The harmony does not exist if the harp is broken. It only exists theoretically, it only has the potential for existing if the harp is broken, or it only existed in the past. The harmony does not transcend the strings of the harp it is bound to them, like our brains to our hearts...

My choice is, as is so often the case, Plato.

Plato's argument for the soul is probably the closest I've ever come to actually believing in such a thing, and I strongly recommend "Phaedo" as a short and very intersting dialogue for anyone interested in a pretty short but very memorable mental exercise on the whole matter (for that matter, I'd recommend "Ward No. 6" as well; while I'm going to disagree with Andrey's point here, I think he's a pretty cmpelling character and the story, while pretty predictable by modern standards, is one you can easily forgive for that flaw due to the time it was written and jsut the fact it's great for what it is, which is a philosophical struggle personified in a fictional man's personal struggle.)

While I'm not sure I still believe in the existence of a "soul"--it'd depend a good deal on what exactly one means by the "soul," there are a few meanings to choose from--Plato's argument here assumes that the "soul" stands for a personal representation of the self, and one that survives the death of one's body.

It can be argued, of course, without the body/harp/violin, the soul/harmony couldn't be produced, and so with the death of the physical aspect comes the death of the more intellectual and intangible constituent, the soul, as well.

One of Socrates' friends at his deathbed--spoiler alert, this is the scene/dialogue wehre Socrates famously drinks his hemlock and dies--points out this troubling piece of evidence, and maeks the point that surely, he says, if the harp's broken, it can harmonize no more, it can play no more notes, there is nothing special about it except that it is broken and unable to perform the function of a harp, which distinguished it from other matter in the first place, in the same way thinking critically and holding elections and having baseball games and art and music and science and Internet forums and discussions--and trolls?--are just some of the things which distinguish humanity from the rest of the matter floating around out there in the univeerse (multiverse?)

This is a pretty troubling point, especially since Socrates is trying to reassure his friends it will be OK, that his dying will just be the end of his body, not the death of "him," and counters with the following points, which ahve varying degrees of plausibility and applicability:

-Technically, even if you DO break a harp/violin/instrument as you polay the last notes, those last notes still reverberate as sound waves...so, while those sound waves themselves might fade away at some point, it may at least be said that they did, technically, survive the "bodily death" of the harp.

-"Harmony" is an abstract idea, and so a concrete action cannot destroy it

-A harmony can be manifested in more than one way, ie, a song by The Beatles can be manifested in sheet music, old recordings, new recordings, live performances, and you strumming out the notes yourself, therefore, even if John Lennon and George Harrison are gone, and even if their guitars were smashed, their "harmonies" in the songs they wrote and sung can continue in sheet music and old recordings and new covers.

-Probably Socrates' biggest and favorite point harkens back to one of Plato's favorite ideas, The Forms, that is, that everything in the physical world is just a representation of the "idea" or "form" of that concept; the US Constitution, Magna Carta, and Declaration of the Rights of Man may all be considered imperfect representations of "The Form of Justice," but we can all agree that none of them, and neither the US, nor the UK, nor France, or any other nation, for that matter, has ever produced "perfect Justice." The Forms are utter perfection, and are the very essence of the idea. As the essence/idea of something cannot be dstroyed, and since that which is truly perfect could not be destroyed, according to Socrates, the Forms are indestructable and eternal, and represent everything--including us. Therefore, those things we feel make up the "essence of our being," as it were, ie, "The essence of Obi," may, according to Socrates, live on as a Form Representation of the Self amongst the other Forms.



As far as that last one goes...hit and miss, the Forms are an interesting idea, but I don't think many today will agree that there's some all-perfect, peaceful, pearly-gated place people go where they di--oh. Well...Plato's World of Forms isn't like that place, anyway.

But the other ideas seem plausible to me.

My issue with Andrey's argument stems from the sheer materialism of it...which is normally a good thing, but here, it seems to imply all there IS or CAN BE is the body, and so iof that changes or dies, we die with it. But the body is changing constantly; atoms have come and gone as I've typed this very sentence. I'm still the same person, though...right?

Take a case like Ronald Reagan--when he had Alzheimer's, was he the same "person" he was when he was President of the US?

