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    A materialist, naturalist worldview without God is not pr... — Carmelics
    Home/Afterlife & Death
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    A materialist, naturalist worldview without God is not promising for survival after death.

    Afterlife & Death
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.A materialist account of persons creates serious obstacles for belief in survival.
      ?

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    • 2.God could bring about an afterlife for persons in a way consistent with a materialist philosophy of mind, but in the absence of God, this route is unavailable.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Emergent complexity in physical systems can generate properties—like consciousness—that persist in forms not reducible to their original substrate.
      ?

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    • 2.Information-theoretic accounts of personal identity (e.g., Tipler's Omega Point, Tegmark's mathematical universe) allow for reconstitution of persons without invoking God.
      ?

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    • 3.If personal identity is constituted by patterns of information rather than matter, naturalistic cosmic processes could in principle reconstruct those patterns.
      ?

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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Parfit's reductionist account of personal identity severs survival from the persistence of a determinate self, making survival a matter of degree rather than all-or-nothing.
      ?

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    • 2.If strong personal identity is not required for survival, then even partial psychological continuity through naturalistic mechanisms—such as causal descendants or simulated successors—counts as a form of survival.
      ?

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    • 3.The claim presupposes a robust metaphysics of personal identity that Parfit and Buddhist no-self traditions have given independent philosophical grounds to reject.
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    Afterlife & Death

    Related

    A materialist account of persons creates serious obstacles for belief in surviva...Emergent complexity in physical systems can generate properties—like consciousne...God could bring about an afterlife for persons in a way consistent with a materi...If personal identity is constituted by patterns of information rather than matte...
    +4 moreShow less
    If strong personal identity is not required for survival, then even partial psyc...Information-theoretic accounts of personal identity (e.g., Tipler's Omega Point,...Parfit's reductionist account of personal identity severs survival from the pers...The claim presupposes a robust metaphysics of personal identity that Parfit and ...

    Similar

    God could bring about an afterlife for persons in a way consistent wit...81%It is more in keeping with the Hebrew, Christian, and Islamic stress o...76%A materialist account of persons creates serious obstacles for belief ...76%Mind-body dualism does not guarantee survival after death.74%

    Source

    AI-extracted
    SEP: afterlife
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    Leaving aside such empirical evidence, what general metaphysical considerations are relevant to belief in survival? We have already seen that a materialist account of persons creates some serious obstacles. As van Inwagen and others have argued, God could bring about an afterlife for persons in a way consistent with a materialist philosophy of mind. But in the absence of God, a materialist, naturalist worldview seems not at all promising for survival. As noted earlier, mind-body dualism would offer some support for the possibility of survival but dualism by no means guarantees survival; the ol...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit