@mud. I've just spent the last five or so hours reading the first of your recommendations, Plato's Phaedo, and all I can say is wow. It was incredibly moving... to be reading a full account of Socrate's last discussions/debates with his friends on the subject of life and death, the soul and the afterlife, before willfully, fearlessly, and ahead of time carrying out his own death sentence by drinking the poison. That's a man to be admired... I hope to be as composed and willing to go as him when I'm on my deathbed. It was just an incredible read... philosophy-wise I admit I was expecting something dry and boring, a real chore to read full of technical terms but it was so not that. He presented his case for the immortality of the soul beautifully and clearly, and answering all objections in a Buddha-like fashion where only truth and clarity matters, and admitting of any of his own doubts. No posturing of any kind, just a purely equal, honest, and rational debate. If only all debates could be like that. I'm just utterly awe-inspired by the man. As to his argument, it was just so strong, and just so well presented/argued in terms of logic, proofs, examples, metaphors etc. Just the whole method of argument and counter argument inspires confidence in philosophy itself as a means to truth if not his particular conclusions. But I have to say in a time when nothing was known about the brain, I think his argument and the foundations for it were incredibly insightful. And tbh imo it has shades of Buddhism in his ideas, not only of a pure 'soul' shackled and confused by the senses, but also in the sense of a kind of cyclical view of nature of death and rebirth, with the equivalent of reincarnation of tainted souls into like creatures - angry people into wolves etc - but with pure souls - those who have lived temperate, philosophical lives in pursuit of absolute truth (rather than the confused, sensory truth) - being the elect that get to heaven... roughly equivalent to arahants in Buddhism... those who have become enlightened no longer partake in the cycle of life and death because they no longer crave becoming in any form. I mean, I know it's not Buddhism but I do see parallels. And also it had shades (possibly) of Chadwootian thinking 
... causes, essences, and absolutes... stuff that simultaneously baffles and intrigues me whenever he talks about it... and which Socrates explains very clearly, and with even more clarity yet to come if I read more of his writings... which I now fully expect to do because it's clearly not going to be the chore I thought it was But anyway, to be clear, I don't believe in souls or reincarnation or anything of that ilk, and this is not enough to convince me, but it was a good argument nonetheless, for its time. I found that some of his friends raised similar objections to ones I would have raised, which was good... felt like I was almost there and nice to see them answered... but if I was there with the benefit of current knowledge, I would have had a lot of objections on psychological/neuroscience grounds as well Anyway, thanks for the reading list, I'm now really looking forward to getting into this stuff for real... it's a lot more accessible than I was expecting it to be 
... causes, essences, and absolutes... stuff that simultaneously baffles and intrigues me whenever he talks about it... and which Socrates explains very clearly, and with even more clarity yet to come if I read more of his writings... which I now fully expect to do because it's clearly not going to be the chore I thought it was But anyway, to be clear, I don't believe in souls or reincarnation or anything of that ilk, and this is not enough to convince me, but it was a good argument nonetheless, for its time. I found that some of his friends raised similar objections to ones I would have raised, which was good... felt like I was almost there and nice to see them answered... but if I was there with the benefit of current knowledge, I would have had a lot of objections on psychological/neuroscience grounds as well Anyway, thanks for the reading list, I'm now really looking forward to getting into this stuff for real... it's a lot more accessible than I was expecting it to be
