Why immortality alone will not get me to the afterlife

摘要

Recent research in the cognitive science of religion suggests that humans intuitively believe that others survive death. In response to this finding, three cognitive theories have been offered to explain this: the simulation constraint theory (Bering, 20025. Bering, JM. 2002. Intuitive conceptions of dead agents' minds: The natural foundations of afterlife beliefs as phenomenological boundary. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2: 263-308. [CrossRef]View all references); the imaginative obstacle theory (Nichols, 200736. Nichols, S. 2007. Imagination and immortality: Thinking of me. Synthese, 159: 215-233. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references); and terror management theory (Pyszczynski, Rothschild, & Abdollahi, 2008). First, I provide a critical analysis of each of these theories. Second, I argue that these theories, while perhaps explaining why one would believe in his own personal immortality, leave an explanatory gap in that they do not explain why one would intuitively attribute survival of death to others. To fill in the gap, I offer a cognitive theory based on offline social reasoning and social embodiment which provides for the belief in an eternal social realm in which the deceased survive—the afterlife.View full textDownload full textKeywordsAfterlife, Cartesian Substance Dualism, Explanatory Gap, Imaginative Obstacle, Immortality, Intuitive Beliefs, Offline Social Reasoning, Simulation Constraint, Social Embodiment, Terror Management TheoryRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2011.559620