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Life After Death Analysis
To what extent does it make sense to talk about life after death?
Nobody likes the idea that we are going to die. It’s one of those
things that pop into your head whenever you get comfortable, possibly
as a subconscious motivational tool. Just in case you ever get really,
truly at ease with your life it strikes you that it will all come to
an end (possibly quite horribly) without your say-so or even prior
notification. Many people find this not only rude but also decidedly
inconvenient, and refuse to accept that their lovely lives could ever
end. Others are content to allow existence is occasional bout of poor
manners and go quietly. This essay is about the main ways people
accept their demise, or rather (as it is in most cases) do not.
With science fast becoming the adopted mechanism for explaining our
existence, you would think more people would be zealous advocates of
materialism, but this is not the case. You would think that the belief
that you are nothing more than a soulless (although organic) piece of
machinery, rambling aimlessly with only the purpose of reproducing and
a brain minutely to advanced to accept this would have most people
jumping at the chance to support it. Perhaps this is because
materialism falls under the umbrella of reductionism, and as Richard
Dawkins says, “in some circles, admitting to being a reductionist is
comparable to admitting to eating babies”. Conveniently for this paper
however, there has been a long and steadfast tradition of Materialism,
the primus inter pares of which is a Mr Gilbert Ryle. In 1949 when
psychology was a young and nubile science, seen (as all new ...
... middle of paper ...
...lly comes down to how you view the world: 1. The world is a closed
system, where nothing exists outside of the realm of current
scientific understanding. 2. The scientific view is one of many ways
to perceive the universe, and has huge limits to what it allows us to
see. So To what extent does it make sense to talk about life after
death? Materialism will say the only way we can live on is via the
spreading of our genetic material down the lines of time in our
children. As for individual survival after death, it is a fallacy of
mental creation. Dualists/Christians will say you are to be
recreated/your soul will migrate for a life with the almighty in a
better dimension. Most of the eastern world would argue that this
might happen, but that we have a lot more traversing of the
terrestrial plane of existence to do first.