End of the term

Here I am. Done with FRINQ for good. Ive just got a paper in history to write and two finals next week. I just finished a paper for philosophy on mind-body dualism. Since I havent posted anything here for a while Ill go ahead and post it just as something to have been added.

Body Self Dualism

In this paper I intend to prove there is a separation between the body and self using Descartes’ indivisibility argument. The argument is as follows.
P1) If the self is identical to the body, then whatever is true of the body is true of the self (and vice versa).
P2) It is not the case that whatever is true of the body is true of the self
C) Therefore, the self is not identical to the body.
I will argue that all of the premises are true using those who have returned to life after being clinically declared dead as examples.
If the self is identical to the body in the sense that our existence is limited to the physical experiences and chemical combinations that make up our body and brain fuctions; then it follows that when our body dies so then does our selves as body and brain functions cease to be.
That, however, is not true. There have been hundreds of reported cases of people being declared dead that had no recordable brain waves who have returned to life. There is a very good example in Pam Reynolds who was being operated on for an artery aneurysm in the brain. While being monitored by EEG that showed no brain function she was able to hear very specific conversations the doctors had and even see the doctor drill into her own skull from a raised viewpoint looking down on herself. Pam found herself pulled towards a light where she saw many dead relatives and had conversations with them. Her dead uncle had pushed her back into her body after saying it wasn’t yet her time.
Pams heart and brain functions had comepletely stopped, there was no response from her cerebral cortex, she was dead in every sense. If her mind and body were the same thing her mind should have dispersed when her brain flatlined. Since her soul, or self, was not dead while her body was, we can see that whatever is true of the body is not necessarily true of the self. Therefore the self is not identical to the body.