Why immortality alone will not get me to the afterlife

Philosophical Psychology 24 (3):395-410 (2011)
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Abstract

Recent research in the cognitive science of religion suggests that humans intuitively believe that others survive death. In response to this finding, three cognitive theories have been offered to explain this: the simulation constraint theory (Bering, Citation2002); the imaginative obstacle theory (Nichols, Citation2007); and terror management theory (Pyszczynski, Rothschild, & Abdollahi, 2008). First, I provide a critical analysis of each of these theories. Second, I argue that these theories, while perhaps explaining why one would believe in his own personal immortality, leave an explanatory gap in that they do not explain why one would intuitively attribute survival of death to others. To fill in the gap, I offer a cognitive theory based on offline social reasoning and social embodiment which provides for the belief in an eternal social realm in which the deceased survive—the afterlife.

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K. Mitch Hodge
Masaryk University

Citations of this work

Dead-Survivors, the Living Dead, and Concepts of Death.K. Mitch Hodge - 2018 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 9 (3):539-565.
The Natural Foundations of Religion.Mark Collier - 2013 - Philosophical Psychology 27 (5):665-680.
Who Wants to Live Forever?Claire White - 2017 - Journal of Cognition and Culture 17 (5):419-436.

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References found in this work

Alief and Belief.Tamar Gendler - 2008 - Journal of Philosophy 105 (10):634-663.
Kinds of Minds.Daniel C. Dennett - 1996 - Basic Books.
Alief in Action (and Reaction).Tamar Szabó Gendler - 2008 - Mind and Language 23 (5):552--585.
Alief in Action (and Reaction).Tamarszabó Gendler - 2008 - Mind and Language 23 (5):552-585.

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