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Summary: A Dialogue On Personal Identity And Immortality

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In “A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality”, Gretchen Weirob and Sam Miller conduct a philosophical debate about the possibility of a continued existence after death. Weirob argues that she herself cannot exist after death because her identity is composed of her body, rationality, and consciousness. In Derek Parfit’s “Personal Identity” he ponders how the concept of identity works, and how the true nature of our identity affects some of the most important questions we have about our existence. I believe that Velleman did a better job of exploring the idea of identity than Weirob did.

The dialogue between Weirob and Miller takes place on Weirob’s deathbed. Her friend Miller is trying to comfort her by convincing her that there is a possibility that her existence will continue after her death. Throughout his explanation, Weirob counters each one of his arguments. On page 324, the two friends discuss the possibility that Weirob will be reincarnated in the future. Miller believes that this idea should give Weirob comfort, because this would mean that she would survive. Weirob used an example to dismantle that theory. “Suppose I took this box of Kleenex and lit fire to it. It is reduced to ashes and I smash the ashes and flush them down the john. Then I say to you, go home and on the shelf …show more content…

To answer some of the questions, he considered Wiggins’s brain splitting experiment. In the experiment, Parfit’s brain is split into two different bodies, both of which now contains personality and memories. Parfit deduced that there are only three possible outcomes. “(1) I do not survive; (2) I survive as one of the two people; (3) I survive as both.” (354). He settles with option 3, he survives as two people, but the two can not identify with each

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Many of us have thought about life after death. What happens to us after we die? Where do we go? What happens to our body? Do we go to heaven?

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