Interview with Igor Vishev to the Science for Life Extension Foundation

According to the concept of practical immortality of a person and his real resurrection, the radical extension of human life must go through three stages: gerontological - only the period of old age is extended, juvenile - the period of youth is extended, immortalological - practical immortality of a person is achieved, his real personal immortality, i.e. the fatality and hopelessness of death, the tragedy of individual human existence are eliminated.

- What do you mean by the concept of “practical immortality”?

By practical immortality of a person we should understand not absolute immortality, as in religion, but relative immortality, that is, the ability to live indefinitely, maintaining the optimal functional characteristics of the body, which will allow a person to remain young and not progress to aging.

- How much is unlimited?

For so long that one could say that man became practically immortal. Practical immortality is the absence of any species limits. Because otherwise, no matter how distant these borders may be, if they continue to exist, then the fatality and tragedy of death will remain.

Of course, it is better if people live not 70-80 years or 100, but 200, 500, 1000, and more. But if they approach, albeit to a very distant limit, then the whole problem of loss of life for a person will become relevant again. Therefore, the main task of scientific progress is the elimination of all limits and the creation of opportunities for an infinitely long life.

I believe that the concept of “practical immortality” very clearly, better than any other, expresses this position, its ideological meaning and sound.

At the same time, it is necessary to emphasize one more fundamentally important point. The practical immortality of a person, as relative immortality, does not, in principle, exclude the possibility of death from one or another external cause (trauma, unknown disease, etc.). Therefore, the problem arises of returning a person to life, restoring it, or, in other words, his real resurrection. The modern name of the concept precisely expresses these two main components.

- When and why did you think about immortality?

Here, it seems to me, some circumstances coincided happily (as is usually the case). The first of them was that while studying in the 3rd and 4th years of the Faculty of Philosophy at Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov I wrote term papers on the categories “law” and “regularity”.

One of the most significant and important ideas, somehow very clearly and deeply realized and felt by me, was that laws can change their effect depending on changing conditions. This has been known for a long time, but, as it seems to me, firstly, it was seriously underestimated, and therefore did not become an ideological and methodological method of research; secondly, it was not applied when considering the problem of death and immortality of man. That is, in order to eliminate the tragic consequences of the law of human aging and death, it is necessary to change the conditions of its action. How to do it? I was sure that over time science would find the answer to this question.

The second coincidence was that on October 4, 1957, the first artificial satellite PS-1 was launched into Earth orbit in our country. The signal he sent from space was greeted with delight and colossal enthusiasm all over the world!

And the third significant circumstance was the birth of a daughter. An abstract idea of ​​the general fate of people - birth, youth, blossoming, and then aging and death - somehow sharply emotionally focused on this particular little man, just born and who faces a universal, inevitable tragic ending.

And several questions immediately arose that were quite logical and fascinating in their interconnection. And in fact, why, at a time when the era of practical space exploration began - people have reached such heights - they send satellites into space, will soon fly into space themselves, but continue to give in to death, still put up with it?!

Of course, both aging and death are subject to corresponding laws. But if laws can be changed by changing the conditions of their operation, then why is the problem not posed this way in this case? These thoughts could no longer leave me. I continued to think a lot on this topic, read, studied the opinions of philosophers and natural scientists, conducted scientific research, and wrote. And I’ve been serving this idea for half a century. And my conviction that practical immortality is feasible is only growing stronger every year.

But remembering here about my daughter and my thoughts about her universal fate, I did not know even then that she would actually turn out to be even worse, even more tragic. Yes, it’s true what they say, old age is not joy. But the joy is to live to old age. My daughter was unable to experience this joy. And her premature death became for me an everlastingly bitter, but at the same time never weakening factor in the struggle against the death of people, for the affirmation of their life.

- How did you start your research?

I understood that this was a grandiose idea, system-forming, affecting almost everything - both the personal and social existence of a person. It was clearly beyond my strength; it required serious preparation. Initially, at the Faculty of Philosophy, I studied in a group of logicians. But this science seemed somehow formalized and boring to me. I was more interested in philosophical problems of natural science, and I moved to the physics team. He defended his thesis on the topic “The epistemological significance of mathematics in quantum mechanics.”

After graduating from Moscow State University, I was assigned as an assistant to the Chelyabinsk Polytechnic Institute, where I began teaching seminars on philosophy and giving lectures on scientific atheism. I became more and more interested in the new subject, since I had loved history since school, and it is extremely interesting in religion and atheism. So, I entered correspondence graduate school in the department of history and theory of atheism at my native Faculty of Philosophy, Moscow State University, and in 1964 defended my Ph.D. thesis, “The Social and Moral Meaning of the Ten Biblical Commandments.” During this period, naturally, I began to study in more detail the teachings of religions about posthumous existence. This increasingly brought me back to my old thoughts about real human immortality.

And when I became an assistant professor in 1968, I took up the topic of immortality in earnest. I wanted to immediately take up the book; the material for it had mostly already been accumulated, but I understood that it would not work under the existing conditions of the dominance of the suicide paradigm. So, it was necessary to prepare the “ground” for the book. It took twenty years (almost like Dumas). ...Having put off work on the book for an indefinite period and occupied myself with articles, I naturally did not rule out defending a doctoral dissertation in the future, albeit distant. Colleagues advised me, they say, leave or at least postpone for the future your “dubious” topic of immortality, take some more “neutral”, so to speak, more “dissertation”, for example, “philosophical problems of gerontology” - and articles in reputable publications on the topic there are, and the book will be easier to write, and it is unlikely that any special difficulties will arise with its publication. Of course there was a reason for this. But I was well aware that this would distract me from my cherished topic and goal for a long time, and perhaps forever. Such a risk was not part of my plans; I had no right to take it. I decided that I would get a doctorate, so it would work out. And no means no, “we’ll survive.”

- What topic did you ultimately write your doctoral dissertation on?

The problem of death and immortality of man: formation, evolution, prospects for solution. The defense took place in October 1990.

- How long did it take to develop it?

It's like counting. One might say, half a century since I began to think about this problem. Or - twenty years ago, when the first publications on the topic appeared. You could say three or four years. It was a time of intense but also interesting work.

Over the past half century, science has made an incredible leap in development. How did this affect the concept of practical immortality?

Now, as I already mentioned, it is based not only on the idea of ​​practical immortality, but also on the resurrection of man. Moreover, this addition appeared in this concept quite recently.

- In connection with what scientific research, achievements, the concept was finalized?

This was due to the emergence of the prospect of human cloning. It was then that the idea of ​​resurrection, albeit abstractly and remotely, began to emerge.

Indeed, for example, materialism throughout its history, until very recently, proceeded from the fact that aging and death are a consequence of the action of eternal and immutable laws. Thus, Friedrich Engels considered it banal to say that all people must die, that death is an essential moment of life, is contained in it in the embryo and is therefore its necessary result. He even argued that to live means to die.

The majority of Marxists still adhere to the same views. This has always made and continues to make scientific research in this area extremely difficult.

- But the topic of immortality worried many philosophers. How did its formation and development take place?

I highlight four main milestones in the development of the idea of ​​human immortality. First of all, this is the philosophy of Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov’s “common cause” - the cause of uniting humanity around the problem of the practical achievement of immortality. But the same Fedorov also wrote about the need to resurrect even generations that have already passed away.

Next, this, of course, is the cosmic philosophy of Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, which he considered his highest achievement. He tried to translate materialist philosophy onto a more optimistic track, arguing that there is no subjective death, that everything is a continuous flow of life. However, he solved the problem of immortality in relation to people not yet in a personal form.

I consider the new ideology of anarchist-biocosmists to be a modern formulation of the problem under consideration. They had three main ideas: achieving personal immortality; life in space and resurrection.

And here I would also name Maxim Gorky.

- Did Gorky also think about immortality?

Gorky did not just think, he enthusiastically argued that, in the end, people will achieve personal immortality. His great merit is that in 1932, mainly on the initiative of Gorky and a number of scientists, the Leningrad State Institute of Experimental Medicine was reorganized into the All-Union Institute. Initially, his main goal of research was to be the fight against death, for human life, for his immortality. But the history of the 20th century in Russia took shape so dramatically and even tragically that there was no way to count on a balanced development of this idea, much less its practical implementation.

- You came to the idea of ​​practical immortality in the early 60s. What happened next? What did you decide to do then?

In 1963, in one of my works, I tried to stake out this idea. Without going into detail, I wrote that “one of the goals of scientific progress is to achieve the practical immortality of man.” But the editor, unfortunately, removed this thought of mine.

- When and where did the concept of “practical immortality” appear?

The concepts of “radical life extension” and “practical immortality” existed before me. But these were individual statements and small articles, with the exception of Astakhova. The first monograph on this topic, as far as I know, was prepared by me. In 1985, I deposited a large monographic manuscript “The Problem of Immortality” (468 pages) at the INION of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and some time later books began to be published, the first of which was called “Radical extension of human life: philosophical, social, natural science and moral aspects.” It was published in 1988 in Sverdlovsk, by the Ural University Publishing House. And later other books appeared.

The idea of ​​practical immortality is without a doubt the most revolutionary idea ever generated by humanity. And above all, because it concerns everyone, regardless of nationality, religion, political or any other beliefs. This idea offers humanity a change in ideological foundations. In Soviet times, a broad discussion of this problem, apparently, was out of the question?

Changing paradigms and established beliefs, especially worldviews, is very difficult. And those that have existed for thousands of years - even more so. I sometimes give students an example. About thirty years ago I was offered to write a large article on the topic of immortality for a reputable publication. Naturally, I readily agreed. The article consisted of two parts. The first outlined the history of the issue: theological, theological versions about the nature of the soul, about the posthumous fate of people, etc. And in the second part we were talking about new scientific approaches to considering these issues, precisely in the sense of achieving practical human immortality. The editors read the article and suggested leaving the first part and omitting the second. I was naturally upset, because for me it was she who was of main interest and value. And then, in order to complete the material and at least somehow express my position, I wrote in conclusion about the need for a real fight against real death. Without deciphering, without going into details, I thus expressed the idea of ​​​​the need to fight not only premature death, but also natural death, which from my point of view is both trouble and evil. But they didn't publish that either. ...I was simply furious when I read in a published article about the need for a real fight against premature death. The publication has lost all meaning for me. And in my memory there are many such examples.

I first raised the question of immortality at the 9th International Congress of Gerontologists in Kyiv in 1972. And the theses were published in the materials of the Congress. This was my first publication on this topic.

- When was the concept of “immortology” introduced?

In the article “Gerontology and Philosophy”, which was published in the 1st issue of the journal “Philosophical Sciences” for 1974, I finally applied the concept of “immortology”. This is how it was introduced into scientific use, for which I remain grateful to the editors of this journal.

- But why, exactly, immortalology?

This was, in my opinion, generally speaking, quite simple and obvious. Previously, and even now, the concept of “immortality” was used (Latin -im - without, mors. mortis - death) - literally “immortality”. But they usually denoted religious beliefs about the otherworldly existence of man, his afterlife. For such beliefs, strictly speaking, a more accurate designation is the concept of “postmortalism,” that is, belief in a posthumous, postmortem existence. Real death is not only not denied, but, on the contrary, is recognized as obligatory and even sanctified. Over time, scientific approaches to solving the problem of personal immortality, alternative to religious ones, appeared. There is a need to constantly distinguish and emphasize each time when talking about religious or scientific immortalism. This caused uncertainty, obvious inconvenience. So I proposed introducing this concept. Here we are certainly talking about scientific views, and there is no place for either religion or mysticism.

And then I had such a wonderful period when the articles began to appear, and somewhere from 1977, for eighteen years in a row, every September I went to Scientific Readings in memory of K.E. Tsiolkovsky in Kaluga. I read and published a lot of reports there. And in one of them I introduced the concept of “homo immortalis” - “immortal man”. It just more clearly expresses the meaning of all those aspirations associated today with the radical extension of life, because, like the concept of “practical immortality” of a person, it is more accurate in ideological and methodological terms.

- Indeed, a radical extension - how much is it - a hundred? two hundred? three hundred? And then - what's the limit?

Most likely, limits will arise sequentially, but, apparently, there are no insurmountable limits and are not foreseen, so the ultimate goal remains the same - to make human life limitless. This means that it needs to be expressed somehow specifically, adequately. Longevity in the gerontological classification is 90 years. And beyond that? Super longevity? But the task is to defeat death, to achieve precisely the real personal immortality of a person, that is, to achieve such a life expectancy when all species boundaries are eliminated, and it can be stated that a person has become practically immortal. That is why preference was given to the concept of “practical immortality”, which most fully and accurately expresses the ideological essence of the problem.

- But practical immortality does not exclude the possibility of death.

Practical immortality, as the ability to live indefinitely, does not exclude the possibility of death from some external causes. And therefore the question inevitably arises: how to bring a person back to life? It should not be that some were lucky enough to be immortal, while others passed away forever.

Before the start of research in the field of cloning, there were no real ways here. One of the promising prospects of cloning is the reproduction of dead organisms, even from their minimal fragments.

The emergence of these new ideas allowed me to significantly refine the concept of practical immortality of man, making a fundamentally important addition - “and his real resurrection.”

But why is there still no clearly expressed social order for immortality in society? Why do people often perceive the idea of ​​immortality more painfully than the idea of ​​death? And this despite the fact that the majority do not want to die.

I believe that there is such a social order. After all, solving the problem of preserving youth and radically prolonging human life, not to mention achieving the practical immortality of man and realizing the possibility of his resurrection, would solve such complex problems in all respects as a significant aging of the population, a reduction in the working period of a person’s life, the tendency of underpopulation of our planet and a lot others.

Another thing is that people did not realize all this properly; they developed different methods of consolation and self-consolation in the face of fatal death. It is familiar to them, familiar, they have come to terms with it, but real personal immortality is unexpected, unfamiliar, and this can even be scary. In other words, the main obstacle on the path to practical immortality, as already noted, can be considered precisely the mortal paradigm in people’s minds, the belief that death is a natural biological state of a person, but immortality is not, it is something artificial, contrary to all the laws of nature , which means - no matter what happens, let it be as it is.

All human history is the history of death, the history of mortals. We are all raised accordingly by the suicide culture, imbued with it from infancy. Everything in this world is built on it. And people for the most part, perhaps, are more prone to inertia than to creative impulse, and are not confident enough in their abilities. And changing such a worldview is always extremely difficult.

- What can change existing stereotypes in a person’s mind, in society?

We need some specific impressive result of scientific research. Efforts and means should be directed not only to propaganda, which, of course, is accessible and important, but in addition to this, research is needed that, at least indirectly, would confirm the validity of these hopes.

Undoubtedly, this will help change public opinion on this problem and will become a powerful argument in favor of the need for such research and trust in their results.

Gerontologists have a negative attitude towards the idea of ​​practical immortality. They have their own point of view on human life, their own beliefs, traditions. And at best, they agree to make old age painless, so that people fade away gradually, without much suffering. And although they recognize the possibility of juvenation, they do not recognize juvenology, which studies the reserves of the human body and ways to preserve youth, and immortality.

Therefore, this global problem can be solved most effectively and reliably only at the level of the state or states. The only way.

You have come such a long, difficult, intense life path and continue to walk along it. Where is the source of your optimism? What gives you the strength to be consistent in your efforts for so many years?

And in this case, most likely, we should also be talking about some favorable combination of certain factors. This, of course, is, first of all, the strongest emotional impulse of rejection of death associated with the birth of a daughter. But it turned out to be supported by a number of very serious theoretical considerations, and some other circumstances, as I have already mentioned. And since then I have not come across a single compelling argument against it. But the arguments in favor became more and more numerous.

This is also the existence of like-minded people, their direct or indirect support. I have never been a “voice crying in the wilderness.” I’m also lucky that people close to me and to me also share my beliefs. Of course, first of all, the wife. This is a special value and happiness!

My character probably also played a role. I had to face so many obstacles that anyone else would probably have given up long ago and given up on everything. But somehow I can’t do this. Depending on the circumstances, tactics may change, but the strategic goal remains the guiding star. I go to her until I reach her - both in small and large ways.

And the entire history of science convincingly testifies to the invincibility of the scientific search for truth and requires faithful service to it. Throughout my scientific journey, I, like my predecessors and like-minded people, have many times encountered misunderstandings. When I went from one editorial office to another in search of a publication opportunity, refusing, I was often told: “Well, try... If there is something here, then in the end something will work out. In general, fight!”

And here the question inevitably arises: why not make it a principle to publish the ideas of scientists, make them the subject of discussion - silencing has never helped matters. In the end, the editors can stipulate their own attitude towards the published material.

Meanwhile, today, in the 21st century, when we talk about the need to defeat death, about achieving real personal immortality and the possibility of resurrecting a person, people often do not even bother to think about this topic, but with some, sometimes even masochistic pleasure , begin to look for counter-arguments. It would seem, why look for them? Why create additional obstacles? Everyone has a chance to die. So there's nothing to lose here. Isn't it better to try to join forces and find ways to avoid it? Well, it won’t work out, then yes, perhaps some new convincing argument will appear that this is not feasible, although now no one and nothing is seriously talking about this. But, strange and sad as it may seem, neither modern humanity nor any individual country (maybe with the exception of Japan, as far as I know) even sets such a goal. This is still very surprising! After all, people continue to die today, but no anti-death measures are taken. How so?!

