Michael Shermer

Heavens on Earth (eBook, ePUB)

The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

A scientific exploration into humanity's obsession with the afterlife and quest for immortality from the bestselling author and skeptic Michael Shermer

In his most ambitious work yet, Shermer sets out to discover what drives humans' belief in life after death, focusing on recent scientific attempts to achieve immortality along with utopian attempts to create heaven on earth.

For millennia, religions have concocted numerous manifestations of heaven and the afterlife, and though no one has ever returned from such a place to report what it is really like-or that it even exists-today science and technology are being used to try to make it happen in our lifetime. From radical life extension to cryonic suspension to mind uploading, Shermer considers how realistic these attempts are from a proper skeptical perspective.

Heavens on Earth concludes with an uplifting paean to purpose and progress and how we can live well in the here-and-now, whether or not there is a hereafter.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Henry Holt and Co.
• Seitenzahl: 320
• Erscheinungstermin: 9. Januar 2018
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781627798563
• Artikelnr.: 48834628

Autorenporträt

Dr. Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University where he teaches Skepticism 101. He is the author of New York Times bestsellers Why People Believe Weird Things and The Believing Brain, Why Darwin Matters, The Science of Good and Evil, and The Moral Arc. His next book is Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality & Utopia. Michael regularly contributes opinion editorials, essays, and reviews to: the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Science, Nature, and other publications. He appeared on such shows as The Colbert Report, 20/20, Dateline, Charlie Rose, Oprah, and Larry King Live (but, proudly, never Jerry Springer!). He has been interviewed in countless documentaries aired on PBS, A&E, Discovery, The History Channel, The Science Channel, and The Learning Channel. Dr. Shermer was the co-host and co-producer of the 13-hour Family Channel television series, Exploring the Unknown. His two TED talks, seen by millions, were voted in the top 100. Dr. Shermer received his B.A. in psychology from Pepperdine University, M.A. in experimental psychology from California State University, Fullerton, and his Ph.D. in the history of science from Claremont Graduate University. He has been a college professor since 1979, also teaching at Occidental College, Glendale College, and Claremont Graduate University, where he taught a transdisciplinary course for Ph.D. students on Evolution, Economics, and the Brain.

Inhaltsangabe

Table of Contents
Prologue: Momento Mori
Part I: Varieties of Mortal Experiences and Immortal Quests
Chapter 1. A Lofty Thought: Imagining Mortality
Chapter 2. What Dreams May Come: Imagining Immortality
Chapter 3. Heavens Above: The Afterlives of the Monotheisms
Part II: The Scientific Search for Immortality
Chapter 4. Heavens Within: The Afterlives of the Spiritual Seekers
Chapter 5. Evidence for the Afterlife: Near Death Experiences and
Reincarnation
Chapter 6. Evidence for the Afterlife: Anomalous Psychological Experiences
and Talking to the Dead
Chapter 7. Soul Stuff: Identity, Replication, and Resurrection
Chapter 8. Afterlife for Atheists: Can Science Defeat Death?
Part III: All Our Yesterdays and Tomorrows
Chapter 9. All Our Yesterdays: Progress, Decline and the Pull of Pessimism
Chapter 10. All Our Tomorrows: Utopias, Dystopias in Fiction and in Fact
Part IV: Mortality and Meaning
Chapter 11. Why We Die: The Mortal Individual and the Immortal Species
Chapter 12. Imagine No Heaven: Finding Meaning in a Meaningless Universe