A human being?
Some rational species but not others?
An animal that will reincarnate as a human being?
A self-conscious artificial intelligence?
A tripartite Didonian consciousness?
An individual consciousness within an "emulation"?
And might one of SM Stirling's Shadowspawn have not only an aetheric body that survives the death of his physical body but also an immortal soul that survives the "Final Death" of his aetheric body?
Two Points
(i) I was brought up to believe that self-consciousness could not be material, therefore had to be immaterial and therefore had to be immortal. I no longer believe this. The emergence of self-consciousness is the emergence of a new quality but it can be - and arguably is - a new, and perishable, quality of an organism.
St Paul taught not that a spirit survives the body but that a physical body buried in the ground rises as a spiritual body just as a seed buried in the ground grows into a plant. Thus, the Platonic idea of a soul surviving the body contradicts St Paul.
(ii) Some of Stirling's human characters hope that there is a Hell for the Shadowspawn. I do not hope that there is a Hell for anyone. The only hereafter that makes any moral sense is one where everyone has the opportunity to learn from and to correct mistakes made and wrong actions committed in this life. Some Christians gloat at the idea of unbelievers coming to grief. Their deity, if He exists, needs to teach them otherwise.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Setting aside, for now at least, some points I would disagree with you about the soul, I do think the Shadowspawn, too, have immortal souls. And I would not care to be a Shadowspawn mass serial killer and torturer appearing before God guilty of such crimes.
Sean
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