Yes, until we learned to prevent death. But the same KrioRus is ready to offer its services to use cryonics facilities. Of course, there is, of course, no 100 percent guarantee yet, but there is no choice yet. And here, whatever it is, is a chance.

And yet... Undoubtedly, science has stepped far forward over the past half century. Scientific and technological progress has already radically changed many things in our lives. And this inspiring process is irreversible. ...You ask where the source of my optimism is. He is both within me and outside of me. This is my inner conviction, supported by the entire progressive tradition of Russian philosophical thought and the unstoppability of scientific thought.

Achieving the practical immortality of man and his real resurrection today is moving from the realm of theory to practice. It is along this path that we should expect real and effective results of scientifically optimistic search in the near future.

Elena Vetrova spoke with Igor Vishev.

Life and death are two facets of human existence. Many philosophers believe that it is impossible to fully understand the essence of life without understanding the essence of death. The attitude towards death reveals the attitude towards life. Already in the teachings of Democritus the idea of ​​a dialectical relationship between life and death can be traced.

Man is the only creature who, throughout his entire life, is aware of its finitude, and does not simply feel its approach, like an animal.

From the point of view of science, death is, first of all, the death of the individual body, its transition to a special state incompatible with life.

In the philosophical understanding, death is a conscious necessity predetermined by human nature. As a rule, severe suffering makes a person think about death. Every person experiences the fear of death. Worries about himself, his loved ones and relatives. The fear of death has a depressing effect on a person. But the fear of death, paradoxically, is in a certain sense a useful phenomenon. Fear of death serves as a warning of impending danger. Having lost it, a person seems to lose his protective armor. It is the fear of death that keeps a person from actions and actions that are dangerous to life. Thus, the fear of death contributes to the preservation of the human race.

In religious teachings, the fear of death is “neutralized” by belief in the immortality of the soul.

In the myths of various peoples of the world, in addition to the earthly world, there is a kingdom of the dead. In the ideas of ancient peoples, death is not a natural, inevitable phenomenon, but is the result of the machinations of evil spirits, which, making their way into the human body, gradually destroy it. Therefore, according to mythological ideas, people must fight evil spirits and deities that bring death to humans. One of the ancient Greek myths tells how Zeus, angry with Sisyphus for treason, sent death to him, but Sisyphus put her in strong chains, and people stopped dying. However, Hades freed Death from his shackles and she defeated Sisyphus. This ancient Greek myth speaks of man's powerlessness in the fight against death, the futility of his attempts to cross the boundaries of life.

Philosophers also note the positive side of death. “Death is a blessing,” some of them say. According to M. Montaigne, death is not only a deliverance from disease, it is a deliverance from all kinds of suffering.

From a scientific point of view, death is a necessary, integral part of the existence of all living things. She is the regulator and organizer of life. All organisms in a favorable environment multiply exponentially. This powerful “pressure of life” would very quickly overwhelm the earth’s biosphere. Some generations make room for the life of others, and this is seen as the key to the evolution of organisms on the planet.

The problem of the possibility of life after the physical death of a person has worried humanity since ancient times.

Immortality is a concept that refers to the problem of life after death. This problem raises a number of philosophical questions. Immortality is some form of life after the death of the physical body or the infinitely long life of a specific person as a physical-spiritual being?

Philosophy, science and religion consider various options.

From a religious point of view, only the spiritual component of a person (soul) is immortal; the physical body must inevitably die.

Similar is the materialist point of view, widespread in philosophy, according to which only the fruits of human creative activity are immortal: ideas and works. They include scientific and philosophical ideas, works of art, literary and musical creativity, technical achievements, i.e. everything that is created by man and is of value to other people. Elements of a person’s life that do not disappear after his death also include children as a physical and spiritual continuation of a person, although not completely repeating himself. At the same time, we must remember that all human creations have a material embodiment, the bearers of ideas are people, and, therefore, after a certain period of time they can also cease to exist.

With all the variety of approaches to understanding human immortality, they can be combined into several typical options:

6. biosocial immortality – continuation of life in offspring and products of activity. This understanding is present not only in the materialist direction of philosophy, but also in the worldview of patriarchal and eastern cultures. P.S. Gurevich notes that any representative of these cultures tends to disappear, as it were, into other representatives of their kind. A person identifies himself not so much with himself as with his clan (tribe, clan).

7. creative immortality - continuation of oneself in the public consciousness through individual creativity, individual activity for the benefit of society.

8. theological immortality - earthly life is only a necessary stage on the path to true life - extraterrestrial.

9. naturalistic immortality - continuation of life in merging, unity with nature, feeling like a part of the world.

10. symbolic immortality - attempts to expand the boundaries of life by changing the state of consciousness, which is achieved with the help of medications and other means. The prototype of this form of immortality in patriarchal cultures were various festivals that created the illusion of the possibility of life in other forms.

But the problem of immortality is a subject of reflection not only by philosophers, but also by scientists. Research by S.P. Botkin and I.I. Mechnikov on studying the process of aging of the body and increasing life expectancy, V.I. Vernadsky, who put forward the idea of ​​the eternity of geological life, R. Moody, who studied the experience of people who experienced clinical death, S. Grof, devoted to the study of various states of human consciousness, N.P. Bekhtereva on the neurophysiology of the brain and many others provide more and more new data for understanding the problem of life, death and human immortality.

In the conditions of a rational civilization, it is impossible to prove the immortality (at least of the soul) of a person using standard logical and practical procedures, therefore, in the field of science, research into life after death encounters great difficulties.

At the beginning of the 20th century. American biologist Alexis Karel (Rockefeller Center in New York) conducted an experiment: a piece of the heart muscle of a chicken embryo was placed in conditions that provided nutrition and removal of waste products. The experiment lasted 35 years, and the tissue remained alive. The size of the piece doubled every 48 hours. New layers of tissue were periodically removed to provide nutrition and cleansing. This experiment showed the possibility of significantly extending the life of tissues and, consequently, organisms.

N. Berdyaev believed that the problem of immortality, the glorification of life as a universal value, is the most important problem of humanity. A person, in his opinion, is a creature facing death throughout his entire life, and not just in his last hour. He is fighting for life and immortality.

The theme of human immortality is gradually developing in the modern world into the theme of the immortality of humanity.

Sevinj Mammad Suleyman

“LIFE, DEATH, IMMORTALITY...”

Introduction. ……………………………………………………………….……….3

Man in search of meaning. Meaning of life. ………………………….………...6

About the longevity of human life. ………………………………….……….9

The problem of death. The meaning of death. …………………………………………….eleven

Mortal soul. …………………………………………………………………………………28

Immortality of personality. ………………………………………………………..29

Conclusion. ………………………………………………………………………………….……..32

Bibliography. …………………………………………………………...33

Introduction

Since ancient times, man has asked himself the question of what is the essence of human existence. Many philosophers and thinkers have tried to answer why a person lives, why he came into this world, why he dies and what happens to him after death.

Life and death are eternal themes in the spiritual culture of humanity in all its divisions. Prophets and founders of religions, philosophers and moralists, figures of art and literature, teachers and doctors thought about them. There is hardly an adult who, sooner or later, would not think about the meaning of his existence, his impending death and the achievement of immortality. These thoughts come to the minds of children and very young people, as evidenced in poetry and prose, dramas and tragedies, letters and diaries. Only early childhood or senile insanity relieves a person of the need to solve these problems.

In fact, we are talking about the triad: life - death - immortality, since all the spiritual systems of humanity proceeded from the idea of ​​​​the contradictory unity of these phenomena. The greatest attention here was paid to death and the acquisition of immortality in another life, and human life itself was interpreted as a moment allotted to a person so that he could adequately prepare for death and immortality.

With a few exceptions, all times and peoples have spoken quite negatively about life. Life is suffering (Buddha, Schopenhauer, etc.); life is a dream (Plato, Pascal); life is an abyss of evil (Ancient Egypt); “Life is a struggle and a journey through a foreign land” (Marcus Aurelius); “Life is a fool's tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, but without meaning” (Shakespeare); “All human life is deeply immersed in untruth” (Nietzsche), etc.

Proverbs and sayings of different nations like “Life is a penny” speak about this. Ortega y Gasset defined man neither as a body nor as a spirit, but as a specifically human drama. Indeed, in this sense, the life of every person is dramatic and tragic: no matter how successfully life turns out, no matter how long it is, its end is inevitable. The Greek sage Epicurus said this: “Accustom yourself to the idea that death has nothing to do with us. When we exist, death is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist.”

Death and potential immortality are the most powerful lure for the philosophical mind, for all our life's affairs must, one way or another, be measured against the eternal. Man is doomed to think about life and death, and this is his difference from an animal, which is mortal, but does not know about it. Death in general is the price to pay for the complication of a biological system. Single-celled organisms are practically immortal and the amoeba is a happy creature in this sense.

When an organism becomes multicellular, a mechanism of self-destruction, as it were, is built into it at a certain stage of development, associated with the genome.

For centuries, the best minds of humanity have been trying to at least theoretically refute this thesis, prove, and then bring real immortality to life. However, the ideal of such immortality is not the existence of an amoeba and not an angelic life in a better world. From this point of view, a person should live forever, being in the constant prime of life. A person cannot come to terms with the fact that he will have to leave this magnificent world where life is in full swing. To be an eternal spectator of this grandiose picture of the Universe, not to experience the “saturation of days” like the biblical prophets - could anything be more tempting? But, thinking about this, you begin to understand that death is perhaps the only thing before which everyone is equal.

But even if a person is guided in his life by certain moral goals and uses adequate means to achieve them, he knows that he cannot always and not in all cases achieve the desired result, which in moral categories has been designated at all times as good, truth, justice ... And the question arises: well, is his life - the one and only - to some extent equalized with the lives of those who live aimlessly, meaninglessly and immorally, who create evil, lies and injustice? This question is all the more significant because the life of every person is not endless, but ends with death, retirement. As a result, do they not lose the meaning of defining it in the moral categories of good and evil, truth and lies, justice and injustice? Does everything pass in human existence and is everything “equalized” in non-existence? People have always sought a way out of this depressing contradiction, which seemed to undermine the moral foundations of human existence. And they found it first in the religious postulate about the “immortality of the soul” and “reward after death,” and then in the ideas about “absolute reason” and “absolute moral values,” which supposedly create the basis of human moral existence. And medieval alchemists, as you know, searched for centuries for the miraculous “elixir of life.”

It has been noticed that a person’s wisdom is often expressed in a calm attitude towards life and death. As Mahatma Gandhi said: “We do not know whether it is better to live or to die. Therefore, we should neither overly admire life nor tremble at the thought of death. We should treat both equally. This is the ideal option.” And long before this, the Bhagavad Gita said: “Truly, death is intended for the born, and birth is inevitable for the deceased. Do not mourn about the inevitable.”

At the same time, many great people realized this problem in tragic tones. An outstanding Russian biologist, who reflected on the possibility of “cultivating the instinct of natural death,” wrote about: “When Tolstoy, tormented by the inability to solve this problem and haunted by the fear of death, asked himself whether family love could calm his soul, he immediately saw that it was - a vain hope. Why, he asked himself, raise children who will soon find themselves in the same critical condition as their father? Why should I love them, raise them and take care of them? For the same despair that is in me, or for stupidity? "Loving them, I cannot hide the truth from them - every step leads them to the knowledge of this truth. And the truth is death."

Realizing the finitude of his earthly existence and wondering about the meaning of life, a person begins to develop his own attitude towards life and death. And it is quite clear that this topic, perhaps the most important for every person, occupies a central place in the entire culture of mankind. The history of world culture reveals the eternal connection between the search for the meaning of human life and attempts to unravel the mystery of extinction, as well as with the desire to live forever and, if not materially, then at least spiritually and morally, defeat death.

Mythology, various religious teachings, art, and numerous areas of philosophy have been and are still searching for an answer to this question. But unlike mythology and religion, which, as a rule, seek to impose and dictate certain decisions to a person, philosophy, if it is not dogmatic, appeals primarily to the human mind and proceeds from the fact that a person must look for the answer on his own, making efforts to this is your own spiritual effort. Philosophy helps him by accumulating and critically analyzing the previous experience of mankind in this kind of search.

Consistently pursued philosophical materialism denies any possibility of personal physical immortality for a person and leaves him no hope for an “afterlife.” Therefore, thoughtfully, meaningfully accepting a materialistic worldview, a person takes a difficult step, requiring personal courage and fortitude, what in philosophy is called stoicism, since he thereby refuses the possibility of consolation, even if illusory. The difficulty of this step is further aggravated by the fact that the moral experience accumulated by humanity has long been interpreted within the framework of religious systems, and the knowledge of the moral values ​​they substantiate is supported by references to the judgment and retribution that await everyone after death. “If there is no God, then everything is permitted,” the hero proclaimed. And indeed, as the 20th century has shown, the forced massive imposition of a materialistic worldview on people, when its acceptance serves only as a confirmation of a person’s political reliability, and is not the result of his own thorough internal work, when it, as they say, was not suffered through by the individual, did not go through a purifying the fire of doubt inevitably entails serious delays in moral development. And this is especially alarming and dangerous now, when human activity, both in scientific, technical and social terms, is becoming so large-scale in its consequences and therefore requires a particularly responsible attitude.

As we see, materialist philosophy not only does not remove the question of the meaning of human life, death and immortality, but, on the contrary, allows it to be raised in the most acute, even dramatic form, thereby fully revealing its humanistic content.

Man in search of meaning. Meaning of life.

A person’s search for meaning is the primary driving force in his life…. The meaning is unique and specific because it must and can be realized by this person and no one else; only then does he acquire significance that satisfies his own desire for meaning. There is an opinion that meanings and values ​​are “nothing more than defense mechanisms, the formation of reactions and sublimation.” As for me, I would not want to live simply for the sake of my “defense mechanisms,” nor would I agree to die for the sake of my “reaction formations.” Man, however, is capable of living and even dying for his ideals and values. A few years ago, a public opinion poll was conducted in France. As the results showed, 89% of respondents admitted that a person needs “something” to make life worth living. Moreover, 61% agreed that there is something or someone in their life that they would die for.

The meaning of life differs from person to person, from day to day and from hour to hour. Consequently, what is important is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of an individual’s life at a given moment. Posing the question in general terms can be compared with the question posed to the world chess champion: “Tell me, teacher, what is the best move in the world?” There is simply no such thing as the best or even good move regardless of the specific situation in the game and the specific personality of the opponent. The same is true of human existence. You cannot search for the abstract meaning of life. Each person has his own calling in life; everyone must have a task that requires resolution. No one can repeat his life. That is, each person has a unique task, as well as his specific ability to perform it. Since every situation in life presents a challenge to a person and a problem that requires resolution, the question of the meaning of life can be inverted. Ultimately, a person should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he should realize that it is himself who is being asked. A person living in the world is asked questions by life, and he can answer life only by being responsible for his own life. He can give the answer to life only by taking responsibility upon himself.

Unlike animals, instincts do not dictate to a person what he needs, and unlike a person of yesterday, traditions do not dictate to a person today what he owes. Not knowing either what he needs or what he owes, a person has lost a clear idea of ​​what he wants. As a result, he either wants the same thing as others (conformism) or does what others want from him (totalitarianism).

Meaning must be found, but cannot be created. You can only create subjective meaning, a simple feeling of meaning, or nonsense. Meaning not only must, but can also be found, and in the search for meaning a person is guided by his conscience. In a word, conscience is an organ of meaning. It can be defined as the ability to discover the unique and unique meaning that lies in any situation. Meaning is always also the specific meaning of a specific situation. This is always a “demand of the moment”, which is always addressed to a specific person. And just as each individual situation is unique, so is each individual person.

Every day and every hour offers a new meaning, and every person expects a different meaning. There is a meaning for everyone, and for everyone there is a special meaning. From all this it follows that the meaning must change both from situation to situation and from person to person. However, meaning is omnipresent. There is no person for whom life does not have something ready to do, and there is no situation in which life would not give us the opportunity to find meaning.

A person not only seeks meaning due to his desire for meaning, but also finds it, namely in three ways. First, he can see meaning in action, in creating something. Secondly, he sees meaning in experiencing something, and finally, he sees meaning in loving someone. But even in a hopeless situation in which he is helpless, he is able to see the meaning.

There are no situations in life that are truly meaningless. This can be explained by the fact that the negative aspects of human existence that seem to us - in particular, the tragic triad of suffering, guilt and death - can also be transformed into something positive, into achievement, if we approach them from the right position and with adequate installation.

Love is the only way to understand another human being in the full depth of his personality. No one can fully understand the very essence of another human being until he loves him. Through the spiritual act of love he gains the ability to see the essential traits and properties of the loved one; and even more than that, he begins to see what is potentially contained within him, what has not yet been realized, but must be realized. In addition, with his love, a loving person makes it possible for the loved one to actualize these possibilities. By helping him realize what he can be and what he must become, he makes their realization possible.

In cases where a person is faced with an intolerable and unavoidable situation, when he is dealing with a fate that cannot be changed, for example, with an incurable disease such as, say, inoperable cancer, it is then that a person is given the last chance to realize the highest value, to realize the most deep meaning, the meaning of suffering. For the most important thing is the attitude that we take in relation to suffering, the attitude in which we take this suffering upon ourselves.

