Individuality and the Body in a Supposed Afterlife

[Scott]

Let's put aside the evidence or lack of evidence of there being an afterlife.

Many religions and religious people seem to actually believe that people go on living after their bodies die in some sort of other universe.

Does the person actually exist as the individual he was on Earth?

Does he actually have the same personality, memories and beliefs? How do they think this would work? Is a current copy of one's brain always present in this other universe? Or does a copy of one's brain suddenly appear in this other universe at the moment the person dies? Is the new brain in the other universe an exact replica of the old brain or is the all information (e.g. memories, personality) translated so it can be stored and understood by and in a differently-shaped brain?

Is a person's body also copied? Doesn't a person's body make up a big part of who they are and their personality? Any psychologist can tell you what role body-image plays towards ones personality and thoughts. If your body is a exact replica, wouldn't that mean a handicap person is handicap in the afterlife. In movies this seems to be how it goes. The dead re-appear to the living as they looked when they died. Would old people be very old and fragile in the afterlife? Wouldn't it make more sense to kill oneself when they are young and fit so they can be young and fit in the afterlife? What about if you get your arm cut off right before you die? Would you be missing an arm in the afterlife? What if you had braces, a pacemaker or some other unusual object embedded inside of your body? What role would genitalia play in the afterlife? Religious people don't think one can reproduce in the afterlife; do they?

What would one do in the afterlife if they still existed as an individual person? What use would eating, drinking, exercising or having sex play? They don't think that you can die in the afterlife; do they? What would a medical doctor do with all his knowledge in the afterlife? What if someone had a phobia on Earth in this universe? What purpose would fear, physical pain or knowledge of fighting skills have in the afterlife? Or would those traits of one's personality not be copied over?

Since so much of who we are in mind and what we are in body is based on surviving, reproducing and interacting with this physical world, why would it still be present forever in the afterlife? If we were just an exact replica of ourselves with the same personality, wouldn't we be bored and confused in an afterlife where we couldn't die, reproduce or get sick? But if it wasn't copied over, then that would change one so drastically that one would really be someone else in the afterlife rather than a copy of oneself--thus really not having an afterlife at all. In fact, one's living relatives (who share much of one's bodily appearance, opinions and knowledge) such as their kids would be more like one than that which had been copied over to the afterlife.

Do babies have an afterlife? What about an animal? What about if there was a very smart animal like one of these gorillas that speaks in sign language that was smarter than a very stupid human being? Do fetuses have an afterlife? What about an embryo? If a sperm and an egg do not have an afterlife on their own, why would them coming together create something permanent in this universe called the afterlife? How would that be similar to the copy of a grown intelligent human in the afterlife?

What about if two kids are very good friends and very similar to each other with very similar personalities and beliefs, but then one of them dies young, and the other one grows up and changes drastically over time both in mind and in body? How would they be different in the afterlife? Or if they were the same, then how does the afterlife relate to the real world?

How do religions and religious people who believe in afterlife for the individual answer those questions? Isn't the idea of an individual person still existing in the afterlife illogical or at least very silly? And if so much of our bodies and brain-data (i.e. personality) was not copied over such as fears, favorite foods and injuries than wouldn't it be like we died anyway with no afterlife and that some weird slightly similar thing came into existence in this other universe?

Hi Scott

This is hard to explain even theoretically if you're not used to these ideas. Paul explains it well though in 1 Corinthians 15:

35But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" 36How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
42So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"[e]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. 48As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we[f] bear the likeness of the man from heaven.

This is not really a correct analogy but good enough to illustrate the basic idea of the relationship between the natural and spiritual body.

Consider the relationship between a caterpillar and a butterfly. The caterpillar is like the natural body and by a process under the right circumstances changes in its being to become a butterfly: a completely different form of life.

The change from the natural body to the spiritual body is the same basic idea. The chief difference is that the relationship between the caterpillar and butterfly is a mechanical process while the change in being from the natural body to the spiritual body is a conscious process.

Nick,#2, not only does this illustrate connection between the spirit and the physical body, it also shows without doubt that Paul subscribed to Aristotle's exceedingly influential idea that the essence of a thing is fixed, immutable and eternal.Modern science has proved that this is incorrect.Aristotle was a great biologist of his timethe very first marine biologist in fact but he was not infallible.

