Question Is it possible for one to possibly know what exists after death? As humans, with a mind that exists solely as physical matter (and a soul, if religion is counted), when we die, how is it possible for this purely physical mind to keep on functioning, and allow us to realize that we are dead? As well, if we have souls, how can an entity created purely of energy (or whatever you think a soul is made of) have senses and detect that it exists, or even think?

Accepted:
October 24, 2005

Comments

If you believe your death spells your total annihilation then your death presents more than a problem of how to acquire knowledge: once you die, there will be no you around to know (or not to know) anything. Indeed, there won't be a you around to undergo non-existence so there won't be anything (for anyone) to know. Non-existence isn't a particular kind of state that presents challenges to our knowledge; your non-existence entails that you are no longer around to be in any state.

If you think death is merely the end of your corporeal existence and that your soul survives, then I'm not sure what to say: for, like you, I don't know what souls are or how they acquire knowledge.

Some people think they do know what exists after death. As Alex notes, "Nothing" is one option, and some people believe they have strong enough evidence for this view to make it a reasonable belief, and perhaps even to count as knowledge. On the other side, there are people who would claim to know, on the basis of divine revelation, that they will survive the deaths of their bodies. Presumably, not both camps can be right, and both camps might be wrong about their claims to know. But I don't see any general reason, absent consideration of the details, for supposing neither of them could know.

Perhaps one wants to say that neither camp can really know, on the ground that truly conclusive evidence isn't available. But truly conclusive evidence is rarely available for anything, and yet we claim to know lots of things. That is to say: The claim that it is not possible to know what exists after death seems to be based upon a general sort of skeptical challenge that, allowed to run free, would undermine all claims to knowledge.