Of course not.

Like him or not--I'm very mixed, but I suppose if the Right can recognize the good aspects of JFK, I can see the good in Reagan's World, as much as I disagree with a lot of what he did--he had a quick mind and tongue as President...

These are features that we'd seem to think "defined" Reagan, his communicative ability, and so, when that was sadly lost, didn't he lose part of his "harmony?"

What's more, if we're even more literal and material, and take An drey's broekn violin example at face value, then did Luke Skywalker "die" when he had his hand chopped off in The Empire Strikes Back? You cna argue his personality was different afterward, but no one would say he "died" or was literally "broken" and no good anymore as Luke Skywalker.



Well, that's just my view. What's yours?

@denis:

Since I wrote all that before I saw your response, before I respond to you:

Do you agree with any part of my defense?

If so, what?
If not, then, again, why can't the harmony transcend/survive the harp in any of those ways?

Obi's discouse assumes two things: that the body/soul relationship can be likened to the harp/melody relationship, and that the body is the harp and the soul is the melody (why not the other way around?).

Also, he touches on the question of what self is. In other words, how many of the attributes of a thing must change before the thing itself becomes another thing. If a rock turns a slightly lighter shade of gray, is it the same rock or an entirely new rock? If I soak it in chemicals until its entire molecular structure is altered, is it still the same rock or a new rock? Obi's dilemma seems to be, how much change must there be until something is not itself anymore?

Here's my view on the question ending the last paragraph: any change and no change. Any line between thing-changing change and non-thing-changing change is arbitrary. Any change at all is will change it and create a new thing. This is based on the assumption that a thing is a collection of attributes (the rock IS color, weight, volume, dimensions, chemical composition, etc.). A different attribute, a different collection, a different thing.

But that's not all. Even if the object is unaffected and unchanged from 2:30pm to 2:31pm, it is still not the same rock, because it is NOT unchanged. The 2:30 rock has the attribute of being at 2:30 in time while the 2:31 rock has the attribute of being at 2:31. Both rocks are identical in every way, right down to the molecule, but have the one divergent attribute: their respective time-stamps.

Now here's why I believe it is possible to call the light and the dark rocks, the 2:30 and the 2:31 rocks each the same rock. Ever notice the fact that if I roll a rock down hill from point A to point B, the fact that it was first at point A allowed to later be at point B? Being at point A was a pre-condition of it being at point B. In other words, its existing at point A CAUSED it to exist at point B (in part). But also, point A's rock's EXISTING caused point B's rock's EXISTING. The point A rock could exist at 2:30 and the point B rock could exist at 2:31. By the same line of logic, point A rock's existence at 2:30 caused point B rock's existence at 2:31.

If that rock had not moved or changed in anyway whatsoever, its existence at 2:30 would still cause the 2:31 rock's existence. In other words, any object existing in time is actually a series of completely different objects existing in a cause-and-effect sequence. Hence, the 2:30 rock and the 2:31 rock would be to links in the existential cause-and-effect chain.

I call that cause-and-effect chain of rocks the Rock. The rocks change (lower case), but the Rock (upper case) is still the same.

Ronald Reagan changed (lost his memory, speech, cognitive abilities, etc.), but the 1974 ronald's (lower case) existence caused the subsequent existence of the 2000 ronald (lower case). Two separate and completely distinct ronalds (lower case), but still forming a cause-and-effect chain that I would call the Ronald (upper case).

If you want to identify the cause-and-effect sequence of persons as the soul, I would disagree. However that's not why I wrote all this, so I won't get into the definition of the word "soul" or whether it is identifiable with the immortal thing that I believe accompanies the body (often called the "soul" or "spirit" in general Christian parlance). I just disagree with you about how many Ronald Reagans there are.

*the word "it" in the last paragraph having the the phrase "the word 'soul' " as its antecedent

@baumhaeuer:

(Sorry my reply is belated, I've been sleeping all-day after not sleeping the night before last studying for my math final--I think I failed...AGAIN...but at least it's not for lack of trying...)

