Human beings are beings that motion through life in search for a purpose; beings that are in continuous search for the grand truth –the truth that will answer questions such as “Why do we choose to exist, if the alternative which is non-existence seems to be much less of a hassle?”
In our search for truth, one of the most common concept tackled is the concept of death. Since all human beings will cease to exist at one point in time, it would seem absurd to try to achieve so much just to render them useless upon our death in this material world. For if we believe that after our death in the material world there will be nothing more, even the argument that we live for the people around us or for the greatness we feel because of success would be futile because the bottom line would be that we will all die and our relationships nor our successes will not matter.
I would then think that it useful to believe that when a human being ceases to exist in the material world, it should continue its existence in another world, for only then would it still be sensible for us to continue living.
With this, I believe that the human being consists of soul and body, in which the soul is not separate from the body but is separable from it and by separable, I mean that it can be separated for a span of time, but not for eternity.
Following part of Aristotle’s idea, I say that the soul is not separate from the body because I believe that a human being consists of soul and body, and if they are already entities in themselves they can no longer be the composition of the human being as one entity. Furthermore, if the soul and body are two separate entities then they will not be able to occupy the same space at the same time.
Also, I believe that the soul is not separate from the body because if this is so, it would mean that the soul and the body can then operate even without each other. I would like to oppose the idea that they can operate separately using two illustrations. The first is that if the body is separate from the soul, then a cadaver, or a dead person’s body, should then be able to continue its bodily operations even after death of the human; that is it should still be able to continue at least the nutritive and sensitive operations. The second is that the soul should be able to continue to perform intellectual operations, operations of self-consciousness even without the body. We cannot know for sure what the state of the soul is after the death of the human person, however we can say that it cannot continue to be conscious of a self because in order to have self-consciousness, there must be a self to be conscious about and that self is the human being compose of body and soul, and not only the soul. We cannot say that we are conscious of our soul because it is not something we know of for sure, and therefore we cannot genuinely “catch” or find the concept of the soul alone when we try to be self-conscious. Unlike in the concept of the human person which consists of both soul and body, wherein we can at least be conscious when the body and soul operate together, for instance we can be conscious of the operations of sensitivity.
Saying that I believe that a cadaver cannot continue bodily operations after the death of the human reveals my position in believing that there is something that leaves the human person upon its death; and my understanding of this thing which leaves is that it is the soul. This would pose confusion because one can argue that if the soul can leave the body then it would mean they are separate entities. However this is where I would like to assert my earlier point that even as I believe that the soul is not separate from the body, I think it is separable for a certain time and it is important to emphasize that I believe that this separation is not for eternity. I believe they are separable only at the moment of death. That is to say that upon death of a human person the soul does not die with the body.
I would not be in the position to make a conclusion as to where the soul goes or as to what happens to it after the death of the human person, but I would like to posit that the soul is immortal. This is because I cling to my belief that the only reason for human beings to continue to choose life over death is the hope that there is a continuance of life even after the death in the material world.
When I say that the soul and body are not separate, I say this with regard to their operations, because the soul and body are not merely separate entities that help each other in their respective operations but are rather essential partners that need to be together in order to carry out their operations in the first place. Therefore, I believe that the nature of the soul is to be with the body and the body to be with the soul.
If their nature then is to be with each other, it follows that it would be against their nature to be separated from each other and more over to be separated for eternity. And this separation, I believe is precisely what death of the human person brings. Following Aristotle’s stand on the nature of things, that “nothing against its nature can exist forever” (Aristotle), it would then be only detrimental for the body if it will be eternally separated from the soul –which may explain the reason why that while the body continues to function shortly after death, it does not continue to function for long. At the same time it is also detrimental for the soul if it is eternally separated from the body.
Therefore, from this standpoint that nothing against its nature can exist forever, it would only be sensible that the soul and the body would reunite at some point in time in order for the soul to be truly immortal. That is to say that if the body would resurrect, it may either be because the body’s nature in itself is to resurrect so that it can be together with the soul again or it may be because by the sheer force of nature, it resurrects for the good of the soul; so that the soul can be immortal. With this, however we can only say that we cannot be sure of what the nature of the resurrected body is.
Having defined my understanding of what the human person is I now turn to considering the self in terms of not the soul and body, but as a bundle of perceptions. Hume’s idea is that human beings are just bundles of perceptions, of which perceptions are further broken down to impressions and ideas. He further reasons that we perceive through our five senses, namely the sense of sight, taste, hearing, smell, and touch, and that whatever we perceive or experience are the only things that can possibly be real. And since the “SELF” cannot be perceived by the five senses, then there must be no SELF.
