Is There Life After Death: Review of Different Perspectives
In is there life after death essay this question is discussed through different perspectives as psychological, religious and medical concepts and philosophy.
Psychologist Point of View
It is observed that people's concern with an afterlife, that is, life after death has been of interest only to philosophy and religion. The increment of renowned articles and books about afterlife reached the medical and psychiatric journals. In those journals scientific reports cite evidence from near-death survivors. By near-death, it means clinical death. From the deathbed visions of the terminal patients, some interesting evidences have been borrowed among other sources of data. The similitude of existence in the wake of death hallucinations to sedate prompted fantasies welcomes a sane system for their trial investigation. From perceptions of creatures covering their dead, through familiarity with the occasional resurrection of nature, to acknowledgment of acquired qualities, early human beings built up the idea of eternal life to clarify these practices and their hidden sentiments. Multifaceted investigations affirm that the encounters of biting the dust and visiting 'the other side' include all-inclusive components and topics that are unsurprising and quantifiable. These marvels emerge from normal structures in the mind and sensory system, basic organic encounters, and basic responses of the focal sensory system to incitement. The resultant experience can be deciphered as proof that individuals endure death, yet it might be even more effectively comprehended as a dissociative hallucinatory action of the mind.
Parapsychology
A sample number of university students completed Crawford and Christensen's 1995 twelve-item Extrasensory Perception Survey about attitudes toward extrasensory perception events or experiences before and after taking a recommended course in experimental parapsychology. Among the subjects, there were no significant differences in scale values between belief. It was tested both before and after the course. Collaborated mean scale results showed that belief in afterlife, belief in extrasensory perception, and belief in precognitive experiences in dreams and lucid dreams ranked topmost in endorsement. On the other hand, beliefs in out-of-the-body experiences, auras, or psychokinesis, ranked lowest.
In the Scientific American, David J. Chalmers Ph.D. quoted that, “Consciousness, the subjective experience of an inner self, could be a phenomenon forever beyond the reach of neuroscience. Even a detailed knowledge of the brain's workings and the neural correlates of consciousness may fail to explain how or why human beings have self-aware minds.”
Philosophy
Jeff Mason argued in his findings that the concept of death has no subjective meaning. According to him, the unavoidable conclusion is that, death is always described from the perspective of the living.
In antiquity, Epicureanism literally pulverizes and removes the concept of death: death is nothing. The position of Epicurus is updated to modern times. Bits of Latin, death means the end of life, the physical cessation of life. If this definition is known to us all, it can be enlarged. Indeed, in its medical sense, it is the end of brain function defined by a flat electroencephalogram. In its philosophical sense now, it was considered successively by several authors. Plato was thus defined as the end of a terrestrial life and access to an ideal world. Epicurus or Lucretius have defined it as the dissolution of soul and body. Some researcher from this area might see it as the very form of human life considered in its finitude; this form before and assumed, allows access to its authenticity. Finally, Sartre saw death as a fact without any ontological question.
Medical Science “Point of View”
Dr Sam Parnia, director of critical care and resuscitation research at NYU Langone School of Medicine in New York City, said “When the heart stops, all life processes go out because there is no blood getting to the brain, to the kidneys, and liver and we become lifeless and motionless and that is the time that doctors use to give us a time of death.” But the doctor, who has authored several studies and books about death, said there is a mental process, which has left survivors of near-death experiences longing for death again. He, who has brought thousands of patients back from the brink, said that when people die, that experience is not unpleasant for most people. For those of who die naturally, even if they were in pain before they die, the process of death becomes very comfortable, it is very blissful, peaceful. According to him, he agrees, people describe a sensation of a bright, warm, welcoming light that draws people towards it. A lot of people describe a sensation of separating from themselves and watching doctors and nurses working on them. They can hear things and record all conversations that are going on around them. Some of them describe a sensation where they review everything that they have done. However, Dr Parnia says there are scientific explanations for these reactions, and says seeing people is not evidence of the afterlife, but more likely the brain just scanning itself as a survival technique. He said thanks to modern technology and science “Death does not have to be limited to philosophy and religion, but it can be explored through science.”
