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On Souls and Immortality
A Reply to Michael Huemer
by Ari Armstrong, Copyright © 2025
The usually down-to-earth philosopher Michael Huemer, perhaps most importantly known for his theory of "phenomenal conservatism" that counsels us to start with what seems to be the case, recently summarized two of his more "out there" proposals.
His first thesis is that the universe somehow continuously reconstitutes itself (maybe it expands and contracts continuously), such that the world as it more-or-less is already has come out, and will come about in the future, an infinite number of times. An implication is that you, or a person very much like you, has come and will come into existence an infinite number of times. Hence, you are immortal. The idea is not that the universe will reconstitute itself the same way every time, but rather that there are only so many ways that it can reconstitute itself (maybe a quadrillion-quadrillion or something), but regardless every possible state is reconstituted an infinite number of times.
His second thesis, reflective of Plato, is that you are essentially your immaterial soul, which survives the death of your body, and then somehow floats unconsciously around the cosmos or something, and then somehow rejoins with each of your future selves, or maybe with other corporeal beings.
These two theses are separable. You could hold that "you" (or a person much like you) continues to come into existence, but the soul dies each time with the body. But then is the future "you" really you? You also could hold that the universe as we know it is finite, but the soul is immaterial and separable from the physical body, such that it can be reincarnated. (Of course most Christians reject physical reincarnation but think the soul survives in an afterlife.)
To tip my hand, I think the first thesis might be true, but it doesn't make any difference to my life except as an interesting intellectual diversion, while the second thesis is false. (I also think maybe the universe is eternal but, like the digits of pi, it doesn't repeat itself. But I have no idea.)
My View of the Soul
We all know consciousness is hard to explain. I accept Huemer's claim that the "soul," which I equate with consciousness, is not material or physical in an important sense. When I see a red ball, my experience of seeing a red ball is not, itself, a physical or material thing. That's why I say that I'm a "naturalist" but not a "materialist."
What I think is going on is that conscious experiences, although themselves not physical, arise from and are made possible by a physical substrate. For us, that substrate is the brain (as situated in the surrounding body). Maybe it's possible for consciousness to arise from a computer-chip substrate.
I would describe my view as something like "parallelism." A sufficiently informed outside observer could perfectly map what the physical substrate is doing while I experience seeing a red ball, and that would correspond to me seeing the red ball, but the observer could not thereby directly gain knowledge of what it's like for me to see the red ball. I assume that you, another sighted person, know what it's like for me to see a red ball, because that experience for you is pretty much the same. But I'm extrapolating there. In an important sense my conscious experiences are mine alone.
An implication of my view is that souls come into existence with the substrate and go out of existence (die) with the destruction of the substrate (to the relevant degree). One reason I don't think God exists is that I think the idea of a disembodied soul is absurd. A soul cannot come into being or exist by no means, and the means by which a soul comes into existence is some physical substrate.
So we are mortal. Here is why this should not raise in you a sense of existential dread. We live, always, in the present moment. We can value our future lives only insofar as we envision our future selves experiencing inherently meaningful moments. But the meaningfulness of a moment is an end in itself; it does not rest on the meaningfulness of future moments. In other words, your life can have meaning now, and that is enough. Granted, you can't allow yourself to ruin the value of your current moments over dread of missing out on future moments. Even if you did or could live forever, that could be of value only insofar as individual moments have inherent value or meaning. Your life can have meaning right now, and you always live in the now, however many moments you have.
Let's say Huemer is right about the reconstituted universe, such that "you" come into existence infinite times. I think that future "me" isn't really me. If I could go through something like a wormhole to meet one of my future selves, my reaction would not be, "That's me," but rather, "There's another person who is remarkably similar to me but not me."
Or let's say a person could clone himself perfectly, complete with all the same memories, down to the placement of the last atom. Neither you nor your clone would recognize the other as being the same person. Or imagine you could clone yourself with such perfection, knowing you would die in the process. You would not be indifferent to dying. You might do this anyway if you could, say, create a perfect clone except without terminal cancer. And the clone, with the original gone, would feel like the same person and could carry on living "your" life. But there's an important sense in which you, the original, would feel like the clone is a different person identical to you carrying on your life.
An Immaterial Soul Doesn't Help with Identity
Some theories of reincarnation say you can be reincarnated as an entirely different person, or even as a cow or a grasshopper or a snail. Huemer accepts something like this as possible:
I don't know how similar your different incarnations are to each other—e.g., whether they are all almost identical to your current self, or whether some of them are completely different. I don't know whether you can come back as a non-intelligent animal. . . . You don't (I assume) remember any of your previous lives, because your memories are stored in your brain, which decomposes after death.
Okay, if I (my "soul") used to be Genghis Khan, how is that "me"? I don't remember being Genghis Khan, I don't remember slaughtering all those people or impregnating all those women, I have no way to confirm or disconfirm that I was, in fact, Genghis Khan. Even if I was Genghis Khan, I don't feel like I'm Genghis Khan. So how does the fact that my "soul" used to inhabit Genghis Khan, and in fact be his "soul," have any bearing on my identity? It seems like Genghis Khan and I are completely different people despite sharing the same soul.
Huemer's immortality thesis is interesting only if I'm really me again. But it seems like if a future me happened to get a different soul, or even happened to get the same soul, that would have no bearing on whether future me is really "me." Instead of ending up in future me, why shouldn't my soul end up in a creature on the planet Galaxa on the other side of the universe? (Aside: Andy Weir has a story in which a "soul" lives every possible life and finally remembers all these lives.)
