I have absolutely no fear of death. From my near-death research and my personal experiences, death is, in my judgment, simply a transition into another kind of reality.
Raymond MoodyRead
People into hard sciences, neurophysiology, often ignore a core philosophical question: 'What is the relationship between our unique, inner experience of conscious awareness and material substance?' The answer is: We don't know, and some people are so terrified to say, 'I don't know.'
Interpretation
The quote highlights the uncertainty surrounding the relationship between consciousness and the physical world.
Raymond Moody encourages reflection on the profound question of how our subjective experience of consciousness relates to the material aspects of existence. He points out that while those in the hard sciences might seek concrete answers, there remains a significant philosophical gap regarding our understanding of consciousness, and some individuals are hesitant to acknowledge this uncertainty.
In practice
In a lecture on consciousness studies, one might quote Moody to illustrate the limits of scientific understanding.
I have absolutely no fear of death. From my near-death research and my personal experiences, death is, in my judgment, simply a transition into another kind of reality.
No doubt many people have the feeling that to talk about death at all is, in effect, to conjure it up mentally, to bring it closer in such a way that one has to face up to the inevitability of one's own eventual demise. So, to spare ourselves this psychological trauma, we decide just to try to avoid the topic as much as possible.
The subject of death is taboo. We feel, perhaps only subconsciously, that to be in contact with death in any way, even indirectly, somehow confronts us with the prospect of our own deaths, draws our own deaths closer and makes them more real and thinkable.
And I do not want, and I will not accept, a deal in which I am asked to do nothing, in fact, I'm able to keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income that I don't need, while a parent out there who is struggling to figure out how to send their kid to college suddenly finds that they've got a couple thousand dollars less in grants or student loans.
The existence of the soldier, next to capital punishment, is the most grievous vestige of barbarism which survives among men.
A global human society, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable
For now she need not think of anybody. She coud be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of - to think; well not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others... and this self having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures.
Someday you will die, and until you know that, you're useless to me.
The Company of Wolves is about how society teaches young women to look at themselves, and what to be afraid of. It's about a girl learning that the world of sensuality and the unknown is not to be feared, that it's worth getting your teeth into.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.