Anywho:

"Obi's discouse assumes two things: that the body/soul relationship can be likened to the harp/melody relationship, and that the body is the harp and the soul is the melody (why not the other way around?)."

I have two responses to that:

1. The harp/body is something concrete, ie, something physical. By contrast, the harmony/soul is something more abstract, ie, something beyond the mere physical. (In the case of "harmony' this is somewhat dubious as it might be argued that sound waves are technically a physical phenomenon; nevertheless, "harmony" can manifest itself in sheet music as well, and really harmony's an analogy for the soul, so it's not likely to be picture-perfect, just roughly so.) The physical can be destroyed, but the abstract cannot; likewise, a harp can be destroyed, but a harmony cannot, at least not in this sense. Therefore, the harmony seems to exist "beyond" the harp, and so may be said to be analogous to the soul, in the same way the soul is beyond the body. To give a futher example, imagine your memories/self being transfered from one utterly-destroyed body to another, robotic body--we would be inclined to call you, even still, baumhaeuer--or maybe Robo-baumhaeuer--because what maeks you YOU, ie, your memories and personality and so on, is still intact, it's jsut in a different carrying case.)

2. Harmony gives meaning to the harp--ie, gives it a function and a purpose and defines it as "the harp playing Harmony A as opposed to the harp playing Harmony B"--and this relationship does not work backwards. The harp is merely an instrument. It does not create the harmony, I would argue, but rather only facilitates its playing, the MUSICIAN creates the actual harmony. He does this by either writing the notes for said harmony, playing those notes, or both. In the first case, we do not need the harp for the musician to write the notes that compose the harmony, and so the harmony CAN exist independently of the harp itself, and we can further imagine taht harmony being played on multiple harps, not just one harp palying one harmony and only that harmony for all eternity. As such, the harp, again, is only an instrument. By contrast, the harmony gives the harp meaning. Without any harmonies or songs or notes to be played, the harp is utterly useless. The same applies to the body/soul arrangement. The memories and experiences and ideas of the self, to return to the Robo-baumhaeuer example again, all that make you you, and without those, we might consider your body to be void of any cognitive action and just a useless shell of flesh and bone, with the "real" baumhaeuer having already been lifted into another body. As the harmony and abstract self/soul can give meaning, and the harp/body can only facilitate that meaning and act in accordance with it, and not on their own accord--ie, a harp cannot decide to play "its own" composition--cannot. Therefore, the soul and harmony are superior to the body and harp.



The rest of your change/no-change examples seem to relate to Hume's Bundle Theory (that is, Hume's idea that features of objects are all that exist, and so those may change and come and go at will, because udnerneath all the features and properties that we woud say made Ronald Reagan who he was, strip him of those features one by one and eventually, even taking away the molecular structure of the man, you are left with no "Reagan" underneath) and so I'll adress it as such.

If we accept that change=new object is an all-or-nothing affair, then we must admit to Hume's idea of Bundle Theory, that "we" are just changing all the time, and one the last meolecules leave us, there is nothing underneath all those changes.

For another example, more to the point made here particularly, Locke's Soul Dilemma:

Imagine that you DO, for the sake of argument, have a soul.
It completely defines who you are.
Now, every night, "God" takes this soul away.
Into your body, he places a soul that is absolutely identical to the old one.
However, it is NOT the old one.
You wake up and, because your new soul is the same as the old, no one can tell.

Did YOU die when God gave that new, identical soul to your body?

If your soul is your very self, and that was taken away, even if it was replaced by a perfect clone, it doesn't seem as if we can call that clone "baumhaeuer" so much as "baumhaeuer 2.0."

Apply that to physical change of the body.

If one atom of my right index finger's leaving my body and being replaced constitutes my no longer being the same as before, if we're going to be all-or-nothing, then "obiwanobiwan" stopped existing about two lines ago.

(Somewhere, mapleleaf weeps with joy.) ;)

But most of us would find thsi to be absurd, because really, one atom doesn't make up the WHOLE of a person...it's such a minority of a person that it doesn't seem to factor in, and since it can be replaced with no change to the ORIGINAL structure--not to a different strucutre a la Locke's Soul Dilemma--it seems innocuous, and I still exist.

