15 dopo il nostro funerale - The Evolution of the Soul by Richard Swinburne - corpo nuovoocorpovecchio? animasenzacorpo? unsonnonellattesa? cervelliriattivati quantocervellociserveperesserenoi? karmaparapsicologiaeriattivazione necessitàdellaresurrezione
Can this complex evolved human soul survive on its own apart from the body which sustains it?Read more at location 3910
I considered in Chapter 10 what it is for a man or his soul to exist unconscious,Read more at location 3912
The definition which I suggested was that a soul exists if normal bodily processes or available artificial techniques can bring the man to be conscious,Read more at location 3913
When the body dies and the brain ceases to function, the evidence of the kind considered in Chapter 10 suggests that the soul will cease to function also.Read more at location 3914
However, there are arguments and evidence of less usual kinds which purport to show that things are different after death from what they are before birth. Read more at location 3917
we must consider the question of whether, after death, the brain which ceases to function at death can be made to function againRead more at location 3918
we do not know how much of the brain that was yours has to be reassembled and within what time interval in order that we may have your brain and so your soul function again.Read more at location 3920
Suppose you die of a brain haemorrhage which today's doctors cannot cure, but your relatives take your corpse and put it straight into a very deep freeze in California. Fifty years later your descendents take it out of the freeze; medical technology has improved and the doctors are able quickly to mend your brain, and your body is then warmed up. The body becomes what is clearly the body of a living person, and one with your apparent memory and character. Is it you?Read more at location 3924
the satisfaction of the criterion of apparent memory (together with the-at any rate partial-satisfaction of the criterion of brain continuity) would suggest that we ought to say 'Yes'.Read more at location 3927
But it remains unclear and indeed insoluble exactly how much of the original brain is needed to provide satisfaction of the brain criterion.Read more at location 3933
thinkers of the early Christian centuries and of the Middle Ages. They considered the imaginary case of the cannibal who eats nothing but human flesh. Given that both the cannibal and his victims are to be brought to life in the General Resurrection, to whom will be flesh of the cannibal belong?Read more at location 3936
Aquinas' begins his answer by saying that `if something was materially present in many men, it will rise in him to whose perfection it belonged', i.e. that that part of the body which is necessary for a man being the person he is will belong to him in the General Resurrection.Read more at location 3937
Maybe a brain map could be constructed and a process of labelling constituent atoms devised, which would make possible a reassembly after many years.Read more at location 3951
Arguments to show that the soul continues to function without the brain functioning may be divided into three groups,Read more at location 3955
My conclusion on parapsychology is that it provides no good evidence that the soul continues to function without the brain to which it is currently connected, functioning. Read more at location 3997
to show from a consideration of what the soul is like when it functions normally that its nature is such that the failure of the brain to function would make no difference to the operation of the soul.Read more at location 3999
The failure of the above arguments is, I suggest, typical of the failure of dualist arguments to show that the soul has an immortal natureRead more at location 4019
If it cannot be shown that the soul has a nature so as to survive death without its connected brain functioning, can it be shown that the soul has a nature such that its functioning is dependent on that of the brain with which it is connected'?Read more at location 4022
The answer given in Chapter 10 is that this cannot be shown. It has not been shown and probably never can be shown that there is any naturally necessary connection of these kinds between soul and body. All we are ever likely to get is correlations-betweenRead more at location 4025
we have no grounds for saying that souls cannot survive the death of their brains.Read more at location 4029
The situation is simply that the fairly direct kinds of evidence considered so far give no grounds for supposing that anyone has survived death, but we know of no reason to suppose that it is not possible for anyone to survive death.Read more at location 4031
Someone may argue that failure to find something when you have looked for it is evidence that it does not exist. But that is so only if you would recognize the object when you found it, and if there is a limited region within which the object can exist and you have explored quite a lot of the region. Failure to find oil in the English Channel after you have drilled in most parts of it, or to find the Abominable Snowman if you have explored most of the Himalayas, is indeed evidence that the thing does not exist. But that is hardly the case with souls whose brains have ceased to function.Read more at location 4034
human souls survive death as a result of their nature or as a result of the predictable action of some agent who has the power to bring them to life.Read more at location 4045
Another such theory is of course Christian theism. The theist has first to argue for the existence of God,Read more at location 4049
The Christian theist will need further to show that God intends to bring souls to function after death. He could show this either by showing that it was an obligation on an omnipotent being to do such a thing, and so that, being good, God would do it;Read more at location 4053
if I am right in my claim that we cannot show that the soul has a nature such that it survives `under its own steam', and that we cannot show that it has a nature such that it cannot survive without its sustaining brain, the only kind of argument that can be given is an argument which goes beyond nature,Read more at location 4059
If God did give to souls life after death in a new body or without a body, he would not in any way be violating natural laws-for, if I am right, there are no natural laws which dictate what will happen to the soul after death.Read more at location 4061
Note that if there does occur a general resurrection of souls with new bodies in some other world, yet with apparent memories of their past lives (or a general reincarnation on Earth with such memories), they would have grounds for reidentifying each other correctly. For then the general failure of the results of the criterion of bodily continuity to coincide with those of apparent memory would by the arguments of Chapter 9 justifiably lead us to abandon the former criterion and rely entirely on the latter.Read more at location 4069
Note: CORPO NUOVO O CONYINUITÀ DEI CORPI S. SCIEGLIE 1 X IL PROBLEMA DEL CANNIBALE. MEGLIO 2 X IL PROBLEMS DRLLE EVIDENZE Edit
The soul is like a light bulb and the brain is like an electric light socket.Read more at location 4073
If the socket is damaged or the current turned off, the light will not shine.Read more at location 4074
Destroy the brain or cut off the nutriment supplied by the blood, and the soul will cease to function,Read more at location 4075
But it can be revived and made to function again by repairing or reassembling the brain-just as the light can be made to shine again by repairing the socketRead more at location 4076
the task is one involving no contradiction and an omnipotent God could achieve it;Read more at location 4080