Needless to say, suffering will have no meaning unless it is absolutely inevitable; for example, cancer, which can be cured by surgery, should not be accepted by the patient as his cross to bear. This would be masochism rather than heroism.

By realizing meaning, a person realizes himself. By realizing the meaning contained in suffering, we realize the most human in a person. We gain maturity, we grow, we outgrow ourselves. It is where we are helpless and hopeless, unable to change the situation, that is where we are called, we feel the need to change ourselves.

There is a definition that says that meanings and values ​​are nothing more than reactive formations and defense mechanisms. But are meanings and values ​​as relative and subjective as they are believed to be? Meaning is relative insofar as it relates to a particular person involved in a particular situation. We can say that the meaning changes, firstly, from person to person and, secondly, from one day to another, even from hour to hour. Of course, it is preferable to talk about uniqueness rather than about the relativity of meanings. Uniqueness, however, is a quality not only of a situation, but also of life as a whole, since life is a string of unique situations. Man is unique both in essence and in existence. In the ultimate analysis, no one can be replaced - due to the uniqueness of each human being. And the life of each person is unique in that no one can repeat it. There is no such thing as a universal meaning in life, only the unique meanings of individual situations. However, among them there are those that have something in common, and, therefore, there are meanings that are inherent in the people of a certain society, and even moreover, meanings that are shared by many people throughout history. These meanings are what is meant by values. Thus, values ​​can be defined as universals of meaning that crystallize in typical situations faced by society or even all of humanity.

Possessing values ​​makes it easier for a person to find meaning; at least in typical situations, it eliminates the need to make decisions. But, unfortunately, he has to pay for this relief, because, unlike the unique meanings that permeate unique situations, it may turn out that two values ​​are in conflict with each other. And contradictions of values ​​are reflected in the human soul in the form of value conflicts.

The impression that two values ​​contradict each other is the consequence of missing a whole dimension. What is this measurement? This is a hierarchical order of values. According to Max Scheller, evaluation implicitly implies a preference for one value over another. The rank of a value is experienced along with the value itself. In other words, the experience of a certain value includes the experience that it is higher than some other. Consequently, we come to the conclusion that there is no room for value conflicts. However, experiencing a hierarchical order of values ​​does not relieve a person from making decisions.

Attractions push a person, values ​​attract. A person is always free to accept or reject the value that is offered to him by a situation. This is also true of the hierarchical order of values ​​that are conveyed by moral and ethical traditions and norms. They must pass the test of a person's conscience - unless he refuses to obey his conscience and suppresses its voice.

Meaning is what is meant by the person who asks the question, or by the situation, which also implies a question that requires an answer. Of course, a person is free to answer the questions that life asks him. But this freedom should not be confused with arbitrariness. It must be understood from the point of view of responsibility. A person is responsible for the correct answer to a question, for finding the true meaning of a situation. And meaning is something that needs to be found rather than imparted, discovered rather than invented.

Meanings cannot be given arbitrarily, but must be found responsibly. Meaning should be sought with the help of conscience. Indeed, conscience guides a person in his search for meaning. Conscience can be defined as a person's intuitive ability to find meaning in a situation. In addition to being intuitive, conscience is a creative ability. Conscience also has the ability to detect unique meanings that contradict accepted values. A living, clear and accurate conscience is the only thing that gives a person the opportunity to resist the effects of an existential vacuum - conformism and totalitarianism.

About the longevity of human life.

Already at the very early stages of the history of medical science, the question was raised of how to maintain health, how to prolong a person’s life, how to delay old age. The ancient physician Hippocrates gave advice on how to maintain health and lengthen your life. In the 1st century AD, the famous Roman philosopher, poet and statesman Lucius Annaeus Seneca argued that “we do not receive the short duration of life, but create it ourselves.” It was already clear to him that the hereditary genetic characteristics of the body were not yet enough to live a long life. In order for a person’s life not to be shortened, he needs to create favorable living conditions.

The scientist, naturalist, doctor, and philosopher Avicenna paid especially much attention to longevity and old age. He already understood that aging is a natural process of development of the body, which leads to physiological changes. In his famous work “The Canon of Medicine,” Avicenna wrote: “From the very beginning we represent the utmost importance. The drying out that occurs in our body is a necessity that cannot be avoided.”

Life extension can be set as some scientific and socially conscious goal, but then the question arises: why is this necessary for the individual and society? And from a purely humanistic point of view, according to which the value of a long human life is self-evident, self-sufficient, and from a social point of view, taking into account the social significance of preserving a developed human individuality for as long as possible, enriched with knowledge, life experience and wisdom, increasing normal social life expectancy by limiting and the complete displacement in the future of pathological social aging seems to be a progressive process both in relation to individuals and in relation to human society as a whole.

Another thing is the biological life expectancy of a person, that is, its species time, evolutionarily genetically encoded and presupposing an individual alternation of lives as a condition for the existence of humanity. Many new scientific questions arise here, addressed mainly to biology, but they also cannot be considered in isolation from social and moral-humanistic ones, determined by the general solution of a problem related to the essence and meaning of human life. Modern concepts concerning these problems affirm the idea of ​​the possibility and necessity of achieving, with the help of scientific methods, the maximum species-specific (biological) life expectancy of a person. The main efforts of scientists are now directed towards this. In connection with the consideration of various artificial methods of life extension (transplantation, bionics technology, cryobiology, genetic engineering, etc.), it is even said that humanity is “on the threshold of a new era, when medicine will transform Homosapiens V Homo Iongevus- supercentenarians, when men and women in their mature years fully retain both mental and physical vigor. And if this is so, then we will have to look at life with completely different eyes.”

What is the maximum age a person can reach? Historical information has been preserved according to which the founder of the abbey in Glasgow, Kangiger, died in 600 at the age of 185 years. According to Hungarian chroniclers of the 17th century, cases of longevity of 147 and 172 years were observed. In Norway, a certain Drakenberg lived for 142 years.

It is important, however, to keep in mind that a new vision of life should come primarily from humanistic ideals and values, from a clear definition of the meaning of why a person needs to live longer than is determined by normal age parameters corresponding to the individual characteristics of the individual. These personal attitudes, which largely depend on social conditions, but also have a reverse impact on them, will make it possible to determine the measure of human life in which the biological is dialectically connected with the social, ethical, and humanistic understanding of it. This measure is closely related to the optimal realization of a person’s essential powers. Consequently, it is not the duration of individual life itself that will be the goal of science and society, and even more so of man himself, but the development of the wealth of human nature, the degree of involvement of the individual in the collective life of humanity and its participation in the implementation of the idea of ​​​​the unlimited development of man as a social being will determine individual parameters consistent with the biological capabilities of human life.

The problem of death. The meaning of death.

The half-forgotten Russian philosopher has an original essay “The World as a Whole,” where one of the chapters is called “The Meaning of Death.”

“Death is the finale of an opera, the last scene of a drama,” the author writes, “just as a work of art cannot drag on endlessly, but by itself separates itself and finds its boundaries, so the life of organisms has limits. This expresses their deep essence, harmony and beauty inherent in their life. If an opera were only a collection of sounds, then it could continue endlessly; if a poem were only a collection of words, then it also could not have any natural limit. But the meaning of the opera and the poem, the essential content, requires a finale and a conclusion.”

Interesting idea. Indeed, in chaos there is neither beginning nor end. Only organized bodies are capable of developing in a certain direction. But every organization has a limit to its improvement. Having reached it, it remains to either remain stable or degrade.

“If any organism,” Strakhov continues, “could improve endlessly, then it would never reach adulthood and the full development of its powers; it would always be only a teenager, a creature that is constantly growing and which is never destined to grow up. If an organism in the era of its maturity suddenly became unchanged, therefore, would present only repeating phenomena, but development would cease in it, nothing new would happen in it, therefore, there could be no life. So, decrepitude and death are a necessary consequence of organic development, they follow from the very concept of development. These are the general concepts and considerations that explain the meaning of death.”

As soon as the meaning of death becomes clear, a justification for it immediately appears. Moreover, it begins to be thought of as a great good! This is no longer just a quantitative limitation of living beings capable of reproducing too quickly. We are talking about the dying of individuals who have reached perfection, not only for the sake of freeing the arena of life, but also for the possibility of achieving a higher level of perfection and maintaining the highest biological activity of living matter.

The problem of death acquires central importance in Freud. And the central problem is precisely the problem of death, which is inextricably linked with the problem of time. The problem of immortality is secondary, and it has usually been posed incorrectly. Death is the deepest and most significant fact of life, elevating the very last of mortals above the commonness and vulgarity of life.

Only the fact of death raises in depth the question of the meaning of life. Life in this world has meaning precisely because there is death. The meaning is connected with the end. And if there were no end, that is, if there was a bad infinity of life, then there would be no meaning in life. Death - the ultimate horror and ultimate evil - turns out to be the only way out of bad times into eternity, and immortal and eternal life turns out to be achievable only through death.

The nightmare of death has always haunted people. It gave rise to specific ideas about the tragedy of life. “Death has no image,” says Byron’s Lucifer, “but everything that bears the appearance of earthly creatures will be consumed. “The finitude of human existence inevitably raises the question of the meaning of earthly destiny, of the purpose of life. Undoubtedly, the problem of death is one of the fundamental ones, affecting the ultimate foundations of existence.

Philosophers who have addressed the topic of death often write about how this topic was experienced differently in different cultures. In other eras, the fear of death was completely absent: people found the strength to resist the threat of physical destruction. The ancient Greeks, for example, taught to overcome the horror of non-existence by concentrating the spirit, through the effort of life-giving thought, and to cultivate contempt for death. The people of the Middle Ages, on the contrary, were driven to frenzy by the impending death. No era, as the Dutch historian and philosopher Johan Huizinga testifies, imposes the idea of ​​death on a person with such persistence as the 15th century.

If we ask the question: what serves as the basis for comparing how death is perceived in different cultures and eras, then a paradoxical thing is revealed. As a rule, philosophical statements are usually compared. “After all, a person can have some kind of feeling of dying,” writes, for example, Cicero. We must think all this while still young, so that we can contemplate death; Without such reflection, no one can be at peace in soul; After all, as we know, we will have to die, perhaps even today. “This is it - to despise death... And the medieval thinker Meister Ekhatr, on the contrary, writes about how difficult it is for a person to detach from worldly goods... It turns out that there was a time when they were not afraid of death, the fear of the threat of physical destruction was not always there. But to what extent can one trust philosophical thought? After all, the contempt for death often expressed in a judgment precisely reflects the horror of it.

The fear of death is inherent in human nature itself, in the very mystery of life. It is primordial, that is, it is rooted in the depths of the human psyche. However, in a specific era, through the prism of certain spiritual values, this fear takes on various transformed forms. It was they who were reflected in persistent religious and practical attitudes. Culture constantly reproduces the life situations that people encounter at all times. We are talking about problems of duty, love, sacrifice, tragedy, heroism, death. However, culture does not move in circles, returning again and again to the same motives. In each era, these values ​​acquire new content, dictated not only by the constant, fixed nature of man, but also by the social reality in which this nature is revealed. In the same way, the problems of death, although they have haunted humanity since ancient times, still receive different interpretations in different religious traditions.

Each culture develops a certain value system in which issues of life and death are rethought. She also creates a certain complex of images and symbols, with the help of which the psychological balance of individuals is ensured. A person, of course, has abstract knowledge about the fact of inevitable death. But he is trying, based on the symbolism existing in a given culture, to form a more specific idea of ​​​​what makes a full life possible before the fact of inevitable death.

According to psychologists, such a system begins to take shape in the human psyche already in early childhood. The image that appears in the subconscious of a person in connection with his birth, when the fetus is separated from the mother, is later transformed into a kind of prototype of the horror of death. He is looking for ways to escape decay, to perpetuate himself, constantly feeling the presence of death.

Human survival presupposes that symbolic images are fixed in his psyche, which make it possible to fill earthly existence with meaning. This psychological balance has to be maintained and reinforced all the time. This need is not limited to the individual. The culture as a whole can also enter into a state of discord and confusion, destroying its inherent philosophical and harmonious perception of life and death. When there is a danger to the life of an individual or an entire nation, the images of symbolic immortality become more clearly expressed, sharpened, and intense.

But is it possible to somehow typologize the different forms of attitude towards death? Undoubtedly. A comparison of world religions and distant cultures shows that people perceive the line between life and death differently. They believe, for example, that there is no difference between earthly and afterlife, but they also believe that there is such a difference. At the same time, the distinction between sublunary and other beings takes different forms. Let's try to illustrate this using the example of different cultures.

The attitude towards death in ancient cultures is mainly of an epic nature, that is, it is not perceived as a personal tragedy. The death of a person is interpreted as the natural completion of a certain life cycle. Lyrical and tragic accents are still missing.

The numerous and varied ideas about death that have developed in world culture can, apparently, to a certain extent be divided according to some characteristics. Let us first highlight pre-Christian and Christian views. Let us also note that eastern cultures, unlike Western ones, have retained faith in the original power of cosmologies, religious and philosophical systems in which death is not viewed as the absolute end of existence. Their inherent concepts of posthumous existence have a very wide spectrum, including a range of ideas from high states of consciousness to specific images of another world, reminiscent of earthly life. In all these beliefs, death is not identified with the complete disappearance of the individual. Christianity recognized the finitude of individual existence. The mass resurrection was interpreted only as the end of earthly history.

The history of human civilization contains a disturbing chronicle of numerous attempts by ancient cultures to preserve life and avoid death. Many cultures assumed that anyone could adequately prepare for death if they acquired the necessary knowledge about the dying process. The literary works known as the “Books of the Dead” provide detailed descriptions of death and guidance on how to make the dying process more complete (the unprepared person resists death and ends up in an intermediate state) and consistent. The most famous of these works are the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Tibetan Book of the Dead. However, similar texts also existed in Indian, Muslim and other traditions.

The perception of death in cultures where the individual has not yet separated from the tribe, from the clan, naturally differs from the interpretation of this phenomenon where the personalist idea (the idea of ​​personality) dominates. In those societies in which the process of individualization has not gone very far, the end of individual existence is not assessed as a problem, since the very sense of individual existence is poorly developed. Death is not yet perceived as something radically different from life. Death is assessed completely differently in those cultures where the value, sovereignty and uniqueness of the individual are recognized. Here the fragility of earthly existence is perceived tragically and permeates all human subjectivity, that is, the world of his experiences and internal states.

As a rule, views on death are closely related to religious views. It is impossible, for example, to imagine an ancient, Hindu, Muslim, Christian person and his views on death without first finding out what the beliefs of the Egyptians, Greeks, Muslims, Indians, and Christians were.

Death in the mythological beliefs of ancient peoples is not a natural, inevitable phenomenon, but is the result of the machinations of evil spirits, which, making their way into the human body, gradually destroy it. Therefore, according to mythological ideas, people must fight evil spirits and deities that bring death to humans. Ancient Greek myths tell how Zeus, angry at Sisyphus for treason, sent Death to him, but Sisyphus put her in strong chains, and people stopped dying. However, Hades freed Death from his shackles, and she defeated Sisyphus. Greek mythology.

Some ancient religions accepted that there is no difference between earthly and posthumous existence. However, this general statement still had shades. In one case, it was assumed that here, in the sublunary world, everything is the same as in the other world. In another (the glance seemed to be cast “from there”) it was assumed that in that posthumous existence nothing changes compared to the earthly one. In other words, earthly and subsequent life were not separated, but the emphasis was still placed on the fact that the initial point of reference was this or that world. (“There” is the same as “here”, “here” is the same as “there”)

In ancient Chinese consciousness, for example, the fact of death was assessed as something that did not have deep existential meaning. In other words, if a person died, there is no tragedy in it. He still remains among the living, but already like a deceased person. It's the same here as there. The dead leaves the living conditionally, in some limited sense. He doesn't leave us. The world is densely populated by the “living dead”. They moved to another state, but did not go to another world. That is why in this culture the symbolism of death was earthly in nature. The Bogdykhan (Emperor of China) was followed everywhere by a coffin, which was considered an attribute of his earthly existence. Preparing a grave in advance for elderly parents was considered an act of care and mercy. Having left part of the earthly world, the deceased went to other people who died earlier, but still did not disappear anywhere. Hence the cult of ancestors, which is very characteristic of this culture.

The Egyptians did not separate the earthly and otherworldly worlds. But they, rather, emphasized the similarity of the afterlife with the sublunary there as well as here. Death was considered a prelude to the afterlife. The Egyptians pinned their hopes on the incorruptibility of the body of that man whose power was indestructible during his lifetime. Corruption, according to their ideas, remained indestructible. The cult of the dead was the most important characteristic of Egyptian culture. The art of embalming and mummification, the construction of grandiose tombs, the perpetuation of the memory of the departed - all served one purpose: to ensure symbolic immortality. Back in the Old Kingdom

(XXIX-XIX centuries BC) the Egyptians believed that the souls of the dead were united with the stars. Every night the soul of the deceased re-enters the body, leaving the star for this...

In human history, two cultures have reportedly shown a particularly keen interest in death and the dying process: the cultures of the Egyptians and the Tibetans. They shared a deep belief that consciousness continues to live after death. They offered well-developed rituals that made it possible to move into a new state as easily as possible, and they drew complex diagrams in which they reflected the wanderings of the soul.

