Immortality Defended - Paperback

by John Leslie (Author)

Might we be parts of a divine mind? Could anything like an afterlife make sense? Starting with a Platonic answer to why the world exists, Immortality Defended suggests we could well be immortal in all of three separate ways.

• Tackles the fundamental questions posed by our very existence, among them, "why does the cosmos exist?", "is there a divine mind or God?", and "in what sense might we have afterlives?"
  
• Defends a belief in immortality, without the need for a religious affiliation or rejection of modern science
  
• Explores the ideas of "Einsteinian immortality", the divine afterlife, and the theory of an infinite and divine mind
  
• Draws from the work of a wide-range of philosophers, from ancient Greece to the present day, and incorporates up-to-date scientific findings
  
• Written in a thought-provoking and engaging manner, accessible to anyone intrigued by the wonder of our being

Back Jacket

Why does the cosmos exist? Could we be parts of an infinite or divine mind, as pantheists believe? If so, might we have afterlives? In Immortality Defended, John Leslie, renowned philosopher of religion and cosmology, defends pantheism and three distinct ways in which we could be immortal.

Combining a creation story told by Plato with the ideas of Spinoza, this book tackles the fundamental questions posed by our very existence. It explores "Einsteinian immortality" inside an eternally existing four-dimensional whole; the nature of an infinite mind which lives the lives of everybody; and the possibility of an afterlife inside such a mind. Its arguments are drawn from contemporary science, and from philosophy from ancient Greece onwards.

This highly original work is accessible to anyone interested in science, philosophy, cosmology or theology, or to those who are just intrigued by the wonder of our being.

Author Biography

John Leslie is University Professor Emeritus at the University of Guelph, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His publications include Value and Existence (1979), Universes (1989), The End of the World: the Science and Ethics of Human Extinction (1996), Infinite Minds (2001), and the edited volume Modern Cosmology and Philosophy (1998).