Concept Of Immortality Research Articles

Cultural Change and Philosophy

The Shadow of God is a magisterial achievement. In that vein, readers may find it especially opportune that this is a book about the concept of immortality—though, in line with the more dynamic picture it presents of our ideas about immortality in shifting cultural landscapes, I make the more modest, though no less impressive, suggestion that this book will stay with students of German Idealism and of political theory at large for a very long time to come.

Becoming immortal: future wellness and medical tourism markets

PurposeIs humanity heading to immortal living? If so, what areas of society are playing an active role in achieving this? In order to understand this, the study explores the relationship between immortality and the wellness and medical tourism industry to seek potential relationships between them and ultimately, asks difficult questions about the growth of these tourism sectors and the potential need for greater regulation of them.Design/methodology/approachTaking a pragmatic philosophical approach and through the examination of refined information from secondary sources and published material and reports, the study presents original theoretical knowledge and a model exploring tourism and human immortality.FindingsThis paper argues that continued growth in the wellness and medical markets today could lead to a world where transhumanists and cyborgs are present in our world, even taking over from Homo sapiens. The study presents a model highlighting the potential role of wellness and medical tourism markets, illustrating the potential for future consumer services that could further fuel the search for immortality. Thus, how such markets and consumer desires are (in)directly supporting humanities desire for (non-human) immortal existence.Originality/valueToday, individuals are driven by wellness practices and medical and cosmetic desires and are willing to travel the globe in search of companies who are either capable of carrying out the desired procedures or seeking prices more affordable to them. This research offers novel insights into these complex relationships and maps the affiliation between wellness and medical practices and the concept of immortality.

超人類主義的“人與天一”式審度

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.
 Professor Wang Jue reflects on transhumanism through the Confucian idea of harmony between man and nature and proposes from a Confucian perspective that we should supervise the formation of our posthuman future. I agree with this suggestion. Here, I discuss transhumanism using Zhuangzi's idea of “Harmony between Man and Nature” and the concept of immortality. My conclusion is that from Zhuangzi's point of view, it would be wrong to use technology solely to plan and control the future of mankind; however, this does not mean that Zhuangzi is an anti-technologist. I think Zhuangzi's ideas offer limited support for the Confucian suggestion that we should supervise the formation of our post-human future.

Immortality of the Soul in Ecclesiastes and Akan traditional Thought: A Comparative Analysis from an African Christian Theological Perspective

This article surveys the immortality of the soul in Ecclesiastes and Akan traditional thought from an African Christian theological perspective.Using comparative analysis, it argues that there is a remarkable similarity between the concept of immortality in Ecclesiastes and that of the Akan religio-cultural traditions. It is theologically significant to consider the immaterial nature of humankind, death and immortality that has been regarded as mystical and not experiential. This discovery of similarity with Ecclesiastes allows the Akan, and for that matter Africans, the possibility of relocating their religio-cultural and traditional worldviews within the wider context of the biblical cultures and thus Christian theology. Keywords: Immortality, Worldview, Ecclesiastes, Akans

The “Synthetic” Image of Jesus Christ in F.M. Dostoevsky’s Works and Its Origins in German Romantic Natural Philosophy

The articles analyzes the original concept of immortality, presented by F.M. Dostoevsky in a handwritten sketch written on April 16, 1864, the day after the death of the writer’s first wife. The authors argue that this concept was created under the influence of the ideas of German romantic natural philosophy, in particular G.T. Fechner’s work of The Book of Life After Death (1836). According to the pantheistic ideas of Dostoevsky and Fechner, every person after death continues to exist in the earthly world. Having lost a limited biological body in death, a person can get a more extensive “cosmic” body, covering significant areas of the material universe. His personal spirit continues to exist in mankind, and the degree of his influence depends on what kind of spiritual success he achieved during his lifetime. In the concept of Fechner and Dostoevsky, posthumous life can be very different: great personalities (Goethe, Shakespeare, Napoleon, etc.) acquire an even more significant being than during life, and they continue to influence humankind, which, developing in history, strives for an absolute “synthesis” -the merger of all people into an organic whole and at the same time the merger with the universe. Individuals who, during their lifetime, confined themselves to their selfish interests can even disappear. In this concept, God is defined as “universal Synthesis,” i.e., the goal of the world process and the final merging of everything with everything. Jesus Christ is understood as an absolute, perfect man who, after death, does not resurrect in his previous bodily form, but completely dissolves in humankind and acts as a force guiding it toward unity and synthesis with the material world.