The Egyptian Book of the Dead is a collection of prayers, magical sounds and mythological stories that relate to death and the afterlife. The materials in these texts are contradictory. They reflect the historical conflict between two strong religious traditions - the priests of the Sun God and the followers of Osiris. (In ancient Egyptian mythology, the god of dying and resurrecting nature) On the one hand, they offer sacred knowledge that makes it possible to ensure an eternal blessed existence under the shadow of the solar deity, traveling in a circle with him. On the other hand, the texts reflect the tradition of the ancient God of Death, who, according to legend, was killed by his brother Set. After his rebirth, he became the ruler of another world. According to this tradition, the dead ritually identify themselves with Osiris and can never return to life again.

So, in the ancient Chinese and ancient Egyptian cultures, life and death are to a certain extent equal. There is no hint here that life is good and death is evil. Both worlds are equal, although separated by a certain line.

This problem is assessed differently in the Indian religious consciousness. According to Buddhism, all beings originate in Brahman, the impersonal absolute spiritual principle from which the world arises. Brahman is the basis of everything that exists. Everything must ultimately come back to him. Therefore, death is only a transition from a lower stage to a higher one, continuing until the spirit finally reaches such a degree of purity and perfection that it can enter the world soul, to which everything that exists on earth strives. The world soul is a reflection of all existence, the world spirit is the active, creative principle of the soul.

However, only those who renounce all sensual pleasures, who, in their desire for holiness, renounce the material world, mortify the flesh, break the shackles that burden their soul, are worthy of this. And such are only brahmins. Anyone who, contrary to the sacred laws, opposes the eternal, the divine, will be subjected to hellish torment after death. His soul, depending on the degree of sinfulness, will unite

through a new birth with a more or less base creature and will be forced to wander, finding no peace in the vale of sorrow until she finds eternal peace in the kingdom of Brahma.

Unlike Christianity, where the remission of sins and the achievement of eternal bliss were associated with divine mercy, the Brahmins believed that only a person himself can atone for his sins, only through his own efforts can he achieve forgiveness. Rejecting the idea of ​​immortality of the body, Hindus adhered to the concept of immortality of the soul. The body is always despicable for Hindus and must be consigned to fire immediately after death. The immortal soul will pass into a new body, and this process will be repeated and repeated until the soul disappears and merges with the soul of the universe. The idea of ​​continuous rebirth, the return of a person to earth in new bodily vestments, is the meaning of the idea of ​​reincarnation, that is, numerous rebirths of the soul.

From the doctrine of the transmigration of souls followed strict instructions about repentance. Wherever the ever-trembling Hindu turned his gaze, severe punishment awaited him in both this and the next world. Every living being yearns for liberation. For the Hindu it did not exist. Of course, in principle, a Hindu could, by improving himself, become a Brahmin, but this did not ultimately determine his subsequent karma. Life was for him an endless pilgrimage, full of bitter disappointments, terrible suffering, overwhelming responsibilities, without the encouraging hope that the “ever-moving wheel” would ever stop, without the spiritualizing power of love, without the noble support of compassion, and even death did not guarantee deliverance from torment. Subsequently, suicide even became a religious duty. So, in the Indian worldview, the earthly and afterlife worlds are separated, but the preference is not for life but for death.

The ancient Jews accepted the fact of death realistically and were able to come to terms with the idea of ​​the end of individual life. The Jews believed that a person’s personality was split, because it had a certain shadow, which was a pale and out-of-body copy of the individual. After death, this shadow descends underground, where it finds a sad and gloomy existence in gloomy chambers. Yahweh was supposed to clothe the scattered bones with flesh, to raise the dead to new life. Therefore, heaven was depicted as the abode of the blessed, while hell, on the contrary, was the center of dirt and dung.

In the cabalistic tradition, Jews developed the doctrine of transmigration of souls. In the oral transmission of religious commandments it was said that the soul of Adam passed into David, and then would be “breathed” into the messiah, that is, into the savior sent by God (the king of the Israel-Judea state at the end of the 11th century - about 950 BC. ). The wanderings of the soul are whimsical; it can take on the bodily shell of an animal, turn into tree leaves and even stones. Moreover, in the Hebrew tradition, man is interpreted not only as a natural, but also as a supernatural being who is in living and reverent contact with God. Therefore, a new interpretation of death arises. The Jews consoled themselves with the expectation of that kingdom of happiness and justice to which humanity must ultimately arrive. In general, this concept is characterized by pessimism, and life and posthumous existence look bleak in it.

The world religion - Islam - is based on the fact that man was created by the will of almighty Allah, who, above all, is merciful. To a person’s question: “Will I be known alive when I die?” Allah gives the answer: “Won’t man remember that we created him before, and he was nothing?” Unlike Christianity, earthly life in Islam is highly regarded. However, on the Last Day, everything will be destroyed and the dead will be resurrected and appear before Allah for final judgment. Belief in an afterlife is necessary, since in this case a person will evaluate his actions and actions not from the point of view of personal interest, but in the sense of an eternal perspective.

The destruction of the entire Universe on the day of the Just Judgment presupposes the creation of a completely new world. A “record” of deeds and thoughts, even the most secret ones, will be presented about each person, and an appropriate sentence will be passed. Thus, the principle of the supremacy of the laws of morality and reason over physical laws will triumph. A morally pure person cannot be in a humiliated position, as is the case in the real world. Islam strictly prohibits suicide. The descriptions of heaven and hell in the Koran are full of vivid details, so that the righteous can be fully satisfied and the sinners get what they deserve. Paradise is the beautiful “gardens of eternity, below which flow rivers of water, milk and wine”; there are also “pure spouses”, “full-breasted peers”, as well as “black-eyed and big-eyed, decorated with bracelets of gold and pearls”. Those sitting on carpets and leaning on green cushions are walked around by “forever young boys” offering “bird meat” on golden dishes. Hell for sinners is fire and boiling water, pus and slop, the fruits of the “Zakkum” tree, similar to the head of the devil, and their destiny is “screams and roars.” It is impossible to ask Allah about the hour of death, since only he has knowledge about this, and “what has been given to you to know, perhaps the hour is already close.”

In general, it can be said that ancient cultures, like modern non-Western traditions, assumed that the process of dying is inevitable and an integral part of human existence. The very topic of death had a profound impact on religion, mythology, art, and philosophy.

In modern times, a radical revolution in the understanding of this problem took place in European consciousness. Technological progress has become the price to pay for the deepest alienation from the fundamental biological aspects of existence.

In modern times, the understanding of death in the European consciousness is dominated by a different tradition - pantheistic, identifying God in the world. These concepts, which took shape in the mysticism of the Middle Ages and then in the natural philosophy of the Renaissance, were dominated by naturalistic tendencies that dissolved God in nature. The pantheistic tradition, which permeated the work of Spinoza, Goethe, and Hegel, rejected the possibility of a connection between the natural and the supernatural through personality. She attracted attention to life. Thus, Spinoza emphasized that “a free man thinks of nothing so little as death, and his wisdom consists in thinking not about death, but about life.” Death as a certain phenomenon and human reality was overcome in a strange way: they simply stopped thinking about it, concentrating their mental efforts on issues of the sublunary world. Pragmatism as a philosophical movement saw in death not a natural resolution of the life process, but defeat, a painful reminder of the limitations of our power over nature.

From now on, the attention of philosophers is focused on the earthly world. “We admit it sincerely,” says the French philosopher of the 11th century. Michel Montaigne - that only God and religion promise us immortality; neither nature nor our reason tells us about this.” However, the crisis of the ideals of the Enlightenment led to the fact that in European philosophy there arose a craving for glorifying the cult of eros and unconscious life drives not enlightened by reason. This was especially clearly manifested in the works of Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Oswald Spengler.

By this time, educated Westerners generally considered belief in conscious life after death, in the afterlife journeys of the soul, to be a manifestation of the primitive fear of those people who do not have scientific knowledge. The true romanticization of death, which is the challenge of life, begins in modern Western philosophy with Schopenhauer. The German philosopher tried to create a unified view of the fate of the body and soul. Life in his system of reasoning is assessed as something that would be better not to exist at all. Earthly existence, in his opinion, is a certain kind of mistake and accident.

Schopenhauer is convinced that the development of the cosmic cycle gave rise to many misfortunes. And man must realize the catastrophic nature of this process in order to comprehend the destructiveness of earthly existence. The philosopher argued that beings of a lower organization are more blessed than humans. After all, they are devoid of consciousness, and therefore do not know that the world is bad and destructive. Where did Dante get the material for his hell? - asks Schopenhauer. And he answered: of course from our real world. When, on the contrary, Dante faced the task of depicting the heavens and their bliss, he found himself in an insurmountable difficulty precisely because our world does not provide material for anything like that.

An animal, Schopenhauer reasoned, fears death only unconsciously, instinctively. It cannot develop a clear picture of physical death. Man is not only aware of his impending disappearance. He is capable of suffering for this reason. The real feeling of the impending outcome intensifies his torment. This is why, according to Schopenhauer, happiness can in no way be considered the goal of human existence.

Schopenhauer calls the proposal that a person is capable of finding happiness “a pernicious delusion.” Based on it, it is impossible to build a logical picture of the world. It will inevitably be full of contradictions. But as soon as you switch to the opposite point of view - see the purpose of life in suffering, all the paradoxes will collapse. Man's entire existence indicates that suffering is his real destiny, life is inseparable from suffering. Our birth is accompanied by crying. The very existence of man is essentially tragic, and most of all, the outcome. The stamp of predestination is visible in everything.

Where is the way out? Schopenhauer believes that death must be looked at as the main goal. Its shadow inevitably lies on human life. The German philosopher believed that at the moment of death everything that was prepared during life is resolved. So, the expectation of death, its premonition, its return - this is what a reasonable person is capable of, unlike an animal. Only human will can renounce life, turn away from it. Such poeticization of death has never existed in any culture. Not a single people considered death a blessing and did not seek to cross out life. Even the Buddha's supporters did not reject the value of life itself, full of various vicissitudes and misadventures.

Schopenhauer decisively rejects the idea of ​​personal immortality. Moreover, he believes that insisting on the eternity of oneself is the same as strengthening delusion. After all, each individual is nothing more than a “private mistake”, a “false step”, “concentration of chance”, something that is better not to exist at all.

The founders and supporters of psychoanalysis paid considerable attention to the problems of death: Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Erich Fromm.

Z. Freud came to the conclusion that a person manifests two main aspirations: a craving for life, more or less identical to sexual desire, and a death instinct, with the goal of destroying life. He suggested that the death instinct, fused with sexual energy, can be directed either against the person himself or against outside him. At the same time, he believed that the death instinct is biologically inherent in all living organisms and, therefore, is a necessary and irreducible component of life in general.

Modern culture, according to Freud, has radically rethought the problem of death. People are proud of their achievements and seem to have the right to it. But the achieved dominance over time and space, the subjugation of the forces of nature, according to the Austrian psychiatrist, did not in the least reduce the thirst for pleasure that is inherent in modern man. Power over nature is not the only condition for human happiness. Why a long life if it is so hard, so poor in joys and full of suffering that we are ready to welcome death as a deliverer? “We can be horrified as much as we like by a certain situation in which there were ancient slaves on galleys, peasants during the Thirty Years' War, victims of the Holy Inquisition, a Jew during a pogrom, but we cannot get used to the spiritual world of these people and comprehend the changes that took place in their susceptibility in relation to sensations of pleasure and discomfort due to innate insensitivity, gradual dullness, loss of hope or mild forms of dope.”

Erich Fromm tried to clarify Freud's concept of death. In his opinion, the hypothesis of the existence of a death instinct has the merit that it gives an important place to destructive tendencies that were not taken into account in Freud's early theories. But the biological interpretation of the element of destruction cannot satisfactorily explain the fact that the depth of this need varies greatly among different individuals and among different social groups. If Freud's assumptions, Fromm reflects, were correct, one would expect that the strength of such an instinct, directed against others or against oneself, would be more or less constant in all people. However, the opposite is observed: not only between different individuals, but also between different social groups there is a huge difference in the weight of destructive tendencies.

For example, the weight of these trends in the character structure of representatives of the lower European middle class is much higher than among workers or representatives of the social elite. Ethnographic research has introduced us to entire peoples who are characterized by particularly high levels of destructiveness. Meanwhile, other peoples show an equally noticeable absence of destructive tendencies - both in relation to other people and in relation to themselves.

According to Fromm, the desire for life and the desire for destruction are not mutually independent factors, but are related by an inverse relationship. The more the desire for life is manifested, the more fully life is regulated, the weaker the destructive tendencies. The more the desire for life is suppressed, the stronger the desire for destruction. As Fromm believed, our era simply denies death, and with it one of the fundamental aspects of life: “Instead of turning the awareness of death and suffering into one of the strongest stimuli of life - into the basis of human solidarity, into a catalyst, without which joy and enthusiasm loses intensity and depth - the individual is forced to suppress this awareness. But as with any suppression, hiding does not mean destroying. The fear of death lives in us, lives despite attempts to deny it, but suppression leads to sterilization.

Fromm emphasized that among people there are biophiles and necrophiles. According to this American philosopher, the innate desire of all living beings, contrary to what Freud said, is the craving for life, an intense urge to preserve its existence. Biophilia is interpreted by the American researcher as a deep life orientation that permeates a person’s entire being. But in modern culture another tendency is very clearly manifesting itself - non-corphilic, that is, destructive. Necrophilia is a person's attraction to death.

Not base fear, but deep melancholy and horror that death evokes in us is an indicator that we belong not only to the surface, but also to the depth, not only to the everyday life in time, but also to eternity. Eternity in time not only attracts, but also causes horror and melancholy. The meaning of death is that eternity is impossible in time, that the absence of an end in time is nonsense.

But death is a phenomenon of life, it is still on this side of life, it is life’s reaction to the demand for an end in time from life. Death is a phenomenon that extends throughout life. Life is continuous dying, the end of everything, the constant judgment of eternity over time. Life is a constant struggle with death and the partial dying of the human body and human soul.

Time and space are deadly, they create gaps that are a partial experience of death. When human feelings die and disappear in time, this is the experience of death. When parting with a person, with a house, with a city, with a garden, with an animal occurs in space, accompanied by the feeling that perhaps you will never see them again, then this is the experience of death. Death occurs for us not only when we ourselves die, but also when our loved ones die. We have the experience of death in life, although it is not final. The desire for the eternity of all existence is the essence of life. And at the same time, eternity is achieved only by passing through death, and death is the fate of everything living in this world, and the more complex life is, the higher the level of life, the more death awaits it.

Death has a positive meaning. But death is at the same time the most terrible and only evil. Every evil can be reduced to death. Murder, hatred, malice, depravity, envy, revenge are death and the sowing of death. Death is at the bottom of every evil passion. There is no other evil except death and murder. Death is the evil result of sin. A sinless life would be immortal, eternal. Death is the negation of eternity, and this is the ontological evil of death, its hostility to being, its attempts to return creation to non-existence.

It is the living, not the dead, who suffer when death has done its work. The dead can suffer no more; and we may even praise death when it puts an end to extreme physical pain or sad mental decline. However, it is incorrect to speak of death as a “reward,” since true reward, like true punishment, requires a conscious experience of the fact. There may come a moment in every man's life when death will be more effective for his main purposes than life; when what he stands for will be made clearer and more convincing by his death than if he had acted in any other way.

Death is a completely natural phenomenon; it has played a useful and necessary role in the course of long biological evolution. Indeed, without death, which gave the fullest and most serious meaning to the fact of survival of the fittest, and thus made possible the progress of organic species, man would never have appeared at all.

The social meaning of death also has its positive sides. After all, death makes us close to the common concerns and common fate of all people everywhere. It unites us with deeply felt emotions and dramatically emphasizes the equality of our ultimate destinies. The universality of death reminds us of the essential brotherhood of man that exists despite all the violent divisions and conflicts recorded by history, as well as in contemporary affairs.

In search of immortality.

When theologians debate with atheists, they justify the value of religious ideology for society by the fact that religion gives people the most beautiful idea - the idea of ​​immortality, which atheism cannot give to a person. But the value of an idea is determined by whether it has real meaning or is a fantasy or fiction. Is the immortality of man, which religious preachers promise people, a reality? Science denies the possibility of personal immortality of a person, rejecting religious views.

There are several types of immortality related to the fact that a person leaves behind his work, children, grandchildren, etc., the products of his activities and personal belongings, as well as the fruits of spiritual production (ideas, images, etc.).
The first type of immortality - in the genes of the offspring, close to most people. In addition to the principled opponents of marriage and family and misogynists, many seek to perpetuate themselves in this very way. One of the powerful drives of a person is the desire to see his own traits in his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In the royal dynasties of Europe, the transmission of certain characteristics (for example, the nose of the Habsburgs) has been traced over several generations. This is associated with the inheritance of not only physical characteristics, but also the moral principles of a family occupation or craft, etc. Historians have established that many outstanding figures of Russian culture of the 19th century were related (albeit distantly) to each other. One century includes four generations.

Thus, over two thousand years, 80 generations have changed, and the 80th ancestor of each of us was a contemporary of Ancient Rome, and the 130th was a contemporary of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II.