(Sorry, maple.)

But your idea of a little-person/Big-Person framework is intriguing, so let's try that.

But before we can, I think we have to make another distinction, namely, between the Cognitive and Corporeal persons.

The Cognitive "person" is that which contains one's memories, experiences, thoughts, ideas, etc.

The Corporeal "person" is the physical matter that makes that all possible.

Now, in keeping with Hobbes and Hitchens and Hume--why do all the great Materialist philosophers have surnames beginning with "H"--a smart atheistic or agnostic person at this point might very well ask,

"Well, your ideas and thoughts and experiences and so on are all caused and stored and are the product of electro-chemical responses in the brain and nervous system, so aren't these also materialist areas?"

The are, indeed, caused by those responses, but this is just like the harp player causing the notes of a harmony to occur--the harp player is a physical cause, but the harmony ITSELF is beyond that cause, that is, we can seperate it from the intial cause (ie, the hapr player can die, but the harmony can live on and be played by another.) What's more, the actual "harmony" is soemthing abstract in nature, just like what my personal idea of "freedom" is; now, the harmony is caused by something physical, and I take my idea of "freedom" from the physical world, and sheet music stores the harmony, and parts of my physical brain store my ideas, but even still, causing and storing are different in kind from actually BEING my ideas.

So.

Little/Big person/Person, and Cognitive/Corporeal.

And now, let us observe before us The Life of Brian. ("He's not the messiah, he's a very naught boy!" There--we've all got it out of our system now?)

Brian is born January 1st, 2011.
So, Moment 1--or M1--we have:

1/1/2011, M1:
Brian is born.
2011, M1 brian is born.
2011, M1 Cognitive Brian exists.
2011, M1 Corporeal Brian exists.

A few minutes after birth, of course, the umbilical chord is cut...M2...

Brian exists.
2011 M1 brian dies.
2011 M2 brian is born.
2011 M1 Cognitive brian exists.
2011 M1 Corporeal brian dies.
2011 M2 Corporeal brian is born.

Now we press on a few years.

We may assume that for every few seconds, a Corporeal brian is killed and another born via the basic ohysical changes that go on within and outside of the human body.

Now, the 2013 brian is the same as the 201 brian, as while there have been small molecular changes every few seconds, no big, life-changing physical additions or subtractions have yet occured, so we can junk the idea of 2013 brian and stay with 2011 brian, since it's basically the same thing, and so 2011 brian has not died, though 2011 M1 Corporeal brian died a few seconds after the umbilical chord was cut.

Needless to day, Brian still exists, for if not Brian existed, no brian could exist, either.

Cognitive brian is still intact, as while his learning things at this time, such as what blue is and that applesauce is for eating, not flinging at others, none of this disrupts the essence that is, at this moment, Cognitive brian.

But this cannot be the case for long.

So let us flash ahead a few years, and Brian is now 5.

We are now at Moment 300,005/ M 300,005

To recap, before our event:
Brian exists.
2011-16 brian exists (though for simplicity's sake, all those models are mostly alike)
2011-16 M-300,004 Corporeal brians are dead
2016 M-300,005 is born
2011-16 brians are alive, though all are relatively similar.

Brian is now in a car accident, and loses his left arm as a result.

What's worse, Brian's father dies in the accident.

Brian exists.
2011-16 brians are now dead.
2016 M-300,005 brian is born, as losing an arm is a major, unchangeable alteration.
2016 M-300,004 Corporeal brian is dead.

2016 M-300,005 Corporeal brian is born.
2011-16 Cognitive brian is dead, as losing a father is a major, traumatizing experience.

cognitive brian isnt dead, just different.

Our bodys are *organisms*. - i.e. organisations. Like a corporation - if one employee is replaced this does not mean it is a new corporation. OR DOES IT????

Obi please I'm all ears play me a harmony on a harp without a harp, or with one broken beyond repair... Our consciousness (ie our soul) is exactly like that, it's bound to a tool ( our neurons in the brain) like a harmony to finely tuned strings.

@fielder:

I meant the "Version" of Cognitive brian for those years is gone; maybe "updated" is a better word than "dead" there, but undoubtedly, losing and arm and a father will make him a markedly different person than he was previously.

