Disembodied Survival and the Mind/Body Problem

Dr. Michael Sudduth

The plausibility of disembodied survival is closely connected to a set of conceptual distinctions in philosophy of mind.

I. Dualism vs. Physicalism

The strongly disembodied survival (SDS) thesis maintains that at death a person continues to exist as a wholly immaterial substance, as pure consciousness or mind. SDS can only be true if a more general theory about persons is true, namely DUALISM. Dualism claims that human beings are physical and mental.

Dualism is the opposite of PHYSICALISM, which holds that humans are completely physical beings. If physicalism is true, then SDS is false, and if SDS is true, then physicalism is false.

There are two versions of dualism. SUBSTANCE DUALISM claims that there are two kinds of substances or things, physical and mental. PROPERTY DUALISM claims that there are only physical substances, some of which have mental properties. Hence, according to the substance dualist the brain is a physical substance with physical properties, and the mind or soul is a mental substance that has mental properties. The property dualist says that the brain is a physical substance with physical and mental properties.

SDS entails not merely dualism, but substance dualism. Assessing the merits of substance dualism and physicalism provides an indirect way of evaluating the plausibility of SDS.

II. The Case for Dualism

A. The Basic Argument for Dualism – a Refutation of Physicalism

(1) A is identical to B just if everything true of A is true of B, and conversely.

(2) Many things are true of the physical states that are not true of mental states, and conversely.

Therefore,

(3) Physical states and mental states are not the same.

(1) is the principle of identity. (2) is supported by appealing to a range of basic differences between physical and mental states.

Mental states are private – Physical states are public

Mental states are certain – Physical states are not certain

Mental states have phenomenal qualities that physical states do not.

Note: The line of argument here is an argument for generic dualism – the real distinction between the mental and the physical. The arguments do not allow us to discriminate between substance and property dualism. For this, other arguments are necessary.

B. The Basic Arguments for Substance Dualism – Refutation of Property Dualism

• We have a basic awareness of self as something distinct from our body and brain, but this implies that substance dualism is true.
• There are first-person truths that are not reducible to third-person truths, but this would be false if substance dualism were false.
• Substance dualism provides a basis for the persistence of a self through time without change and hence is essential to a robust account of personal identity.

III. Dualistic Interactionism and Epiphenomenalism

If we suppose that the physical and the mental are distinct, this does open up the prospects for disembodied survival. At any rate, it refutes a main objection against disembodied survival. However, disembodied survival requires more than both dualism and substance dualism. After all, one might agree that the brain and the mind are distinct, but one might say that the mind nonetheless depends on the brain for its functioning, and in that case, disembodied survival would not be possible.

This is the position of EPIPHENOMENALISM. The epiphenomenalist says that while brain states and mental states are distinct, the brain is the cause of mental states, but mental states exert no causal influence on brain states. At a certain point in its complex physical processes, the brain is able to generate consciousness, but this is a one-way causal relation. By contrast, the dualistic interactionist maintains that in addition to physical states causing mental states, mental states also cause physical states.

Dualistic interactionists may be substance or property dualists, but some property dualists are epiphenomenalists.

Arguments against epiphenomenalism: (i) it implies no free will, but this is false, (ii) it holds that mental states do not cause physical states, but this is false, (iii) if mental states cause nothing, their development is a mystery from an evolutionary standpoint, and (iv) if epiphenomenalism is true, then we cannot know our own minds and hence could not know that epiphenomenalism is true, but this is self-refuting.

IV. Weakly Disembodied Survival

Given that weakly disembodied survival is logically consistent with the human person continuing to exist in some physical form without a conventional body or brain, weakly disembodied survival does not entail a denial of physicalism. Hence, even if physicalism were true, it would not rule out some form of disembodied survival.

How might we survive death in a non-conventional physical form? Two possibilities. First, we might survive as astral bodies (though Geach argues that the evidence against the existence of such bodies is substantial). Secondly, some research scientists have proposed an electromagnetic theory of consciousness according to which consciousness is identical with or contained in the electromagnetic field of the brain. Is this relevant to survival? Perhaps.

John Joe McFadden, one of the advocates of this theory, said: “My hypothesis is that consciousness is the experience of information, from the inside. There is a postulate in physics that information is neither created or destroyed - the conservation of information 'law'. It is however just a postulate, nobody has ever proved it. But, if true, it would suggest that awareness (associated with that information) - in some form - might survive death.”

http://www.surrey.ac.uk/qe/cemi.htm

The University of Surrey is the center of research activity on this view of consciousness.