This is philosophy bites with me, Nigel.
Warburton, and me, David Edmonds.
If you enjoy philosophy bytes, please support us.
We're currently unfunded and all donations would be gratefully received.
For details, go to www.philosophybites.com.
I'Ve just heard from senior sources that planet Earth will self combust in exactly a year from now and all of life will be destroyed.
Sorry to bring you that rather gloomy news.
The question is, can philosophy bites now be bothered to post this podcast?
Samuel Scheffler of New York University is here to help us reach an answer.
Samuel Scheffler, welcome to philosophy bites.
Thanks very much for inviting me.
The topic we're going to talk about is the afterlife.
Now, I know you don't actually believe in the religious style of afterlife, where people go to heaven and carry on living forever.
What do you mean by the afterlife?
Well, I use the term afterlife in a somewhat unconventional or even misleading sense in this discussion.
The afterlife I'm concerned with is not the personal afterlife where one hopes, perhaps, or believes that one will continue to live in some form after one's death.
I'm concerned with the question of what it means to us to think about the survival of other people after we ourselves have died.
So most of us normally take it for granted that other people will live on after we have died.
And I refer to that as the afterlife.
Right.