Religious View: Islam
Allah (God) has informed Muslims in the Qur’an that He has created men with the purpose of worshipping Him alone and that He made this life a test to see who will fulfil that purpose:
“And I did not create the Jinn and mankind except to worship Me.” (Qur’an 51:56)
God has also informed men the purpose behind the creation of death and life:
“Allah is He who created death and life to test you as to which of you is best in deed.” (Qur’an 67:2)
Allah says in the Qur’an:
“When death comes to one of them, he says, ‘My Lord, send me back! So that I can do good in the things I neglected.’ By no means! It is a mere word that he speaks.” (Qur’an 23:99-100)
Those who believe in Allah as the only God worthy of being worshipped, and perform good deeds, will be rewarded with Paradise. “Verily, the dwellers of the Paradise, that Day, will be busy in joyful things. They and their wives will be in pleasant shade, reclining on thrones. They will have therein fruits (of all kinds) and all that they ask for.” (Qur’an 36:55-57)
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) narrated that Allah said: “I have prepared for My righteous slaves such excellent things as no eye has ever seen, nor an ear has ever heard, nor a human heart can ever think of.”
Religious View: Hinduism
“May this breath merge into the immortal breath. Then may the body end in ashes. AUM, remember what has been done, O intelligence remember what has been done, remember, remember. O Agni, O God, the knower of all our deeds, lead us along the right path to prosperity. Please take away from us our deceitful sins. Many prayers we offer you.” - A funeral prayer from the Isa Upanishad.
Hinduism believes in the rebirth and reincarnation of souls. The souls are immortal and imperishable. A soul is part of a jiva, the limited being, who is subject to the impurities of attachment, delusion and laws of karma. Death is therefore not a great calamity, not an end of all, but a natural process in the existence of a jiva (being) as a separate entity, a resting period during which it recuperates, reassembles its resources, adjusts its course and returns again to the earth to continue its journey. In Hinduism, unless a soul is liberated, neither life nor after life are permanent. They are both part of a grand illusion.
The Spirituality of Psychedelic Drug Users
Psychoactive drugs may induce temporary and reversible altered states of consciousness by destabilizing and repatterning several psychological subsystems, such as perception, attention, cognition, memory, and sense of self. Neuropsychopharmacological changes may result in profound changes of the subjective experience, such as hallucinations in several modalities, synesthesia, strong emotions varying from terror to awe, encounters and communication with seemingly autonomous entities, space and time distortions, and feelings of oneness, understanding, or insight. When such mental states are deliberately invoked in a supportive environment with a proper conceptual and ideological background, the resulting exceptional experiences tnay be interpreted as deeply meaningful religious revelations and spiritual awakenings. Thus it is not surprising that substances of this type have also been used in both traditional and contemporary religious or spiritual practices as sacraments, and referred to by the term entheogens. Even nowadays, entheogens are consumed in the rituals of the peyotist Native American Church, as well as by ayahuasca-using syncretic religions such as Santo Daime and Uniao do Vegetal. Psilocybe mushrooms are also ritually ingested by numerous indigenous Mexican tribes, but similar mystical experiences with a spiritual significance can be occasioned by psilocybin use also in contemporary laboratory settings.
Conclusion
From early observations of animals burying their dead, through awareness of the seasonal cycles of nature, to recognition of inherited resemblances of the living to the dead, early homo sapiens developed the concept of life after death to explain these behaviors and their underlying feelings. Anthropological studies show that afterlife concepts and descriptions of the soul's posthumous journey are strikingly similar for all human cultures. The state of death may have idiosyncratic meanings for different individuals, but the experience of dying involves common elements and themes that are predictable and definable. These elements and themes arise from common structures in the human brain and nervous system, common biological experiences and common reactions of the central nervous system to stimulation. The resultant experience, universally accessible, is interpreted by self-referential humankind as evidence of immortality, which is little more than a metaphor to describe a common subjective state of consciousness. This subjective state can be remarkably real and convincing for many individuals. While faithful that Western science may explain many elements of life after death phenomena, believers in the afterlife, like believers in other paranormal experiences, are nevertheless dubious when anyone dismisses the value of the total experience too readily.