@denis:

First, I suppose I can play a harmony without a harp on a guitar, or violin, or another string instrument, provided it has the right range necessary for the requirements of the song.

Secondly, if we throw out that option, then it might be suppsoed that, jsut like I can transfer baumhaeuer's "memories and experiences" into another body and still retain baum, I can presumably play Tchaikovsky on a second harp should my first one break (kif this were not the case, then musicians and their instruments would be inseperable, and the destruction of Beethoven's piano would mean none of the harmonies he played on it could ever be played again; obviously we can play those harmonies again, just with a different piano, so the piano/harp/body is not unique, jsut a tool of the self/soul/harmony.)

Third, if we somehow DID stipulate that no other musical instrument could reproduce the sounds of Beethoven's piano as it palyed the harmony, as if it were special, then we might assume that a reproduction of that piano, or even a computer program simulating what the sound of that piano must have been like, may very well reproduce the same harmonies.

And fourth and finally, excluding any instrument at all, we may again say that even if we can use no musical instrument, we can still have the harmony in sheet music form, or even in the mind of the musician, if they're like Mozart or so and can recall notes from memory...to that end, I suppose technically we can even whistle those harmonies, really, so as to bypass any artificiality that the sheet music might be charged with. I can recall a tune of Mozart's, I hum or sing it...and there is Mozart's harmony, free of artifical, non-roganic devices.



I'm not claiming--for the most part--that you can't have a harmony without a harp or a soul/self without a body.

I'm saying the harp/body part is mundane and expendable, ie, you can break it and get a new one and still reproduce the same, unique harmony as before, the same as you can presumably put one's thoughts and feelings into a new brain and still retain one's self beyond the point of teh original destruction of the body.

To put it simply:

The piano Beethoven played the Moonlight Sonata on is NOT necessary to play or hear the Moonlight Sonata with; it is merely a piano.

The Moonlight Sontata, by contrast, is a unique piece of music, and so, while I can say, "Replace the paino so you can play The Moonlight Sonata," I cannot say "Replace The Moonlight Sontata so you can play the piano" and have it make sense.

When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter.

Two problems with your argument, Obi.

Problem 1: you rejected out of hand my argument that ANY change to the bundle, as you called it, produces a whole new bundle.

You said, "Now, the 2013 brian is the same as the 201 brian, as while there have been small molecular changes every few seconds, no big, life-changing physical additions or subtractions have yet occured, so we can junk the idea of 2013 brian and stay with 2011 brianso we can junk the idea of 2013 brian and stay with 2011 brian, since it's basically the same thing."

I argued that any change, even which moment of time something is in, is a change. You started with your assumption that "big, life-changing physical additions or subtractions" are needed to really create a new Brian, even a new Corporeal Brian (so why you said just a little later that CB was dead just after birth, I'm not sure). Then, you took that assumption and say that, since no such big changes occurred, Brian is still the same Brian ("so we can junk the idea of 2013 brian and stay with 2011 brian, since it's basically the same thing").

The ultimate problem with your position is this: how big does a life changing addition/subtraction have to be to create a new person? Do I have to loose my legs, or would a foot or toe do? Does Brian have to go to a counselor for six months after his father dies, or does crying for six months suffice for making a new Brian?
How big is big enough?
HOW BIG IS BIG ENOUGH?
Unless you can show me a quantifiable, perfectly sharp line that is not arbitrarily placed, you have not really responded to my objection.



Problem 2: you posted this;

Imagine that you DO, for the sake of argument, have a soul.
It completely defines who you are.
Now, every night, "God" takes this soul away.
Into your body, he places a soul that is absolutely identical to the old one.
However, it is NOT the old one.
You wake up and, because your new soul is the same as the old, no one can tell.

Did YOU die when God gave that new, identical soul to your body?

If your soul is your very self, and that was taken away, even if it was replaced by a perfect clone, it doesn't seem as if we can call that clone "baumhaeuer" so much as "baumhaeuer 2.0."

The problem with this example in which God causes my soul to be replaced every night is that it fails to address my main thesis as to why all the sequential Brians are PARTS of the same entity.

