Human Immortality

J.M.E. McTaggart, Human Immortality And Pre-Existence (London, 1916), Part I, Human Immortality, pp. 9-69.

McTaggart believes that sufficient arguments for immortality exist but that they depend on an idealist theory of reality that he hopes to present in a later volume. Until I read and am persuaded by such arguments, I remain, at least provisionally, a materialist.

"All ultimate explanation endeavours to reduce the universe to a unity." (p. 15)

I agree.

"Monism then, whether it be materialism or idealism, is more attractive to the majority of inquirers than dualism is." (p. 16)

I agree.

"Deeper inquiry will, I think, show us that there is no reason to believe that matter does exist." (p. 20)

I need to be persuaded.

"The orange is no more yellow when no one sees it than it is desired when no one knows of its existence." (p. 21)

The sensation of yellow is the effect in us of light reflected from an orange because the surface of the orange absorbs some electromagnetic wavelengths and reflects others. I think that it is legitimate to say that the objectively/externally existing orange is "yellow" if by this we mean that it reflects the wavelengths that cause in us the sensation of yellow. Thus, the perceived color, yellow, is a secondary quality whereas the quality of reflecting the corresponding wavelengths is primary.

When we dream, we believe, e.g., that a roc's egg is real. When we are awake, we believe that our table is real. McTaggarat writes:

"...that belief [about the table] is no stronger and no more evident than the other [about the roc's egg] had been previously." (p. 26)

I think that the belief about the table is stronger and more evident than belief in the roc's egg. We categorize dreams as unreal precisely by contrasting them with the more stable, permanent, consistent and publicly accessible experiences of waking life. You can see, feel and sit at my table today and again tomorrow whereas you do not share my fleeting, one-off image of a roc's egg. Of course, our acceptance of the reality of waking experience is theoretically provisional. We might some day wake up into an even more stable, permanent and consistent world. We need not deny that theoretical possibility while meanwhile continuing to regard the table as real.

To be continued.