near to death episodes (Endings)

by whitecraw, Wednesday, March 05, 2008, 17:54 (5888 days ago) @ John Clinch

'I happen to believe that it is not but it is essentially a factual question: either you and me will enter a life after death or we won't. Science might never be able to conclusively answer this question by disproving it in a formal sense, just as it may never be able to answer the question as to whether there is more than one universe.' - That's what I believe too; though nothingness ... the condition of death ... is an idea which it is difficult to get one's head around, finding it impossible to imagine myself being in a state of nothingness. Indeed, I once entertained the notion that the fundamental impulse to religion is this inconceivability of one's own being dead. But, despite my belief, I too acknowledge that I can never know whether or not I'll survive death (at least, not until after the event of my own demise), which is why I must remain agnostic in relation to the question. I believe that death will result in my annihilation, but I can't know this. - 'Yes, aren't they art, philosophy and religion?' - I don't think so. Philosophy embraces a wide range of projects, each with its own distinctive aims and methods; but for me it's primarily the business of evaluating beliefs through making explicit the assumptions that underlie them and testing the soundness of the arguments on which they depend. Religion is about realising the divine through the ritual enactment of its narratives in worship and prayer, and through their virtual enactment in the conduct of one's daily life. Philosophy and, more so, religion make use of art in the pursuit of their respective aims, but they are not themselves art. Art, like philosophy, is many things; but, again, for me it's primarily the business of giving expression in works to one's sense of things - 'Greater and greater neurological and psychological knowledge informs, or should inform, philosophical speculation about the mind/ body problem.' - Oh, it does! Neurophysiology and psychology have provided much in the way of grist for the philosophical mills in recent decades, keeping philosophers busy examining the claims that practitioners in those fields make and the thinking that underlies them. There has also been a big debate in philosophical circles concerning the claims made in relation to consilience, following the publication of Edward Wilson's book on the unity of human knowledge, and whether of not the culture gap between the sciences and the humanities can be bridged. An interesting contribution to this debate by Jerry Fodor, which highlights some of the problems the ideal of consilience runs into, is to be found here. The American philosopher, Richard Rorty, dismissed the ideal of consilience by remarking that, even if it was possible to translate the language of literature and the arts into the language of neurophysiology, he couldn't think why anyone would want to. - '[R]eality really does exist independently of your ability to perceive it.' - I'd have to plead guilty to agnosticism in respect of this matter as well. How on earth can we know that? It's a useful thing to believe, but we can hardly experience what reality is really like outside of our experience of it.