INTEGRAL WORLD MAILING LIST
 
http://www.integralworld.net
Newsletter Nr. 1.397
Amsterdam, August 24, 2025


Soul, Afterlife, and Heaven  Relics of a Prescientific Past? - Frank Visser / ChatGPT

Humanity has always wrestled with mortality. Long before science offered naturalistic accounts of life and death, cultures developed rich metaphysical frameworks to ease existential anxiety. The ideas of soul, afterlife, and heaven belong to this heritage: imaginative constructs designed to give continuity to human existence beyond its apparent limits. They made sense in the cosmological and metaphysical frameworks of antiquity. Yet in the light of modern science, they increasingly appear as concepts out of joint with our current worldview.

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https://www.integralworld.net/visser559.html


Is There a Cosmic Mind Behind Creation and Evolution? - Frank Visser / ChatGPT

The question of whether a Cosmic Mind underlies the fabric of reality—guiding the birth of the cosmos, the emergence of life, and the ascent of consciousness—has haunted human thought for millennia. From Plato's World-Soul and the Stoic Logos to modern theories of intelligent design and panpsychism, the idea that the universe is, in some sense, mental or intelligible persists. It stands as an alternative to the dominant naturalistic paradigm, which views reality as fundamentally material, governed by impersonal laws, and devoid of purpose.

Read more:
https://www.integralworld.net/visser558.html