The Concept of Immortality in Hindu Tantric Soteriology

The Concept of Immortality in Hindu Tantric Soteriology

What Remains: Beatitude in Spinoza and Deleuze

What RemainsBeatitude in Spinoza and Deleuze Annemarie Lawless (bio) In “Beatitude,” the penultimate chapter of Expressionism in Philosophy, Deleuze tackles the final book of Spinoza’s Ethics in which Spinoza appears to claim that the mind can live on after the body dies. Deleuze poses the question in the disarming manner that a child might: “what happens when we die?” (1992, 315). His answer also seems clear and yet, at the same time, completely incomprehensible: following Spinoza, he suggests that the more we increase our experience of the third kind of knowledge, which is the knowledge of essences, the more our power of thinking intensifies. Our body perishes, but this power or intensity that we have cultivated with our minds remains, and “We become completely expressive” (315).1 Though this statement incites religious ideas about the immortality of the soul, Deleuze does take care to argue, as does Spinoza, that one must not confuse “eternity” with the concept of immortality: “We should not imagine that the soul endures beyond the body; it endures while the body itself endures” (314). The soul is eternal only in its “intensive part,” and to the extent that this eternity can become the object of direct experience, which would happen through the cultivation of the third kind of knowledge, “we experience that we are eternal” (314–15). There would not be a problem if Deleuze stopped at the point that eternity is simply a certain way of thinking that opens an experience of eternity while one is alive. But he does not stop: he goes on to say, following Spinoza, that after we die, if we have in our lifetime cultivated enough knowledge of the third kind, then “what remains of ourselves is absolutely realized” (319). What exactly does Deleuze mean by this? What remains? This chapter has received scant attention from Deleuze scholars and scorn from his critics. Gillian Howie, for example, assails Deleuze [End Page 1] for unveiling and revising “a thoroughly disingenuous form of argument” (170), for being a “theist” (192), for harboring a “new ageist illusion” (179), and for exhibiting a “lack of sincerity” (170). But critics less hostile to Deleuze than Howie tend to pay little attention for two reasons, one having to do with how Deleuze writes and the other with how he is read: first, a consistent problem in reading Deleuze is his tendency to slip into free indirect discourse, which makes it difficult to say if Deleuze is speaking for himself or if he is merely ventriloquizing Spinoza’s argument; second, there is a tendency in Deleuze scholarship to take what is useful from the Deleuzian toolbox and politely ignore the more eccentric moments that do not seem as though they can hold up to rigorous critical interrogation, a reading practice that has been perpetuated in Deleuze studies, perhaps even encouraged, as Daniel Haines has argued. One important exception is Simon Duffy’s The Logic of Expression. For Duffy, the “logic of different/citation” that is worked out in Difference and Repetition coheres with the logic of expression that is worked out in Expressionism in Philosophy. In Difference and Repetition, Deleuze defines differentiation as “the determination of the virtual content of an Idea” and differenciation as “the actualization of that virtuality into species and distinguished parts” (1994, 207). Duffy argues that the differenciation of modes can “range from the differenciations of the differentiated to the actually infinitely composite differenciations of the differenciated” (133). His explanation of “Beatitude,” and specifically the question of the mind’s eternity, hinges on how Deleuze understands Spinoza’s “Idea of the Idea,” which Duffy frames as the joining of two or more composite integrations in order to produce a new composite relation (or differenciations of the differenciated). One of the examples that Duffy uses to illustrate comes from Spinoza’s Letter XVII to Pieter Balling, in which Spinoza discusses the relation between Balling and his recently deceased son. Spinoza writes: “a father so loves his son that he and his beloved are, as it were, one and the same. According...

