Single Idea 5722

[catalogued under 29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality]

Full Idea

If spirit is immortal and can remain sentient when divorced from our body, we must credit it with possession of five senses; but eyes or nostrils or hand or tongue or ears cannot be attached to a disembodied spirit.

Gist of Idea

For a separated spirit to remain sentient it would need sense organs attached to it

Source

Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], III.624)

Book Reference

Lucretius: 'On the Nature of the Universe', ed/tr. Latham,Ronald [Penguin 1951], p.115


A Reaction

This is a powerful argument against immortality. If you are going to see, you must interact with photons; to hear you must respond to compression waves; to smell you must react to certain molecules. Immortality without those would be a bit dull.