{"id":11065,"date":"2010-12-11T06:35:03","date_gmt":"2010-12-11T06:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/12\/11\/being-dead-and-being-nonexistent-or-how-to-cease-to-exist-without-dying\/"},"modified":"2010-12-11T06:35:03","modified_gmt":"2010-12-11T06:35:03","slug":"being-dead-and-being-nonexistent-or-how-to-cease-to-exist-without-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/12\/11\/being-dead-and-being-nonexistent-or-how-to-cease-to-exist-without-dying\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Dead and Being Nonexistent, or: How to Cease to Exist without Dying"},"content":{"rendered":"

In general, being dead and being nonexistent are not the same 'property' for an obvious reason: only that which was once alive can properly be said to be dead, and not everything was once alive.  Nevertheless, it might be thought that, for living things, to be is to be alive, and not to be is to be dead.  But I think this Aristotelian view can be shown to be mistaken.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. A human person cannot become dead except by dying.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. But a human person can become nonexistent without dying in at least four ways.  <\/span><\/p>\n

2a. The first way is by entering into irreversible coma.  Given that consciousness is an essential attribute of persons, a person who enters into irreversible coma ceases to exist.  But the person's body remains alive.  Therefore, a human person can cease to exist without dying.  <\/span><\/p>\n

2b. The second way is by fission.  Suppose one human person A enters a Person Splitter and exits two physically and behaviorally and psychologically indiscernible persons, B and C.  B is not C.  So A is not B and A is not C.  What happened to A?  A ceased to exist.  But A didn't die.  Far from the life in A ceasing, the life in A doubled!  So human person A became nonexistent without dying.<\/span><\/p>\n

2c.  The third way is by fusion.  Two dudes enter the Person Splicer from the east and exit to the west one dude.  The entrants have ceased to exist without dying.<\/span><\/p>\n

2d.  The fourth way is theological.  Everything other than God depends on God for its very existence at every moment of its existence.  If God were to 'pull the plug' ontologically speaking on the entire universe of contingent beings, then at that instant all human persons would cease to exist without dying.  They would not suffer the process or the event of dying  but would enter nonexistence nonetheless.  Because they had not died, they could not be properly said to be dead.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, pace <\/em>the Peripatetic,<\/span><\/p>\n

3.  Being dead and being nonexistent are not the same  — not even for living things.<\/span><\/p>\n

(Time consumed in composing this post: 40 minutes. <\/span>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In general, being dead and being nonexistent are not the same 'property' for an obvious reason: only that which was once alive can properly be said to be dead, and not everything was once alive.  Nevertheless, it might be thought that, for living things, to be is to be alive, and not to be is … Continue reading “Being Dead and Being Nonexistent, or: How to Cease to Exist without Dying”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,184,142],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aristotle","category-death-and-immortality","category-existence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11065\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}