Theo Todman's Web Page - Paper Abstracts

1. Life After Death
   • What would God have to do to provide us with life after death?
   • By ‘life after death” Olson requires three conditions to be satisfied:-
     1. The survivor must be you, not a replica or counterpart, and not your soul, unless this is identical with you or its existence entails your own. He explicitly leaves to one side (Parfit’s) question whether the survival of someone non-identical to you might be as good for you as your own survival.
     2. You must be alive – not necessarily biologically₁₈ – but ‘survival’ as a corpse won’t do. Consciousness – and psychological continuity pre/post-mortem – while not necessary₁₉ for your survival – is essential for an interesting afterlife.
     3. He’s not concerned with the “easy” case where your corpse is frozen, maybe repaired and then revived. This might well be you, but this sort of case isn’t the sort that features in the ‘great religious traditions’ – which are concerned with ‘the life of the world to come’. Wherever₂₀ this is, it is spatiotemporally removed₂₁ from our pre-mortem location.
   • So, Olson’s question is: is it metaphysically possible for …
     1. Us, to exist
     2. In the next world, after we die
     3. Conscious and psychologically continuous with our pre-mortem selves?
2. The Irreversibility Principle
   • On the face of it, your survival is impossible because – as "Van Inwagen (Peter) - The Possibility of Resurrection" admits – you have been totally destroyed – and none₂₂ of your remains will retain any personal features.
   • Olson gives an example of the Colossus of Rhodes. If the statue had been totally destroyed – the iron rusted away and the bronze melted down into weapons, say – then no latter-day reconstruction of the Colossus in Las Vegas could possibly be the very same Colossus that was cast in antiquity.
   • Olson says, of any reconstruction:-
     • it would only be an exemplar of the original design – “like a particular copy₂₃ of a novel”,
     • a replica,
     • modern Greeks couldn’t ask for their Colossus back₂₄.
   • Also,
     • after the original Colossus had been destroyed, there would be nothing that could be pointed to as the Colossus, only ‘radically transformed₂₅’.
     • maybe if there were parts that could be reassembled₂₆, there would be room for debate, but not following total destruction.
   • God would have no more power in this regard than the Las Vegas hoteliers. Even recovering and recombining the original atoms, and taking account of radioactive decay to give the appearance of age, would only be making a better job of it. It would only be an ‘authentic reconstruction’ – not the original artefact.
   • Olson claims that what holds for the Colossus holds in general₂₇. It’s nothing to do with artefacts, or inanimate things – an ancient pine, or the fire that burnt it, could similarly not be restored – because they have been totally destroyed.
   • Olson calls the claim that “what has been totally destroyed has ceased to exist and cannot again exist” the irreversibility principle.
   • Maybe there are restrictions – to statues and human beings, say – Olson calls them “ordinary₂₈ things”.
   • Applied to us, the principle₂₉ implies that we cease to exist when totally destroyed, if not sooner. God might bring something back that is ‘intrinsically identical₃₀’ to me, but it would not be me.
3. Souls and Body-Snatching
   • So, our only hope is that the analogy with the Colossus fails – and that we are not totally destroyed at death.
   • Obviously, something is destroyed when your body decays following your death. But maybe what initially survives your death, and then decays, are not strictly speaking your remains, or not all of them. We might hope that something of our characteristic₃₁ states and structure otherwise survives.
   • The favourite account (the “Platonic Model”) is that we are immaterial substances; Olson ignores the variant whereby we have an immaterial substance as a proper part that is somehow sufficient for our persistence trans-mortem. Such a soul³³ is radically independent₃₃ of the body, so can survive its death and total destruction. Olson rejects this view out of hand – it has grave difficulties he needn’t rehearse₃₄ – and if this was our only hope of getting to the next world, this hope would be dim.
   • An alternative is the Body-snatching Model (see "Van Inwagen (Peter) - The Possibility of Resurrection"). At the last moment, unobserved, God swaps our bodies out for a counterfeit – made of other materials – which dies in our place. There are variants – God might replace some identity-preserving proper part, eg. your brain. Obviously, there are difficulties with this view too.
     • the pre-corpse would need radical repair₃₅ in the next world. This is troublesome in the case of brain-damage, though this is a problem for all accounts of post-mortem survival.
     • A non-discoverable continuous space-time₃₆ path is needed from this world to the next. Olson thinks this “theologically awkward₃₇”.
