Death of the Body versus Death of the Self

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Joe,

The replica wouldn't share you memories the way your friends do. The replica would literally have your exact memory set. It seems to me you cannot believe that the replica would act in a way that others couldn't tell it wasn't you, in that it would walk, talk, have your voice, your memories, your personality, your tastes AND not be you AND not be a philosophical zombie. Please note philosophical zombies aren't your classic horror zombies. The point is, what exact quality is there about you that your replica allegedly wouldn't have? Are you saying the replica wouldn't be conscious at all? If so, then what makes you think anyone but you is conscious? Why aren't you realist-solipsist, i.e. a person who believe in the reality of the external, observed world but still doesn't believe other minds exist?

But does the body generate or attach a unique spirit that surives the death of the individual body? If it does, when? At conception or later? If does, I would expect it at conception.

I'm not sure what you are asking here.

***

Muddler,

What if you used the teleportation device to transport to another place on Earth? Would you believe the replica who comes out the other end of the teleportation machine is you? If not, why not?

[T96wunderkind]

I think that death of the body is death of self. I THINK THAT SOMEHOW OUR BODIES ARE TIED DOWN TO OUR SOULS i.e our consciousness.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

T96wunderkind, so what are you answers to the specific questions asked in the thought experiments in the OP? If you think your soul/consciousness is tied down to your body, then are you saying the atom-by-atom replica wouldn't be conscious at all? Or are you saying it would magically have a soul/consciousness created for it with which you wouldn't identify? If not, does that mean you believe philosophical zombies are physically possible? Moving on, what about the brain surgery option? If you identify with your body rather than your memories and personality, then wouldn't you get the brain surgery?

[Joe]

Hi Scott, Re your #16 of May 20

I guess I cannot ignore my belief that body and spirit merge at conception, implying that the process has a subtlety that the objectivity of science will never define/replicate.

Joe

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Please define conception. Are you talking about the moment when the human sperm fertilizes the egg? If not, at exactly what point or how many exact days or weeks after that is what you call conception? Are you suggesting that embryos are conscious? Do you think animals are conscious (i.e. "have a spirit")?

It still seems your view would allow for philosophical zombies. It seems you think an atom-by-atom replica of you would be an unconscious philosophical zombie. Is this correct?

[Wooden shoe]

A question regarding the death of the self even though this is slightly off-topic.

Years ago I got to know a man whose complete memory had been wiped due to an auto accident and having been in a coma for many years. When he came out of this coma he had to be completely retrained, and the only knowledge he had of his life before the accident came from what he had been told. He had been married and had children who were strangers to him.

So my question is, had this person suffered the death of self?

Regards, John.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

It seems like it to me.

[Wooden shoe]

Hi Scott.

Yes, I think so also. This sets up an interesting question for those who believe in a soul as an separate something. Did this person have a different soul or did his soul survive the accident?

Regards, John.

[Schaps]

Disclaimer: I have not read all the posts but I do have some immediate ideas on the topic. The "self" may be manifested in this existence by the thoughts and the ideas that one communicates to others. Those transmitted ideas and thoughts persist indefinitely in some form or another, more "tangibly" in the legacy that one leaves after death e.g., the inventions of Steve Jobs and many others. Thus, death of the "body" does not mean that the "self" dies along with that body.

[Foxy22]

Scott said [quote] "nobody has been able to scientifically demonstrate out-of-body experiences "

[/quote]

That seems to me Scott as yet another bias jaundiced view and a moot point, Science has and does continue to demonstrate out-of-body experiences. You really need to get up on a subject before declaring you know best.

You could try reading Dr. Ken Ring and the scientific evidence published in the journal of near-death studies 1993 before baldly asserting there is no evidence. There is ample scientific evidence.

[Wooden shoe]

Hi Foxy.

In my search for the findings of the good doctor I am struck by the lack of publication in a recognized journal but instead only in a publication the Dr. started. I am not surprised that very little interest has been shown by the scientific community in this issue, as the only evidence for out of body experience is anecdotal. There are things we just do not know, and there always will be, but on this subject I am a skeptic.

Regards, John.

[Quotidian]

Instead of asking, 'how do you define yourself,' and then using that to define mental death (which I am using as shorthand for the death of the self or individual mind), we would do the inverse and ask one or ask ourselves what would we consider to be mental death (the death of the self or individual mind, i.e. our respective individual identity) and then use that to figure out how one defines oneself (i.e. one's individual identity). A good way to understand what is meant by this -- even if like me you don't believe in such a supernatural thing -- is to think of it in terms of what people mean by the so-called 'afterlife' in a supernatural sense: By this oxymoron, they mean to say yes their body has died, but their mind, i.e. who they are as a person, goes on existing in some way somewhere else.