Future and immortality in the religious philosophy of F.M. Dostoyevsky (from the novel «Crime And Punishment»)

This article attempts to establish the relationship between the concept of immortality and the future of mankind and the religious faith of the characters of F.M. Dostoevsky's works. This problem is considered with reference to the example of a detailed analysis of the views of the main character of Dostoevsky’s novel «Crime and Punishment» (Rodion Raskolnikov). The characterization of the hero is given in terms of his religiosity. The features of Raskolnikov's worldview are noted; they consist in a combination of faith in God and lack of faith in immortality. It is suggested that the source of such an unusual combination of religious ideas is the historical concept of I.G. Fichte. On the basis of the comparison of the views of other heroes of the novel, the article concludes that the most fundamental point is their idea of immortality as a continuation of the existence of a person in earthly reality. It demonstrates that this point of view corresponds to the religious faith of Dostoevsky himself.

Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Modern Analysis of Concepts in Literary Works

The article investigates the origins of the notion of ‘concept’ in the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and represents an attempt to combine the results of his theoretical work with literary and linguistic techniques and methods of analysis to consider concepts and their elements in literary works. The results of the study show that L. Wittgenstein first tried to reduce natural language to the communication of facts using atomic and molecular sentences, which he called the ‘ideal language of science’ and described the model of its functioning in the “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus”. But that did not allow to convey the whole polysemy of the word. The scientist gave a clear understanding of the notion ‘concept’ in his work “Philosophical Investigations”. According to L. Wittgenstein, first the concept represents a symbiosis of sensory experience and key human characteristics of the object, which is transformed into a basic idea of the object of subjective reality, that is the core of the concept. Then, new meanings are layered on the basic idea in the process of generational change, with different social and cultural interactions. ‘Language-games’ and ‘behaviour-games’ are special ways of representing paradigmatic changes in a word meaning and revealing the polysemy of concept meanings.Models of the concept in the works of modern scholars – linguists, culturologists, literary critics, are also considered. In this paper, the model proposed by O. Selivanova is seen as the most accurate, because it, like L. Wittgenstein’s model, has a core and peripheral layers of values, which suggests that the concept is a mental structure / formation in the dynamics of development and change.Given the model of the concept proposed by L. Wittgenstein, as well as his definition of social interaction as a driving force in the formation of the concept, an attempt was made to apply the theoretical work of L. Wittgenstein in combination with literary and linguistic techniques and methods of analysis to consider concepts and their elements in literary works.Based on the classification of Zh. Klymenko, the concept is viewed as an implicit element of inoculture which is illustrated on J. Kawabata’s novel “Thousand Cranes”. The article also traces the connection between the concept of ‘language-game’ of L. Wittgenstein and the concepts of ‘background knowledge’ of S. Safaryan and ‘cultural literacy’ of E. Hirsch Jr.: ‘background knowledge’ and ‘cultural literacy’ help to orient in the cultural-historical space and create ‘hooks’ in the human consciousness, which will contain ideas about a culture or historical and cultural epoch, allowing to trace the dynamics of the development of concepts in particular and culture in general.Using the model of analysis of changes in the image of the country / events / epoch of Yu. Zaporozhchenko, we managed to draw a parallel between the image and the concept, because in this paper the image is understood as an element of the conceptual sphere. Thus, we trace the multidimensional variants of interaction between the author and the reader, the possibility of the author's change of the picture of reality in a literary work, which can sometimes even change the worldview of readers. Based on the novel “Vampire Lestat” by Ann Rice, the transformation of the established common concept of IMMORTALITY into the author’s concept was investigated.As a result, the model of the concept proposed by Ludwig Wittgenstein in “Philosophical Investigations” is considered perfect, opening the possibility of its application in the study of the embodiment of concepts in literary works.

