Essay 05

This problem set is due Thursday, 10/4. The rest of the instructions are as before. That is, the following maximums and minimums must be scrupulously observed:

• No less than 10pt font.
• No less than 1.5 line spacing.
• No less than 1 inch margins on all sides.
• No more than 1 side of 1 page for this problem set.

In light of our discussion Thursday regarding the limits of the world and the (philosophical) self, consider the following passages:

6.431

...at death the world does not alter, but comes to an end.

6.4311

Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death.

If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.

Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.

6.4312

Not only is there no guarantee of the temporal immortality of the human soul, that is to say of its eternal survival after death; but, in any case, this assumption completely fails to accomplish the purpose for which it has always been intended. Or is some riddle solved by my surviving for ever? Is not this eternal life itself as much of a riddle as our present life? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time.

(It is certainly not the solution of any problems of natural science that is required.)

Make sense of the above. What is death?