Scott in #1 shows in effect how impossible it is to identify any essential quality of the person. Unshakeable supernaturalists are driven therefore to suppose that there is such a thing as the essence of a person but that it is mysterious and indescibable.

"Afterlife" is a bit of an umbrella term isn't it? As far as I know it can mean two things, reincarnation, or one's "soul" (whatever that is) being transported somehow, to some paradice like or hellish dimention of existence. The second I would dismiss due to a multitude of problems associated with the idea of transfering from one brane of existence to another. Logically, dimentions such as heaven and hell work under a different set of physical rules than our own, if any rules whatsoever. If that is true however, how on earth is one supposed to exist in them? An entity cannot exist in a plane of existence, which has rules which says it can't, ergo a thing that exists under one set of rules cannot transfer to another and yet remain the same entity, to exist there it must change its properties somehow to fit the new rule set, thus changing its essence, and thus, no longer being the origional entity. On earth we exist under a certain set of rules, and thus, possess essential characteristics or "properties", which identify us as "us". If those properties where to change, our essence, what makes us "us" would die. Those properties MUST change, if we are opperating on a different set of laws! Ergo to leave this plane of existence, IS to die.

But reincarnation tackles that, it doesn't always depend on leaving this plane of existence. But still, even in the case of reincarnation, if you've been reincarnated into a new body, which has a totally different genetic pattern, and all your past life memories are gone, then your personality (what makes you "you") is going to be fundamentally different, and so, how are you the same person? Substaintially (your substance, what your made of) you may be the same, but, your essence is still dead!

And the latter is what I infact believe, that though the "you" as defined by your substance (you as a collection of atoms and subatomic particles and energies) is immortal, because your substance cannot be created or destroyed only manipulated into many various forms of matter and energy, of which it is almost certain that at some point your matter and your energy will become new living organisms (reincarnation after a fashion), but, the "you" as defined by essence, dies, because by dint of your substance "changing form", you have necessarily changed your essential characteristics, and thus "who you are".

Does the person actually exist as the individual he was on Earth?

It depends on what you mean by "as the individual". Do I exist "as the individual" that existed when I was 5? Or before I went through the death of my father, or the breakup of my first marriage? when I have a dream, am I still "me", regardless of who I appear to be in the dream? Am I the same individual from one second to the next?

To a religious or spiritual person, the term "individual" means far more than some reductionist, material snapshot of body and beliefs at any particular moment.

Does he actually have the same personality, memories and beliefs?

Do you, as an individual, have the same personality, memories and beliefs at all times throughout your existence, and in all situations?

How do they think this would work?

You haven't sufficiently defined what "this" is to request an explanation of how "this" works. However, what difference does it make how it works?

Is a current copy of one's brain always present in this other universe? Or does a copy of one's brain suddenly appear in this other universe at the moment the person dies? Is the new brain in the other universe an exact replica of the old brain or is the all information (e.g. memories, personality) translated so it can be stored and understood by and in a differently-shaped brain?

Well, to give a theoretical answer to a rather vague hypothetical question, some interpretations of quantum theory indicate a many-world scenario where every potential quantum variance represents a path down a real alternate existence, no matter how improbable. Although one might appear to die in the perspective of others, from their perspective perhaps some unlikely variance has allowed them to continue existence in a different state.

Also, if the individual can be compared to "information" stored in an arrangement of quantum states, then whether or not that quantum arrangement could be seen by others as a physical body or not would be irrelevant to the information's continuance.

Let's remember, physicality is not the "substrate" that quantum energy patterns fluctuate upon; physicality is an apparent maneifestation of the fundamental quantum energy pattern substrate. It isn't the information that requires a physical medium; it is the physical medium that relies on the energy substrate. Removing what the energy manifests doesn't remove the energy itself any more than cutting the grass kills the roots.

Is a person's body also copied? Doesn't a person's body make up a big part of who they are and their personality? Any psychologist can tell you what role body-image plays towards ones personality and thoughts. If your body is a exact replica, wouldn't that mean a handicap person is handicap in the afterlife.

From all the evidence I've seen, in many afterlife scenarios the body we have after we die is an idealized version of our self-image, and suffers none of the physical impairments. Of course, there would also be a corresponding change in the feedback loop that generates the nature of one's individuality, but I don't see how that is any different from events that affect the nature of one's individuality or identity in they physical realm.