Reincarnation, resurrection and the question of representation

This article discusses critically the problems and significance of the concepts of reincarnation and the resurrection. It focuses on the contemporary debate on this topic between Robert Almeder and Stephen Hales. The Akan understanding of these concepts is invoked showing the contrast and,even comparison between the African and the Western understanding of the concepts. It is suggested in this article that the arguments for these concepts could still be ameliorated. This point is taken up by Ramose’s focus on the issues that arise from the critical discussion. Ramose points out that the concept of immortality requires a special place in the discussion since it is the axis around which both reincarnation and resurrection revolve. He complements the discussion accordingly. He further argues that the topic is as relevant today as it was since the dawn of humankind. Any attempt to exclude or discard the topic from philosophy is both questionable and an arbitrary limitation of the scope and meaning of philosophy.2Keywords: ‘God’, ‘the soul’, immortality, reincarnation, resurrection, the body

El mito de la inmortalidad en la ciencia ficción española actual

ABSTRACTThe stories that spoke of achieving immortality remained for centuries within the realm of myths. The scientific logic of our days seems alien to these unearthly stories, but the debates around the concept of immortality that are taking place in the world of science have led to the emergence of mythical stories that deal with immortality. It can be said that new contemporary myths are being configured in science fiction narratives, which re-explore the tension between the boldness of the goal of living forever and the hubris of the classical stories. This dialogue between myth and science is reviewed here in its general approach and in a selection of Spanish contemporary science fiction stories collected in Prospectivas. Antología del cuento de ciencia ficción española actual.

Kajian Aksiologi terhadap Teknik Cryonics sebagai Solusi Menuju Kehidupan Kedua

Improving science and technology is done to eliminate human boundaries and achieve happiness. The death that leads to grief tries to overcome. The concept of immortality is finally born from cryonics techniques. Using the library research method analyzed that, the cryonics technique provides an opportunity to live again in the future, after the death of an incurable illness today. But this technique is contrary to the ethical and aesthetic aspects of Indonesia. The belief in God is shaken by its incompatibility with the potentialities of the cryonics technique. The shift in the meaning of death both scientifically and legally needs to be reexamined. A view of the axiological study of cryonics techniques needs to be studied in more depth, especially so as not to become a problem in the future.

A Study of Zhu Xi's Latter Thought Shown in Zhouyi chantongqi kaoyi- The Reinterpretation of Alchemy and a Search of New Conception of Immortality -

A Study of Zhu Xi's Latter Thought Shown in Zhouyi chantongqi kaoyi- The Reinterpretation of Alchemy and a Search of New Conception of Immortality -

Unique Representations of Moses in the Works of Harriet Martineau, Charlotte Brontë, and George Eliot

Abstract This article uses two methods to examine George Eliot's poem “The Death of Moses,” which has not yet been fully analyzed. One is the comparative analysis of Moses represented by Eliot's contemporary writers, Harriet Martineau and Charlotte Brontë. The other provides a consideration of how this poem relates to some other works in Eliot's corpus, for example, “Agatha,” “Self and Life,” and “Mordecai's Hebrew Verses.” These methods clarify the uniqueness of each writer's representation and give us a better understanding of Eliot's ideas and intentions in “The Death of Moses.” Eliot creates a pathetic image of Moses, which symbolizes the weakness in the great prophet as well as the conflicting emotions caused by the inevitable experience of the human encounter with death. This poem is not only interesting as Eliot's version of midrash in the context of reworking of the bible, but it also deals with the concept of immortality, a theme that would be inherited by the later novelist Virginia Woolf. Furthermore, this poem invites us to be more sensitive to the interconnectedness of poems across authors and literary periods.

Eternal God, Eternal Life: Theological Investigations into the Concept of Immortality, Philip G.Ziegler (ed.), Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016 (ISBN 978‐0‐567‐66683‐3), xiv + 215 pp., hb £70

Reviews in Religion & TheologyVolume 24, Issue 4 p. 833-834 Review Eternal God, Eternal Life: Theological Investigations into the Concept of Immortality, Philip G. Ziegler (ed.), Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016 (ISBN 978-0-567-66683-3), xiv + 215 pp., hb £70 Joshua Farris, Corresponding Author Joshua Farris joshua.r.farris@gmail.com Houston Baptist UniversitySearch for more papers by this author Joshua Farris, Corresponding Author Joshua Farris joshua.r.farris@gmail.com Houston Baptist UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 04 October 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/rirt.13114Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume24, Issue4October 2017Pages 833-834 RelatedInformation

