CEBES: Socrates, why do you say that it is not right to take your own life, but at the same time
any man who has the spirit of philosophy is ready to follow the dying?
SOCRATES: Cebes, we, humans, belong to the gods, and it is their choice to decide when, exactly, we die
CEBES:   But as we are possessions of gods and they are our masters, does it make sense to leave
them and lose their care, looking forward to death?
SOCRATES: I believe that the soul is immortal, which means
a person doesn’t leave the service of the gods upon death
Death is simply the release of the soul from the body
Our physical senses are inaccurate and unreliable so we cannot find the truth and pure knowledge
until we free the soul from association with the body as much as we can, which all philosophers do
This attempt to live uninfluenced by the body is effectively a preparation for death itself
CEBES: But why do you think the soul is immortal?
SOCRATES: I have four arguments for that
CEBES: Most people believe the soul “disperses like breath or smoke” when a person dies
And it takes “a good deal of faith” to
believe that the soul will go on living without the body
SOCRATES: All the opposites existing in the world cannot exist without each other, for they define
and generate each other
Without the concept of “greater”, we would not have the concept of “less"
There is also a “process” by which something
becomes its opposite, such that to become
“taller” from having been “shorter”
is known as “increase"
In the same way, death and life are opposites
that “come to be from one another”
The processes that characterize these transformations
are “coming to life” and “dying”
and these processes “balance” each other
out
If everyone were to die without coming
back to life, everyone would remain
in the state of death forever, meaning that
nobody would be alive
CEBES: If a person is reminded of something, he must
know this in advance
How does it work if a person hears, sees or
somehow perceives it, and at the same time
he learns it or feels something familiar,
is it not a reminder of knowledge?
SOCRATES: Look, If a person in love sees objects that
belong to beloved for example lyre
and so there is an image of a young boy playing lyre
So, I repeat, one of two things: we
are all born, already knowing things on our own
until the end of our days, or those whom we say that they know
actually only remember, and "learn" from this
case would mean to "recall"
SOCRATES: You see, Cebes, There are two kinds of existences: the visible world that we perceive
with our senses, which is human, mortal, composite,
and always changing, and the invisible world
of Forms, which is divine, deathless, non-composite, and always the same
Now the visible may be naturally capable
of being dissolved; but that which is uncompounded is indissoluble
Our body is visible and perceivable, while
our soul is from the invisible world
Therefore, if, through philosophical training,
the soul has been freed of bodily influence,
it will become immortal, when the body dies
CEBES: But still, why a soul is immortal?
SOCRATES: Let’s assume a concept of Ideas, or Eidos
For example, a beautiful object is not beautiful
due to its shape, color or something else
It is only beautiful because it associates
with the Idea of Absolute Beauty
Also, assume that an idea cannot coexist with
its opposite
A thing that associates with
heat cannot coexist with cold
Fire cannot be fire anymore, when it is cold
Similarly, there is an Idea of life and death
is the opposite idea of it
A soul brings life with it, and so do not
admit the idea of death, since death, again, is the opposite idea of life
That is why the soul is immortal.