     • Despite some resemblance to the Ascension, this is bad science fiction rather than good theology₃₈.
     • It requires systematic deception on God’s part, analogous to a magician’s sleight of hand. While all accounts of life after death conflict with appearances, this one is “particularly egregious₃₉”.
4. The Psychological-Duplication⁴¹ Model
   • Olson thinks the argument so far may be deemed contentious as it assumes that survival must be achieved in a brute physical sense, needing material continuity. In particular, you cannot survive the instantaneous replacement of all your matter; at least some of your matter must go with you. This entails body-snatching.
   • A more popular view is that a future being is you in virtue of inheriting some of your psychological properties.
   • So, according to this view, all God needs to do to get you to the next world is cause a unique person to appear whose mental states relate to yours in the right way (just like you were at the last₄₁ moment of your this-worldly existence).
   • This is possible even if you₄₂ have been totally destroyed – so (on this view) the irreversibility principle is false (as it implies the wrong view of our identity over time).
5. Immanent Causation
   • However, Olson claims that even if we are psychological beings with psychological persistence criteria, any future-world being that is neither physically nor causally continuous with you, however intrinsically identical his psychological states might be to yours, would not be you.
   • Firstly, there is no real psychological continuity in this case. The next-world being hasn’t got his memories from you – they have been created out of nothing by God – so are not even quasi-memories₄₃ (see "Shoemaker (Sydney) - Personal Identity: a Materialist Account", pp. 81-6).
   • Olson doubts that the resurrected being could have beliefs at all, because they would have no content₄₄ – not about cows etc. – because they haven’t arisen from first-hand perceptions or second-hand learning.
   • Olson’s key claim is that for you to (psychologically) exist in the future there has to be a causal connection between your states then and now – not an accidental₄₅ resemblance, nor just causal relevance₄₆, but you causing yourself to continue existing. External forces can help (doctors, etc) but can’t do the whole job.
   • ”A person₄₇ is a self-sustaining₄₈ being”.
   • ”Immanent Causation” is where something causes itself to continue existing₄₉ in a way that doesn’t go entirely outside itself.
   • ”Transeunt Causation” is where a thing affects something else.
   • Olson importantly illustrates the distinction by an example. If I at some time believe X₅₀, then my continuing to do so at a later time is usually an example of immanent causation. A counter-example is where I teach you X (an example of transeunt₅₁ causation), then utterly forget X, and you then teach me X. My later belief that X is transeuntly caused by my earlier belief, because the causal chain passes (wholly₅₂) outside me.
   • We are referred to "Zimmerman (Dean) - Immanent Causation" for a helpful (and more precise) but demanding account of immanent causation, the requirement for which constrains our persistence₅₃.
   • God’s ex nihilo creation of a next-worldly psychological duplicate⁵⁵ of you would be effective even if you had never existed₅₅. This is a reduction ad absurdum of such a (re-)creation being identical to “you”.
   • Olson seems to allow that re-assembly would involve immanent causation – your identity would be mediated by your parts – so potentially identity-preserving₅₆.
   • While in God’s recreation of you your this-worldly state does have some causal bearing on the next-worldly being, because it causes God to model that being on you, it is insufficient for identity preservation because the causation is not immanent, in that all the causal links between the two beings run outside₅₇ you.
   • Olson claims that the argument above has nothing to do with people per se, but applies to cats and toothbrushes₅₈.
   • Consequently a next-worldly being can be you, on the psychological view⁶⁰, only if its mental states are immanently caused by yours. This is true in this world as well. Psychological duplication⁶¹ won’t do.
   • How could this immanent causation of the maintenance of your psychology be achieved? Olson thinks it requires your brain, or at least something derived from your brain₆₁ by the gradual replacement of parts. He claims that at each stage of such a transformation, there has to be an organ capable of thinking and being conscious, and retaining some of the physical structure underlying your mental properties.
   • So, even on the psychological view⁶³, there has to be a continuous space-time path from this world to the next – and if you are material, this requires some of your matter accompanying you, and we are again left with either body-snatching or Platonism (denying that you are physical).
6. Some Consequences
   • Olson thinks the only alternative to the two main rival accounts of PI (namely brute-physicalism⁶⁴ and psychological continuity) is anticriterialism – whereby no continuity of any sort (nor any other conditions) are both necessary and sufficient for our identity over time.
