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    We cannot rationally rule out the possibility of an after... — Carmelics
    Home/Afterlife & Death
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    We cannot rationally rule out the possibility of an afterlife for human persons.

    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
    ?
    • We do not know that we are not in a human-friendly universe.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The identity of a person is constituted by specific physical brain states, as Parfit and materialist philosophers argue.
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    • 2.The irreversible destruction of these brain states at death eliminates the substrate necessary for personal identity to persist.
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    • 3.Without a persistent subject of identity, there is no coherent 'person' who could inhabit an afterlife.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Rational belief formation requires proportioning credence to evidence, per Clifford's evidentialist principle.
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    • 2.All empirical evidence about consciousness shows it is entirely dependent on and ceases with biological neural function.
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    • 3.The absence of any verified mechanism for post-mortem survival renders afterlife beliefs rationally impermissible, not merely unverified.
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    Afterlife & Death

    Related

    All empirical evidence about consciousness shows it is entirely dependent on and...Rational belief formation requires proportioning credence to evidence, per Cliff...The absence of any verified mechanism for post-mortem survival renders afterlife...The identity of a person is constituted by specific physical brain states, as Pa...
    +3 moreShow less
    The irreversible destruction of these brain states at death eliminates the subst...We do not know that we are not in a human-friendly universe.Without a persistent subject of identity, there is no coherent 'person' who coul...

    Similar

    Even if an afterlife is impossible, it would not be pointless to refle...85%There cannot be happiness in human life if there is no afterlife for t...84%Speculation on an afterlife would be pointless if we know it is imposs...84%If we know that it is impossible for individual persons to survive bio...83%

    Source

    AI-extracted
    SEP: afterlife
    View source passageHide passage
    Suppose, on the other hand, that theism (or some view close to theism) is true. On this supposition, human life is not the accidental product of mindless forces that have operated with no thought to it or to anything else. On the contrary, human life (and the life of other rational creatures, if there are any) is the product of an evolutionary process, which was itself designed to produce such beings, by a God who loves them and cares for them. If this is so, then there is a strong case to be made that desires which are universal, or near-universal, among human beings are desires for which sat...

    Details

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