of the Grave", Olson
- "Penelhum (Terence) - Immortality: Introduction", Penelhum
- "Price (H.H.) - Motives for disbelief in life after death", Price
- "Price (H.H.) - Two conceptions of the Next World", Price
- "Shoemaker (David) - Personal Identity and Immortality", Shoemaker
- "Stewart-Williams (Steve) - On the Origin of Afterlife Beliefs by Means of Memetic Selection", Stewart-Williams
- "Thomas (Janice L.) - Mind and Person in the Philosophy of Religion", Thomas, especially
→ "Thomas (Janice L.) - Other arguments for dualism",
→ "Thomas (Janice L.) - What matters for survival and the logical possibility of resurrection",
- "Van Inwagen (Peter) - I Look for the Resurrection of the Dead and the Life of the World to Come", Van Inwagen
- "Vardy (Peter) & Arliss (Julie) - Life after Death", Vardy
- "Zimmerman (Dean) - Bodily Resurrection: The Falling Elevator Model Revisited", Zimmerman
- "Zimmerman (Dean) - Video: Can We Survive Our Death?", Zimmerman
- "Zimmerman (Dean) - Christians Should Affirm Mind-Body Dualism", Zimmerman
- A reading list18 (where not covered elsewhere) might start with:-
- "Almeder (Robert) - Death and Personal Survival: Evidence for Life After Death", Almeder
→ "Dilley (Frank B.) - Review of Robert Almeder 'Death and Personal Survival: The Evidence for Life after Death'", Dilley
- "Bacchiocchi (Samuele) - Immortality or Resurrection? A Biblical Study on Human Nature and Destiny", Bacchiocchi
- "Badham (Paul) & Badham (Linda) - Immortality or Extinction", Badham
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Death and the Afterlife", Baker
- "Baltimore (Joseph A.) - Got to Have Soul", Baltimore
- "Bruntrup (Godehard) - Soul, Body and Survival: The Renaissance of Christian Materialism", Bruntrup
- "Cooper (John) - Body, Soul and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-dualism Debate", Cooper
- "Corcoran (Kevin), Ed. - Soul, Body and Survival: Essays on the Metaphysics of Human Persons", Corcoran
- "Cosculluela (Victor) - Death and God: The Case of Richard Swinburne", Cosculluela
- "Davis (Stephen T.) - Philosophy and Life After Death: The Questions and the Options", Davies
- "Edwards (Paul), Ed. - Immortality", Edwards
- "Gasser (Georg), Ed. - Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death?", Gasser
- "Hick (John) - Death and Eternal Life", Hick
- "Johnston (Mark) - Surviving Death", Johnston
→ "Caldwell (Christopher M.) - Review - 'Surviving Death' by Mark Johnston"
- "Lewis (Hywel David) - Persons and Life After Death", Lewis_H
- "Martin (L. Michael) & Augustine (Keith) - The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death", Martin & Augustine19
- "Merricks (Trenton) - How to Live Forever Without Saving Your Soul: Physicalism and Immortality", Merricks
- "More (Max) & Vita-More (Natasha) - Transhumanism: Engines of Life: Identity and Beyond Death - Introduction", More
- "Oderberg (David) - Survivalism, Corruptionism, and Mereology", Oderberg
- "Ogilvie (Daniel M.) - A Partial History of Afterlife Beliefs", Ogilvie
- "Penelhum (Terence), Ed. - Immortality", Penelhum
- "Rawlings (Maurice S.) - To Hell and Back: Life after Death - Startling New Evidence", Rawlings
- "Rosenberg (Jay) - 'Life After Death' - In Search of the Question", Rosenberg
→ "Silverstein (Harry) - Review of Thinking Clearly About Death by Jay F. Rosenberg", Silverstein
- "Sider (Ted) - Hell and Vagueness", Sider
- "Swinburne (Richard) - The Possibility of Life after Death", Swinburne
- "Tipler (Frank) - The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead", Tipler, especially
→ "Tipler (Frank) - The Physics of Immortality: Preface"
→ "Tipler (Frank) - Comparison of the Heaven Predicted by Modern Physics With the Afterlife Hoped For by the Great World Religions"
- "Van Evra (James) - On Death as a Limit", Van Evra
- "Vasalou (Sofia) - Personal identity across temporal gaps: an Islamic view of the problem", Vasalou
- "Wilson (P. Eddy) - Is Seamless Post-Mortem Existence Necessary for Survival?", Wilson
- "Zimmerman (Dean) - Personal Identity and the Survival of Death", Zimmerman
- This is mostly a place-holder20.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 1:
- A number of my philosophical Notes are “promissory notes” currently only listing the books and papers (if any) I possess on the topic concerned.
- I’ve decided to add some text – whether by way of motivation, or something more substantive – for all these identified topics related to my Thesis.
- As I want to do this fairly quickly, the text may be confused or show surprising ignorance.
- The reader (if such exists) will have to bear with me, and display the principle of charity while this footnote exists.
Footnote 8: Footnote 15:
- If only a “non-updating” run has been made, the links are only one-way – ie. from the page of links to the objects that reference this Note by mentioning the appropriate key-word(s). The links are also only indicative, as they haven’t yet been confirmed as relevant.
- Once an updating run has been made, links are both ways, and links from this Notes page (from the “Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note” and “Summary of Note Links to this Page” sections) are to the “point of link” within the page rather than to the page generically. Links from the “links page” remain generic.
- There are two sorts of updating runs – for Notes and other Objects. The reason for this is that Notes are archived, and too many archived versions would be created if this process were repeatedly run.
Footnote 16:
- Frequently I’ll have made copious marginal annotations, and sometimes have written up a review-note.
- In the former case, I intend to transfer the annotations into electronic form as soon as I can find the time.
- In the latter case, I will have remarked on the fact against the citation, and will integrate the comments into this Note in due course.
- My intention is to incorporate into these Notes comments on material I’ve already read rather than engage with unread material at this stage.
Footnote 17:
- I may have read others in between updates of this Note – in which case they will be marked as such in the “References and Reading List” below.
- Papers or Books partially read have a rough %age based on the time spent versus the time expected.
Footnote 18:
- The categorised reading list includes a lot of material of purely religious interest, the vast bulk of which I’ve ignored
- Even so, the reading list is too long.
Footnote 19:
- I’ve not noted individual papers from this volume, except where I’ve read them.
Live Version of this Archived Note
Earlier Version of this Note
Table of the 4 Later Versions of this Note
| This version updated |
Reading List for this Topic |
Parent Topic |
| 24/05/2018 20:03:50 |
Life After Death |
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Text Colour Conventions
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026