   • We are referred to "Merricks (Trenton) - How to Live Forever Without Saving Your Soul: Physicalism and Immortality".
   • Olson states “No one denies₆₄ that any condition is necessary for us to persist, apart from our persistence itself. Anticriterialists merely deny that any nontrivial₆₅ set of conditions is both necessary and jointly sufficient. No anticriterialist thinks you could become a poached egg₆₆”. I have difficulty construing this passage. I now think I understand₆₇ what the first sentence means. I certainly understand the other two: and the second is repetitious; and I can well believe the third, but I don’t see very clearly how it follows from anything previously said.
   • Basically, Olson’s point is that even anticriterialists think that immanent causation is necessary₆₈ for our persistence.
   • Olson makes an important (if contentious) point that immanent causation doesn’t require spatiotemporal continuity. We can have temporary inexistence₆₉ – as when a watchmaker takes a watch apart for cleaning – because the bits preserve the watch’s structure, so that the persistence is largely maintained within the watch’s parts themselves, and the watch thereby largely causes itself to persist.
   • Olson thinks that the reason we cannot be disassembled and reassembled is that we are harder to take apart – violence would be done to our bits – but if this could take place, then he sees no reason – as far as the principle of immanent causation is concerned – why we should not allow of intermittent existence.
   • Olson further allows that if a watch – or a person – were reduced even to a scattered collection of elementary particles – and thus (he says) were totally destroyed – then if they were reassembled by God there would be sufficient immanent causation to ensure identity₇₀.
   • There would be some immanent causation even if only one atom were taken from the former to later person – but Olson doubts that this would be sufficient to ensure the persistence of the person. He’s not sure just how much₇₁ – or of what kind – of immanent causation is required for persistence, but he thinks “a high degree”.
   • He says that it would be “entirely God’s₇₂ act” that made the watch (or person) that had been totally destroyed back into a watch (or person) on reassembly. But he also says (or seems to say) that it is reasonable to say that the original object returned. God is not doing all the work, as he would if he was to (re-)create the person ex nihilo.
   • Olson ends this section on an enigma – he says that no one would say that you would be restored if only one of your atoms survived, but then he says that “If God could restore you to being after your atoms were scattered randomly, he could surely restore you after they were annihilated”. I don’t know what the argument₇₃ is supposed to be here, or how the last sentence connects to the “one atom” case.
7. In Defence of Immanent Causation
   • Olson will try to demonstrate the reasonableness of the principle of Immanent Causation, but thinks it’ll be similar to trying to demonstrate the principle of non-contradiction. Some philosophers doubt both principles, but any attempted proof is likely to have premises less certain than the conclusion. All he can do is try to show that what follows from the denial of the principle is more repugnant than the principle itself.
   • Without the principle, without some continuity of stuff, … what’s the difference between rebuilding a real historical artefact and building a replica?
   • God’s decree₇₄ isn’t sufficient on its own. For God to cause a tree to exist, atoms have to be arranged arboreally₇₅. So, conditions apart from God’s decree apply to my persistence. I couldn’t be a poached egg or a silly song tomorrow even if God decreed it, because there are necessary conditions for identity over time.
   • Maybe human beings are different to ordinary objects by way of persistence. We might be like shadows, for which later states are in no way caused by earlier states₇₆. Hopeless₇₇, Olson thinks.
   • The only possibility is the doctrine of “space-time plenitude” allied to four-dimensionalism₇₈ – that every – however disconnected – region of non-empty spacetime contains a material thing. Then, I might be the logical sum of me in this world and “me” in the next, despite the lack of imminent causation.
   • Olson asks how this model would apply to re-created historical artefacts. It would go like this: there would be two objects – the original, and the recreation, both 4-dimensional objects, the latter including the former as a proper part. Whether we have recreated (say) the Colossus of Rhodes would depend on what the name₇₉ “Colossus of Rhodes” refers to.
   • In response, Olson (effectively) says that our names and terms are governed by common-sense usage – my desk cannot mean “desk + bits of floor”, because part of the meaning of the term “desk” is that it is self-contained and movable. So (the analogy goes) part of the meaning of the term “person” is of a self-perpetuating being, if there are any, and Olson thinks 4-dimensionalism has to admit there are lots₈₀ of candidates.
