Death

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Physical Object ◽  
The Body ◽  
Eternal Life ◽  
Object A ◽  
Great Evil ◽  
Satisfactory Analysis ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Evil Of Death

Reflection on death gives rise to a variety of philosophical questions. One of the deepest of these is a question about the nature of death. Typically, philosophers interpret this question as a call for an analysis or definition of the concept of death. Plato, for example, proposed to define death as the separation of soul from body. However, this definition is not acceptable to those who think that there are no souls. It is also unacceptable to anyone who thinks that plants and lower animals have no souls, but can nonetheless die. Others have defined death simply as the cessation of life. This too is problematic, since an organism that goes into suspended animation ceases to live, but may not actually die. Death is described as ‘mysterious’, but neither is it clear what this means. Suppose we cannot formulate a satisfactory analysis of the concept of death: in this respect death would be mysterious, but no more so than any other concept that defies analysis. Some have said that what makes death especially mysterious and frightening is the fact that we cannot know what it will be like. Death is typically regarded as a great evil, especially if it strikes someone too soon. However, Epicurus and others argued that death cannot harm those who die, since people go out of existence when they die, and people cannot be harmed at times when they do not exist. Others have countered that the evil of death may lie in the fact that death deprives us of the goods we would have enjoyed if we had lived. On this view, death may be a great evil for a person, even if they cease to exist at the moment of death. Philosophers have also been concerned with the question of whether people can survive death. This is open to several interpretations, depending on what we understand to be people and what we mean by ‘survive’. Traditional materialists take each person to be a purely physical object – a human body. Since human bodies generally continue to exist after death, such materialists presumably must say that we generally survive death. However, such survival would be of little value to the deceased, since the surviving entity is just a lifeless corpse. Dualists take each person to have both a body and a soul. A dualist may maintain that at death the soul separates from the body, thereby continuing to enjoy (or suffer) various experiences after the body has died. Some who believe in survival think that the eternal life of the soul after bodily death can be a good beyond comparison. But Bernard Williams has argued that eternal life would be profoundly unattractive. If we imagine ourselves perpetually stuck at a given age, we may reasonably fear that eternal life will eventually become rather boring. On the other hand, if we imagine ourselves experiencing an endless sequence of varied ‘lives’, each disconnected from the others, then it is questionable whether it will in fact be ‘one person’ who lives eternally. Finally, there are questions about death and the meaning of life. Suppose death marks the end of all conscious experience – would our lives be then rendered meaningless? Or would the fact of impending death help us to recognize the value of our lives, and thereby give deeper meaning to life?

scholarly journals Post-Newtonian treatise on the rotational motion of a finite body

1986 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 35-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Fukushima
Keyword(s):  
Angular Momentum ◽  
Rigid Body ◽  
Angular Acceleration ◽  
Relative Magnitude ◽  
The Body ◽  
Coordinate Systems ◽  
Functional Forms ◽  
Finite Body ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Definition Of

The definition of the angular momentum of a finite body is given in the post-Newtonian framework. The non-rotating and the rigidly rotating proper reference frame(PRF)s attached to the body are introduced as the basic coordinate systems. The rigid body in the post-Newtonian framework is defined as the body resting in a rigidly rotating PRF of the body. The feasibility of this rigidity is assured by assuming suitable functional forms of the density and the stress tensor of the body. The evaluation of the time variation of the angular momentum in the above two coordinate systems leads to the post-Newtonian Euler's equation of motion of a rigid body. The distinctive feature of this equation is that both the moment of inertia and the torque are functions of the angular velocity and the angular acceleration. The obtained equation is solved for a homogeneous spheroid suffering no torque. The post-Newtonian correction to the Newtonian free precession is a linear combination of the second, fourth and sixth harmonics of the precessional frequency. The relative magnitude of the correction is so small as of order of 10−23 in the case of the Earth.

