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From: padraig@utastro.UUCP (Padraig Houlahan)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Foolish me on souls again
Message-ID: <592@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Aug-85 17:52:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: utastro.592
Posted: Fri Aug 23 17:52:59 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 26-Aug-85 00:56:55 EDT
References: <1322@umcp-cs.UUCP> <588@utastro.UUCP> <1357@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 53

> In article <588@utastro.UUCP> padraig@utastro.UUCP (Padraig Houlahan) writes:
> 
> >> I see.  At A I have X, and at B I have X, so there must be a continuity
> >> of X between the two.  There are so many assumptions implicit in this
> >> that it's hard to know where to start.
> 
> >Well let me show you:
> 
> >  1) Let A be life before death, and B life after death,
> >  2) we have X at A where X is the "we" in "we are resurrected"
> >  3) we have X at B where X is the "we" in "we are resurrected"
> 
> >These assumptions are implicit in the resurrection claim. These are not
> >being challanged here. Now X forms an uninterrupted succession, therefore
> >it is continuous.
> 
> The assumption I was particularly referring to was the principle that
> existence of something at two different points implies continuous existence
> of the same thing between them.  Since this isn't even true in the physical
> world, which Padraig claims to have knowledge of, why should this principle
> be accepted for supernatural phenomena?

This is garbage. We are talking about life, and life after death, according
to your scenario. The continuity is there throughout our lives - 
you are not trying to say that there have been times throughout your
life that you didn't exist, are you?
  
> Many phenomena appear at isolated points in time without any intervening
> existence of the same substance.  We tend to assert that the two isolated
> occurances are different entities.  Now, the problem I see is that even if I
> accept Padraig's intuition that life requires this kind of continuity, he
> neglects to consider the possibility that whatever it is that characterizes
> a person could be transformed into a supernatural being at death, and then
> back to a material, living person again down the road.  I'll even let him
> call the supernatural being a soul.  It should be quite apparent that the
> soul as so defined did not exist before the person's death, and ceased to
> exist when the person lived again.  So in fact, you still have the
> continuity, but living people do not have souls.  

Yeah, yeah. Sounds like the work of Maxwell's demons to me.

> ...This is exactly analogous
> to a person driving a car at points A and B (let a be California, and B be
> Maryland).  There's no implication that the person was driving a car in
> between those points, even if it is the same car.  The person could have had
> the car shipped to Md., flew to BWI, and got back into the car.  I think
> the analogy should be quite clear enough.
> 
> Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe

Yes, but in your analogy the person never ceases to exist.

Padraig Houlahan.