Is there more to my survival than the continuing existence of my living body?
... run away (physical), feeling of tiredness (mental) causes eye lids to close (physical). One will only survive if her body survives. Imagine if a mind swap occurred, where person A’s mind was inserted into person B’s body. She will look down at her new masculine body and be unfamiliar with it. She will do her daily aerobics exercises and find that she is as inflexible and as unfit as never before. She tries to read her favorite book but to be disappointed that her new eyes require corrective lenses. She crawls into bed and shudders at the thought that who shares her bed now is not her husband, but Person B’s wife. It is obvious that it will be impossible for her to be herself, to do the things she used to do, to feel the same way she used to with her new body. That to me means Person A no longer exists. Even if the mind can live on without the body, or if the body continues to exist but not the mind, the original person as a whole fails to be. Hence, my survival will entail only if my mind and my body exist together. There is no more to my survival, then, than the continuing existence of my living body. However, many people believe that there is more to their survival than the continuing existence of their living bodies; Some believes this because of God and religion. A common belief that God, their mind and soul are intricately linked and one’s soul will return to God after one’s bodily deaths. Christians believe that God made us out of dust and sand. So when one dies, “ earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust” . But being a person is more than being a pile of dust; we have minds, and souls. That leads one to think our minds and souls can survive after our bodies are gone. Theories from Plato’s “the soul is a substance and is immortal” to Descartes’ Dualism theory: “I think, therefore I am” support this. According to substance dualism, there are two kinds of substances: material and spiritual, and all and only spiritual substances can have mental properties. Also, states Leibniz’s Law, “If object x has a property which object y lacks, then object x is not the very same object as object y” . When referred to the mind and body, the body has physical properties that the mind lacks, therefore they must be unlike entities, with distinct functions and journeys. I chose to believe to the contrary due to the following reasons. Firstly, religion and Gods are simply consolations , consolations to the harsh reality some of us cannot accept: perhaps what we do in this lifetime will not go on to benefit or contribute to a greater purpose. Our life is as it is. There is no more to it than there is any more to the life of a chicken; when it is consumed, it is gone, then it is understood that the chicken will not carry on living an afterlife with the chicken god. Many people accept substance dualism due to religious reasons. One might wish for life after death and so wish for souls that carry on living. But wishing that something were true should not be the reason for thinking it is true . Secondly, the problem with the Dualist theory - which troubled even Descartes - if mind and matter have nothing in common, how can they even interact? While Leibenz’ law is logical, I fail to see that the mind and body are identical in every way, but I also fail to see that the mind and body are so separate that one could go on living without the other. I agree the mind and body do not have the sam...