Resurrection of the Body: Continuity in Christ through Death in Christ

2021 ◽  
pp. 002114002110176
Author(s):  
David J. Norman
Keyword(s):  
Spiritual Transformation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Eternal Life ◽  
Physical Body ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
2 Corinthians ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Spiritual Body ◽  
The Church

This article examines the question of when the resurrection of the body begins. Matthew 27:51–53 testifies to the resurrection of bodies on Good Friday; and 2 Corinthians 5:1 speaks of those who die in Christ receiving a building/body from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Eternal life begins for Christians with baptism into Christ’s death; they become members of his Body, the Church. Through the presence of Christ’s Spirit, our bodies undergo a spiritual transformation up to the moment of death. Those who die in Christ pass from resurrected life in the physical body to the fullness of resurrected life at death in Christ’s spiritual body. Whether one is in the (physical) body and away from the Lord or with the Lord and away from the (physical) body, one remains in Christ.

scholarly journals Dell’incertezza: che cosa provano i pazienti in PVS?

2006 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilia Barile
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Vegetative State ◽  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Persistent Vegetative State ◽  
Basic Feature ◽  
The Body ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
Common Definition ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Cortical Functions

Obiettivo di questo intervento, critico nei confronti delle posizioni funzionaliste in ambito bioetico, non è tanto opporvi il principio uguale e contrario della sacralità della vita, quanto, piuttosto, evidenziare le contraddizioni di tali posizioni con le loro stesse premesse. Allo stato attuale, infatti, i riscontri scientifici su cui si basa la definizione della coscienza, ad esempio, che, secondo queste stesse concezioni, è uno dei tratti distintivi della persona, sono tutt’altro che inoppugnabili. A livello teoretico, poi, riguardo alla “coscienza” ci sembra onesto riconoscere che, allo stato attuale, di certo esiste solo una sterminata bibliografia di filosofia della mente; non si dispone, infatti, di una teoria generale e unificata nemmeno su cosa significhi “sentire”, “provare” qualcosa, che è, poi, uno dei modi per tentare di “dire” la coscienza. In ambito neuroscientifico, le ricerche di A. Damasio, qui proposte, stanno contribuendo a demolire quella vera e propria “mistica del cervello” alla base dell’equazione persona=pensiero=cervello formulata dalle posizioni funzionaliste di matrice cognitivista. Dai suoi esperimenti emerge una differenza tra “sentire” (feeling) e “sapere” (knowing), generalmente considerati aspetti inscindibili dell’esperienza cosciente; gli stessi, inoltre, suggeriscono l’esistenza di diversi livelli di stati di coscienza, radicati a livello corporeo, prima ancora che corticale. Pur non essendosi il neurobiologo mai occupato direttamente di problemi bioetici, né della definizione dello stato vegetativo, le sue conclusioni ci sembrano particolarmente rilevanti nel caso dei pazienti in PVS, la cui corteccia è probabilmente distrutta in modo irrimediabile, ma che pure hanno un corpo. A causa della distruzione dell’attività emisferica, detti pazienti molto probabilmente non sono più capaci di pensare, di avere accesso ai contenuti di coscienza; ma soffrono? hanno paura? si emozionano? Quando gli stati superiori sono distrutti, insomma, ma il corpo c’è, è ancora possibile “provare” qualcosa? In coda di articolo, infine, si richiama l’attenzione del lettore su uno scivolamento semantico apparentemente innocuo: la consuetudine linguistica di definire lo stato vegetativo in termini di “morte” (seppur solo “corticale”), infatti, sembra suggerire una scelta, insita nei termini adoperati, che si orienta sempre più pressantemente nella direzione di una illegittima assimilazione di questi due stati, al fine di trarne conseguenze pratiche analoghe. ---------- In this article the author’s aim is not simply opposing the principle of the sacrality of life to the quality one, but rather underlining the inner contradictions of the functional positions in bioethics with their own assumptions. The definition of consciousness, e.g., (that, by these same positions, is a basic feature in defining the concept of person) is grounded on neuroscientifical data still in progress. Nowadays, we have not a common definition of “consciousness”, neither from a theoretical point of view; on the contrary, for sure there exists an endless bibliography in philosophy of mind… We don’t even have a general and unified theory on “feeling”, that is only one way of defining “consciousness”. The article proposes some of Damasio’s researches in neuroscience against the functional issue (grounded on the cognitive paradigm) that person=thought= brain, based on a sort of “mystique” of the brain. In his experiments we can find a difference between “feeling” and “knowing”, always considered connected features in conscious experience, conceived as a high level phenomenon only. On the contrary, there is a level of feeling (background feeling) coming from the body experience, before the cortical one: there are different levels of consciousness too, all intimately connected to the body. Even if Damasio has never approached bioethical problems or persistent vegetative state (PVS) definition, his conclusions seem particularly remarkable for this kind of patients. Pvs people, whose cortical functions are (probably) completely destroyed, have still a body. Their brain doesn’t work any more; so, they (probably) have no possibility of thinking or having an access to their conscious contents; but do they suffer pain? Are they afraid of anything? Do they have any feeling? In sum, when cortical functions are destroyed, but there is still a body, is it possible feeling anything any more? At the end of the article, the author focuses the reader’s attention on a dangerous semantic “slippery slope”; the linguistic habit of speaking about vegetative state in terms of death (though only a cortical one) implies an implicit choice, following from the same words used. Pvs patients should be not considered as still alive, but as already dead, at the end. This arbitrary comparison should legitimate some people’s request, for example, to explant Pvs’s organs, just like it happens for people already dead.

