Questions 22 and 15: What is the seat of the self?
54394 of the 174198 people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.
You agreed that:
Severe brain-damage can rob a person of all consciousness and selfhood
And also that:
On bodily death, a person continues to exist in a non-physical form
These two beliefs are not strictly contradictory, but they do present an awkward mix of world-views. On the one hand, there is an acceptance that our consciousness and sense of self is in some way dependent on brain activity, and this is why brain damage can in a real sense damage 'the self'. Yet there is also the belief that the self is somehow independent of the body, that it can live on after the death of the brain. So it seems consciousness and selfhood both is and is not dependent on having a healthy brain. One could argue that the dependency of the self on brain only occurs before bodily death. The deeper problem is not that it is impossible to reconcile the two beliefs, but rather that they seem to presume wider, contradictory world-views: one where consciousness is caused by brains and one where it is caused by something non-physical.
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I found this tension particularly interesting.
My other tensions were resolved upon reading the text describing the tensions. This one however I felt was not covered by the text.
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If I had a profound effect on the people around me during my life, they would gain some of my ideals, idiosyncrasies, catchphrases, values, methods, etc. This would effect their lives after my death, and perhaps lead them to effect others, passing on information down ages, as ripples in the ocean.
For me "the soul" as viewed from the outside is just information. That information is, in a sense, immortal. I imagine sooner or later it will be forgotten completely, but it will always be used as a brick to build new information. Just as our bodies crumble to dust and the atoms are used elsewhere, our soul crumbles into memories and becomes a part of the lives of others.
"Non-physical" for me could also be interpreted as "imaginary" or "informational construct". I believe we all "live-on" in a sense, through the after-effects of our brief existence.
I don't expect to experience anything after I have died. But I do expect to "live on" in a non-physical form, the form of information. It is one reason why I spend alot of my time trying to impart what little wisdom I have on the few people in my life. I feel that if I help them learn, perhaps they can not only help themselves, but others too.
TLDR;
After death, we all "live on".
In the same way a pebble passing through the surface of a pool of water leaves lasting impressions, so too do human beings in their short lives.
In this metaphor it would be easy to imagine the pebble's continuing journey beneath the surface. I do not pretend to know what is beyond the surface of existence; what there is after death. I do not expect to ever find out.