The second type of immortality - mummification of the body with the expectation of its eternal preservation. The experience of the Egyptian pharaohs, the practice of modern embalming (Mao-Zedong, etc.) indicate that in a number of civilizations this is considered accepted. Advances in technology at the end of the 20th century made it possible to cryogenesis (deep freezing) of the bodies of the dead with the expectation that doctors of the future would revive and cure currently incurable diseases. This fetishization of human corporeality is characteristic mainly of totalitarian societies, where gerontocracy (the power of the old) becomes the basis of state stability.

The third type of immortality - hope for the “dissolution” of the body and spirit of the deceased in the Universe, their entry into the cosmic “body”, into the eternal circulation of matter. This is typical for a number of eastern civilizations, especially Japanese. The Islamic model of attitude towards life and death and various materialistic or, more precisely, naturalistic concepts are close to this solution. Here we are talking about the loss of personal qualities and the preservation of particles of the former body that can become part of other organisms. This highly abstract type of immortality is unacceptable to most people and is emotionally rejected.

The fourth path to immortality - is associated with the results of a person’s life creativity. It is not for nothing that members of various academies are awarded the title “immortals”. A scientific discovery, the creation of a brilliant work of literature and art, showing the way to humanity in a new faith, the creation of a philosophical text, an outstanding military victory and a demonstration of statesmanship - all this leaves a person’s name in the memory of noble descendants. Heroes and prophets, passion-bearers and saints, architects and inventors are immortalized. The names of the cruelest tyrants and the greatest criminals are forever preserved in the memory of mankind. This raises the question of the ambiguity of assessing the scale of a person’s personality. It seems that the more human lives and broken human destinies lie on the conscience of this or that historical character, the greater his chances of getting into history and gaining immortality there. The ability to influence the lives of hundreds of millions of people, the “charisma” of power evokes in many a state of mystical horror mixed with reverence. There are legends and stories about such people that are passed down from generation to generation.

The fifth path to immortality - is associated with the achievement of various states that science calls “altered states of consciousness.” They are mainly a product of the system of psychotraining and meditation adopted in Eastern religions and civilizations. Here, a “breakthrough” into other dimensions of space and time, travel to the past and future, ecstasy and enlightenment, a mystical feeling of belonging to Eternity are possible.
We can say that the meaning of death and immortality, as well as the ways to achieve it, are the other side of the problem of the meaning of life. Obviously, these issues are resolved differently, depending on the leading spiritual orientation of a particular civilization.

From a religious point of view, human immortality lies in the fact that the human personality or its soul supposedly continues to exist after death. The fear of death and attachment to life even in ancient times among primitive peoples gave rise to the belief in the immortality of man. The Indians and Egyptians had a widespread belief that at the moment of death the soul supposedly transmigrated from one body to another. Subsequently, the Buddhist religion developed the idea of ​​sequential purification of the sinful soul in each new incarnation. The ancient Egyptians divided the world of the living and the kingdom of the dead into two “parallel worlds”. The kingdom of the dead of the ancient Egyptians had a serious advantage over the “omnipotence of deadness”, characteristic of scientific cosmogonies and materialistic views. Ideas about the afterlife are reflected in particular in the “Book of the Dead”. One of the most important chapters of this book instructs the soul of the deceased how it should behave before the judgment of Osiris, and is entitled “How to enter the palace of truth and free a person from his sins so that he can contemplate the face of the gods.” The soul must repent and answer for its earthly deeds and answer before God. By observing the proper rites and abundant sacrifices, “...the deceased will have bread, cakes, milk, much meat on the altar of the great God, he will not be excluded from any door of Amenti, he will walk with the gods of the South and North and will truly be one of servants of Osiris." The transition scheme is as follows. After being on Earth, the human soul says goodbye to the mortal body and goes to the kingdom of the gods, where it is rewarded for what it did during material life. The immortal soul retains some connections with the material world, provided that the memory of it is preserved in the world.

The ancient Greeks viewed death as the end of earthly life, after which a new afterlife begins. The religions of Greece and Rome did not completely transfer personality into the hands of omnipotent gods. They did not establish a gap between gods and people. Mortal people were awarded immortality for their merits and thereby passed into the host of gods. The gods could descend to mortal people, enter into communication with them, and from mortal women gave birth to sons who were distinguished by their extraordinary strength, or daughters who were distinguished by their extraordinary beauty. The story from Homer's “Odyssey” in a colorful form conveys the scene of the love of the god Poseidon and the maiden Tyro. Hercules, as told in ancient myths, was the son of the god Zeus and the mortal woman Alcmene.

Judaism introduced a new concept of immortality into the concept of the resurrection of the dead on Judgment Day, which then passed into the Christian and Mohammedan religions. Some Christian texts (the letters of the Apostle Paul) contain the idea that the resurrection of the dead for a future life will occur in bodily form. Subsequently, this naive idea of ​​resurrection in bodily form faded into the background and in its place a new position was put forward about the immortality of the soul, which continues its incorporeal existence after death.

In philosophy, the idea of ​​the immortality of the soul was first proclaimed by Plato. Thanks to his Dialogues, this idea became widespread. According to Plato, there was supposedly a contradiction between the spirit and the body, while he denied the possibility of the body participating in higher spiritual functions. In the dialogue “Phaedo” Plato defended the idea of ​​​​the immortality of the soul, arguing that “the soul is beginningless and immortal.” As proof of the immortality of the soul, he cited a story about a legendary Greek hero who, having been killed, allegedly lay there without decomposing for 10 days, and then came to life at the stake and told about what he saw in the underworld. In this dialogue there were also arguments prescribed to Socrates. When Socrates called death “the detachment of the soul from the body,” another participant in the dialogue, Cebes, objects to this: “What you said about the soul raises great doubts among people. They fear that having parted with the body, the soul no longer exists anywhere, but perishes and is destroyed on the same day when a person dies. As soon as it leaves the body, leaving it, it dissipates, like breath or smoke, scatters and no longer exists anywhere.” Now, “if the soul could really gather somewhere on its own and, in addition, freed from all evils... it would be Socrates, the source of great and wonderful hope that your words are true. But that the soul of the deceased continues to live and has a certain strength and ability to think - this, in my opinion, requires strong evidence and detailed explanations.” And Socrates undertakes to prove that the immortality of the soul exists in Hades. At the beginning he proves that there are two opposites, one arising from the other. As an illustration, he takes such opposites as beautiful and ugly, fair and unfair, pointing out that more arises from less and vice versa. He then states that there are two distinct transitions between two opposites. Socrates leads his opponent to the conclusion that just as sleep is the opposite of wakefulness and the transitions between them are awakening and falling asleep, the opposite of life is death, and the transition between them is dying and revival. Since nature should not limp on one leg, dying must be complemented by revival. And Socrates concludes: “Truly there are both revival and the emergence of the living from the dead. There are also souls of the dead...” Socrates also believes in the transmigration of souls. “Well, for example,” he says, whoever indulges in gluttony, debauchery and drunkenness, instead of being careful about them in every possible way, will probably become part of the breed of donkeys or other similar animals. ..and those who preferred injustice, lust for power and predation joined the wolves, hawks and kites.” A completely different fate, in his opinion, awaits philosophers who, during their lifetime, strive to free the soul from the burden of the body. Therefore, “no one is allowed to enter the race of gods who has not been a philosopher and has not been completely purified, and no one who has strived for knowledge.” Thus, using purely formal techniques, Socrates manages to convince his opponent of the truth of his initial statement.

The church fathers adopted the teachings of Socrates and Plato about the immortality of the soul.

None of the modern religions can do without the idea of ​​personal immortality. However, the religious dogma of immortality does not actually provide any answer either to the question of what life is or to the question of what death is. In Buddhism, the idea of ​​personal immortality appears in the form of the doctrine of reincarnation, according to which a person’s social position is the result of the activity of his soul in past reincarnations. In Christianity and Islam, the idea of ​​personal immortality is expressed more primitively and at the same time more effectively - in the form of a promise of heavenly bliss after death for the righteous and eternal hellish torment for sinners.

The idea of ​​personal immortality, which developed mainly thanks to religion, was picked up by various idealistic philosophical systems: in the 17th and 18th centuries. Leibniz, Berkeley, in our time by personalists Hawking, Flewelling and others. They created a whole system of “proofs” of the immortality of the soul, none of which can withstand scientific criticism, since they are based on the absolute opposition of soul and body.

For example, George Berkeley argued for the natural immortality of the soul. According to him, the soul is capable of being destroyed, but is not subject to “destruction or destruction according to the ordinary laws of nature or movement. Those who recognize that the human soul is only a subtle life flame or a system of animal spirits consider it transitory and destructible, like the body, since nothing can dissipate more easily than such a thing, for which it is naturally impossible to survive the death of the shell that contains it. .. We have shown that the soul is indivisible, incorporeal, unextended and, therefore, indestructible. Nothing can be clearer than the fact that the movements, changes, decline and destruction to which, as we see, the bodies of nature are subjected every hour (and that is exactly what we mean by the course of nature), cannot concern an active simple and uncomplicated substance, such a being indestructible by the power of nature, that is, the human soul is naturally immortal.”

With all due respect to the originality and depth of Berkeley's thought, it seems that his proof of the immortality of the soul is based on his own experiences, beliefs, and desires. This attitude is fundamental for him. And here it is difficult to argue with him. Indeed, the basis of our ideas about the world is our own “I”, the experience of self-knowledge. However, this experience says nothing about the immortality of the soul.

Another proof of the immortality of the soul was Kant's moral proof. Kant reasoned this way: we see that people’s actions in life are usually very different from the eternal moral ideals of goodness, justice, etc. But how to find reconciliation between the ideal and reality? We believe that goodness is realized in life, albeit not immediately, but in the endless process of our existence. Such improvement should be characteristic of every individual - after all, moral activity is, first of all, personal activity. The endless process of personal improvement necessarily presupposes the eternity of the immortal soul.

Mortal soul.

Discussions about the benefits of belief in the immortality of the soul seem blasphemous and cynical. It seems that the base - profit and the sublime - faith and soul are combined. However, we should not close our eyes to reality. In reality, too often these two categories coexist and are even combined in thoughts, and even much worse - in the actions of the same person. The worst type of lie arises: in relation to oneself, to conscience, to God. Hypocrisy and hypocrisy. And before, these qualities were quite widespread. And now in our country many citizens, having quickly restructured their beliefs, turned to the church with the same impulse with which they previously turned to atheistic party bodies.

Against such a background of triumphant crookedness, such pure and noble people as Patriarch Tikhon, Father Pavel Florensky, and Mahatma Gandhi stand out especially brightly and brightly. They all believed in the immortality of the soul. And their good power was opposed by revolutionaries, atheists, seekers of earthly carnal goods and pleasures, rejecting the immortality of the soul. In short, all those whom Dostoevsky classified as demons. As if obvious everyday experience confirms the correctness and beneficialness of the guidelines offered by the great world religions, in particular the belief in the afterlife of the human soul. Regardless of how justified this faith is from a scientific point of view, it undoubtedly helps to live more worthily and die more peacefully. And then come what may.

So, let's take a closer and impartial look at the facts. (philosophers since ancient times have convincingly proven both the mortality and immortality of the soul) They testify to the fact that the noblest deeds are often committed by those who do not believe in the eternal soul and even in God.

Let us remember the revolutionary. In the name of the ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity, he renounced all his considerable privileges, a brilliant court career, wealth, and even professional scientific work. He considered professional revolutionaries who despised work, in modern terms, to be demagogues, parasites, thirsty for personal power. Not believing in God, he was always striving for the highest moral guidelines.

What about Giordano Bruno? His example is no less instructive. He shocked many enlightened contemporaries primarily because he accepted execution without believing in the immortality of the soul. He had the opportunity to at least feign repentance and thereby prolong his one and only life. What stopped him from doing this? If there is no afterlife, everything is permitted to a person in this world, and after death he will not have to answer for his sin of false repentance before God!

It turns out Bruno believed in the high ideals of goodness, justice, human dignity, truth, and was not afraid to give his life for them. And his pious judges were thoroughly imbued with hypocrisy. I. Kepler rightly noted, “Bruno bravely endured death. Proving the vanity of all religions. He turned God into the world...”

What inspired Bruno to act of faith? After all, he did not predetermine universal prosperity for humanity, but difficult times: “A new truth, new laws will appear, nothing sacred, nothing religious will remain, not a single word will be heard worthy of heaven and the inhabitants of heaven. Only the angels of destruction will remain and, mingling with people, will push the unfortunate to insolence, to all evil, supposedly to justice, and thereby provide a pretext for wars, for robbery, deception... And that will be old age and unbelief of the world!...”

In his words, “Whoever is carried away by the greatness of a cause does not feel the horror of death.”

One can consider the examples of Kropotkin and Bruno to be rare exceptions. However, this opinion seems unconvincing. The mere fact that belief in the immortality of the soul does not hinder someone or even helps someone live and die with dignity proves its fruitfulness. This means that there are people from the best representatives of the human race who are able to overcome the fear of death and create goodness, thought, beauty, and perform noble deeds not under the threat of punishment after death, but at the behest of the heart and conscience.

In general, it seems to me, one should not expect to find the only correct answer for all times, peoples and personality types in the question of mortality or immortality of the soul. Everyone chooses this faith according to the nature of their soul, according to the level of their mind.

Immortality of personality.

Immortality in family life, in children and grandchildren, like immortality in a nation, in a state, in a social collective, has nothing to do with human immortality. The relationship between personality and gender is very complex and mysterious. Gender is impersonal, generic in a person, and this differs from eros, which is personal in nature. On the one hand, sexual energy is an obstacle in the struggle for personality and spiritualization, it crushes a person with its natural facelessness, and on the other hand, it can switch into creative energy, and creative energy requires that a person not be a sexless being. But real transformation and enlightenment of man requires victory over gender, which is a sign of man’s fallenness. Overcoming gender is also associated with a change in human consciousness. Immortality is associated with a state of consciousness. Only a holistic consciousness, not divided, not decomposed into elements and not composed of elements, leads to immortality. Immortality in man is also associated with memory. Immortality is enlightened memory. The most terrible thing in life is the experience of irrevocability, irreparability, absolute loss.

Man strives for integral immortality, for the immortality of man, and not the immortality of the superman, the intellect, the ideal principle in himself, for the immortality of the personal, and not the impersonal-general. The problem of death is also associated with the problem of sleep. Dreaming, says Fechner, is a loss of mental synthesis. Only the liberation of consciousness from the exclusive power of the phenomenal world reveals the prospect of immortality.

Nightmarish are the prospects of endless reincarnations, the prospect of complete loss of personality in a faceless Godhead, and most of all the prospect of the possibility of eternal hellish torment. And if we believe in the possibility of endless existence in the conditions of our life, which often resembles hell, then this would also be a nightmare and would cause a desire for death. Among the Hindus, reincarnation was a pessimistic belief. Buddhism, first of all, teaches the path to liberation from the torment of reincarnation. Belief in reincarnation is graceless and does not provide liberation from karma. There is hopelessness in it, there is no way out of time into eternity. In addition, the doctrine of reincarnation justifies social injustice and the caste system. Aurobindo says that he who gives in to sadness and pain, who is a slave to sensations, who is occupied with ephemeral objects, does not know immortality.

L. Tolstoy recognizes personal life as a false life, and the individual cannot inherit immortality. There is no death when personal life is overcome. Nietzsche's doctrine of eternal recurrence is an ancient Greek idea, which knows only cosmic time and completely surrenders man to the power of the cosmic cycle. This is a nightmare of the same type as the idea of ​​endless reincarnation.

N. Fedorov’s teaching on resurrection has the most personalistic and humane character. He demands the return of life to all deceased ancestors, and does not agree that any of the dead should be considered as a means for the future, for the triumph of any impersonal objective principles. And we are talking about the resurrection of a whole person. This should not be a passive expectation of the resurrection of the dead, but an active participation, i.e., a resurrection.

The nightmare idea of ​​hell was associated with a mixture of eternity and infinity. But the idea of ​​eternal hell is completely ridiculous. Hell is not eternity, there is no eternity except divine eternity. Hell is bad infinity, the impossibility of leaving time for eternity. This is a nightmarish specter generated by the objectification of human existence, immersed in our eon. If there were an eternal hell, it would be the final failure and defeat of God, the condemnation of world-making as a diabolical comedy.

The theme of human immortality took its place in the materialistic worldview. Materialism, which has always sought to understand the world without any subjectivist introductions into it, developed this topic from such positions. However, the materialists of antiquity professed not so much spontaneous dialectics as mechanism, especially in the form of atomism.

The idealistic system of evidence for the posthumous existence of the individual includes many rational arguments. For example, Socrates said that just as sleep is the opposite of wakefulness and the transitions between them are awakening and falling asleep, the opposite of life is death, and the transition between them is dying and revival. Since nature should not limp on one leg, dying must be supplemented with revival. And Socrates concludes: “Truly there are both revival and the emergence of the living from the dead. There are also souls of the dead, and among them the good ones experience the best fate, and the bad ones experience the worst.” Socrates also believes in the transmigration of souls.

The Chinese philosopher Yang Zhu (c. BC) said that death makes everyone equal: “During life, there are differences - these are the differences between smart and stupid, noble and low. There is identity in death - this is the identity of stench and decay, disappearance and destruction... Both the ten-year-old and the hundred-year-old die; both the virtuous and the wise die; both the evil and the stupid die.”