The materiality of conflict memory: Reflections from contemporary Italy

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-461
Author(s):  
Sarah De Nardi
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Physical Object ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Object A ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Second World ◽  
Opening Up

The process and project of rememory (after Toni Morrison’s Beloved, 1987) may be linked with a politics of hope – to exorcise, to move on, to empower; rememories are emergent ‘sites of feeling’ capable of triggering bodily reactions and emotional responses. This article takes stock of some emergent traces of post-conflict materialities that can be explored through storytelling, in this case, of the civil war between fascists and anti-fascists in Italy during the Second World War (1943–1945). The author reflects on the cathartic capacity of rememory through two wartime storytelling ‘experiments’. In a town square, the Surviving Thing is the handed-down memory of two executions, one on each side, haunting the place but without physical in situ traces of those acts. In 2014, veteran fascists and anti-fascists and their descendants re-enacted violent episodes on both sides that had left no visible or tangible traces. They used spatial clues in archival photographs, triangulating the traces to conjure up spectral geographies of death on both political sides, to ‘get closure’. In another example, a Surviving Thing is present as a physical object (a letter) without mnemonic trace. In 2012, an ex-partisan paid tribute to unsung heroes of the local resistance by writing an open letter that commemorated their bravery. While also looking for closure (or perhaps an opening up?), she wrote to dispel the oblivion to which history banished the boys’ actions – to fill an absence with an affectual presence. The well-thumbed sheet is thus animated in the moment of witnessing through a loving act of rememory. The two post-conflict sites reveal something of the affectual and cathartic capacity of traces that survive and those that do not. Overall, rememories perform intangible affects that frame the nuanced social legacies of conflict, while the ‘experiments’ embody the centrality of storytelling to the material culture of post-conflict societies.

Eschatological Expectation in the Works of J. S. Bach

1994 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 217-223
Author(s):  
Jan R. Luth
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Eternal Life ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Moment

When we look at the texts with which Bach was involved, we discover that eschatology has several meanings. In many texts we find a wish for death, which is the moment in which the body finds rest and the soul is liberated from sin. Dying means also standing before Jesus, not at the day of final judgement, but immediately after death. A difference is made between the body, which is buried, and the soul, which is ascending. Sometimes death is not glorified, because one also knows the pangs of death. However death remains welcome, because all necessities disappear. Dying means going to heaven and enjoying eternal rest. The body is the dress of mortality and is given back to the earth, and then begins the time in which the faithful are with Christ. One can take leave from the sinful world with pleasure. We find this approach—that eternal life starts with dying—much more than eschatology seen as the time of the return of Christ and final judgement. So let us look at the exceptions.

scholarly journals PREDICTIVE DEFINITION OF THE SEVERITY OF CLOSED CHEST AND ABDOMINAL TRAUMA CAUSED BY SHOTS FROM 12-GAUGE "FORT-500" RIFLES WITH SHOCK-TRAUMATIC BULLETS OF "TEREN-12P" CARTRIDGES

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
O.M. Hurov ◽  
V.V. Sapielkin ◽  
V.V. Shcherbak ◽  
D.B. Hladkykh ◽  
D.O. Lys
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Blunt Injury ◽  
Initial Speed ◽  
Combined Method ◽  
Closed Chest ◽  
Speed Range ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Firing Distance

