following puzzle or question. If we say that to be a person

is to be a P-functioning body, it seems then as though we

have to conclude that when you're not P-functioning,

you're dead. That is, you're dead as a

person. Previously, we distinguished

between the death of my body and my death as a person;

let's focus on my death as a person.

If I'm not P-functioning,

do we have to then say I'm dead?

Well, that may seem to be the most natural way to define

death, but it's not an acceptable approach.

Because it would follow then, that when I'm asleep,

I'm dead. Well, not during those times,

perhaps, when I'm dreaming while I'm asleep.

But think of the various periods during the night in

which you are in a deep, deep dreamless sleep.

You're not thinking. You're not planning.

You're not communicating. Let's just suppose,

as seems likely, that none of the

P-functioning is occurring, at some point during

sleep. Should we say then that you're

dead? Well, that's clearly not the

right thing to say. So we need to revise our

account of what it is on the physicalist picture to say that

you're dead. What is it to be dead?

It can't just be a matter of not P-functioning.

Well, one possibility would be to say, the question is not

whether you are P-functioning.

It's okay if you're not P-functioning,

as long as your not P-functioning is

temporary. If you will P-function

again, if you have been P-functioning in the past

and you will be P-functioning again in

the future, P-functioning for person

functioning, you will be P-functioning again in

the future, then you're not dead.

Well, that's at least an improvement, because then we

say, look, while you're asleep, even though there's no

P-functioning going on, the lack of

P-functioning is temporary,

so you're still alive. But I think that won't quite do

either. Let's suppose that come

Judgment Day, God will resurrect the dead.

And let's just suppose the correct theory of personal

identity is such as to put aside any worries we might have along

with van Inwagen, that we discussed previously,

as to whether or not on resurrection day that would

really be you or not. Suppose it would be you.

So God will resurrect the dead. Judgment Day comes.

The dead are resurrected. Well, now they're

P-functioning. So it turns out that during

that period in which they were dead, they were only temporarily

not P-functioning. But if death means permanent

cessation of P-functioning,

then it turns out the dead weren't really dead after all.

They were only temporarily not P-functioning,

just like we are temporarily not P-functioning when

we're asleep. Well, that doesn't seem right

either. On Judgment Day,

God resurrects the dead. It's not that He simply wakes

up those in a deep, deep sleep.

So the proposal that death is a matter of permanent cessation of

P-functioning versus temporary,

that doesn't seem like it's going to do the trick.

But what else do we have up our sleeves?

Here's a different proposal that I think is probably closer

to the right account. We might say,

look, while you're asleep, it's true that you're not

P-functioning. For example,

you're not doing your multiplication tables.

But although you are not engaged in P-functioning,

it does seem true to say that you still can P-function.

You still could do your multiplication tables.

Although it's not true that you are speaking French--let's

suppose that you know how to speak French--it's still true of

you while you're asleep that you can or could speak French.

How do we know this? Well, all we have to do is just

wake you up. We wake you up and we say,

"Hey John, what's three times three?"

And after you stop swearing at us, you say, "Well,

it's nine." Or we say, "Linda,

hey, conjugate such and such a verb in French."

And you can conjugate it. Even though you were not

engaged in P-functioning while you were asleep,

it's still true that while you were asleep, you had the ability

to engage in P-functioning.

Abilities aren't always actualized.

Your P-functioning is actualized now,

because you're engaged in thought,

but you don't lose the ability to think during those moments

when you're not thinking. Suppose we say then that to be

alive as a person is to be able to engage in

P-functioning. And to be dead then,

is to be unable to engage in P-functioning.

Why are you unable? Well, presumably because

whatever cognitive structures it takes in your brain to

underwrite the ability to P-function,

those cognitive structures have been broken, so they no longer

work. It's--When you're dead,

your brain is broken. It's not just that you're not

engaged in P-functioning, you're no longer able to

engage in P-functioning. That, at least,

seems to handle the case of sleep properly.

Although you're not engaged in P-functioning,

you're able to, so you're still alive.

Take the dead who will be resurrected on Judgment Day.

Although they will be engaged in P-functioning later

on, it's not true right now that they can engage in

P-functioning. Their bodies and brains are

broken until God fixes them. So they're dead.

All right, that seems to give the right answer and,

in fact, it gives us some guidance how to think about some

other puzzling cases. Take somebody who is in a coma,

not engaged in P-functioning.

Their body, let's stipulate, is still alive.

Their heart's still beating, the lungs are still breathing

and so forth. But we wonder,

is the person still alive? Does the person still exist?

Well, they're not engaged in P-functioning.