Yang Zhu categorically denied the possibility of personal immortality: “According to the laws of nature, there is nothing that does not die. A person does not need a long life. If a person has already heard about something once and if he has already gone through all this, then a hundred years will seem to him a sufficient period of time for him to be extremely tired of everything: how much more bitter would a long life seem to him?” If a person has not fulfilled his purpose during his long life, it will not be worthy and correct even if he lives for at least 10,000 years. But Yang Zhu is resolutely against the premature end of life: “Since a person is already living, he must accept life easily, leaving it to its natural course and fulfill its requirements to the end in order to calmly await the arrival of death. When death comes, then you should take it lightly, leaving it to its natural course, and accept to the end what it brings, in order to leave freedom to disappear. Why hesitate or hurry in fear in this interval between birth and death? "

According to the teachings of the Chervaks (ancient Indian school of philosophy), the existence of the world is due to spontaneous combinations of material elements, and therefore there is no need to assume the existence of a creator God. You can do without belief in the immortality of the soul. What people call the soul is actually a conscious living body. The existence of the soul outside the body cannot be proven, therefore its immortality cannot be proven. After death, the organism again decomposes into the original elements of which it was a corresponding combination. A person in the real world experiences both pleasure and suffering. The latter cannot be eliminated completely, but they can be reduced to a minimum, and the former, on the contrary, to a maximum. Religious concepts about virtue and vice are an invention of the authors of sacred books.

Heraclitus understood death as an element of the dialectic of the world process: “Fire lives the earth by the death, and the air lives by the death of fire; water lives on air by death, earth on water by death. The death of fire is the birth of air, and the death of air is the birth of water. From the death of the earth, water is born. From the death of water air is born, from the death of air fire is born, and vice versa.” In this cycle he includes the soul, which seems to him material, one of the transitional states of fire. He viewed death and immortality as a unity of opposites: “Immortals are mortal, mortals are immortal; they live by each other’s death, they die by each other’s life.”

Conclusion.

Among all the things that a person is proud of, his mind occupies unsurpassed importance. It is he who allows him to know that there is such a thing as death and to reflect on its meaning. Animals cannot do this; they do not realize or foresee that the day will come when they will perish. Animals do not face the problem of death or the tragedy of death. They do not argue about the resurrection and eternal life. Only people can argue about this, and that's what they do. The conclusion from such a dispute is most often that this life is everything. The truth about death frees us from both humiliating fear and gullible optimism. It frees us from self-flattery and self-deception. Not only can people bear this truth about death, they can rise above it to far nobler thoughts and actions than those centered around eternal self-preservation.

People's dream of personal immortality was born in the mists of time. It had both religious-pessimistic (when only gods were considered immortal) and religious-optimistic forms (when people believed in an eternal afterlife). But time passed, and faith dried up. Man increasingly renounced the gods, and now there are hosts of people who do not believe in either the gods or in posthumous eternal bliss. They crave earthly joys, and it can be said that the fight against premature deaths, for a long and happy life (if not for themselves, then at least for their descendants) constitutes the main goal of the entire historical development of mankind.

Knowing that immortality is an illusion frees us from any kind of preoccupation with death. This knowledge makes death in some sense unimportant, it frees up all our energy and time to realize and expand happy possibilities on this earth. This knowledge brings strength, depth and maturity to a person, it makes possible a simple, understandable and inspiring philosophy of life.

And one more obvious truth: we are all immortal - while we are alive!

Bibliography.

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Mushkelishvili. “Problems of life and death and attitudes towards death in various historical eras and in various religions”, Internet,

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Frankl E. Victor. Man in search of meaning. M.: Progress, 1990.

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15. Man: Thinkers of the past and present about his life, death and immortality. M.: Politizdat, 1991.

Ministry of Science and Education of Ukraine

National University of Shipbuilding named after. adm. Makarova

Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies

Abstract on the topic:

« Life. Death. Immortality »

completed: student xxxxxxxxxxx

checked: assistant professor

Shames I.A.

Unknown city 2004

1. Introduction

2. Origin of life

3. Eternity, life, death, immortality
a)objectivist approach
b)subjectivist (atheistic) approach

4. Conclusion

5. Dictionary of key concepts

7. List of references

Introduction

Life and death are two eternal themes in the spiritual culture of humanity. Prophets and founders of religions, philosophers and moralists, figures of art and literature, teachers and doctors thought about them. There is hardly an adult who, sooner or later, would not think about the meaning of his existence, his impending death and the achievement of immortality. Only early childhood or senile insanity relieves a person of the need to solve these problems.

Be that as it may, the answers to the question “What is life?” – there are too many. Every science, and especially every philosophical or religious teaching, offers its own versions of explanations. It seems that no interpretation of the essence of life will be convincing until the meaning of death is understood.

People are trying to comprehend the mystery of human existence, to solve the eternal questions: What is life? How to extend life? What is death? What happens after death? Is a person able to prevent death and become immortal? What reigns in our world - life or death?

Death and potential immortality are the most powerful lure for the philosophizing mind, for all our life's affairs must, one way or another, be measured against the eternal. Man is doomed to think about death, and this is his difference from an animal, which is mortal, but does not know about it. True, animals feel the approach of death, their dying behavior most often resembles a painful search for solitude and tranquility. Probably, death in general is the price to pay for the complication of the biological system. Unicellular organisms are practically immortal. When an organism becomes multicellular, a mechanism of self-destruction, as it were, is built into it at a certain stage of development, associated with the genome.

For centuries, the best minds of humanity have been trying to at least theoretically refute this thesis, prove, and then bring real immortality to life. However, the ideal of such immortality is not the existence of a single-celled organism and not angelic life in a better world. From this point of view, a person should live forever, being in the constant prime of life. “Stop for a moment” is the motto of such immortality, the impulse of which is, according to Ortega y Gasset, “biological vitality,” “life force,” akin to that “that ripples the sea, fertilizes the beast, covers a tree with flowers, lights and extinguishes the stars " A person cannot come to terms with the fact that he will have to leave this magnificent world where life is in full swing.

But, thinking about this, you begin to understand that death is perhaps the only thing before which everyone is equal, which erases the inequality on which earthly life is based.. In this case, it is not so important who “rules” the world - God, the Spirit , Cosmic Mind, objective reality, laws of Nature. It is important that a person must only realize this order and find in its depths, in its structure, a gap for “relative independence”, in which he will see the meaning of his existence.

Origin of life

In ancient times, people were already interested in the question not only of what life is, but also of its origin, how plants, animals, and humans appeared. This is reflected in the myths of different peoples. The ancient Greek myth of Pyrrha and Deucalion tells how Zeus ordered Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha to produce the human race from the “bones of the great mother.” The parent meant the common Mother Earth, and her bones meant stones. Men came from the stones thrown by Deucalion, and women came from the stones thrown by Pyrrha. According to some other ancient legends, man was created from clay or earth, from wood or formless living creatures. Democritus argued the same thing in his system of materialistic philosophy. According to his ideas, atoms, intertwined, form various substances, as well as plants and animals, not without cause, but “for some reason and by virtue of necessity.” He explained in a little more detail as follows: “The earth first hardened, when, due to heating, the surface began to ferment, in many places it raised up some of the moist substances, and thus rotting formations appeared on their surface, covered with thin shells... When moist substances due to warming... They began to give birth to life, they (rotting formations) immediately began to receive nutrition at night from moisture precipitated from the surrounding atmosphere, and during the day they hardened from the heat.” Eventually, from them “various forms of animals arose.” There is also a widespread belief, dating back to Aristotle, that the larvae of many organisms spontaneously originate in rotting meat.

With the spread of Christianity in European countries, the biblical story of the creation of life on earth by God became generally accepted. Biblical mythology cut off the path to any research into the actual causes of the origin of the world, and medieval thinkers could only “find out” what the lifespan of Adam was, “clarify” what language he spoke with Eve, etc. True, among some church fathers we observe a reconciliation of biblical stories with the ideas of ancient thinkers. So, for example, one of the fathers of the Christian Church, St. Augustine (354-430), argued that all development proceeds naturally due to the fact that God has invested effective force in matter. This process, according to him, can be seen firsthand in the example of the growth of a tree from a seed, in which future branches and leaves are already laid, but they are created gradually, as a result of the action of the potential force invested by God. Based on this, Augustine argued that the Bible’s legends about the six days of creation cannot be understood literally, but one must believe that it was from this time that the flow of time began.

Modern science, based on the strict method of scientific research of direct or indirect observations, has revealed a system of facts interconnected by certain relationships, and has established that only through their communication can one come to the discovery of general laws. The method with which modern thinkers began to solve questions about the nature and phenomena of the world around us refuted all mystical speculations. So in the 18th century it was proven that the phenomena of life have a strict pattern. Experiments have shown that there are no simple substances in living organisms that do not exist in inorganic nature, and that many compounds obtained in organisms as a result of the transformation of one form of substance into another can be created artificially, in the laboratory. The doctrine of the cellular structure of living tissues was of great importance for elucidating the unity of processes occurring in living nature and establishing the laws governing the existence of living matter. Science was faced with the question of the genesis of existing organisms. The answer to this question was given by the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin. Thanks to this theory, it became possible to explain the existing concepts of organic life, but also provided the basis for the prehistory of the human spirit, for tracing the various degrees of its development, starting from the simple, structureless, but sensing irritation protoplasm of lower organisms and ending with the thinking brain of man. For the origin of species, Darwin used the idea of ​​natural selection, the struggle for existence and inheritance of acquired characteristics. Not a single species was created by anyone. The countless species inhabiting this world, gradually changing and moving away from the original types, acquired perfection of structure and a certain adaptation of organs to the corresponding functions. Darwin showed by what means nature achieves the gradual perfection of its creatures. With this he solved one of the problems of life.

Of the 20th century scientists, most will answer this question something like this. Once on Earth, conditions developed for chemical evolution, as a result of which complex organic molecules were synthesized. And from them, after countless trials and errors, tiny clumps of organic matter were formed, capable of metabolism and reproduction. These hypotheses have the only serious drawback: there is not a single fact confirming the theoretical possibility of the spontaneous generation of living organisms on Earth from inorganic substances. The most complex laboratory experiments have been carried out for many years in different countries, but artificial technogenic synthesis of even the most primitive organism has still not been successful.

More convincing were the facts obtained as a result of “time travel” into the depths of the geological past. After all, if organisms once appeared on Earth, even in the “form of seeds” brought from other inhabited worlds, then its history must begin with an era devoid of life. The search for such an era has continued since the last century to this day to no avail.

At the beginning of our century, the German scientist O. Lehmann proposed an original theory of the formation of primary forms of life from liquid crystals - peculiar substances combining the properties of a liquid and a solid. He conducted experiments and presented photographs of liquid crystal droplets resembling single-celled organisms.

At the same time, a brochure by biochemist S.P. was published. Kostycheva “On the emergence of life on Earth.” He spoke critically of all proposed hypotheses of the spontaneous generation of organisms. In his opinion, the accidental appearance of a living cell is completely incredible: “If I were to invite the reader to discuss how high the probability is that among inorganic matter, through some natural, for example, volcanic processes, a large factory would accidentally form - with furnaces, pipes, boilers, then such the proposal would at best come across as an inappropriate joke. However, the simplest microorganism is even more complex than any factory, which means its accidental occurrence is even less likely.” Kostychev’s general conclusion is this: “As the echoes of debates about spontaneous generation finally die out, then everyone will recognize that life only changes its form, but is never created from dead matter.” 10 years later, in 1923, V.I. Vernadsky developed these ideas in his own way in his report “The Beginning and Eternity of Life.” He tried to substantiate the position about the fundamental difference between living and dead matter. And he put forward the thesis: life is geologically eternal. In other words, in geological history we cannot find eras when there was no life on our planet.

The further development of scientific thought mercilessly dispelled such hopes.

Eternity, life, death, immortality.

Interest in the problem of death is due to several reasons. Firstly, this is a situation of a global civilized crisis, which, in principle, can lead to the self-destruction of humanity. Secondly, the value attitude towards human life and death has changed significantly in connection with the general situation on Earth.

In fact, we are talking about a triad: life - death - immortality, since all the spiritual systems of humanity proceeded from the idea of ​​​​the contradictory unity of these phenomena.

There are two fundamentally different ways to explain the eternal questions of life, death and immortality.

The first approach can be described as objectivist. It is associated with the names of such philosophers as Spinoza, Holbach, Hegel, Lafargue, with the dogmatics of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and, partly, with the principles of natural science. It is based on the idea of ​​a primordial, unshakable world order, in which all events of social and personal destiny are predetermined, all stages of world history are “scheduled.”

The Christian understanding of the meaning of life, death and immortality comes from the Old Testament position: “The day of death is better than the day of birth” (Ecclesiastes) and the New Testament commandment of Christ: “... I have the keys of hell and death.” The divine-human essence of Christianity is manifested in the fact that the immortality of the individual as an integral being is conceivable only through Sunday. This is the sphere of mystery and miracle, for a person is taken out of the sphere of action of natural-cosmic forces and elements and becomes, as a person, face to face with God, who is also a person. Thus, the purpose of human life is to move towards eternal life. Without realizing this, earthly life turns into a dream, an empty and idle dream. In essence, it is only a preparation for eternal life, which is just around the corner for everyone. Death does not destroy the body, but its corruption, and therefore it is not the end, but the beginning of eternal life. Christianity categorically condemns suicide, since a person does not belong to himself, his life and death are “in the will of God.”

Another world religion - Islam - is based on the fact of the creation of man by the will of almighty Allah, who, above all, is merciful. Unlike Christianity, earthly life in Islam is highly valued. However, on the Last Day, everything will be destroyed and the dead will be resurrected and appear before Allah for final judgment. Belief in an afterlife is necessary, since in this case a person will evaluate his actions and actions not from the point of view of personal interest, but in the sense of an eternal perspective. The destruction of the entire Universe on the day of the Just Judgment presupposes the creation of a new perfect world. A “record” of deeds and thoughts, even the most secret ones, will be presented about each person, and an appropriate sentence will be passed. Thus, the principle of the supremacy of the laws of morality and reason over physical laws will triumph. A morally pure person cannot be in a humiliated position, as is the case in the real world. Islam strictly prohibits suicide. The descriptions of heaven and hell in the Koran are full of vivid details, so that the righteous can be fully satisfied and the sinners can get what they deserve.

The attitude towards death and immortality in Buddhism differs significantly from Christian and Muslim perceptions. Buddha himself refused to answer the questions: is he who knows the truth immortal or mortal, can he who knows be mortal and immortal at the same time? In essence, only one type of “wonderful immortality” is recognized - nirvana, as the embodiment of the transcendental Superbeing, the Absolute Beginning, which has no attributes. Since personality is understood as the sum of dharmas that are in a constant flow of reincarnation, this implies the absurdity and meaninglessness of the chain of natural births. The way out is the path to achieving nirvana, breaking through the chain of endless rebirths and achieving enlightenment, a blissful “island” located in the depths of a person’s heart, where “they own nothing” and “covet nothing.” The well-known symbol of nirvana - extinguishing the ever-quivering fire of life - well expresses the essence of the Buddhist understanding of death and immortality. As the Buddha said: “One day in the life of a person who has seen the immortal path is better than a hundred years of existence of a person who has not seen the higher life.”

A calm and peaceful attitude towards life, death and immortality, the desire for enlightenment and liberation from evil is also characteristic of other Eastern religions and cults. In this regard, attitudes towards suicide are changing; it is considered not so sinful as senseless, for it does not free a person from the circle of births and deaths (samsara), but only leads to birth in a lower incarnation. One must overcome such attachment to one's personality, for, in the words of the Buddha, “the nature of personality is continuous death.” Getting rid of the sources of suffering, “darkened actions and defilements” (selfishness, anger, pride, false views, etc.) and the power of one’s self during life is the best way to achieve immortality.

The second approach places human subjectivity, his initiative, and creativity at the forefront. Its essence is well expressed by aphorisms: “Man is the measure of all things,” “Man is the creator of himself,” “I create, therefore I exist.”

In the history of the spiritual life of mankind there have been many concepts of life, death and immortality, based on a non-religious and atheistic approach to the world and man. Irreligious people and atheists are often reproached for the fact that for them earthly life is everything, and death is an insurmountable tragedy, which, in essence, makes life meaningless. L.N. Tolstoy, in his famous confession, painfully tried to find the meaning in life that would not be destroyed by the death that inevitably awaits every person.

Of course, “in their pure form” these approaches characterize polar positions, but in real life one has to reckon with both the objective conditions of existence and the world of one’s subjective creative potentials.

For a believer, everything is clear here, but for a non-believer, an alternative of possible ways to solve this problem arises.

When defining the concept of the meaning of life, it is necessary to note at least three of its “dimensions”. The first is associated with the concept of “sanctity of life” as such, which is now the subject of such a discipline as bioethics. All living things (including those in the Universe) have the right to life by virtue of the very fact of birth. This vitality is primary for man. It is necessary to accept the idea, which is confirmed by science and simply common sense, that complete destruction of even an elementary particle is not possible in the world, but conservation laws apply. Matter, energy and, it is believed, information and organization of complex systems are conserved. Consequently, particles of our “I” after death will enter into the eternal cycle of existence and in this sense will be immortal. True, they will not have consciousness, the soul with which our “I” is connected. Moreover, this type of immortality is acquired by a person throughout his life. You can even say in the form of a paradox: we are alive only because we die every second. Every day, red blood cells die, epithelial cells on our mucous membranes die, hair falls out, etc. Therefore, it is in principle impossible to fix life and death as absolute opposites, either in reality or in thought. These are two sides of the same coin.