Objective – the predictive definition of the severity of closed chest and abdominal traumaaccording to the reduced AIS injury scale when firing at various distances from "Fort-500" rifles with shock-traumatic bullets of "Teren-12P" cartridges, depending on theirballistic and energetic characteristics in contact with the human body.Material and methods. To establish the speed of bullets of cartridges "Teren-12P" atvarious distances of the shot in the conditions of KhNSC «Hon. Prof. M. S. BokariusForensic Science Institute» experimental shots from the "Fort-500A" and "Fort-500M1"pump-action guns were conducted. In total, two series of 25 shots were fired from eachgun. The values of the velocities of the bullets at the moment of the firing were measuredusing optoelectronic complexes. The determination of the parameters of the trajectory ofthe flight of bullets was carried out by a combined method by means of calculations basedon the results of experimental shots. The obtained data were processed using licensedMicrosoft Excel spreadsheets.Results. According to the research results, it has been found that the ballistic coefficient of the bullet of the "Teren-12P" cartridge is 47.3 kg/m2. This made it possible to determinethe ranges of minimum and maximum speeds of bullets at different shooting distances.Analysis of the data showed that in some cases the speed of bullets at a distance of 3.5m significantly exceeded the speed range declared by the manufacturer of the cartridges.According to the calculated values, according to the literature data, the graphs of thedistribution of the BC blunt injury criterion and the reduced AIS damage scale wereplotted depending on the distance of the shot for the minimum and maximum bullet speedsof the "Teren-12P" cartridges. According to the graphs, when the "Teren-12P" bulletsare fired at their maximum speeds, there is a 50% risk of a closed chest and abdominalinjury according to AIS -2 – AIS-3 at all distances up to 50 m. Even at minimum bulletspeeds cartridges "Teren-12P" there is a 50% risk of formation of a closed abdominaltrauma according to AIS-2 – AIS-3 with shots from a distance of up to 40 m, and chestinjuries – up to 30 m. Closed trauma to these areas of the body according to AIS-4 can bepredictably caused by shots from a distance of up to 10 m.Conclusions. A significant range of variability in the initial speeds of elastic bullets canlead to an incorrect expert estimate of the firing distance due to the fact that similargunshot wounds can be caused by both a bullet with a high initial speed from a longrange of a shot and a bullet with a low initial speed from a close firing distance. Whenthe "Teren-12P" bullets are fired from "Fort-500" rifles, there is a 50 % risk of a closedchest and abdominal injury according to AIS -2 – AIS-3 at all shooting distances up to50 m. Chest and abdominal injuries according to AIS -4 can be predictably caused whenfired from distances up to 10 m. The results obtained can be used in carrying out complexforensic examinations in cases of the use of "Teren-12P" cartridges.

scholarly journals The Doctrine of St. Nicholas Cabasilas on the Eucharist as Sacrifice

2021 ◽  
pp. 151-177
Author(s):  
Вадим Евгеньевич Елиманов
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
The Body ◽  
State Change ◽  
Semantic Relationship ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Sacrifice ◽  
The Church

Данная статья представляет собой попытку системной реконструкции учения св. Николая Кавасилы о Евхаристии как Жертве. В труде св. Николая «Изъяснение Божественной литургии» Евхаристия предстаёт как Богочеловеческая Жертва, в которой Церковь в целом и каждый христианин в частности под видом даров (хлеба и вина) приносит саму себя, свою жизнь в жертву Богу. Бог в ответ на это дароприношение подаёт Саму Жизнь, Самого Себя. Важным открытием стало определение смысловой связи между этапами совершения Евхаристической Жертвы, этапами совершения ветхозаветных жертв и этапами домостроительства спасения, совершённого Христом. Было установлено, что всякая жертва совершается в момент изменения состояния: когда «дар» (δῶρον) становится «жертвой» (θυσία). Если Голгофская Жертва совершилась через распятие, когда Христос из «Дара» Богу стал «Жертвой» Ему, а ветхозаветные кровавые жертвы совершались через заклание, когда жертвенное животное из дара становилось жертвой Богу; то Евхаристическая Жертва совершается через преложение (μεταβολή), когда дары (хлеб и вино) становятся истинной Жертвой, то есть Телом и Кровью Агнца Христа. This article is an attempt at a systematic reconstruction of the doctrine of st. Nicholas Cabasilas on the Eucharist as Sacrifice. In the work of st. Nicholas «Commentary on the Divine Liturgy», the Eucharist appears as a God-Human Sacrifice, in which the Church as a whole, and every Christian in particular, under the guise of gifts (bread and wine), offers itself, its life as a sacrifice to God. God responds to this gift and gives back Life itself, Himself. An important discovery was the definition of the semantic relationship between the stages of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the stages of the Old Testament sacrifices, and the stages of The Economy of Salvation, accomplished by Christ. It was established that every sacrifice is made at the moment of state change: when a «gift» (δῶρον) becomes a «sacrifice» (θυσία). If the Sacrifice of Calvary was made by crucifixion, when Christ from the «Gift» to God became the «Sacrifice» to Him, and blood sacrifices in the Old Testament were made by slaughter, when the sacrificial animal from the gift became the sacrifice to God; then the Eucharistic Sacrifice is performed by the transformation (μεταβολή), when the gifts (bread and wine) become the true Sacrifice, i.e., the Body and Blood of the Lamb of Christ.