Hume’s ideology is appealing because it does have truth in it; what we call the SELF has never been, in human history, perceived through the five senses. For Hume, whatever idea we have of unperceivable things would just be our ideas and impressions of perceivable things that are stocked in our memories so that we can recreate them as simulations in our minds. This is much like the idea of a pig that flies using elephant ears where we have a concept of the pig from reality, and the concept of the flying elephant ears from the Disney movie, Dumbo, which in itself is actually a non-reality already. And with these two ideas we come up with something that is non-existent which is the flying pig with elephant ears. No matter how real we think the flying pig is, it can never be real because we just made it up with our ideas and impression of different realities. With this, Hume suggests that whenever we refer to a self, we also just create this idea of an actually non-existent SELF in our minds, with the help of our memory, as it puts together our ideas and impressions of other real things.
I would however find some confusion in his ideology because if Hume says that we are but bundles of perceptions then he is suggesting all human beings are merely perceivers.
However the mere fact that we can recreate different ideas and impressions we have perceived shows that we are not merely collectors of perceivable information. We also have a function that puts these ideas together and in turn, enables us to recreate something else in our imaginations.
Furthermore, the concept that we are merely bundles of perceptions overlooks the fact that people may perceive things differently and therefore discounts the fact that human beings are also capable of analyzing. Surely it is not one of the five senses nor is it the five senses working altogether that analyzes because analyzing is not the function of any of those senses. What then is this thing that analyses? Is it not precisely the SELF?
If one would pursue the argument that there is no basis for the SELF because it cannot be perceived, I would argue back that this idea reduces the human being to only being a body. This is probably why Hume’s idea that human beings have no identity came up, for the body on which we attach an identity to, is always changing. Because at every moment whether humans are conscious of it or not, something changes in the compositions of the human body such that it can no longer have the same identity before this moment of change.
I believe however that the human being is not merely a body that can be perceived neither is it only a composition of the senses which perceive. There is something more to the human being than the five senses alone, something that perceives but is simultaneously capable of analysing.
I further believe that perception can be done with the senses as made possible by the body and the analysis can be done by the self, or if I may call it the soul, which performs intellectual operations. Without perception, there can be no analysis and without the analysis, the perception will not make sense and will therefore not matter if it is perceive or not in the first place. Therefore, the human being cannot be just a perceiver. The human being must simultaneously be a perceiver and analyzer, not functioning separate from each other because the human being is both body and soul and they are not separate for they are partners which need to be together in order to be able to operate.
In our search for truth, one of the most common concept tackled is the concept of death. Since all human beings will cease to exist at one point in time, it would seem absurd to try to achieve so much just to render them useless upon our death in this material world. For if we believe that after our death in the material world there will be nothing more, even the argument that we live for the people around us or for the greatness we feel because of success would be futile because the bottom line would be that we will all die and our relationships nor our successes will not matter.
I would then think that it useful to believe that when a human being ceases to exist in the material world, it should continue its existence in another world, for only then would it still be sensible for us to continue living.
With this, I believe that the human being consists of soul and body, in which the soul is not separate from the body but is separable from it and by separable, I mean that it can be separated for a span of time, but not for eternity.
Following part of Aristotle’s idea, I say that the soul is not separate from the body because I believe that a human being consists of soul and body, and if they are already entities in themselves they can no longer be the composition of the human being as one entity. Furthermore, if the soul and body are two separate entities then they will not be able to occupy the same space at the same time.
Also, I believe that the soul is not separate from the body because if this is so, it would mean that the soul and the body can then operate even without each other. I would like to oppose the idea that they can operate separately using two illustrations. The first is that if the body is separate from the soul, then a cadaver, or a dead person’s body, should then be able to continue its bodily operations even after death of the human; that is it should still be able to continue at least the nutritive and sensitive operations. The second is that the soul should be able to continue to perform intellectual operations, operations of self-consciousness even without the body. We cannot know for sure what the state of the soul is after the death of the human person, however we can say that it cannot continue to be conscious of a self because in order to have self-consciousness, there must be a self to be conscious about and that self is the human being compose of body and soul, and not only the soul. We cannot say that we are conscious of our soul because it is not something we know of for sure, and therefore we cannot genuinely “catch” or find the concept of the soul alone when we try to be self-conscious. Unlike in the concept of the human person which consists of both soul and body, wherein we can at least be conscious when the body and soul operate together, for instance we can be conscious of the operations of sensitivity.
Saying that I believe that a cadaver cannot continue bodily operations after the death of the human reveals my position in believing that there is something that leaves the human person upon its death; and my understanding of this thing which leaves is that it is the soul. This would pose confusion because one can argue that if the soul can leave the body then it would mean they are separate entities. However this is where I would like to assert my earlier point that even as I believe that the soul is not separate from the body, I think it is separable for a certain time and it is important to emphasize that I believe that this separation is not for eternity. I believe they are separable only at the moment of death. That is to say that upon death of a human person the soul does not die with the body.
