Here’s a thought experiment for you to have some fun with.
Jim is pathologically jealous of Micah, the rich, charming, and happily married owner of the company for which Jim works. One of his problems is a troublesome work rival named Roger, who has cunningly undermined his reputation with the bosses. One day while Jim is walking out to the parking lot, a wizened woman appears seemingly from nowhere, hands him a leather pouch, and tells him, “This is the key to what you have been wishing for.” Jim finds in it an ordinary looking rock and with it, a handwritten page that tells him that if he hands this rock to another person, he will become that person. His own body will vanish. He will have the other person’s memories available to him along with his own, so he can function as if he were the other person, but he will be the one in charge.
He can reverse it all by passing the rock from hand to hand a couple of times. His body will reappear with him back in it as normal. The other person will regain control of his own body with no memory of what happened while Jim was in control, but will otherwise be unaffected. The process must be reversed within 48 hours, otherwise the change becomes permanent.
Jim goes to work the next day and hands the rock to Micah. Amazingly it works as the paper promised: he becomes Micah. His first action is to call Roger into his (Micah’s) office and fire him. For the next few hours, in private, he indulges in food and drink he never could have afforded as Jim. After that, he settles down and decides it would be a good idea to call on Micah’s memories and act as Micah would, both at work and at home, so that to all appearances from then on, Jim/Micah remains as Micah always had been. In his mind, though, he revels in how his life has improved. He likes it so much he decides to let the 48 hours pass so that he becomes Micah to stay. For months the police search for Jim, and finally declare him missing and presumed dead.
Impossible? Yes, obviously so, on any worldview. Still, I have a feeling that how you answer these questions may reveal something about your worldview:
1. Did Jim kill someone?
2. Who died?
_______________
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Impossible? Yes, obviously so, on any worldview.
Then the questions posed are non-starters. Moreover, they are not hypothetical questions nor is it a thought experiment. Hypothetical questions and thought experiments must refer to situations that are at least, in principle, possible. You’ve ruled out the possibility, therefore the questions cannot, strictly speaking, even be posed: they’re trying to refer to a non-referent. In fact, this is an attempt (unintentional, I’m sure) to get around the Principle of Non-Contradiction: an impossible situation, while certainly conceivable, cannot actualize the questions about it, nor can the questions actualize it.
No matter how one responds to the questions, those responses would be nonsensical because, again, they’re trying to respond to something that simply is not there (per the “impossibility” criterion).
Now, why is the situation impossible in the first place? Because the soul is form of the living body. The migration of a soul from one thing to another (living or not, rational or not) is impossible because a soul forms a particular substance. Even possession is not the form of a demon actualizing matter: the demon “possesses”–it does not become the thing but controls the body by suppressing the soul of the possessed.
So, my question to you, Tom is: what did my “response” above reveal about my world view?
The key, my friend, is in why you think it is impossible. Others might think it impossible for other reasons. Maybe that is the line to pursue. Some might say it could be possible, except for …., or, if only ….; and how they fill in the blank might tell something.
Hi Tom:
Okay, the reason the situation is impossible is for the short reason I provided above. Therefore, it’s also impossible (given the criterion) to respond to the questions.
Given your view of the soul, that is correct. I’m not challenging that, I’m just trying to keep the conversation open for others who have different views.
Very interesting experiment. My first thoughts…I believe that sin originates in the heart. Envy is indeed a reality even if never acted on. And worse yet, pathological envy…jealousy, has the same impact on the heart. If I think about how this condition of a man’s heart, with pathological envy, will alter his actions and cloud his judgments, it’s hard for me to toss this experiment aside as though it has no basis in reality. To me, it’s not about Jim’s choice in reality but his wish in his heart, where it begins.
To answer these questions, I would say Jim killed himself, and they they both died.
I would say that Jim killed Micah, IF I am to assume that Micah ceased to live on earth, BUT continued to live as an eternal soul. If Micah ceases to exist entirely, then Jim’s act wasn’t a “killing” on the same level, with the moral implications that go along with that, because he didn’t take away life – only existence, which doesn’t leave Micah without his life. I don’t say that it wasn’t wrong, only that it was wrong because of Jim’s selfishness and envy rather than the results of those two things: the loss to Micah. Micah, in not existing, is not bereft. If I take away something that belongs to someone else, then they are left without it. That is part of the wrong. The other part is my reason for taking it in the first place.
So, yes, Jim is a killer, unless Micah was annilated, in which case Jim is no less responsible, but not for the result of the killing – rather, for hating and envying (which are ultimately and broadly just as destructive, if not more.)
Jim didn’t kill himself, because his self, and its desires, lived on in Micah’s body – although he accepted life on the very lowest level by acquiescing to his lowest self.
I haven’t been very imaginative here, so I hope this doesn’t say about me that I am conservative…