It is also possible to highlight the biological dimension of the problem of life, death and immortality, for these states are essentially different aspects of one phenomenon. The hypothesis of panspermia, the constant presence of life and death in the Universe, and their constant reproduction in suitable conditions, has long been put forward. Engels' famous definition: “Life is a way of existence of protein bodies, and this way of existence consists, in its essence, in the constant self-renewal of the chemical components of these bodies,” emphasizes the cosmic aspect of life. Stars, nebulae, planets, comets and other cosmic bodies are born, live and die, and in this sense, no one and nothing disappears. This aspect is most developed in Eastern philosophy and mystical teachings, based on the fundamental impossibility of understanding the meaning of this universal circulation only with reason. Materialistic concepts are based on the phenomenon of self-generation of life and self-causation, when, according to Engels, “with iron necessity” life and the thinking spirit are generated in one place of the Universe, if it disappears in another.

Awareness of the unity of human life and humanity with all life on the planet, with its biosphere, as well as potentially possible forms of life in the Universe, has enormous ideological significance.

This idea of ​​the sanctity of life, the right to life for any living being, by virtue of the very fact of birth, belongs to the eternal ideals of humanity. In the limit, the entire Universe and the Earth are considered as living beings, and interference in the still poorly understood laws of their life is fraught with an ecological crisis. Man appears as a small particle of this living Universe, a microcosm that has absorbed all the richness of the macrocosm. Even if biological, bodily life is considered an inauthentic, transitive form of human existence, then in these cases (for example, in Christianity) human flesh can and should acquire a different, flourishing state.

The second dimension is associated with understanding the specifics of human life, since the only real fact in the life of any person is impending death. It is known that Leo Tolstoy painfully asked: “Is there a meaning in my life that is not destroyed by the inevitable impending death? Why raise children who will soon find themselves in the same critical condition as their father? Why should they live? Why should I love them, grow them and watch over them? For the same despair that is in me, or for stupidity? Loving them, I cannot hide the truth from them - every step leads them to the knowledge of this truth. And truth is death." Within the framework of a rationalistic approach, it is impossible to answer these questions, and one has to look for an answer along the paths of intuitive comprehension of the meaning of one’s being and the definition of what is the highest value for an individual - God, humanity, loved ones and relatives, children, justice...

The third dimension is the idea of ​​achieving immortality, which sooner or later becomes the focus of a person's attention, especially if he has reached adulthood. There are several types of immortality.

The first one is associated with immortality in descendants and is carried out by transferring the genetic apparatus of parents to children, grandchildren, etc., and is close to most people. In addition to the principled opponents of marriage and family and misogynists, many seek to perpetuate themselves in this very way. One of the powerful drives of a person is the desire to see his own traits in his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. This is associated with the inheritance not only of physical principles, but also of the moral principles of a family occupation or craft.

The second is the preservation of the body of the deceased, that is, mummification or cryogenization. The experience of the Egyptian pharaohs and the practice of modern embalming indicate that this is considered accepted in a number of civilizations. Advances in technology at the end of the 20th century made it possible to cryogenize the bodies of the dead with the expectation that doctors of the future would revive them and cure now incurable diseases.

The third is the entry of particles of our disintegrated body into the circulation of matter, energy and information in the Universe, a kind of “merger with nature”, hope for the “dissolution” of the body and spirit of the deceased in the Universe, their entry into the cosmic “body”, into the eternal cycle of matter. This is typical for a number of eastern civilizations, especially Japanese. The Islamic model of attitude towards life and death and various materialistic or, more precisely, naturalistic concepts are close to this solution. Here we are talking about the loss of personal qualities and the preservation of particles of the former body that can become part of other organisms. This highly abstract type of immortality is unacceptable to most people and is emotionally rejected.

The fourth is determined by the results of human activity, in the fruits of material and spiritual production, which are included in the treasury of humanity. To do this, first of all, we need confidence that humanity is immortal and is pursuing a cosmic destiny in the spirit of the ideas of K.E. Tsiolkovsky and other cosmists. If self-destruction in a thermonuclear environmental catastrophe, as well as as a result of some kind of cosmic cataclysm, is realistic for humanity, then in this case the question remains open. Among the ideals and driving forces of this type of immortality, the struggle for the liberation of humanity from class and social oppression, the struggle for national independence and statehood, the struggle for peace and justice, etc. most often appears. This gives the life of such fighters a higher meaning, which merges with immortality. Heroes and prophets, passion-bearers and saints, architects and inventors are immortalized. The names of the cruelest tyrants and the greatest criminals are forever preserved in the memory of mankind. This raises the question of the ambiguity of assessing the scale of a person’s personality. It seems that the more human lives and broken human destinies lie on the conscience of this or that historical character, the greater his chances of getting into history and gaining immortality there. The ability to influence the lives of hundreds of millions of people, the “charisma” of power evokes in many a state of mystical horror mixed with reverence. There are legends and stories about such people that are passed down from generation to generation.

The fifth path is associated with the achievement of various states that science calls “altered states of consciousness.” They are mainly a product of the system of psychotraining and meditation adopted in Eastern religions and civilizations. Here the following are possible: a “breakthrough” into other dimensions of space and time, travel into the past and future, ecstasy and enlightenment, a mystical feeling of belonging to Eternity.

We can mention other concepts of gaining immortality, aimed at changing the laws of nature, achieving “life after death,” as well as numerous mystical movements based on the real presence of the other world and the possibility of communication with the departed. Moreover, information is emerging about the presence of a kind of energy phantom in every person, which leaves the person shortly before physical death, but continues to exist in other dimensions. This generally leads to a different type of understanding of the problem of immortality, which is associated with the need for self-determination in the eternal world of information and energy entities.

Modern thanatology (the study of death) is one of the “hot” points of natural science and humanities.

Conclusion.

But still, the search for and finding the meaning of life and the actions of each person is of a purely individual, personal nature.

We can say that the meaning of death and immortality, as well as the ways to achieve it, are the other side of the problem of the meaning of life. It is obvious that these issues are resolved differently, depending on the leading spiritual orientation of a particular civilization.

The solution to the problems of life, death and immortality is strongly influenced by the existing economic, political and social state of society. Sooner or later, a person thinks about such eternal problems as life, its meaning, death and possible ways to achieve immortality. Every person has some concept of life, death and immortality, which accumulate from various sources. This work makes an attempt to systematize and generalize the main criteria for the meaning of life and attempts to achieve immortality.

If a person has something like a death instinct, then everyone has a natural, innate right not only to live as he was born, but also to die in human conditions. One of the features of the 20th century is that humanism and humane relations between people are the basis and guarantee of survival for humanity. If earlier any social and natural disasters left hope that the majority of people would survive and restore what was destroyed, now vitality can be considered a concept derived from humanism.

Dictionary of key concepts

Life- a form of movement of matter, qualitatively higher than the physical and chemical forms, but including them in a “removed” form, realized in individual biological organisms and their aggregates.

Death - irreversible cessation of the vital activity of an organism, the inevitable natural end of the existence of a living organism

Meaning of life - a regulatory concept inherent in any developed worldview system that justifies and interprets the moral norms and values ​​inherent in this system, shows in the name of what the activity they prescribe is necessary.

Worldview – a system of principles, views, ideals and beliefs that determine both the attitude to reality, the general understanding of the world, and the life positions and programs of people’s activities.

Immortality– continuation of existence after death of our spiritual individuality, gifted with consciousness and will

God - in religious teachings and ideas, a supernatural omnipotent being who created the world and controls it.

Buddhism – a religion that preaches deliverance from suffering through renunciation of desires and the achievement of “highest enlightenment” - nirvana.

Islam or Islam is one of the three so-called world religions, widespread mainly in the countries of the Near and Middle East, in North Africa.

Christianity – one of the three so-called world religions, which arose in the 1st century. in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire.

Tests

1. What is “biological vitality”

Property of the immortal human soul

Entity that rules the world

The vital force that, according to Ortega y Gasset, sustains life

Existential understanding of the world

God, Spirit, Cosmic Mind

Meaning of life

The ability to perceive death as a continuation of life

Philosophical concept of survival

2. Which philosophers are associated with the objectivist approach to understanding life?

Spinoza

Aristophanes

Holbach

3. How Buddhism answers the question of immortality

He who knows the truth is immortal

Immortality doesn't exist

Only one type of “wonderful immortality” is recognized - nirvana

Only gods are immortal

Death is a logical continuation of life

Death doesn't exist

Death and life are two sides of the same coin; life cannot exist without death.

4. basic principle of bioethics

Immortality does not exist, there is only life and death

All living things are immortal

All living things have the right to life by virtue of the fact of their birth

Life is the highest value

The main goal in every person’s life is to face death with dignity.

Finding ways to achieve immortality

There is nothing in the world that is fundamentally knowable

Treat others the way you want to be treated

5. What are the ways to achieve immortality?

Immortality in descendants

Preservation of the body of the deceased

A kind of “merge with nature”

Determining the results of human activity

Achieving various states

All of the above is correct

Immortality does not exist, so it is impossible to achieve it

Freezing the body

6. How, according to Democritus, did life appear on Earth?

Life was brought to Earth from space

God created

Atoms, intertwined, form various substances, as well as plants and animals, not without cause, but “for some reason and by virtue of necessity.”

Evolutionary theory

Panspermia theory

Introduced by aliens

Came from chaos

7. How Christianity influenced the development of ideas about the origin of life

Contributed

Didn't have any effect

The Church tried to develop various theories of the emergence of life

Cut off all avenues for exploring the real causes

This question never came up

Your own answer

A new concept of worldview has emerged

Proved the only possible way of the origin of life, the creation of life by God

8. Thanks to what, according to St. Augustine, life exists

Life was brought to earth from space

God put effective force into matter

No species was created by anyone

Due to the action of cosmic forces

For every living organism there comes a period of death

All of the above is correct

Your own answer

Thanks to the rebirth of the soul

List of used literature

1. Philosophical Dictionary/Ed. I.T. Frolov. – 6th ed., revised. and additional – M.: Politizdat, 1991. – 560 p.

2. The world of philosophy: A book to read. Part 2. Man. Society. Culture. M.: Politizdat, 1991.– 624 p.

3. Ancient philosophy of religion (From the series “Foreign philosophy of religion in the past and present.”) – M.: Znanie, 1989. – 64 p.

4. http://filosofia.ru/

* This work is not a scientific work, is not a final qualification work and is the result of processing, structuring and formatting the collected information intended for use as a source of material for independent preparation of educational works.

2. The problem of immortality and the meaning of life

3.Ethical aspects of euthanasia and the death penalty

Conclusion

Introduction

Since ancient times, man has asked himself the question of what is the essence of human existence. Many philosophers and thinkers have tried to answer why a person lives, why he came into this world, why he dies and what happens to him after death. What is the meaning of man's desire for immortality? This question has worried people for many millennia. Today, when the very existence of the human race is in danger, it acquires new content, gives rise to new impulses for studying and searching for an answer. The social remains terra incognito. Social factors influencing the continuation of life and the nature of socialization have been least studied. And today, against the background of grandiose discoveries in the field of biology, genetics, medicine, in the conditions of the established hypothesis about the transition from the biosphere to the noosphere, we can say that not just a misunderstanding of the essence of the sociosphere, but often a direct statement of the “end of the social” pose a direct threat to the individual, the race human in general. It is not easy to understand and appreciate the difficulties and contradictions of modern society, functioning in aggravation mode. One expression of this is terror. Defining the essence of both terror and everything inhuman, J. Baudrillard says that terror is a response to social terror. Extermination of Homo sapiens: mortality, disease, crime, murder, suicide, oppression of human creative potential, loss of ideals, lack of spirituality.

The most significant not only for achieving immortality, but also simply for preserving the life of today’s man is the crisis state of modern society as a whole, on its global scale and in Russia in particular.

If in the future computer technologies are used more and more, influencing the consciousness and subconscious of a person, contributing to the suppression of his individuality, “massification”, people will turn into robots. Replacing your feelings, your programs, your decisions with computer and mechanical systems, for which a deeper evolutionary horizon of not just survival, but also eternal life, at least a special form of mental and spiritual life simply does not exist.

On the other hand, there is depersonalization, “massification” of individuals in the context of the unfolding of objective processes of globalization, the establishment of the principles of “all-unity” in the fight against evil (crime, corruption, bureaucracy, terrorism, and a host of other manifestations of the inevitable satellites of commodity-money relations). Antagonism, aggression, and almost direct brutality in the interactions of individual groups, social strata, and interpersonal relationships are intensifying. Man is still not understood as a being that contains the cosmos (or, more softly: dependent on the cosmos, on the Universe as a whole). This is expressed not only in biological, physiological rhythms, not only in the already ongoing “domestication” of space (the first tourists have already visited there), but also in the little-studied, so-called subtle world, inhabited by various spiritual entities, to a large extent determining human immortality.

Immortality, if we recognize it as a possible real phenomenon, absorbs all visible and as yet invisible levels of cosmo-, geo-, bio-, socio-, noospheric anthropogenesis. The actualization of the problem of human immortality and the optimistic vision of the possibility of resolving it are based on the rich historical experience of searching for ways to defeat our eternal enemy - death. The desire to gain eternal life has possessed people since time immemorial.

1. The concept of death and immortality in the history of philosophy

The orientation of Greek thinkers towards man and his mind is closely connected with the fundamental attitude of the entire Greek culture - with the call for self-knowledge. The saying “Know thyself,” carved on the column at the entrance to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, was one of the leading ideas at turning points in history. For Socrates, the meaning of human life lies in philosophizing, in constant self-knowledge, in the eternal search for oneself through testing. Overcoming ignorance involves searching for what is good and evil, beautiful and ugly, truth and error. According to Plato, happiness (bliss) is possible only in the afterlife, when the immortal soul - the ideal essence in man - is freed from the shackles of the mortal body. The nature of man, Plato believes, is determined by his soul, or more precisely, soul and body, but with the predominance of the soul over the body, the divine immortal principle over the mortal, bodily.

According to the teachings of Plato, the human soul consists of three parts: the first of them expresses the ideal - rational ability, the second - the lustful-volitional ability, the third - the instinctive-affective one. Depending on which of these parts prevails, the fate of a person, the direction of his activities, and the meaning of his life depend. When asked what a person should dream about, Antisthenes said: “To die happy.” “He who wants to be immortal,” he said, “must lead a pious and righteous life.” “States perish when they cease to distinguish the bad from the good.”

In contrast to Slavic paganism, the main ideological dominants of which were the anthropomorphization of nature and the naturalization of man, and the Hellenic type of culture, where the heroic man was the measure of all things, Christianity adopted by Russia dictated a qualitatively different concept of man. The basis of all foundations and the measure of all things became the highest spiritual substantial principle. Through the awareness of his smallness, sinfulness, even insignificance before the absoluteness of the ideal and in the pursuit of it, a person received the prospect of spiritual development, his consciousness becomes dynamically directed towards moral improvement. Conscience, moral purity, the desire to do good and perform spiritual deeds become the core of personal self-awareness and behavior of the best representatives of the Russian people, the guarantors of their social development. The means of moral, spiritual formation, the struggle of the individual against its suppression at different stages of the medieval history of Rus' were different - from the desire for spiritual self-deepening in the spirit of Nile of Sorsky to the rebellious protest of Archpriest Avvakum in defense of folk traditions from their deliberate destruction from above. The problem of man occupies one of the central places in the philosophy of the French Enlightenment. French materialists contrasted their understanding of man with religious and philosophical anthropology and resolutely rejected the dualistic interpretation of human nature as a combination of a corporeal, material substance and an immaterial, immortal soul.

As for dualist philosophers, Rousseau recognized the immortality of the soul and reward after death, and argued that matter and spirit are two known existing principles. Whereas Wolf denied that the soul is immortal, and regarding the possibility of “divine justice” in the afterlife, he preferred to maintain “reverent silence.” In his interpretation of human nature, Voltaire opposed Pascal, rejecting not only his existentialism, but also the philosopher’s main idea that man is one of the weakest and most insignificant creatures in nature, a kind of “thinking reed.” People are not as pitiful and not as evil as Pascal believed, Voltaire emphasizes. He contrasts Pascal’s idea of ​​loneliness and abandonment with his thesis about man as a social being striving for the formation of “cultural communities.” Voltaire also does not accept the “Pascalian” condemnation of human passions and egoism. “Self-love”, other attractions and passions are, according to Voltaire, the root cause of all human actions, the impulse that unites people and leads to the formation of prosperous cities and great states.

Heraclitus understood death as an element of the dialectic of the world process: “Fire lives the earth by the death, and the air lives by the death of fire; water lives on air by death, earth on water by death. The death of fire is the birth of air, and the death of air is the birth of water. From the death of the earth, water is born. From the death of water air is born, from the death of air fire is born, and vice versa.” In this cycle he includes the soul, which seems to him material, one of the transitional states of fire. He viewed death and immortality as a unity of opposites: “Immortals are mortal, mortals are immortal; they live by each other’s death, they die by each other’s life.”