That's pretty clear. We want to know,

can they engage in P-functioning?

Now, at this point we'd want to know more about the underlying

mechanics about what's gone on in the case of the coma.

If the following is the right description, then we perhaps

should say they're still alive. Look, when somebody's asleep,

we need to do something to, in effect, wake them up,

something to turn the functioning back on.

The cognitive structures are still there, but the on-off

switch is switched to off. Perhaps that's what it's like

when somebody's in a coma, or perhaps at least certain

types of comas. Of course, to turn the on-off

switch on is harder when somebody's in a coma.

It's a bit more--to continue with the metaphor of the on-of

switch--as though not only is the switch turned to off,

there's a lock on the switch. And so we can't turn the switch

on in the normal way. Pushing the person in the coma

and saying, "Wake up, Jimmy" doesn't do the trick.

But for all that, although the on-off switch may

be stuck in off, if the underlying cognitive

structures of the brain are such as to still make it true that,

flip the on switch back to on and the person can still engage

in cognitive P-functioning,

maybe the right thing to say is the person's still alive.

Coma case two. I'm not sure whether this

really should be called a coma. I don't know the biological and

medical details. But imagine that what's gone on

is there's been decay of the brain structures that underwrite

the cognitive functioning. So now it's not just that the

on-off switch is stuck in off, the brain's no longer capable

of engaging in these higher order P-functions.

This might be a persistent vegetative state with no

possibility of turning it on, even in principle.

Of such a person we might say, they're no longer capable of

P-functioning. And then perhaps the right

thing to say is the person no longer exists,

so they no longer exist as a person, even if the body is

still alive. So far, so good.

Here's a harder case to think about.

Suppose we put somebody in a state of suspended animation,

cool their body down so that the various metabolic processes

come to an end. They stop.

As I'm sure you know, we're able, with various lower

organisms, to put them in a state of suspended animation and

then, the amazing thing is,

if you heat them back up again properly, they start functioning

again. Now, we can't do that yet with

humans. But it doesn't jump out at us,

at least, that that should be an impossibility.

So suppose we eventually learn how to do this with humans.

And now, suppose we take Larry and put him in a state of

suspended animation. Is he dead?

Well, most of us don't feel comfortable saying that he's

dead. Just like we don't feel

comfortable saying that the--I suppose we could do this with a

fruit fly. I don't know whether we can or

can't. Suppose we can.

Suppose we do it with a fruit fly.

We don't feel comfortable saying the fruit fly's dead.

Rather, it's in a state of suspended animation.

Well, similarly then, perhaps we wouldn't want to say

that Larry is dead. And the "brokenness" account of

death allows us to say Larry's not dead.

The structures in the brain which would underwrite the

ability to engage in P-functioning,

they're not destroyed by suspended animation.

So perhaps in the relevant sense, the person can still

engage in P-functioning, so they're not dead.

Good enough. On the other hand,

it doesn't seem so plausible, it doesn't seem intuitively

right, to say that they're alive.

Is Larry alive when he's in a state of suspended animation?

No. It seems like he's not alive

either. Now that's a bit puzzling,

right? It's as though we

need--Normally, we think that look,

either you're alive or you're dead.

The two possibilities exhaust the possibilities.

But thinking about suspended animation suggests that we may

actually need a third category, suspended--neither alive nor

dead. Well, all right,

if we do introduce a third possibility--I'm not sure this

is the right thing. It's not clear what's the right

or best thing to say about suspended animation.

But at least that doesn't seem like an unattractive

possibility. If there are three

possibilities--dead, alive, or suspended--to be

dead, we could still say you've got to be broken,

incapable of P-functioning.

Suspended isn't broken. It's just suspended.

But then what do you need to be alive?

In addition to not being broken, what do you need to be

alive? Well, the initially tempting

thing to say is not only aren't you broken, but you're actually

engaged in P-functioning. But if we say that,

then we're back to saying that somebody who's asleep isn't

really alive. That doesn't seem right either.

So we need some account to distinguish between suspended

animation and out and out being alive.

And I'm not quite sure how to draw that line.

So I'll leave that to you as a puzzle to work on on your own.

That puzzle aside, it seems to me that once we

become physicalists, there's nothing especially deep

or mysterious about death. The body is able to function in

a variety of ways. When some of those lower

biological functions are occurring, the body's alive.

When all goes well, the body is also capable of

engaging in higher order personal P-functioning.

And then you've got a person. The body begins to break,

you get the loss of P-functioning.

At that point, you no longer exist as a

person. When the body breaks some more,

you get the loss of biological or B-functioning,