How many souls are there in this scenario? 42,378,998,012,762? An infinite number? How did they get here? How do they exist without any means of existing? Opening the "can of souls" to solve the problem of personal identity seems to create a lot more problems than it solves.
A Note on Free Will
Huemer regards the existence of free will as a major reason to embrace the theory of an immaterial and immortal soul. But my substrate model is perfectly compatible with compatibilism, which perfectly well explains our experiences of weighing pros and cons, speculating about the future, and making decisions. Just as I think my experience of seeing a red ball can be explained scientifically at the substrate level (although without conveying what the experience itself is like), so I think my experience of making choices can be explained. This all seems perfectly consistent with my experiences and "intuitions." So, yes, there is a way in which conscious experience is immaterial (and, no, I cannot fully explain that except to say that consciousness is an emergent property), but this doesn't change the fact that consciousness arises from, and is made possible by, a physical substrate, without which consciousness (the "soul") ceases to exist.
The Infinity Paradox
How do I deal with Huemer's main argument for recurrence (his term for the universe reconstituting itself)?
On a restrictive view of persons, you could only be born once. Now, whatever conditions were required for you to be born the first time, those conditions have either probability zero or a nonzero probability. If they have probability zero, then you shouldn't be here. If they have a nonzero probability, then they should have occurred before (like, in a previous century), given that there has been infinite past time. On the restrictive view, however, that would prevent you from being here now.
Basically I want to say that, even if there are infinite "me"s, I don't feel like I'm any of those other mes, and if I don't recognize X as me, then X just isn't me. Every instance of infinite-me is a unique person.
Like Huemer, I think the universe is eternal (because "nothing comes from nothing"), and I think the universe is a succession of moments. By Huemer's reasoning, the probability of any given moment is zero (if each moment occurs only once), therefore no moment can exist—and yet the universe over time is made up of an infinite number of moments. I exist over a finite number of these moments, and the division of my moments over infinity is zero, and yet my life has meaning. I think this is just to say that I am a finite being and that meaning arises in the context of finite lives, and these facts do not change by virtue of living in an eternal universe. And if Huemer is right that a repeated moment is in a sense the same moment, such that there are a finite number of moments, I don't see how that makes any difference in terms of me living a meaningful life.
Plato is still wrong, and he's never coming back, even if "future Plato" thinks otherwise.
I have more to say about values and meaning in my book, Getting Over Jesus: Finding Meaning and Morals without God. By the way I quote Huemer quite a lot in that book and usually agree with him.
Huemer Replies
September 19, 2025
Thanks for your thoughts. Just some brief comments on some of your comments:
There are only so many ways that it can reconstitute itself (maybe a quadrillion-quadrillion or something), but regardless every possible state is reconstituted an infinite number of times.
The first part of your paragraph had the idea right, but this part is a mistake. There are a continuous infinity of configurations of the universe, so no precise configuration need ever repeat. However, configurations arbitrarily close to the present configuration must occur, given enough time.
Maybe the universe is eternal but, like the digits of pi, it doesn't repeat itself.
In this analogy, I suppose each state of the universe would be analogous to a digit of pi? In that case, the analogy suggests that the universe does repeat itself infinitely. Any given digit, e.g., "4", occurs infinitely many times.
. . . such that "you" come into existence infinite times. I think that future "me" isn't really me.
But my argument shows that it is!
But it seems like if a future me happened to get a different soul, or even happened to get the same soul, that would have no bearing on whether future me is really "me."
You can't get a different soul; that's a contradiction. You just are a soul. So what you're saying is that if a future body happens to be animated by someone other than you, or happens to be animated by you, that would have no bearing on whether it is really you.
How many souls are there in this scenario?
Nobody knows. Either a large finite number or aleph-null.
How did they get here?
Souls are eternal, just like the physical world.
How do they exist without any means of existing?
How does the physical universe exist without any means of existing? How does space exist? How does time exist?
But my substrate model is perfectly compatible with compatibilism.
Here is a post I wrote about the problems with compatibilism: https://fakenous.substack.com/p/freedom-determinism-are-incompatible.
Even if there are infinite "me"s, I don't feel like I'm any of those other mes, and if I don't recognize X as me, then X just isn't me.
Not necessarily; you could be mistaken about whether something is you. Suppose someone shows me a photo of a baby and asks me who it is. I say I think it is my brother as a baby. Then they tell me that it is actually a photo of me as a baby. Now suppose I respond, "No, it isn't. I don't recognize it as me, so it just isn't me." That would be incorrect.
The probability of any given moment is zero (if each moment occurs only once), therefore no moment can exist.
There isn't really a clear notion of the probability of a moment. Probabilities are generally said to apply to either events or propositions.
Perhaps you mean the probability that a given moment occurs when it does. But this would be 100%, because each moment necessarily occurs when it does. E.g., 10:11 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025 necessarily occurs at exactly 10:11 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. It cannot fail to occur then, nor can it occur at any other time; that would just be a contradiction.
Anyway, what premise are you objecting to? Are you objecting to the premise that time is infinite? Are you objecting to the notion that something can have probability zero? Or the notion that if a theory predicts probability zero for our current evidence, then that theory should be rejected?
I don't see how that makes any difference in terms of me living a meaningful life.
I agree that life has meaning whether it is finite or infinite.
Thanks again for taking the time to write up your thoughts on one of my favorite topics.