ABC Radio National

The Philosopher's Zone





Date/Time 17 Mar 2014 3:46:25pm
The notion of the material body surviving somehow into eternity raises the following questions for me: Which body? At which age (when I was healthy, or when I was old?); will I still be disabled? If I had dementia when I died, will I have a memory? What will be the point of memory? What would be the point of eating (surely there would be no need to eat as there would be no hunger)? Will we still want and have sex?

Surely our bodies are adapted to keep us alive and procreating in this life - of what use would they be in eternity?

Further, we live in chronological time - all that we are and all we do is relational (to time and to others in time) – surely we would stop being people or social beings if that were no longer the case. Without the need to do anything we would have no purpose and surely it is from lack of purpose that people become mentally ill and sometimes die.
