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Nagel Life After Death Analysis

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In the chapter about death, Nagel explored the meaning of death, what death really means to a personal from the inside and outside, how we look at death in terms of good and bad, and if we should fear it or not. He speaks about death from the scientific and spiritual perspective, and one’s thought process as it relates to both. The most profound part is when he discusses what actually happens to one when they die; the varying perceptions of life after death and is there really a life after death considering you no longer exist. Overall, I found the material to be very interesting and thought provoking; not to say I agree with all of what has been said, but I do agree with some of the questions asked and the fact the we shouldn’t perceive death to be this scary annihilation.
Nagel states “Everybody dies, but not everybody agrees about what …show more content…

Can the body die and the soul live on? The Bible says that’s the flesh is merely a device to hold the soul. A lot of religious people believe that souls travel to heaven or hell while the flesh remains intact and is buried below the earth from where it was created. As well as, there are some religions and people that believe that the soul can be reincarnated in to another living organism. Nagel believes that dualism does not exist; however, I’m not sure if I actually agree with him on that one. We have seen with quadriplegics or others that just because the body is totally disconnected with the brain the person doesn’t necessary die. And even when the brain dies it does not mean the person is totally gone. The phrase mind, body, and spirit means a lot to me and I think in the grand scheme of things has something to do with how we perceive death and life after death. It’s different for everyone, and so is

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He further to response to Princess Elisabeth question by introducing to her what is called (Cartesian Dualism) he uses these to explain to her that the mind, soul and the body are not the same and can never be same, which came to conclude that your mind cannot be your body and your body cannot be your mind. He also explains

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Death by Thomas Nagel tackles the question of death and if it is bad that it is a permanent end to our existence. Nagel states two possible positions in response to this, either death is bad because it deprives us of living life, or it is not bad because even if death is a loss then there is no subject to experience it and therefore the loss of life cannot be felt. In response to the first position Nagel argues that life is valuable in itself even if we strip it of all experience good or bad. He then argues that since a state of nonexistence is not bad by itself, it cannot be what makes death bad. He argues for this position by stating that we do not see the period before we are born as bad so why would nonexistence after life be bad?

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I think the author was a dualist, because of the characters he created. If he was a monist he would have gone against his own beliefs of the mind body problem. Gestalt and Myfanwy both show how the mind is separate from the body. Gestalt is able to control five bodies with one mind and the conscious can jump from one body to the next. Gestalt’s mind is not a part of the body but connected to it in another way.

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Eben Alexander makes an argument in his book “Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife.” According to Eben, you could experience an afterlife through a near death experience. Eben Alexander’s authority as a neurosurgeon describes his near death experience that will maybe help scientists and their theory of an afterlife. He argues that his shared experiences while he was in his seven day coma was not a form of an illusion. He wants to prove to everyone what he went through was real.

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Thomas Nagel concludes that death has no value. Nagel argues that if death is an indefinite end of our being, is it a bad thing? For which he gives two standpoints. One of them being how death strips us from life, which has human beings, is all we have, so it would be a significant loss. The other point being, that death is empty, it is the end of an issue so it is not entirely a great loss.

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The first lesson taken away from reading The American Book of Living and Dying is the importance of forgiveness as in the story of Annie. She is a lot like many people’s story who are angry because life did not turn out the way they expected. They blame themselves for not accomplishing what they think could have been their full potential and worry about what family and other think about them constantly ourselves. The second lesson learned is that it is not over until God says it over as in the case of Henry. His doctor though it would have been better if he died, but he made it through.

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In “How to Know If You’re Dead,” author Mary Roach explores the definition of brain death and how declaring death when the heart is beating, but there is no brain activity, has been extremely controversial. The essay explains how modern medicine has created the problem of classifying death by developing technology to maintain life on a respirator despite there being no brain activity. Roach explains that, although there is a general public understanding of brain death, the fact that the heart may still be beating causes many to feel that the patient is still alive. In addition to providing background information and rationale about organ harvesting, the essay’s narration also allows me to visualize the process and to understand the controversy surrounding it.

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Although the second clause of this verse is relevant to the discussion, I will only discuss the first clause here. The Christian reads this passage as follows: Even though the body can be killed, the soul still exists. If the body in synonymous with the soul, then if the body dies, the soul would likewise die. Therefore, the soul

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Nagel contributes to the mind-body dualism by posing challenges to faulty reductive theories by discussing the importance of the consideration of subjectivity. He is entitled to the assumptions he makes because reductionism overlooks the gap between the subjective and the objective. Further exploring such gap can signify the creation of new methods that invoke the objective as well as the subjective. As of now the call for innovative approaches to understand the consciousness are essential to better understand our species and others

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While behaviorism, functionalism, and identity theory provide compelling arguments in favor of understanding the mind in purely physical terms, they face challenges in fully accounting for the subjective nature of consciousness. Dualism, on the other hand, offers a framework that acknowledges the distinctiveness of the mind and its capacity for conscious experiences. Despite the critiques leveled against dualism, its ability to accommodate consciousness provides a justifiable alternative to purely physical accounts. Further exploration and interdisciplinary dialogue are necessary to advance our understanding of the mind and its relationship to the

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For example it's like saying that humans can think with their body but have a clever mind if we were to change the argument i would be correct. Dualism can be worded as when having the mind in progress but can’t make any connections to the body. But to take it a step further the human body is a material thing and the human mind is a

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This paper will critically examine the Cartesian dualist position and the notion that it can offer a plausible account of the mind and body. Proposed criticisms deal with both the logical and empirical conceivability of dualist assertions, their incompatibility with physical truths, and the reducibility of the position to absurdity. Cartesian Dualism, or substance dualism, is a metaphysical position which maintains that the mind and body consist in two separate and ontologically distinct substances. On this view, the mind is understood to be an essentially thinking substance with no spatial extension; whereas the body is a physical, non-thinking substance extended in space. Though they share no common properties, substance dualists maintain

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Reincarnation is more than just being reborn into another body. Whether it be a cat, a dog, or a human being, reincarnation is the notion that our immortal soul transforms to take place of what we are reincarnated as. The Idea of reincarnation was brought forth by many major religions such as Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism. Reincarnation dates back as far as 500 BCE. The famous philosopher Socrates was a big believer in reincarnation.

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I say this because at my Church we believe in recantation. Once you die, it is said that you come back into another body, and so on. The body you are in is a treasure that God has given us. God created us all as a gift. Now what you do is your decisions, but the sins come with it, and the way you live your life.

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Instead they understood divine justice to be enacted on the level or families or nations in a historical not eschatological setting. In the Jewish understanding no true life was possible without the body, therefore the existence of the soul without a body in Sheol was a mere shadow compared to real life. Pre-exilic prophecy begin to emphasize the worth and responsibility of the individual and also a change in Israel’s understanding of covenant from merely temporal success to an eschatological hope. This shift in consciousness can be seen in the Isaian Apocalypse where the origins of the concept bodily resurrection can be traced, in which the prophet Isaiah proclaims that the, "dead shall live, their corpses shall rise." According to theologian Joanne E. McWilliam Dewart, in her book, "Death and Resurrection," Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones uses a dramatic, "physical re-constitution of the dead," to indicate hope in an "eschatological re-establishment" of Israel.

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