The article Life after Death written by Steven Paulina’s is pretty self explanatory. He opens the article with a simple but complex question, “Do you believe in life after death”? Pavlinas line of attack is unique for the simple fact that instead of taking the usual spiritual approach. Pavlina tries the scientific approach, stating that “Too often I find that the subject of death is addressed with goofy speculation, closed minded stubborness, or outright fear and avoidance”. He first realizes that you cannot live an effective life if you don’t know what happens when you die .He argues that you might be wasting your time engaging in activities that will only benefit you for the moment, when you could be preparing for eternity or the lack of. In which case you should live every day like it’s your last and gets everything you can out every moment. He goes about this by first stating some obvious observations such as you can’t take anything with you when you die, your body doesn’t vanish or disappear and that since all the physical stuff stays here that all we’ve learned in the modern, how to text or e-mail someone won’t be of much use. He breaks it down to two scenarios. After we die we retain some part of our consciousness, but all the physical parts of our existence are lost. Or after we die we cease to exist. Our consciousness gets wiped out along with the physical. But he in fact goes on and on about the same thing consciousness or oblivion and he came to the conclusion that it all depends on what you believe.
What I got from this article or paper was nothing what I was looking for. Pavlina says that “Too often I find that the subject of death is addressed with goofy speculation, closed minded stubbornness, or outright fear and avoidance”. But his paper is indeed another example of just that he dose nothing but chase his own tail the whole paper for example,” This uncertainty about death presents a serious problem though. In order to live my life in a manner I feel is intelligent, I’d really prefer a clear answer here. If I know that option 1 is correct, I’m going to live my life very differently than if I know option 2 is correct. I can’t do both at the same time because they seem incompatible. I’d set different goals on one side vs. the other.” He says this over and over rewording it of course, but the same thing none the less. Only to end the paper by saying it all depends on what you believe. It took him seven pages to state what I just said in one sentence.