Here it is: M1 Brian (be he corporeal or cognitive, it makes no difference to my argument) and M2 Brian are to parts of the over-arching, universal, complete Brian. You see, in the same way that M1 Corporeal Brian is COMPOSED of a right thumb and a left ear (among other things), Corporeal Brian--the over-arching, universal, complete CB is COMPOSED of a M1 CB, a M2 CB, a M3 CB. His 1993 body is a PART, a PIECE, a CHUNK of his complete "meta-body."

The "meta-body" is a sequence of momentary bodies.
How does this relate to the soul-scenario?
Simple.
The M1 Corporeal Brian's existence CAUSED M2 CBrian's existence. M2 CBrian's existence is an EFFECT of M1 CBrian's existence. M1 and M2 are related in a CAUSE/EFFECT sequence.
However,
in the soul-snatcher scenario, GOD'S ACTION is what caused the new soul to be there in the morning.
The EXISTENCE of the last evening's soul DID NOT cause the new soul to be there in the morning.
Therefore, since the existence of the first soul did not cause the existence of the second soul, the are NOT PARTS of the same CAUSE/EFFECT sequence.

Do you understand? The CAUSE/EFFECT sequence is what relates two otherwise different bundles in my thesis, NOT identicalness.



Summery: please address yourself to answering these to questions, please, for this debate to be productive;
1) how big is big enough?
2) do you understand my assertion that M1 CB and M2 CB are simply parts of a greater whole?

Also, Obi, why does a Star Trek fan have "obiwanobiwan" as his user name?

Answer to Problem 1:

A "Big Enough Change"...what do I mean by that?

Well, I'm having a bit of a time putting my finger on it, on the wording, so let's try this:

We can bpoth agree that the atoms which leave my hand as I type this don't affect my personality, right?

And when I clip my toenails, the loss of those doesn't affect who "I mam," right?

If you agree to those sentiments, then I'd posit that a "Big-Enough Change" is one which is something larger than the innoculous, ie, than having your hair trimmed or toenails clipped or losing a few atoms...

Can we agree to that much?

If we can, then I'd go further and say that a "big enough change" is something you lsoe but CANNOT regain/grow back.

You lose and gain atoms, no problem...
You clip toenails, no problem, they grow back...
You get a haircut, it grows back, no problem...
You prick yourself and bleed a bit, no problem, the blood is replenished*

*(I'm talking about PHYSICAL changes here, so obviously, if you INTENTIONALLY prick yourself, or intentionally slit your skin, THEN we might call that a big enough psychological change, but that'sanother topic, these examples are just meant to pertain to the physical.)

Now.

If you lose a toe--can't grow back, so you're physical makeup IS DIFFERENT.
If you lose an ear whilst cutting your hair...you're clumsy as all hell, and DIFFERENT.
If you "prick yourself" by ramming a sword through your gut, you're DIFFERENT.

And so on.

Those are irreplacable, irreprerable--in some cases--damages, and so, they permanently chagne the makeup of your body.

So, my way of putting it--or at least my first attempt--is this:

PHYSICALLY...

If you can replace what is lost with ease--toenails, hair, blood, atoms--then no change.
If you cannot--severed limbs, permanent scars, arthritis--then there is a change.

Yeah, there's a change, so what? (sorry I'm a bit thick)

Answer to Problem 2:

If you acknowledge these brians are part of a non-autonomous sequence, ie, one big Brian, then how are they any more seperate than different notes in a single harmony?

Those notes are distinct, yes, but still make up one piece of work, and we do not say the notes have changed or the harmony has changed, it's the same piece of work. We might say the MELODY within the harmony changes over the course of the piece, ex. Movements within a symphony...but the change does not erradicate the older parts of the harmony, they are still there.

Thus, Brian in 2016 may be considered a different "movement" in the big piece "The Life of Brian" than the movement in 2011, but even still, there is but one Brian throughout the piece, UNLESS there is an irreperable change wherein Brian 2.0 can no longer connect to Brian Prime.

for example--Alzheimer's.

It doesn't quite work this way, but for simplicity's sake, let's suppose Brian gets Alzheimer's at age 75.