   • Olson claims that anyone who denies the immanent-causation requirement would have to give an account of how it could be false (just as would someone who denied the law of non-contradiction).
   • He also claims not to know anyone who accepts the “plenitude₈₁” account of life after death.
8. The Ontic-Leap Model
   • Olson originally made two claims about persistence:-
     1. Immanent-causation (dealt with immediately above), and
     2. The Irreversibility Principle.
     So, what about the second claim?
   • It is independent of the first principle, because a completely scattered object⁸³ would still have some₈₃ immanent causation between states on account of the (scattered) atoms.
   • For a reason to doubt the irreversibility principle, Olson considers “action at a distance₈₄”. So, it is conceivable that something perishing now might cause something remote to happen a year later – namely causing itself to re-exist. While this would violate the irreversibility principle, it would satisfy the immanent-causation principle.
   • Olson claims that Zimmerman’s “Falling Elevator model” has such a state of affairs: on Olson’s account of one proposal, God endows each of your atoms with the power to leap₈₅ to the next world, by “causing (itself) to exist” there, where they arrive in the same arrangement as in this one. Nothing that happens in the “interregnum” causes this to happen, so we have immanent causation₈₆.
   • Olson points out that “causation is no a priori science₈₇”.
   • Olson now explicitly points out that there’s no simple “leaping” to the next world, with God providing a simulacrum-corpse, but that each atom causes itself both to continue existing in this world and to start existing in the next. He points out that both these atoms cannot be the original (two things cannot be one thing). Zimmerman’s view is that the this-worldly atom is the original₈₈, on account of spatio-temporal continuity. But, despite the other-worldly body being composed entirely of new atoms, Zimmerman (says Olson) still claims that the immanent causation is sufficient for you to continue to exist in the new world. Our corpse isn’t you, but is, without deception, still “your remains”.
   • Olson notes Hershenov’s remark (in "Hershenov (David) - Van Inwagen, Zimmerman, and the Materialist Conception of Resurrection") that this implies you can continue to exist without material continuity – you come to be composed instantaneously of new₈₉ atoms not assimilated₉₀ by your normal life-processes.
9. The Divine-Command Model
   • Olson call’s Zimmerman’s proposal the “Ontic Leap” model, rather than the “Falling Elevator” model. While it avoids body snatching and immaterial souls, it still looks impossible
   • Olson’s main worry appears to be how the atoms would know where to go.
   • He denies that he has any principled objection to causation across spatiotemporal gaps, or individual atoms causing themselves to exist thusly. His worry is about objects so doing₉₁.
   • Olson denies that any natural₉₂ process could get the atoms all there at the same place and time in the correct configuration so as to form a human being – as distinct from some random cloud.
   • And, even if this transfer of the whole body were possible, it wouldn’t be you, because the atoms’ next-worldly arrangement wouldn’t have been immanently caused by their this-worldly arrangement₉₃. Olson thinks that any humanoid relationship of the other-worldly atoms would be pure chance – and hence extremely unlikely to occur, and unsuccessful in preserving identity even if it did.
   • Zimmerman tweaks the model to escape this. There is a divine command for a person “intrinsically just like₉₄” the pre-mortem person, and this person is that person resurrected, because the divine command isn’t sufficient to bring the resurrection about, leaving enough immanent causation to preserve identity. The transfer only works in conjunction with the pre-mortem state of the resurrected person – of which (Olson claims) God might be ignorant₉₅.
   • In this “Divine Command Model”, the divine fiat, combined with your atoms’ this-worldly existence and configuration, is sufficient. It doesn’t require backwards causation, as the atoms in this world don’t have to do anything in response to a then future divine command, beyond what they normally do to self-propagate₉₆.
   • So, on this model, what has been totally destroyed can appear later.
10. Worries
    • Olson has four remarks to make on the Divine-Command model (and says they equally apply to the Ontic-Leap and Psychological-Duplication⁹⁸ models. If Olson had₉₈ to believe in life after death, he’d prefer to go with body-snatching or immaterial souls than the Divine-Command (and related) models:-
      • 1. Rejection of the Irreversibility Principle: His first reason is that the Divine-Command model repudiates the Irreversibility Principle. Anything that has ceased to exist – from the Colossus of Rhodes to the Trojan War₉₉ to the meteorite that caused the Cretaceous extinction – could be restored, given₁₀₀ a being with sufficient power.