The desire for a consistently materialistic solution to the problem of man was clearly expressed in the writings of Didry and Helvetius. The leitmotif of their philosophical anthropology is the position about the material unity of man, the close dependence of the “faculties of the soul”, all mental processes, from sensation to thinking, from the nervous system and brain, from the state of the “bodily substance”. In accordance with this point of view, the death of the body was considered as the reason for the cessation of all human mental activity, as a natural and logical end of earthly life, the only possible and real one.

2. The problem of immortality and the meaning of life

The problem of immortality is the main, most important problem of human life, and only on the surface and frivolity does a person forget about it. Sometimes he wants to convince himself that he has forgotten, and does not allow himself to think about what is most important. All religions, starting with the rudimentary religious beliefs of savages, were built in relation to death. Man is a creature faced with death throughout his entire life, and not just in the last hour of his life. Man wages a twofold struggle: for life and for immortality. Death is a phenomenon still inside life, and not on the other side, the most amazing phenomenon, bordering on the transcendent.

Severe suffering always raises the question of death and immortality. But every deepening of life raises the same question. Many types of religious and philosophical teachings have been constructed about victory over the horror of death and the achievement of real or illusory immortality: the spiritualistic doctrine of the immortality of the soul; the doctrine of reincarnation of souls; mystical-pantheistic teaching about merging with the Divine; idealistic doctrine of the immortality of ideas and values; Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the whole person; dulling the severity of the problem of death through merging with collective life on earth and through the possibility of earthly happiness. The spiritualistic doctrine of the immortality of the soul promises immortality only to a part of a person, and not to the whole person. The doctrine of reincarnation gives even less immortality to the whole person; it presupposes his decomposition into individual elements and plunging a person into the cosmic cycle, leaving him at the mercy of time. The doctrine of merging with the deity does not mean the immortality of the individual, but only the immortality of impersonal ideas and values. Idealistic teaching also does not mean the immortality of the individual, but only the immortality of impersonal ideas and values. Every person must go through the tragedy of death. Only the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the whole person answers the question posed, but many difficulties are associated with it. The death of personality in a person is tragic, because personality is God’s eternal idea, God’s eternal plan for man. Personality is not born from father and mother; personality is created by God.

I. A. Gundarov, a leading specialist at the Center for Preventive Medicine, speaks about interesting studies conducted to identify the proportions of material and spiritual factors influencing mortality. Socio-economic indicators were analyzed, accessible to statistics of about 50 parameters that influence the dynamics of mortality over 6 years in all CIS countries (industrial production, food, alcohol, housing conditions, crime, and much more). Computer analysis produced a stunning result. Approximately 70% of the dynamics of mortality depends on the level of aggression, 10% on hopelessness, loss of meaning in life, 20% on all other factors, i.e. the quality of life depends approximately 80% on a person’s mental state and 20% on the conditions of life. The scientist concludes: only a small share of our vitality depends on whether there is something to live on, and the lion’s share depends on whether there is, why live. He names three groups of factors that bring a person closer to death. The first is the wrong goal; second - the sin of false relationships between people, anger, selfishness weaken a person; the third is the sin of “black” emotions: melancholy, anger, despair.

Oddly enough, when wealth increases, people often do not feel happier. Moreover, the level of dissatisfaction and mental “shifts” may even increase. It is known that Sweden at one time ranked first in terms of living standards and one of the first places in suicides. Our society is still dominated by consumer economic ideology: it is not understood that man is not only a resource for the growth of production, but also the ultimate goal of his development, reproduction, and not consumption, and the goal of man is not just consumption, but development, improvement of his essential powers, the freedom that allows a person to pursue what he considers valuable.

A huge amount of evidence has accumulated about real cases of reincarnation. Specialists from the Bangalore Institute of Mental Health and Neuropathology collected material on 250 similar cases. People’s stories about their previous incarnations associated with the effects of hypnosis are interesting. The man who heads the psychology department in one of the capital's universities, V. Guzeev, using hypnosis, tries to find evidence of a person's past life, “transferring” him to the past, recording the results and using the imagination, the scientist examined the adverbs used by hypnotized people for examination by linguists . And experts found similarities with ancient languages ​​in the memories of the subjects.

Unlike the man of yesterday, traditions do not dictate to the man of today what he is owed. Not knowing either what he needs or what he owes, a person has lost a clear idea of ​​what he wants. As a result, he either wants the same thing as others (conformism) or does what others want from him (totalitarianism). Meaning must be found, but cannot be created. Meaning not only must, but can also be found, and in the search for meaning a person is guided by his conscience. In a word, conscience is an organ of meaning. It can be defined as the ability to discover the unique and unique meaning that lies in any situation. Meaning is always also the specific meaning of a specific situation. And just as each individual situation is unique, so is each individual person. There is no person for whom life does not have something ready to do, and there is no situation in which life would not give us the opportunity to find meaning. A person not only seeks meaning due to his desire for meaning, but also finds it, namely in three ways. First, he can see meaning in action, in creating something. Secondly, he sees meaning in experiencing something, and finally, he sees meaning in loving someone. But even in a hopeless situation in which he is helpless, he is able to see the meaning. There are no situations in life that are truly meaningless. This can be explained by the fact that the negative aspects of human existence that seem to us - in particular, the tragic triad of suffering, guilt and death - can also be transformed into something positive, into achievement, if we approach them from the right position and with adequate installation. By realizing meaning, a person realizes himself. By realizing the meaning contained in suffering, we realize the most human in a person. We gain maturity, we grow, we outgrow ourselves.

The problem of death acquires central importance in Freud. And the central problem is precisely the problem of death, which is inextricably linked with the problem of time. The problem of immortality is secondary, and it has usually been posed incorrectly. Death is the deepest and most significant fact of life, elevating the very last of mortals above the commonness and vulgarity of life.

Only the fact of death raises in depth the question of the meaning of life. Life in this world has meaning precisely because there is death. The meaning is connected with the end. And if there were no end, i.e. if there were a bad infinity of life, then there would be no meaning in life. Death - the ultimate horror and ultimate evil - turns out to be the only way out of bad times into eternity, and immortal and eternal life turns out to be achievable only through death.

Plato taught that philosophy is nothing more than preparation for death. But the only trouble is that philosophy itself does not know how to die and how to defeat death. Life is noble only because there is death in it, there is an end, indicating that a person is destined for another, higher life. In endless time, meaning is never revealed; meaning lies in eternity. But between life in time and life in eternity lies an abyss through which passage is only possible through death, through the horror of rupture. Death is not only the meaninglessness of life in this world, its corruption, but also a sign coming from the depths, indicating the existence of a higher meaning of life. Not base fear, but deep melancholy and horror that death evokes in us is an indicator that we belong not only to the surface, but also to the depth, not only to the everyday life in time, but also to eternity. Eternity in time not only attracts, but also causes horror and melancholy. The meaning of death is that eternity is impossible in time, that the absence of an end in time is nonsense.

But death is a phenomenon of life, it is still on this side of life, it is life’s reaction to the demand for an end in time from life. Death is a phenomenon that extends throughout life. Life is continuous dying, the end of everything, the constant judgment of eternity over time. Life is a constant struggle with death and the partial dying of the human body and human soul.

Time and space are deadly, they create gaps that are a partial experience of death. When human feelings die and disappear in time, this is the experience of death. When parting with a person, with a house, with a city, with a garden, with an animal occurs in space, accompanied by the feeling that perhaps you will never see them again, then this is the experience of death. Death occurs for us not only when we ourselves die, but also when our loved ones die. We have the experience of death in life, although it is not final.

The social meaning of death also has its positive sides. After all, death makes us close to the common concerns and common fate of all people everywhere. It unites us with deeply felt emotions and dramatically emphasizes the equality of our ultimate destinies. The universality of death reminds us of the essential brotherhood of man that exists despite all the violent divisions and conflicts recorded by history, as well as in contemporary affairs. The horror of death is not only the horror of the death of the individual, but also the horror of the death of the world. There is a personal Apocalypse and a world Apocalypse. Apocalypse is a revelation about the death of the world, although death is not the last word in it. Not only man, not only peoples and cultures, but all of humanity as a whole, and the whole world, all creation, are mortal. Eternity and eternal life come not in the future, but in the moment, i.e. exit from time, in the crossing of the eternal projection of life in time.

Death exists from the outside as a certain natural fact that occurs in the future, and it means the temporization of existence, the projection of life in the future. But overcoming death and victory over it does not mean oblivion or lack of sensitivity to it, but its acceptance into the spirit, when it ceases to be a natural fact in time and becomes the discovery of meaning coming from eternity. Personal death and world death, like the death of nations and civilizations, like the death of historical forms of state, society and way of life, means a catastrophic reminder of the meaning and truth that they are not fulfilled and distorted.

3. Ethical aspects of euthanasia and the death penalty

Man, as an individual, fights death in the name of immortality. Biologists say that death is the price that must be paid for high differential development. Berdyaev gives the following in relation to this reasoning: “If there is nothing for me after death, then after death I will find out about it. If I die and there will be no further life for me, I disappear completely, then nothing will happen, because I was the only proof of the existence of the world.”

Euthanasia is translated from ancient Greek as “a good, easy death.” At the beginning of the 17th century, Francis Bacon wrote about euthanasia: “... the duty of a physician is not only to restore health, but also to mitigate the suffering caused by illness, and if the illness is recognized as incurable, the doctor must provide the patient with an easy and peaceful death, for there is no greater good in the world than such euthanasia...”

Euthanasia is not a question of death, which is irrevocable, but of dying, which a person faces when approaching the last line of earthly existence. Therefore, the abstract idea of ​​euthanasia is deeply immersed in the context of philosophical, moral, legal and psychological problems, the resolution of which determines the fate of euthanasia as an institution - its moral legitimacy and its legalization. We are talking about euthanasia in its modern understanding, i.e. as a voluntary act, based solely on the will of the patient.

Medicine has learned not only to cure some diseases that were previously considered fatal; she also learned to prolong physical life and delay the onset of death. But at the same time, she was unable to cope with the problem of dying, to make this transitional stage from life to death less painful and less humiliating for human dignity. “Many Americans fear the process of dying in a faceless modern hospital more than death itself... Euthanasia has still not received legal recognition in any country in the world with the exception of the Netherlands, where the corresponding law was passed at the end of 2000. But the Netherlands generally enjoys a reputation a country prone to adopting non-trivial legislative decisions, such as the legalization of soft drugs or the recognition of same-sex marriage.

There is a subtle classification. Thus, J. Landberg, a doctor and bioethicist, believes that six main forms of euthanasia should be distinguished: 1) passive, when a doctor refrains from using medical measures aimed at prolonging the life of a patient doomed to death who remains conscious; 2) semi-passive, when artificial nutrition is stopped for a patient in a vegetative state; 3) semi active - when the artificial respiration device supporting the life of such a patient is turned off; 4) unforeseen - in cases where the use of drugs prescribed by a doctor to dull pain (so-called palliative care) accelerates the patient’s death; 5) suicidal when the doctor supplies the patient with a lethal dose, which he can use when and if he decides to die; 6) active, when a physician knowingly gives a lethal injection or otherwise administers a lethal dose of a drug to a patient.

The problem is related to the fact that people, probably due to the natural human reluctance to darken the present with sad forecasts for the future, rarely use the right to declare in advance their desire to refuse artificial life support. Thus, a survey conducted in 1991 showed that although 87% of respondents knew about their right, only 17% signed the relevant documents. Therefore, from time to time, conflicts arise related to the refusal of a medical institution to satisfy the request of the patient’s family to turn off the equipment. The family does not have a decisive vote, since it cannot be ruled out that its decision is dictated by pragmatic considerations. The conflict is decided by the court, but the court is in a difficult position because it has to make a substitute decision.

In 1990, Jack Kevorkian, a fanatical supporter of euthanasia, chose Michigan for his activities. Dr. Kevorkian, a pathologist by profession, has set himself the goal of not only promoting active euthanasia, but also its practical implementation. He designed a device that made it easy and painless to commit suicide. With the help of this device, and then other means, over the eight years of his activity, he helped a number of terminally ill patients who turned to him with this request and specially came to Michigan for this purpose to die. He acted not just openly, but demonstratively, trying to inform the public about his activities as widely as possible. Journalists, not without some cynicism characteristic of representatives of this profession, gave him the nickname “Doctor Death.”

The practice of euthanasia is an attempt, if not to overcome, then at least to bypass the irreconcilable contradiction between law and medical morality on the issue of the admissibility of voluntary euthanasia. The starting position of the law is that life has equal value at all stages of the life process up to the onset of natural death. Life is an absolute good, and regardless of the circumstances, death cannot be considered as something better than the continuation of life. The expression “worse than death” simply does not make sense from a legal point of view. Therefore, any death caused by the actions of another person is legally suspect and may result in a charge of murder. “It is impossible within the law to define dying as a process of gradual descent from life to death.” Medical morality, the starting point of which is the highest interests of a particular patient, taking into account his specific medical situation, does not accept the abstract, “black and white” approach to the issue of life and death inherent in law. Her attitude towards euthanasia is determined by two criteria: the expression of a person’s free will in relation to his life and death and the presence of medical arguments in support of intervention in the dying process. Although these criteria have different moral natures, only their combination makes euthanasia acceptable from the point of view of medical morality.

Why does society, which has recognized the patient’s right to reject artificial prolongation of life, deny him the right to hasten the inevitable end with the help of a doctor? It is difficult not to recognize the correctness of those researchers - philosophers, lawyers and doctors who point out the logical inconsistency of this approach from the point of view of the principle of autonomy and its moral vulnerability. In fact, what is the difference between pressing a button that turns off the artificial respiration machine and a lethal injection, if in both cases the result is the same - the end of life?

If we talk about practical objections raised against legalization, they apply equally to all forms of euthanasia. Point out the possibility of medical abuse - but palliative care carries the same dangers, since the drugs used have a dual effect, and in some cases it is difficult to know whether death occurred as a result of the doctor's good faith efforts to "improve quality of life" or as a result of intentional exceeding the dose. They say that a request for euthanasia does not always reflect the true will of the patient. It may be dictated by pressure from relatives or simply a reluctance to burden them. But when a person signs a statement refusing artificial life support, he may be acting under the influence of the same circumstances. In addition, the problem of creating a system of control and prevention of abuse is difficult, but solvable. However, why do the courts, recognizing the state's primary interest in preserving the lives of all its citizens, not extend such recognition to situations of refusal of artificial life support?

S. Kadish explains this position by the reluctance and unwillingness to deviate from a cultural tradition that reveres human life - in the sense of physical existence - as the highest and inalienable good. Life comes first, and therefore the deprivation of human life is reprehensible, as well as the voluntary choice of unnatural death. However, the courts argue that if the equipment is turned off, the doctor does not take the patient’s life, but simply restores the situation of the natural course of the disease, and death occurs as a result of natural causes, and not by the will of the person himself or the doctor carrying out this will, which removes moral responsibility from both . But active euthanasia does not fit into the scheme of natural death, and although the moral situation of autonomy applies to both cases, in the name of higher considerations the courts have “improvised the line of demarcation, even at the cost of inconsistency.”

Although most members of our society agree that human life is sacred, not everyone shares the belief that a person does not have the right to die voluntarily, even if his decision is due to the fact that he does not want to accept the unbearable pain and loss of what considers human dignity, and imminent death is inevitable. Can an individual be allowed to make a decision based on his own beliefs, or should he submit to the beliefs of the majority? In other words, “can a “moral majority” restrict the freedom of individual citizens without more serious reasons than disapproval of their personal choices?”

Christianity (like many other world religions) believes that suicide and euthanasia are contrary to God's will. J. Locke, a philosopher who had a strong influence on the Founding Fathers, wrote that life is not the property of man, who is no more than a temporary owner, but belongs to God, and suicide is a kind of theft or embezzlement. However, there is also an “instinctive” interpretation of the idea of ​​the sacred character and inviolability of human life: life is the highest and natural good, and therefore voluntary departure is an unnatural phenomenon. This belief “constitutes the deepest and most important element of opposition to euthanasia. However, if the common phrase is true that death casts a shadow over our entire life, it is no less true that our death casts a shadow over our entire life. Any life has two components - “natural” and “human” (Dworkin).

Conclusion

Among all the things that a person is proud of, his mind occupies unsurpassed importance. It is he who allows him to know that there is such a thing as death and to reflect on its meaning. Only people can argue about this, and that's what they do. The conclusion from such a dispute is most often that this life is everything. A special analysis is required in such a direction for the implementation of immortality as the solution of scientific, technical, biological and technological problems of extending human life - the processes of human cyborgization, the creation of robots, “computer” people, organ transplantation, even the transplantation of a “soul”. Scientists believe that we are on the verge of creating artificial intelligence. Today we are almost entirely dependent on technical civilization. The truth about death frees us from both humiliating fear and gullible optimism. It frees us from self-flattery and self-deception. Not only can people bear this truth about death, but they can rise above it to far nobler thoughts and actions than those centered around eternal self-preservation. People's dream of personal immortality was born in the mists of time. Knowing that immortality is an illusion frees us from any kind of preoccupation with death. This knowledge makes death in some sense unimportant, it frees up all our energy and time to realize and expand happy possibilities on this earth. This knowledge brings strength, depth and maturity to a person, it makes possible a simple, understandable and inspiring philosophy of life. From birth to death, we can live our lives, work for what we hold dear, and enjoy it. We can give significance to our actions and fill our days on earth with meaning and scope, which our end - death cannot destroy ...