He lives 10 more years.

However, while Brian can remember the years of his life from 40-75, he cannot remember anything before age 40, nor can he pull any traits from that time that made him the person he is at 75.

So we now have an irreperable disconnect, as Brian 2.0 includes years 40-85 (his death), whereas Brian Prime includes years 1-75.

Brian Prime has more years, but Brian 2.0 has his last years.

Neither "account" of Brian's life is complete, and they cannot be sewn together in his consciousness.

Thus, we have two distinct Brians in THAT instance.

And my name's obiwanobiwan because I liked Star Wars more than Trek--I'd SEEN more Wars than Trek--when I joined, and Obi-Wan was always my favorite character.

(Even now, when I don't really care about Star Wars, I still like Obi-Wan...still, if I had my choice today, I'd probably be named "Sherlock Hamlet" or something more akin to my current tastes...but at least Obi-Wan is a good character who reminds me of Merlin, who I love from the King Arthur stories, so yeah...)

@fiedler:

Because the argument depends on it, largely.

Plato's argued that the soul/self is like a harmony from a harp, it never changes and is eternal, even if the harp (body) is destroyed, then, the harmony (soul/self) survives. To put it another way, Mozart's paino might be destroyed, but you can still hear Mozart's harmonies, so they have survived the physical death of the paino they were played on, and are, comparatively, eternal.

Chekhov's character Andrey argues that there is no soul/self that is even secularly seperate from the most material aspects of the body and so, he argues, just like a no one would wax on nostalgically about a broken violin and say there's "soemthing eternal" about its "self/essence," onece the body dies, that's it, and not even personal works--like books--really carry on the self, you're just a broken violin that can no longer perform, so everything that made you you is finished.

If Palto's right, the self must be at least somewhat eternal in works or whatnot or in a soul-way, or otherwise Chekhov's right, and once you die, that's the end of any self you had, since death is the final change to your body, you cannot recover from it, and all is lost.

Chekhov's arguing that ones the hard drive is crushed, the CPU is dead.
Plato's holding out hope and arguing for a back up disk or memory card of sorts.

:)

@Obi - well yes but they are both right. It all depends on how you define soul.

If you want to define it as a tangible thing, then yes the sane modern view would be that it is tied to your physical state. But, if you want to define the soul as 'the spirit' of a person, that is, the combination of their ideas/actions/morality/vibe they projected out into the world, then that does last forever. Like Russel Crowe says "what we do in life echoes through eternity".

For a recent example, let's take....Ayrton Senna. A great F1 racing driver who for his fans is just impossible to forget. What he did in his life is no longer tangible, his body is destroyed, his work exists only in memory (and video), but his influence will effect people yet to be born. What he did, and who he was, can never be erased. It echoes. His 'soul' lives in others.

Of course, this doesnt just apply to famous people, applies just as much to your mum and dad, anyone and everyone.

@Fiedler:

"It all depends on how you define soul."

I agree.

The reason this is a dispute is...

THEY don't. ;)

Plato and Chekhove has different ideas about what the self is and, thus, if it can survive physical death, and that's the point of the discussion.

*Chekhov have

Sorry, silly me, I forgot you are not interested in any truth or insight, only in posing as an intellectual. Good for you. As long as it works for ya.

HOW am I not interested???

I'm asking which view is correct, which view IS the turth, self-after-death or no-self-after-death.

Those are two different points, I'm arguing one, baumhaeuer/denis are arguing other points.

That's posing as an intellectual how...?
That's not interested in a conversation how...?
That's not caring about the truth how...?

(It seems for every attempt I make at discussion I grow more and more unpopular...well, the truth, not popularity, is what's important...and Nietzsche said the philosopher is supposed to be reviled in his own time anyway.

If that's the case, I think TC, maple and I might be the greatest "philosophers" on webdip.) ;)

Because it doesnt make any sense for you to agree with me and carry on arguing what you are. You are seriously attempting to solve the question "Is there life after death?" through an argument on the webdip forum?

