W HAT SITUATION justifies belief in immortality? The
answer we gave in the previous chapter was in effect:
Any situation which, subjectively, is my public be-
haviour and more. In particular, situations of 'freedom' offer
us at one and the same time discernments of immortality as well.
When we are 'free', when we exhibit what we called 'personal
decision', we are 'alive' in a sense which mortality cannot ex-
haust; half-decided, we are half-alive -- wholly 'official', and
from the standpoint of 'personality' we are dead already. So it
happens that the point of arguments and counter-arguments
which have traditionally characterised discussions of immortal-
ity has been, all details aside, to claim or deny respectively that
personal behaviour is not exhausted by what object language
treats of. Finally, we saw that 'I am asleep' and 'I am dead' are
logical conundrums which arise from the fact that 'asleep' and
'dead' are amongst the very few words we use which are neces-
sarily public in their unpacking, so that 'I am asleep' and 'I am
dead' are logical hybrids, mixing words which differ enormously
in their logical behaviour. The very existence of the puzzle
indeed witnesses to the fact that 'I', unlike 'asleep' and 'dead',
cannot be restricted to what is spatio-temporal. There is, there-
fore, no sense in talking of 'I' as such coming to an end. All such
temporal characterisations as 'ending' must relate to my public
behaviour, to 'me'.

Again, if persons were 'objects', and since death means the

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