Bodies, Animals, and Minds 11 --- Ockham 3

However, even though my body must survive my death, Ockham thinks the animal that is standing here right now --- that would not survive my death. When I die, the animal dies too. And again, Ockham thinks we have good reason to think this. When you look at the place where I am now standing, you can clearly see something that is sentient, but if I were to die, nothing sentient would be left.

For Ockham then, it seems obvious that the body standing up here would survive my death, but the animal standing up here would not. And that, thinks Ockham, means that the body and the animal up here cannot be the same thing.

This also captures a deep-seated intuition that we have. We tend to think that if two things are actually one and the same thing, then whatever is true of one must also be true of the other. For example, the great Roman senator Cicero also went by the name Tully. Now, if Cicero and Tully are indeed the very same person, then whatever is true of one must also be true of the other. If Cicero were speaking in the Roman senate at this very moment, then Tully would be too. Conversely, if Cicero were speaking in the senate, but Tully were off drinking at the pub, then we would assume that Cicero and Tully could not be the same person.

So also, thinks Ockham, would this apply to the body and the animal that occupy this region of space where I am now standing. If I were to die in a few seconds, then one of them would end up lying on the floor, but the other one would be gone altogether. So surely the body and the animal you see here cannot be the same thing. Ockham thus concludes that they must be distinct things altogether. For Ockham, there is, in fact, a distinct body and a distinct animal standing up here in this very same spot.

Bodies, Animals, and Minds 10 --- Ockham 2

For Ockham, the fact that my living body and my corpse are so similar implies that they must be the very same body (not different bodies, as Aquinas would say).

This captures another intuition that we have about material objects. When we watch something over a period of time, we assume that if it looks much the same at the beginning and end of that block of time, it must be the same thing.

For instance, a rusty old Jaguar has been sitting in my driveway for the past three years, and it looks much the same now as it did three years ago. I’ve seen it change a little (it’s become more rusty and discolored), but for the most part, it looks very much the same. And I assume that it is, in fact, the very same car. I doubt very much that anybody has stealthily replaced it with another, nearly identical looking car overnight.

We make the same sorts of judgments about most things, including people. We watch our loved ones age, but none of us would think they ever get replaced by nearly identical clones. And the same goes for my corpse. Why would we ever think that it would be a different body from the one that is standing here now? Surely my body survives my death. Or so Ockham would say.

Bodies, Animals, and Minds 9 --- Ockham 1

Aquinas was not the only medieval philosopher around back then, and his view about human beings was not the only view floating around either. In fact, it was a highly unpopular view. Most medieval philosophers disagreed entirely. Ockham, for example, finds the problem of the corpse decisive.

Suppose that I die a few seconds from now. As I said before, my body would fall lifeless to the floor, and you would be left with a corpse on your hands. But compare my body now with the soon-to-be corpse. How would they differ?

As Ockham sees it, they wouldn’t differ at all. On the contrary, they would be exactly similar in every way. They would have the same color, the same size, and so on. They would even have the same cells. Of course, the cells would start to decay after I die, but at the moment just before my death and the moment just after my death, there would be exactly the same cells (or very nearly). And that, thinks Ockham, gives us a very strong reason to think that they are, in fact, the very same body.

Bodies, Animals, and Minds 8 --- Aquinas 6

On Aquinas’s view, when I die, I go away, and a new object (a corpse) pops into existence to fill the same region of space. That seems weird. Most people think that our bodies remain after we die, with the difference between my current body and the soon-to-be corpse on the floor being just that the one has life and the other does not. That is another deep-seated intuition many people have; when we die, most people think that what departs is my life, not my body.

Now, if you think that humans are composed of bodies and minds (or souls, as some call them), then you could easily explain this. For you could say that when I die, my soul goes away, but my body remains. And that would very nicely explain how my body continues to exist after I die.

But this is not an option that is open to Aquinas. Again, remember that he thinks there is just one thing occupying this region of space where I am now standing, not two. There are not two distinct things here, a body and a soul, one of which could go away at death and the other of which could remain.

Aquinas thinks there is just one thing here, and so when it goes away, there’s nothing else left to fill this region of space. Consequently, the corpse that we would see here would have to be something new, something that would have to pop into existence at the moment of my death, and which would fill the very same region of space.

Interestingly, Aquinas is aware of this consequence, and he doesn’t mind it. On the contrary, he completely accepts it. ‘Yes’, he would say, ‘when you die, you would cease to exist there (you would get whisked away to heaven), and a new thing --- a corpse --- would come into being’.

So there are some nice things about Aquinas, and some not so nice things. When he says that there is just one thing that fills this region of space where I am now standing, he does seem to do justice to many of our intutions about material objects and living organisms. On the other hand, his view does entail that when I die, a new thing (a corpse) pops into existence, and that seems odd.

Bodies, Animals, and Minds 7 --- Aquinas 5

Even though Aquinas’s view does line up with certain intuitons we have about material objects and living organisms, Aquinas’s view does have some odd consequences. The most important of those runs as follows.

What would happen if I were to suddenly die in the next few seconds? Well, my body would fall lifeless to the floor, and you would be left with a corpse on your hands. But the question is: would that lifeless corpse be the same body as the living one that is standing here now?

Aquinas would have to say no. Remember: Aquinas maintains that here in this region of space that I am now occupying, there is just one thing, and that’s me. So, if I were to die, one of two things could happen. Either this one thing (me) would cease to exist altogether, or it would get whisked away to the ‘other side’ (heaven, hell, or wherever it is you think dead people go). Indeed, that’s what it means for something to die: it ceases to exist, or it goes away to the ‘other side’.

But either way, the thing that occupies this region of space right now would no longer be here. Consequently, the corpse would have to be something new, something that pops into existence at the moment of my death and then fills the exact same spot where I was standing a moment before. Crazy, eh?

Bodies, Animals, and Minds 6 --- Aquinas 4

A third intuition we have has to do with counting. Suppose I pointed to this region of space where I am now standing, and then I asked you, ‘how many things do you see here?’ Surely you would say ‘one’. If you said ‘two’ or ‘three’, I would probably think you weren’t seeing straight. I would think you were drunk and seeing doubles or triples. I would think that something was wrong with your vision.

So we tend to count each living organism as one thing, not more than one thing, and again, Aquinas really captures this intuition. You don’t count three objects standing here in this region of space. You just count one, and that’s me.

Henc, there is something very nice about Aquinas’s view that there is just one thing in this region of space where I am now standing. It certainly lines up with the three aforementioned intuitions we have about material objects and living organisms.