Steve Stewart Williams Life After Death Summary
Life After Death Reading Summary
"Life After Death" is the article published in Philosophy Now magazine in 2002, Issue 29. This article was written by Steve Stewart-Williams. The author of this article provided a guide that explored some of the arguments and evidence for and against survival and life after death. The article also gives an overview of why certain people hold different beliefs and theories.
Summary of Article
The article begins with a discussion of the overall theory of life after death. As humans, our religious and/or personal beliefs depends on what our own theory is when it comes to what happens to us after we pass. Each of these religions presents opinions on …show more content…
Some of this evidence includes paranormal phenomena, such as out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, ghost sightings, mediums communicating with the dead, and memories of past lives. For example, although there are no reasonable grounds to doubt that people sometimes have out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences, these experiences are plausibly explained in physiological and psychological terms. Williams believes that memories of past lives may be false memories, and ghost sightings misinterpretations of ambiguous stimuli. These possibilities do not in themselves prove that supernatural explanations are not called for. Nonetheless, wherever there is a plausible alternative explanation for a piece of evidence, we must at least concede that that evidence cannot justify a strong belief in a supernatural explanation. The author stressed the importance of anecdotal reports and how they are notoriously unreliable, and when reliable scientific methods are instituted, paranormal phenomena tend mysteriously to …show more content…
This begins ultimately with the writers' theory that "energy never just springs into existence or ceases to exist; it simply changes form" (Williams, 2002). It is important during this period to find out why the writer truly believes that the mind can live on after death. The article recommends that the mind of a deceased person could eventually transform to the point where we could no longer say the original mind still exists. However, although "the mind was a form of physical energy, the principle would not guarantee survival." (Williams, 2002). The writer believes that the mind transforms into a different form, thus able to live on after death.
After presenting the theory that the mind lives on, the writer includes a very different argument for life after death and that is that it starts from the observation that if life does not continue after death, there could be no justice. The writer believes that the unfairness of life in this world indicates that life must continue after death, for only if life continues can the scales of justice be balanced. To make the argument valid, he also includes an intermediate premise. The argument in full might then read as
"Life After Death" is the article published in Philosophy Now magazine in 2002, Issue 29. This article was written by Steve Stewart-Williams. The author of this article provided a guide that explored some of the arguments and evidence for and against survival and life after death. The article also gives an overview of why certain people hold different beliefs and theories.
Summary of Article
The article begins with a discussion of the overall theory of life after death. As humans, our religious and/or personal beliefs depends on what our own theory is when it comes to what happens to us after we pass. Each of these religions presents opinions on …show more content…
Some of this evidence includes paranormal phenomena, such as out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, ghost sightings, mediums communicating with the dead, and memories of past lives. For example, although there are no reasonable grounds to doubt that people sometimes have out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences, these experiences are plausibly explained in physiological and psychological terms. Williams believes that memories of past lives may be false memories, and ghost sightings misinterpretations of ambiguous stimuli. These possibilities do not in themselves prove that supernatural explanations are not called for. Nonetheless, wherever there is a plausible alternative explanation for a piece of evidence, we must at least concede that that evidence cannot justify a strong belief in a supernatural explanation. The author stressed the importance of anecdotal reports and how they are notoriously unreliable, and when reliable scientific methods are instituted, paranormal phenomena tend mysteriously to …show more content…
This begins ultimately with the writers' theory that "energy never just springs into existence or ceases to exist; it simply changes form" (Williams, 2002). It is important during this period to find out why the writer truly believes that the mind can live on after death. The article recommends that the mind of a deceased person could eventually transform to the point where we could no longer say the original mind still exists. However, although "the mind was a form of physical energy, the principle would not guarantee survival." (Williams, 2002). The writer believes that the mind transforms into a different form, thus able to live on after death.
After presenting the theory that the mind lives on, the writer includes a very different argument for life after death and that is that it starts from the observation that if life does not continue after death, there could be no justice. The writer believes that the unfairness of life in this world indicates that life must continue after death, for only if life continues can the scales of justice be balanced. To make the argument valid, he also includes an intermediate premise. The argument in full might then read as