You're not reviled, but it's sometimes very hard to follow your logic ;)

(Nietzsche is a giant douchebag)

"You are seriously attempting to solve the question "Is there life after death?" through an argument on the webdip forum?"

I don't think it'll be solved, no.
But I might get an idea here that's worth hearing.
Someone might have a view I haven't considered.
So I pose these questions here.
I do the same in class.
And on the bus.

I like to get the opinion of as many people as possible, and then take what I think are the best ideas and thoughts in my view and develop my own views and arguments on those foundations.

(Hence my referencing Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Milton, Plato, Aristotle, Hume, and Hobbes so much--each has at least some quality of their work or some view that I agree with, if only in part, and so I try and cite their ideas to give an idea of where I'M coming from--both to the audience and as a reminder to myself--and then try and carry on from there with my own analogies as best I can...these aren't always the best analogies, and my posts aren't always perfect, but then, I'm not a great writer or philosohper yet, am I?) :)

In addition, we have a good crop of intelligent people here from different geographical and socio-political backgrounds, so it's not only a good opportunity to see what other people think, it's fun to hear the views of such people.

(And :O Nietzsche?! WEll...yes, he was a jerk at times, but in a GOOD way...well, maybe only a jerk would like a jerk, but still, what do you have against him?) ;)

OK, well I think we have been here before, and I don't think it would be constructive to continue arguing.

BUT, it would be nice if you did actually reference Shakepesre, Nietzsche, et al, instead of just mentioning their names! :)

I think the whole analogy is wrong. The soul should not be represented by music coming from an instrument which will definitely fail. I don't really think that there can be a good analogy for a soul.

The soul (and all other supernatural things) exist outside of the human realms of space and time. There is no conventional, scientific way to prove the existence of the soul (or God, for that matter). Because the soul exists outside of space and time, it also exists outside of the human realm of science.

@Gunfighter:

Well, as much as I wish I could take credit for that comparison...

Plato was the one arguing that the soul was like music from an instrument, so you'll have to take it up with him. :p

But in all seriousness:

I agree, it's sort of a rough analogy, and I agree it's because if there is a soul, it's something outside the reals of space and time and, like God, unknowable to humankind.

I was trying to treat the "soul" here as a sort of synonym for the "self," and go a more secular route with the whole thing, since we can agree that the self is something which is contructed via physical experiences and actions--like playing a harp--and yet is beyond that physical constraint (that is, if one harp breaks, you can play Mozart on another one, but the actual Mozart song you play is a constant, defining work of art.)

@Obi:
1: so a PERMANENT change is big enough.
2: "If you acknowledge these brians are part of a non-autonomous sequence, ie, one big Brian, then how are they any more seperate than different notes in a single harmony?"
The difference is this: if the melody goes CCDE, the fact that the first note is a C does not cause the second note to also be C, nor does the second note's being C cause the third note to be D, nor the fourth to be E. The harp does not cause the melody to be that either. Instead, the harpist causes it to be so.
The CCDE are there, but not connected to each other in a cause/effect sequence.

Cause and effect are the idea that I'm trying to share with you in problem 2. Brian 2.0 would not exist if Brian Prime did not exist. BP is the cause and B2.0 is the effect.

Because BP and B2.0 are linked by cause and effect in that manner, they are two parts of a greater, meta-Brian.



You say BP and B2.0 are two, disconnected persons.
I say they are two, connected parts on the same person.

If you reply (you don't have to, since I don't think our respective positions are changing), this is what I would be interested in hearing: your comprehension that the whole key to my point is CAUSE-AND-EFFECT, existential sequences.

@ obiwan

Don't worry, I won't hold you accountable for Plato's rough analogy.

"I was trying to treat the "soul" here as a sort of synonym for the "self," and go a more secular route with the whole thing, since we can agree that the self is something which is contructed via physical experiences and actions--like playing a harp--and yet is beyond that physical constraint (that is, if one harp breaks, you can play Mozart on another one, but the actual Mozart song you play is a constant, defining work of art.)"

Yeah, I see what you're saying. Sorry for the confusion.

Regarding the "change" paradox...
A handy way to define it would be if more than 50% of the object changed, then the object should be said to no longer be the original. Because at that point, it is more new than old.