Death is Not Final Essay

We tend to ask ourselves, if there is life after death, or is the concept just wishful thoughts in our minds about our transience? These notions have riveted the human race for decades. Most individuals view the concept of life after death in a religious perspective, although, a debate by the Intelligence Squared in the U.S. brought in three doctors and a physicist to take a scientific approach towards the discussion of life after death. This essay intends to reflect on the debate 'Death is not Final' carried on by Dr. Eben Alexander and Dr. Raymond Moody, supporting the motion and Dr. Steven Novella and Physicist Sean Carroll refuting the existence of life after death.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

On the night of the 'finality of death' debate within a tremendously civic discussion- with John Donovan as the moderator, - Dr. Alexander, the author of Proof of Heaven and a neurosurgeon, gave the opening proposition. Alexander narrated his journey into the life after death during a seven-day coma, from a murky, melancholy setting, whereby he only had an earthworm's eye-view,' on the extensions of a blue butterfly alongside an attractive flaxen lady into the conspicuous entrance and then happened to meet with God. Alexander's viewpoint gave the first evidence of consciousness which perseveres sovereignty of a functioning mind.

The author of Life After Life, Dr. Raymond Moody supported Alexander's idea. Moody brought reports of his several talks with individuals who had near-death experiences. The medical doctor and author stipulated that he came to know of hundreds of persons who have gone through comparable experiences to the individuals having near death experiences, although they were not close to death at all.

Physicist Sean Carroll, writer of The Particle at the End of the Universe, and cosmology research from the opposing side challenged Moody and Alexander. He described how susceptible human beings are to being certain of what they want to accept as the truth - such as narratives of numinous experiences. Sean claims to have not seen anyone before bringing back anything valuable from the near-death experiences; something that was not known to us such as the cure for Alzheimer's. He believes that these experiences are broadly practical to be socially conditioned.

Dr. Steven Novella, a clinical neurologist, supported his co-panelist, Sean Carroll. He contended that the human brain is a narrative generating machine. The brain hypotheses an individual's realism; while an injured brain misrepresents it. Novella said that the cognizance is a course of the brain itself. He also claimed that whatever an individual believes, feels, or thinks, is an activity taking place within the brain.

At the end of the debate, Novella and Carroll discharged near-death experiences which can be replicated with oxygen deficiency and drugs. While admitting that there is evidence against and for such experiences, Carroll alleged that the sort of telekinesis, or telepathy, or remote seeing under discussion is in absolute and total defilement of everything we apprehend concerning the existing rules of physics, the ultimate way in which energy and matter perform.

Both sides of the debate presented strong supports, but they still got challenged. For instance, Alexander' claim on the journey into Om's dark world where he stated that it took place in the middle of his coma, when the neocortex stopped functioning, got challenged. Novella asked him how he knew that it did not take place within the first hours of the coma or towards the end - a time in which the brain could have been more operational. Alexander failed to clarify this question. But on the other hand, he also put Novella into a stammering mode when he emphasized the absence of a neurosurgeon in the universe who could prove the origin of consciousness. Novella made a noble attempt to slap off the truth without unswervingly confessing; his evasion proposed that Alexander was right. Novella admitted that the manner in which the brain produces consciousness is unknown - failing to understand the method is different from stating its possibility -since we are not in the ultimate comprehension of what it is; it is not a white or black thing, he said.

Conclusion

At the end of the debate, the live audience was required to vote on the motion by pressing a keypad. The voting was also done initially before the start of the debate - the votes were on whether one agreed with the motion, disagreed, or if there was uncertainty. The initial results were to be compared with those gained after the debate, and the side with the greatest change was to be declared the winners. In the beginning, 31% of the audience voted against the motion with 37% supporting it and 12% were not sure of their stand. By the end of the debate, the results on the opposing side - that death is truly final-, rose by 15% to 46%, declaring their victory against the supporters whose result rose by 5% to 42%. The difference gap was not that huge, perhaps because Moody offered a tie between both sides. He initially supported the motion yet later claimed the solution to the questions on life after death are not just to come from science but the philosophical discipline of logic and critical thinking.

Work Cited

Intelligence Squared Debates. "Death is Not Final." Online Video. YouTube. YouTube, 8 May 2014. Web. 6 May 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0YtL5eiBYw