      • 2. Adoption of “Best Candidate” Theories: These models require a “best candidate₁₀₁” theory of identity over time. Olson rehearses the usual objections. For all the model says, God could create a resurrected “you” while you are still alive, and because there can only be one of “you” at a time, one would not be you – and it would be absurd₁₀₂ to say that the this-worldly you ceased to exist just because an allegedly better candidate came along. In any case, the this-worldly “you” is the better candidate, enjoying, as it does, spatio-temporal continuity. Consequently, God has to choose his moment carefully, at the very moment₁₀₃ of your death. Then, as Zimmerman claims, the next-worldly being is a better candidate for being you than your corpse₁₀₄.
    • Olson says there are no knock-down arguments against Best Candidate theories, but rehearses the “bungled duplication”¹⁰⁶ argument beloved of those who deny that identity is preserved in teletransportation₁₀₆, whereby at the moment of death, two candidates are produced, neither of which can be you as neither is the best. Olson says “it gets worse”, and then describes what appears to be the production of a third candidate after the first two, and asks which is now the best candidate. He doesn’t think there are any principled answers to such questions.
      • 3. No moment of Death?: We’ve seen that, to avoid the next-worldly individual being rejected as not the best candidate, it needs to be created at the moment of your death. But there’s no such moment. Body-snatching is more flexible, as you could be snatched just before₁₀₇ you expired.
      • 4. We don’t become Corpses: The theory (to avoid duplicates)¹⁰⁹ means that we cease to exist at death rather than becoming corpses. If we did become corpses, God would have to wait until the corpse ceased to exist – whenever that might be – when you were badly decomposed. In such cases there could be no psychological continuity, even were you restored, so there’s no interesting life after death for you. Olson cites "Feldman (Fred) - The Termination Thesis" in support₁₀₉.
11. The Four-Dimensional Divine-Command Model
    • Olson thinks that “the principle of space-time plenitude”, mentioned earlier₁₁₀, which converts troubling metaphysical problems into “relatively harmless semantic ones”.
    • Best Candidate Issues: So, if God were to create two next-worldly persons appropriately causally connected to you, they would share their this-worldly parts with you but not their next-worldly parts. The pronoun “you” uttered in this world applies ambiguously to both. He cites "Lewis (David) - Survival and Identity". We use your name to apply to the most worthy candidate in the next work, but this is a semantic issue with no bearing on identity.
    • Moment of Death Issues: Similarly, plenitude helps with the question whether there is a last moment of your this-worldly existence. There is a vast number of candidates for being you – in the sense of the referent of your name, all as good as one another and differing only marginally in their temporal duration. Some will have a last moment of their this-worldly existence, and some won’t. All the Divine-Command model requires is that our personal pronouns refer to beings that do, which Olson thinks ought to be possible₁₁₁.
    • Corpse Issues: there are candidates₁₁₂ for being persons that cease at death and others that persist as corpses. Our pronouns must refer to the former.
    • The Irreversibility Principle: if every filled space-time region contains an object, then many survive total destruction₁₁₃. We just don’t use words to refer to such things. Olson tries to frighten us by saying this is a contingent matter that could change. He closes with a remark I must quote in full, as I don’t understand it: “If there actually is a next world containing beings like ourselves that are immanently causally connected to us, it may be that believers in life after death already do refer to beings that leap to the next world when they say “I” and “we”. What they take the principle₁₁₄ to mean would then be false.”
    • Olson thinks that Plenitude is a high price to pay for such advantages₁₁₅.

• "Feldman (Fred) - The Termination Thesis",
• "Hershenov (David) - Van Inwagen, Zimmerman, and the Materialist Conception of Resurrection",
• "Hudson (Hud) - A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person",
• "Lewis (David) - Survival and Identity",
• "Merricks (Trenton) - How to Live Forever Without Saving Your Soul: Physicalism and Immortality",
• "Quine (W.V.) - Word & Object",
• "Shoemaker (Sydney) - Personal Identity: a Materialist Account",
• "Van Inwagen (Peter) - The Possibility of Resurrection",
• "Zimmerman (Dean) - Immanent Causation",
• "Hare (R.M.) - The Structure of Ethics and Morals".

Text Colour Conventions (see disclaimer)

1. Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2025
2. Mauve: Text by correspondent(s) or other author(s); © the author(s)