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SCENE XI. The Body-Bomb

1 KATHERINE. Not accept death? Are you crazy? But we must die!

2 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, of course we must die, in the sense that our physical bodies at some point must become lifeless and useless, stale and pale.

3 KATHERINE. But?

4 CHRISTIANUS. But even if we were to accept such a future state of affairs for the physical body, we would certainly not have to accept the idea that the individual being and his or hers individual consciousness must cease to exist.

5 KATHERINE. But didn’t I previously give you my argument about what happens when the brain dies? Didn’t I explain that the individual consciousness also dies, or ceases to be, at that time?

6 CHRISTIANUS. You certainly did present your theory, and you did it well: it was very concise and precise. But I didn’t buy it.

7 KATHERINE. How can you not buy it?

8 CHRISTIANUS. Because I have a better theory.

9 KATHERINE. How do you mean, ‘better’?

10 CHRISTIANUS. My theory is better simply because it makes real satisfaction possible, while yours doesn’t.

11 KATHERINE. How does it do that?

12 CHRISTIANUS. I’ll tell you about that in a minute. But first I have to ask you a personal question: do you want to die?

13 KATHERINE. Of course not.

14 CHRISTIANUS. Why not?

15 KATHERINE. Well, there’s only nothingness!

16 CHRISTIANUS. So it’s not that you are afraid that the transition between your current life and your postulated nothingness-state is a particularly painful one?

17 KATHERINE. No, that’s not my worry; the transition to nothingness is not painful.

18 CHRISTIANUS. What is your worry, then?

19 KATHERINE. Well, it’s not really a worry; it’s just that I have more to do here before my body goes!

20 CHRISTIANUS. So you are saying, I guess, that there would be little to do in the realm of nothingness? Or, at least, that there would be little to do that is worth doing?

21 KATHERINE. Very little: nothing! I don’t even exist anymore!

22 CHRISTIANUS. I see.

23 KATHERINE. And I have so much left to experience here.

24 CHRISTIANUS. Such as?

25 KATHERINE. I still have my mother, and I want to spend some more time with her. And I also want to continue to paint, and move on from acrylics to real oil paint. And then, of course, I want to find some very nice friends and lovers, so I can be really happy.

26 CHRISTIANUS. Sure. So you have a lot of things that you care about that you are not especially eager to give up?

27 KATHERINE. Yes. Except for my weight, of course, which I’d give up in an instant.

28 CHRISTIANUS. Naturally.

29 KATHERINE. And there is so little time!

30 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. That is your problem in a bombshell.

31 KATHERINE. What do you mean?

32 CHRISTIANUS. Your problem is that you know that your personal little bomb is ticking.

33 KATHERINE. My personal little bomb?

34 CHRISTIANUS. Well, it’s not one of those fancy, long-range nuclear devices that James Bond usually bumps into. This one has heart beat and is much more close-range. But the basic dramatic idea is, of course, the same: if X discovers a ticking bomb, and X knows that the bomb will blow up X if nothing is done, and then X does nothing about it, how can X forget the bomb? [53]

35 KATHERINE. What do you mean, ‘forget the bomb’?

36 CHRISTIANUS. Exactly! He can’t forget it! For if he cannot either disarm the bomb or remove himself from it, he will, more or less, always think about it in one way or other. And if he more or less always thinks about the bomb, how can he get any real satisfaction in terms of anything else in his life?

37 KATHERINE. What if he doesn’t think about the bomb?

38 CHRISTIANUS. Remember, the bomb is ticking; and if he cannot disarm it, it will go off.

39 KATHERINE. But can’t he just walk away from it, before it goes off?

40 CHRISTIANUS. It might be possible to do that in some situations, with some types of bombs; but this little body-bomb is tied to his chest, and goes wherever he goes.

41 KATHERINE. But since it’s just a little body-bomb, maybe it comes only with a very small risk?

42 CHRISTIANUS. Does death, in a best-case scenario, only clip a rib or two, and leave the rest of the body in a normal, working condition?

43 KATHERINE. No.

44 CHRISTIANUS. So regardless of whether it’s a small body-bomb or a big one, it’s a body-bomb. His body will go.

45 KATHERINE. But didn’t you previously mention something about disarming the bomb?

46 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, that’s possible in some bomb scenarios; but this is a body-bomb scenario.

47 KATHERINE. So where does this leave us?

48 CHRISTIANUS. Regardless of which psychophysical theory we subscribe to, the bomb will go off and kill all your normal bodily functions.

49 KATHERINE. So why waste my valuable time wondering about whether I should stick to my death-and-nothingness theory or pick your satisfactionist speculations, if I already know that, regardless of which theory I end up selecting, my body-bomb always is destined to go off?

50 CHRISTIANUS. Well, it’s one thing to think that there is a body-bomb going off; it’s another to think that the detonation would result in a great loss for the real you.

51 KATHERINE. But if the bomb destroys all my normal bodily functions, how can it not be a great loss for the real me? I lose my mother, my friends, my job, my money, my acrylic paintings, my memories, and my plans of a perfect two-week Hawaii vacation!

52 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, there are many precious things to potentially lose in a typical death-and-nothingness scenario, including consciousness itself. So your scenario is very worrying and dissatisfying on the whole. That’s why I think that you might be more satisfied with my theory.

53 KATHERINE. How is your theory better?

54 CHRISTIANUS. In my theory I do not accept death as the start of any nothingness; rather, I see death as an event that leads to more life, but perhaps not always exactly as we currently know it. In any case, in my afterlife scenario I don’t lose my individuality or my perception; and I certainly don’t lose my ability to experience things or do things. So in my scenario there is much less to worry about and be dissatisfied about during my earthly lifetime; and there is, unlike in your theory, a possibility to experience satisfaction also after death. So my scenario is much better than yours.

55 KATHERINE. I am sorry, but it’s a little too much for me, at least right now.

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Notes (SCENE XI)

[53] XI:34, the basic dramatic idea: Although the word ‘dramatic’ sometimes may be used to refer specifically to theatre productions or staged representations, Christianus probably uses it here in a somewhat different sense. Maybe he uses it to express some degree of being ‘[e]motionally intense, as [in] dramatic lighting, a dramatic romance’ (Bowman and Ball 1961, p. 108; my emphasis); or, perhaps, to imply ‘an effect or a combination of effects appropriate to the drama or a representation of a drama, such as the stirring of the imagination and emotions by vivid and expressive action, speech, or gesture, or by the exciting complications of a plot’ (Nielson 1942, p. 274).

WALTER PARKER BOWMAN and ROBERT HAMILTON BALL (1961), Theatre Language: A Dictionary of Terms in English of the Drama and Stage from Medieval to Modern Times. New York: Theatre Arts Books.

WILLIAM ALLAN NIELSON, ed. (1942), Webster’s Dictionary of Synonyms: A Dictionary of Discriminated Synonyms with Antonyms and Analogous and Contrasted Words. First edition. Springfield, MA: G. & C. Merriam Co., Publishers.

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HOW TO CITE: Bo C. Klintberg (2008), ‘The Body-Bomb’ in Katherine’s Questionable Quest for Love and Happiness. Online edition of Philosophical Plays, 1 Jan. 2008. Retrieved [today’s date] from http://philosophicalplays.googlepages.com/pgKQQv1sc11.htm.

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