It is most often compared to "waking up"; when you wake up you don't fee like you've lost your personality, you feel like you've rather regained aspects of your identity hidden from you while you dreamt.

What would one do in the afterlife if they still existed as an individual person? What use would eating, drinking, exercising or having sex play?

Enjoyment. Do you not enjoy those things?

They don't think that you can die in the afterlife; do they? What would a medical doctor do with all his knowledge in the afterlife? What if someone had a phobia on Earth in this universe? What purpose would fear, physical pain or knowledge of fighting skills have in the afterlife? Or would those traits of one's personality not be copied over?

Of course many motivations one had in the physical realm would not be translatable to many versions of the afterlife, but if such things are necessary aspects of one's identity, then their contextual afterlife will afford them those motivations, even if it seems to the individual that they have not died at all, but rather just find themselves in a situation that calls for such traits.

Since so much of who we are in mind and what we are in body is based on surviving, reproducing and interacting with this physical world, why would it still be present forever in the afterlife?

That depends on what your notion of "the afterlife" is. The afterlife, to those who require it, might appear to be no different in any necessary way than their life.

If we were just an exact replica of ourselves with the same personality, wouldn't we be bored and confused in an afterlife where we couldn't die, reproduce or get sick? But if it wasn't copied over, then that would change one so drastically that one would really be someone else in the afterlife rather than a copy of oneself--thus really not having an afterlife at all.

Well, the same can be said of people that encounter a truly traumatic event in life; they are not the same person afterward. All events that occur, to some degree - even simple aging - change what you are labeling as "our identity", so a transition to a different kind of existence which requires a change of such "identity" traits is really nothing different than what already occurs in life all the time.

I think the problem with your conceptualization of "the afterlife" is that you have limited it to your conceptualization of a material world and you are looking for correspondences and defintions and explanations that can be sorted according to the same sorting process you use for the physical world. Additionally, you have a rather simplistic view of what identity is even in the physical world.

I don't remember myself on July 8th, 1974. Does that identity not exist now? Where did it go? I'm very different from the person I was 20 years ago; so much so that I cannot even imagine being that person anymore. Where did that identity go? What happened to the identity of a person that gets amnesia or alzheimers?

In most spiritual doctrines, the individual is not what you are calling their "identity" anyway; in most spiritual doctrines, the "self" is always - ultimately - a wave of the whole, an aspect of God made in the image of God, without actual individual identity as we understand the term, and such individual identities are really nothing more than illusory constructs generated to experience things.

That one's identity varies, or changes drastically because of physical or spiritual events, isn't a problem for most spiritual doctrines; it in fact demonstrates the point that personality and identity can be changed like one changes clothes, and that the true self is something immutable and unchangeable beyond the appearance of individual identity.

From all the evidence I've seen, in many afterlife scenarios the body we have after we die is an idealized version of our self-image, and suffers none of the physical impairments.

That's ridiculous! Some people's self images are so unrealistic or downright sad or mad that the self images amount to physical and mental impairments.Anyway, what is the self image of a newborn baby? An old person with dementia?

and that the true self is something immutable and unchangeable beyond the appearance of individual identity.

You have not said anything to support that 'the true self' exists apart from a fanciful idea.

Meleagar, cannot you see that you two last paragraphs are inconsistent?

That's ridiculous! Some people's self images are so unrealistic or downright sad or mad that the self images amount to physical and mental impairments.Anyway, what is the self image of a newborn baby? An old person with dementia?

I said in many afterlife scenarios, not in all.

You have not said anything to support that 'the true self' exists apart from a fanciful idea.

I wasn't making an argument that the statement was true; the statement was about what many spiritualities believe. I didn't understand the O.P. to be a request for evidence or proof, but rather that it was a broad question about how different spiritualies would answer the questions posed about individuality and the afterlife.

Meleagar, cannot you see that you two last paragraphs are inconsistent?

Not if you read them as they were intended. What most people call their "identity" - our personality, memories, beliefs, etc. - is not what many spiritualities call the true self; but rather that such characteristics are like clothes that change over time. The "true self" in those views is an immutable, eternal aspect of God.

Thus, even if one's "identity" changed with a transition at death, it's largely irrelevant, because our identity changes slowly and/or abruptly even during life; it would be the true self that observes through whatever identity it has assumed that matters.