I would not be in the position to make a conclusion as to where the soul goes or as to what happens to it after the death of the human person, but I would like to posit that the soul is immortal. This is because I cling to my belief that the only reason for human beings to continue to choose life over death is the hope that there is a continuance of life even after the death in the material world.
When I say that the soul and body are not separate, I say this with regard to their operations, because the soul and body are not merely separate entities that help each other in their respective operations but are rather essential partners that need to be together in order to carry out their operations in the first place. Therefore, I believe that the nature of the soul is to be with the body and the body to be with the soul.
If their nature then is to be with each other, it follows that it would be against their nature to be separated from each other and more over to be separated for eternity. And this separation, I believe is precisely what death of the human person brings. Following Aristotle’s stand on the nature of things, that “nothing against its nature can exist forever” (Aristotle), it would then be only detrimental for the body if it will be eternally separated from the soul –which may explain the reason why that while the body continues to function shortly after death, it does not continue to function for long. At the same time it is also detrimental for the soul if it is eternally separated from the body.
Therefore, from this standpoint that nothing against its nature can exist forever, it would only be sensible that the soul and the body would reunite at some point in time in order for the soul to be truly immortal. That is to say that if the body would resurrect, it may either be because the body’s nature in itself is to resurrect so that it can be together with the soul again or it may be because by the sheer force of nature, it resurrects for the good of the soul; so that the soul can be immortal. With this, however we can only say that we cannot be sure of what the nature of the resurrected body is.
Having defined my understanding of what the human person is I now turn to considering the self in terms of not the soul and body, but as a bundle of perceptions. Hume’s idea is that human beings are just bundles of perceptions, of which perceptions are further broken down to impressions and ideas. He further reasons that we perceive through our five senses, namely the sense of sight, taste, hearing, smell, and touch, and that whatever we perceive or experience are the only things that can possibly be real. And since the “SELF” cannot be perceived by the five senses, then there must be no SELF.
Hume’s ideology is appealing because it does have truth in it; what we call the SELF has never been, in human history, perceived through the five senses. For Hume, whatever idea we have of unperceivable things would just be our ideas and impressions of perceivable things that are stocked in our memories so that we can recreate them as simulations in our minds. This is much like the idea of a pig that flies using elephant ears where we have a concept of the pig from reality, and the concept of the flying elephant ears from the Disney movie, Dumbo, which in itself is actually a non-reality already. And with these two ideas we come up with something that is non-existent which is the flying pig with elephant ears. No matter how real we think the flying pig is, it can never be real because we just made it up with our ideas and impression of different realities. With this, Hume suggests that whenever we refer to a self, we also just create this idea of an actually non-existent SELF in our minds, with the help of our memory, as it puts together our ideas and impressions of other real things.
I would however find some confusion in his ideology because if Hume says that we are but bundles of perceptions then he is suggesting all human beings are merely perceivers.
However the mere fact that we can recreate different ideas and impressions we have perceived shows that we are not merely collectors of perceivable information. We also have a function that puts these ideas together and in turn, enables us to recreate something else in our imaginations.
Furthermore, the concept that we are merely bundles of perceptions overlooks the fact that people may perceive things differently and therefore discounts the fact that human beings are also capable of analyzing. Surely it is not one of the five senses nor is it the five senses working altogether that analyzes because analyzing is not the function of any of those senses. What then is this thing that analyses? Is it not precisely the SELF?
If one would pursue the argument that there is no basis for the SELF because it cannot be perceived, I would argue back that this idea reduces the human being to only being a body. This is probably why Hume’s idea that human beings have no identity came up, for the body on which we attach an identity to, is always changing. Because at every moment whether humans are conscious of it or not, something changes in the compositions of the human body such that it can no longer have the same identity before this moment of change.
I believe however that the human being is not merely a body that can be perceived neither is it only a composition of the senses which perceive. There is something more to the human being than the five senses alone, something that perceives but is simultaneously capable of analysing.
I further believe that perception can be done with the senses as made possible by the body and the analysis can be done by the self, or if I may call it the soul, which performs intellectual operations. Without perception, there can be no analysis and without the analysis, the perception will not make sense and will therefore not matter if it is perceive or not in the first place. Therefore, the human being cannot be just a perceiver. The human being must simultaneously be a perceiver and analyzer, not functioning separate from each other because the human being is both body and soul and they are not separate for they are partners which need to be together in order to be able to operate.
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