Thanks in particular to Brodie Kennelly, Tim Neal, Trisha Villagonzalo and Amra Copcic for our discussions of technology and the dead, and to Neil Henderson for his valuable research assistance.

Students past and present have helped shape and challenge my thinking on these topics. My thanks to Sean Bowden, Petra Brown, Leesa Davis, George Duke, Russell Grigg, Stan van Hooft, Douglas Kirsner, Helen Ngo, Jack Reynolds, Jon Roffe, Matthew Sharpe and Marilyn Stendera, and to Matthew Clarke, Fethi Mansouri and Brenda Cherednichenko for their support. My colleagues at Deakin, both past and present, have likewise been enormously supportive. I’m grateful to John Lippitt for his encouragement and help over many years, and to my colleagues at UH at the time, especially Brendan Larvor, Luciano Floridi and Dan Hutto. My interest in this topic started while I was a Marie Curie Intra-Įuropean Fellow at the University of Hertfordshire, 2010–12, funded by the European Commission. Tamara Kohn, Martin Gibbs, Bjorn Nansen and Luke van Ryn (London: Routledge, 2019): 80–90. ‘The Decay of Digital Personhood: Towards New Norms of Disposal and Preservation’, in Residues of Death: Disposal Refigured, ed.Michael Cholbi and Travis Timmerman (London: Routledge, 2020). ‘Death and Survival Online’, in Exploring the Philosophy of Death and Dying, ed.‘Deletion as Second Death: The Moral Status of Digital Remains’, Ethics and Information Technology 17, no.‘Ghosts in the Machine: Do the Dead Live on in Facebook?’, Philosophy and Technology 25, no.For those seeking some more technical detail, I develop a number of the ideas discussed His book is aimed at a general readership.

Introduction 1 1 Dying online 17 2 Online identity 31 3 Presence 53 4 Electric corpses 69 5 Second death 93 6 When the dead speak 123 7 Prey to the living 147 Coda: Mind uploads? 163 Notes 167 Index 191 A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Cover design by Charlotte Daniels Cover image: © agsandrew / Getty Images All rights reserved. vi constitute an extension of this copyright page. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. ALSO AVAILABLE FROM BLOOMSBURY Being Posthuman: Ontologies of the Future, Zahi Zalloua Haunted Data: Affect, Transmedia, Weird Science, Lisa Blackman The Meaning of Life and Death: Ten Classic Thinkers on the Ultimate Question, Michael HauskellerĭIGITAL SOULS A Philosophy of Online Death Patrick StokesīLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2021 Copyright © Patrick Stokes, 2021 Patrick Stokes has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.

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