in an 1893 manuscript "immortality in the light of synechism," peirce applied his doctrine of synechism to the question of the soul's immortality in order to argue in the affirmative. according to peirce, synechism flatly denies parmenides' claim that "being is, and non-being is nothing" and declares instead that "being is a matter of more or less, so as to merge insensibly into nothing." peirce argued that the view that "no experiential question can be answered with absolute certainty" (fallibilism) implies the view that "the object has an imperfect and qualified existence" and implies, furthermore, the view that there is no absolute distinction between a phenomenon and its substrate, and among various persons, and between waking and sleeping; one who takes on a role in creation's drama identifies to that extent with creation's author. carnal consciousness, according to peirce's synechism, does not cease quickly upon death, and is a small part of a person, for there is also social consciousness: one's spirit really does live on in others; and there is also spiritual consciousness, which we confuse with other things, and in which one is constituted as an eternal truth "embodied by the universe as a whole": that eternal truth "as an archetypal idea can never fail; and in the world to come is destined to a special spiritual embodiment." peirce said in conclusion that synechism is not religion but scientific philosophy, but could come to unify religion and science.