ABSTRACT
There are many reasons that have been given for thinking that I – the thing now thinking about what to write next, and watching this sentence appear – cannot be simply identical with any part of the 140-pound hunk of matter sitting in front of my computer. Some of these reasons have been theological: We may believe that God has told us that, when we die, we come into His presence; but since our bodies are obviously not going anywhere, there must be something more to us than just bodily parts. Other reasons have been of an empirical sort: For instance, ostensible memories of earlier lives have been said to be best explained by appeal to reincarnation; now, a reincarnated person must overlap somehow with her previous self; but since the bodies involved do not share any parts, there must be some other sort of part which survives the first body’s death. It has also been argued (famously by Kant) that, for ethical reasons, we must suppose that the soul is immortal.