The thought of existing in an afterlife with our human bodies intact does seem ridiculous to me, as well. Physical bodies are far from perfect and would no longer be necessary. However the thought of being a highly evolved, self aware, formless, conscious, and rational being consisting of "pure energy" doesn't seem that irrational.

Just imagine if "in God's image" means in the image of His spirit.

I also would not rule out the possibility of souls being able to take on whatever form suits them at whim.

Souls should still be able to create and enjoy Music, art and beauty. As far as essentially having an emotional state other than feelings of love, affection, joy, sense of awe, and wonderful surprise, the other human emotions would seem detrimental and undesirable. Envy, hate, fear, jealousy, sadness, disgust, grief, boredom, aggression, pride, loneliness, compassion, shame, remorse, etc., should not be necessary.

Isn't the idea of an individual person still existing in the afterlife illogical or at least very silly? And if so much of our bodies and brain-data (i.e. personality) was not copied over such as fears, favorite foods and injuries than wouldn't it be like we died anyway with no afterlife and that some weird slightly similar thing came into existence in this other universe?

No it wouldn't be. The identity of the person is not essentially dependent upon external experiences. The person is the locus or subject of the experiences. Having an entirely new set of experiences need not change the identity of the experiencer of those. My guess is that heaven would be like an organic metamorphosis of the individual. Since the "evolution" of the individual would be from the "inside out" so to speak the locus would remain but the capacity of that locus to experience entire new dimensions of experience and "become" something entirely new while remaining intact as an identity is not strange or silly. It happens all the time in nature. Eggs become birds, fish and every other kind of vertebrate, caterpillars become butterflies, universes unfold organically, fetuses become adult humans, seeds become plants, etc. It is almost a universal rule where anything develops or changes organically. What is silly or illogical about that?

OTavern, how does one identify a disembodied soul?

Is a disembodied soul identifiable only by other disembodied souls?

Is a disembodied soul some essence of the person who was formerly identifiable by physical attributes such as behaviour, identification papers and DNA ? If so can the essence of a person be identified?How?

If the essence of a person cannot be identified the hypothesis " there are disembodied souls " is nonsense.

Scott wrote:

Individuality and the Body in a Supposed Afterlife

There is nothing supposed by those in the know. I know what I know. I don`t suppose I know it..[how patronising] I do know it. The fact that you don`t is your problem.

What about someone who suffered a traumatic brain injury, to the point where the entire personality was changed?

Such people might live out the rest of their lives with what is essentially an entirely different personality than before. The person might marry, change jobs, become a parent, etc.

In "Heaven", would such persons revert to their "pre-injury" personalities, to the utter confusion of those who only knew them after the injury?

What about someone who suffered a traumatic brain injury, to the point where the entire personality was changed?

Such people might live out the rest of their lives with what is essentially an entirely different personality than before. The person might marry, change jobs, become a parent, etc.

In "Heaven", would such persons revert to their "pre-injury" personalities, to the utter confusion of those who only knew them after the injury?

Once again, a change in personality doesn't require anything traumatic; our personalities change over time anyway. Much of our personality is a role we play while on the stage of the physical. Much like we recognize an actor regardless of the role they play, and see consistent elements in each part they play, once we go "backstage" it isn't the particular role by which we recognize them; backstage, we interact with the actor that has played many roles, not with the role persona.

Many questions about the afterlife can be answered if one uses actors and movies or dreams and waking states as an analogy.

In "Heaven", would such persons revert to their "pre-injury" personalities, to the utter confusion of those who only knew them after the injury?

Not if they can recall their injury and express memory of that to those who knew them then.

That one's identity varies, or changes drastically because of physical or mental events,
isn't necessarily mean the self has no essence. If fact all the manifested phenomenal perception must base on something that generated it at the first place, which is the DNA essence of the selfhood. Being and becoming are the two sides on the same coin.

Some people said cosmic energy do not come from nowhere or disappear into nowhere, but the fact is, energy can disappear; such as when a person gone asleep, his conscious thought vanished, left only the subconscious; or when a person suffered brain diseases, his entire identity can be gone as well. Therefore, consciousness\the self is not some physical energy thing which governed by the physical law. Consciousness enjoys its unique law of manifestation, while our modern science has very little explanation into the law of the mental dimension. Therefore, only the God would know, or wouldn't?