Here you are assuming that 'the sense of self-identity' - 'the conscious ego' - is what ought to be preserved, and what 'supernatural ideas' such as belief in the afterlife claim to preserve. But the problem is, I don't think this is what the religious ideas of the afterlife really do claim to preserve, although it is often understood in those terms. (Granted, if you go into the historical documentation about what the after-life really does consist of, it is far from obvious what it means. But the simplistic sense in which the individual carries on in some ethereal realm is of very recent invention.)

But that is not the main point. In the spiritual traditions 'the death of the self' is not necessarily a breakdown or something to be dreaded, but the gateway to the realization of a higher sense of identity. It is the process of divesting oneself of attachments to memories, identity, and the things you cling to as 'me and mine', so as to realize that which is beyond those elements of the person. This is the meaning behind renunciation, contemplation, and the spiritual life generally.

As well as in the religions, the idea also has a precedent in philosophy. Plato says in one of his dialogues that the whole aim of philosophy is 'rehearsing for death'. The philosopher is to 'die to the known' in order to remember the 'super-sensible world'. As we know, Plato said the soul, prior to birth, had all knowledge, and that the getting of wisdom consisted of remembering (or un-forgetting, anamnesis), this higher knowledge.

So trying to hang on to yourself through these technological schemes like brain transplants or cryogenics, might be the opposite of what the traditional philosophies depicted as 'liberation', which is the process of transcending your sense of self-identity and 'who you think you are'.

A good, reasonably current book on this idea is Alan Watts' The Supreme Identity.

[Godless End]

Hypothetically speaking, the molecular reassembly of my entire anatomy would only resort to 1) An infrastructral arbitrariness that involves my molecular system formulating an entirely different form that is similar to rolling a rock down a hill in two different instances. 2) The body dies, then is reanimated again, which is equivalent to taking a memory chip from a computer and placing it in another. Or 3), It would backfire/shortfire into one of the most regretful mistakes in scientific history, hence the only way you could find success in these type of studies is to use someone as a guinea pig.

Constructively speaking, I do not understand the hype over reanimating ourselves, nor do I see the interest in the idea of being able to recreate molecular structural models - whether you see it as innovative or productive - I see it as fruitless and a waste of that money that goes into these expensive studies that really are not focusing on the more important scientific fields.

[Martian Visitor]

This is very different from another concept, the death of the self, which for the sake of simplicity and clarity I will refer to in this topic as mental death. In this sense, mental death is the cessation or destruction of the individual's mind or otherwise that which makes one oneself, i.e. what makes one a person. This is one's conscious identity. It's equivocal because the concept of self is equivocal. It's also vague even more than just in being equivocal because the concept of self still generally refers to an abstract thing that is often considered to be a psychological construct and thus arguably a sort of illusion -- perhaps a subconsciously formed metaphor used by a complicated brain.

Hi Scott,

You equate the self with the mind, and then go on to say that the self is an illusion, which for you is therefore equivalent to saying that the mind is an illusion. But illusion is itself a mental phenomenon. So this is hopelessly confused, and not a good place to start.

The sci-fi thought experiments are not helpful, they only introduce baseless speculation.

I'm not persuaded that the self is such a difficult thing to define and explain.

The self is an inevitable consequence of a consciousness, a mind. All conscious experiences are experienced by someone or something, and that is a self.

Having conscious experiences demands a highly sophisticated nervous system housed in a highly complex body. So each self is in practice inevitably associated with such a body.

The mind/self can die without the body dying but not vice versa.

Any questions?

-- Updated October 1st, 2012, 5:39 pm to add the following --

But that is not the main point. In the spiritual traditions 'the death of the self' is not necessarily a breakdown or something to be dreaded, but the gateway to the realization of a higher sense of identity. It is the process of divesting oneself of attachments to memories, identity, and the things you cling to as 'me and mine', so as to realize that which is beyond those elements of the person. This is the meaning behind renunciation, contemplation, and the spiritual life generally.

It's good to have that spelled out so clearly.

Because there isn't anything beyond those elements of a person, memories, identity and things we cling to as me and mine, the spiritual life is about something that isn't there.

There is no higher sense of identity. That suggestion is bait for the naive, typical of the empty promises of a religion.

Have you met anyone who had attained a higher sense of identity? Who had divested themselves of attachment to memories, etc etc?

I have met and spoken to several acknowledged Buddhist teachers, published authors, leaders of large and active groups, and they were just ordinary people with these daft ideas about attaining a higher sense of identity etc. One bloke had spent 7 years in a cave up a mountain somewhere, looking at a wall and trying to think about nothing.

Such a waste of time, of life. Really, what is supposed to be good about renouncing this life, the only one we have? What is good about losing our attachment to our memories, our identity?

[Last Orbit]

I think that bodily death is something that people fear far too much.

I actually think that people fear the death of self far more than the bodily death. I mean isn't that what makes religion so popular? The fear that after death there is nothing? Most religions believe that if you live your life a certain way that you (your self) will be rewarded ,after death, a paradise for all eternity.