Philip G. Ziegler (ed.), Eternal God, Eternal Life: Theological Investigations into the Concept of Immortality

Philip G. Ziegler (ed.), <i>Eternal God, Eternal Life: Theological Investigations into the Concept of Immortality</i>

The Concept of Immortality: Philip G. Ziegler (ed.), Eternal God, Eternal Life: Theological Investigations into the Concept of Immortality

The Concept of Immortality: Philip G. Ziegler (ed.), <i>Eternal God, Eternal Life: Theological Investigations into the Concept of Immortality</i>

Recent Research on the Telemorase Enzyme and the Concept of Immortality

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5915/40-1-5281 During DNA replication, telomeres at the tips of chromosomes maintain connections that allow orderly replication. With each division, the telomere shortens until it gradually reaches a critical length that prohibits the cell from further division, causing several diseases associated with senility. Telomerase is an enzyme found in germ cells and embryonic stem cells that helps replace the telomeres. Through processes that reactivate these telomerases, scientists hope to develop regenerative methods to significantly extend the human life span. The process of telomerase activation, on the other hand, may create cancer cells, and understanding telomerase inhibition could help in combating cancer. From an Islamic perspective, the life span of a human, which only God determines, should be spent promoting good for society and preventing what is bad. If antiaging measures help maintain the productivity of an individual, and if that individual’s productivity is good for society, then antiaging measures are good. Religious organizations and governments would need to promote social justice in balancing resources needed by younger and older generations.

