Immortality and Dualism

Abstract

Someone who believes in immortality is not thereby committed, logically, to believing in dualism and in the possibility of disembodied existence. Nevertheless, any anti-dualist who believes in immortality is committed to believing things which most anti-dualists would find even less plausible than dualism. Observe that if at some future time I die and then undergo bodily resurrection, or if I arrange to have myself deep-frozen and then thawed a few millennia later,¹ or if I have my brain transferred to a younger and healthier body, or if I have my brainstates transferred to a younger and healthier brain, or if I undergo rejuvenation at the hands of the micro-surgeons, then no matter how much my bodily existence will have been extended beyond three score years and ten, I will still have an eternity ahead of me. None of the imagined life-prolonging (or life-restoring) episodes would, by itself, bring one immortality, as opposed to mere increased longevity.