Derrida on Pornography: Putting (It) Up for Sale

Derrida Today ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Morris
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
English Translation ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Past ◽  
French Original ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Critical Discourses ◽  
Academic Debate

Over the past thirty years, academic debate over pornography in the discourses of feminism and cultural studies has foundered on questions of the performative and of the word's definition. In the polylogue of Droit de regards, pornography is defined as la mise en vente that is taking place in the act of exegesis in progress. (Wills's idiomatic English translation includes an ‘it’ that is absent in the French original). The definition in Droit de regards alludes to the word's etymology (writing by or about prostitutes) but leaves the referent of the ‘sale’ suspended. Pornography as la mise en vente boldly restates the necessary iterability of the sign and anticipates two of Derrida's late arguments: that there is no ‘the’ body and that performatives may be powerless. Deriving a definition of pornography from a truncated etymology exemplifies the prosthesis of origin and challenges other critical discourses to explain how pornography can be understood as anything more than ‘putting (it) up for sale’.

Differenzierungen im Begriff, Gegenwart‘ bei Husserl und Merleau-Ponty

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-54
Author(s):  
Jörg Zimmer
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
The Body ◽  
Fundamental Concept ◽  
Phenomenological Description ◽  
Philosophy Of Time ◽  
Phenomenology Of Perception ◽  
The World ◽  
Classical Philosophy ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Empty Time

In classical philosophy of time, present time mainly has been considered in its fleetingness: it is transition, in the Platonic meaning of the sudden or in the Aristotelian sense of discreet moment and isolated intensity that escapes possible perception. Through the idea of subjective constitution of time, Husserl’s phenomenology tries to spread the moment. He transcends the idea of linear and empty time in modern philosophy. Phenomenological description of time experience analyses the filled character of the moment that can be detained in the performance of consciousness. As a consequence of the temporality of consciousness, he nevertheless remains in the temporal conception of presence. The phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, however, is able to grasp the spacial meaning of presence. In his perspective of a phenomenology of perception, presence can be understood as a space surrounding the body, as a field of present things given in perception. Merleau-Ponty recovers the ancient sense of ‘praesentia’ as a fundamental concept of being in the world.

scholarly journals Experiential ownership and body ownership are different phenomena

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Caleb Liang ◽  
Wen-Hsiang Lin ◽  
Tai-Yuan Chang ◽  
Chi-Hong Chen ◽  
Chen-Wei Wu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Distinct Type ◽  
Body Part ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Rubber Hand ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
The One ◽  
First Time ◽  
Full Body

AbstractBody ownership concerns what it is like to feel a body part or a full body as mine, and has become a prominent area of study. We propose that there is a closely related type of bodily self-consciousness largely neglected by researchers—experiential ownership. It refers to the sense that I am the one who is having a conscious experience. Are body ownership and experiential ownership actually the same phenomenon or are they genuinely different? In our experiments, the participant watched a rubber hand or someone else’s body from the first-person perspective and was touched either synchronously or asynchronously. The main findings: (1) The sense of body ownership was hindered in the asynchronous conditions of both the body-part and the full-body experiments. However, a strong sense of experiential ownership was observed in those conditions. (2) We found the opposite when the participants’ responses were measured after tactile stimulations had ceased for 5 s. In the synchronous conditions of another set of body-part and full-body experiments, only experiential ownership was blocked but not body ownership. These results demonstrate for the first time the double dissociation between body ownership and experiential ownership. Experiential ownership is indeed a distinct type of bodily self-consciousness.

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