Pindar and the Cult of Heroes by Bruno Currie

BOOK REVIEWS Pindarand theCult ofHeroes.By BRUNO CURRIE. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxfordand New York:OxfordUniversityPress,2005. Pp. xv + 501. Cloth,$125.00.ISBN 0-19-927724-9. BrunoCurrie'sprimarygoal inthisbook is toinvestigatewhether "a literary motivationforthenumerousallusions to hero cultin Pindar 's odes [is] to be found in theprospectofheroic honours forthe addressee" (p. vii). The intended audience forthe volume includes bothPindarscholarsand specialistsinGreekreligion.The arguments, presentedas threeparts subdivided intofifteen chapters,are incremental and too detailed to summarize fullyhere; the conclusion in favorofheroichonors fortheaddressees oftheodes restson the cumulativeforceofthese arguments.Even ifone does not findthethesis convincing,thestudyprovides a freshand originalperspectiveon Pindar,and raises interesting questionsaboutheroiccultas well. In PartI (Chs. 1-5), "Some Themesin Hero Cult: Homer and Pindar ," C. first considers and compares perceptionsofdeath and mortalityin the Iliad,the Odysseyand Pindar's extantworks. Especially in theIliad,Homer is found to expressan "austere,minimalist"view ofdeath and the afterlife, not because thiswas the only view when thepoems were composed, but because morerobust and optimistic popular views, laterrecognizable in Pindar,weresuppressed in epic. Further, theboundaries betweenimmortalandmortalstatusare more permeable in Pindar (who recognizes a special status in the afterlife forAchilles, Diomedes and others)thanin theIliad, where mention ofheroiccultis avoided. The careerofthehero,so oftenfollowinga pattern inwhichtrialsand testsarerewardedwithimmortality and /or cult,can be viewed as a paradigm forthelaudandusin Pindar's odes. Chapter6 introducesa keythemein thebook, thedistinctionbetween "inclusive" and "exclusive" conceptsofimmortality. The latter, characteristic oftheIliad,makes renownin song (kleos)theonlyvehicle for(a clearlymetaphorical)immortality. The "inclusive" concept of immortality, which C. attributesto Pindar,recognizes two paths to immortality: the kleosof song, and thetime of cult.In order to argue thatPindar's concept ofimmortality is "inclusive," C. must first explain the many Pindaric gn6maithatseem to contradictthis view (e.g.,N. 11.15;I. 5.16 "mortalaims befitmortals")and remindersthat song is the only means of continued existenceafterdeath (e.g. N. 7.14-16; P. 1.92-4). The gn6maiare rhetorical gambits,C. argues, and "generalizations which permitcontradiction"as the thoughtof the ode develops. Furthermore, insistenceon human mortalitydoes not conflictwith "immortality"throughheroiccult,formost recipients ofculthave died. 202 BOOK REVIEWS In Part II, "Heroization in the FifthCenturyBC,"C.'s goal is to demonstratethatheroizationwas a more widespread practicethan has been recognized,in order to establish a 5th-century contextin whichPindar's clientsmightreasonablyexpecttobecome cultheroes. He identifiesthreecategoriesofneglectedheroes: thewar dead, athletes ,and personswhose cultscommencedwhile theywere stillalive. In the case ofthe war dead (Ch. 7), the only securely attestedcontemporarycultis thatof Plataia (Th. 3.58.4), although earlycults of theMarathondead and thePersianWar dead ofMegara areprobable. C. assimilates "institutionalized cults of thewar dead" (p. 95) to heroic cult,based on the scale of theirhonors, the sponsorship of the cityand deliberatearchaismsin the ritual.But as he recognizes,the war dead are not called "heroes" in extantGreek textsuntilthe Roman period. Furthermore, the collectivenature of most honors paid to the war dead sets them apart fromotherheroes. The evidence seems to pointnot to routineheroization,but to an ad hocpractice, more commonin some citiesthanothers,which graduallyexpanded over thecenturies. The heroizationofathletes(Ch. 8) is betterattestedand moredirectlyrelevantto C.'s project,forthe popularityof hero-athletesincreased dramaticallyduringthe 5thcentury.C. argues convincingly thattheheroizationofathleteshad to do directlywiththeirstatusas athletes,and was notprimarilydue to local politics or otherfactors. He makes a case fora quasi-culticatmospherearound certainathletes, but falls shortof demonstrating thatOlympic or othervictorswere routinelyheroized. One argument concerns the dedication of the victor'sstatuein a sanctuaryor the agora, which C. wishes to regard as tantamountto heroization.Although statues seem to play an importantrole in athletecults,thededication ofa statuein itselfis not diagnosticofheroiccultin thesame way a tomblocated in a sanctuaryor theagora is. C. nextestablishes(Ch. 9) thatthereis no a priori obstacleto hero cultforlivingpersons,by showing thatwhile thetermhir6susually refersto "a dead human investedwith special power," itcan also be applied to "a supernaturalbeing subordinate to the gods" (p. 161). Although thisis technically correct, C. underplays thesignificance of death as partoftheculthero's story.Most culturesattribute uncanny powers to thedead, powers theliving do notpossess. Of themen C. cites as living recipientsof cult,almost all received theirhonors in political contextsafterthePeloponnesian war (e.g., Lysandros,Dion ofSyracuse,DemetriosPoliorketes),by which timeitis reasonable to assume thatmanytraditional expectationsabout cultsand theirrelations to the cityhad been irrevocablytransformed. The slightlyearlier case of Hagnon (Th. 5.11.1) is controversial,leaving the cult of EuthymosofLokroias theonlyexample contemporarywithPindar. BOOK REVIEWS 203 C. also holds that popular adulation could, under certain...

‘Why may not man one day be immortal?’: Population, perfectibility, and the immortality question in Godwin's Political Justice

Godwin's controversial claim for earthly immortality in the first edition of Political Justice has been largely dismissed by scholars as a flaw in his philosophy or as absurd speculation which Godwin cannily omitted from the later editions of the text. In this paper, I will demonstrate, not only that such claims were not nearly as idiosyncratic or eccentric as they have been presented, but that they constitute an intrinsic part of his overall philosophy regarding perfectibility and human progress. Moreover, by examining the revisions made to Political Justice in the second and third editions, it will be possible to prove that the essence of his argument regarding material immortality was not as radically altered as is widely accepted. I will further show how the population controversy of the 18th century forced Godwin to apply his perfectibilist theory to contemporary demographic challenges and how he defended his concept of immortality from both the principle of population and, more particularly, Malthusian philosophy.