Hello, dear readers of the blog site. A person is born and, whether we like it or not, dies. People live the interval between birth and disappearance in different ways: for someone it can be long, rich, or, conversely, short and boring.

There are many variations. But in any case, each of us at least once asked the question “what is life?”. Why do we live, what is the meaning of this event? Or maybe it doesn't exist at all?

The definitions of life are things that can't be

Figures from various scientific and non-scientific fields have tried to define the concept of life. For example:


4 main stages of human life

What is life in the context of human existence? Many are looking for the meaning of their stay on planet Earth, and not finding it, they become discouraged.

Or it happens that you seem to have found him - here he is, just reach out your hand! But you can’t get it, your hands are short - and why then live?

In fact, not everything is so sad if you know at least the approximate structure of life, its stages. Having ready-made instructions on hand and being ready for future events, going is much more fun.

Human life consists of 4 stages:

  1. Stage of imitation (lasts up to 18 years): the child is born helpless. He does not know and does not know how - a blank sheet, on which a certain pattern will appear in the future. What it will be, no one knows.

    It depends on many circumstances - starting from who his parents are, and who will accompany him all his life.

    Gradually, the baby learns to walk, talk, absorbs, adapts among people. All this comes into his life through imitation, the purpose of which is to become an adult, independent person ().

    But it happens that physically an individual grows up, but continues to imitate others, depend on their opinion and try to please.
  2. Self-knowledge stage (up to 25-35 years old) is to find your difference from others. Who am I? And how do I differ from the main mass of people? Why am I just me and not someone else?

    At this stage, a person acts a lot, experiments, and, of course, makes mistakes in trying to isolate his unique nature. We stumble upon our own prohibitions, instilled in us at the first stage: some of them break, new ones are born.

    We learn to hear ourselves and our true desires, casting aside everything unnecessary and preserving the valuable. Finding our weaknesses strong points, trying to strengthen the first and maximize the development of the second.

    You can get stuck here if you don’t learn to admit your weaknesses, mistakes and don’t get rid of blind faith in what you want, but unreal.
  3. Accomplishment stage (from 40 years old to tired old age)- by this moment a person knows himself well, he is honest with himself, and therefore ceases to dream of unrealizable dreams and be in illusions.

    Next to him there are no more friends who only seemed like that, unloved spouses, hated work and everything else that only pulled down and did not cause much joy.

    You know who you are and what you do best. Therefore, this is the very time when people begin to actively reveal their potential and self-actualize. Perhaps you will come up with something new and ingenious, or maybe you will understand that your destiny is just to be good parent. Everything is purely.

    Stuck at this stage occurs if a person could not.
  4. The last stage of life is called heritage (after 60-70 years). This is the period when people look back, analyze its contents, evaluate their efforts and life baggage. Physical and energy health no longer allow you to go only forward and create new global goals.

    This period is very important from a psychological point of view. If a person is satisfied with how she lived most of the time allotted to her, then she is not afraid to leave. A sense of accomplishment and a life lived not in vain soothe anxiety before an inevitable end.

    Otherwise, a person will suffer and regret the wasted years. This happens for the reason that we consciously or not are looking for some kind of meaning in our existence, which we strive to translate into reality.

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What is life? The answer to this question lies beyond words. Words will always remain words - an excellent wine for the minds of those who choose the concept of life instead of life (if you want - a model, description, theory). People have come up with many theories about life. All of them claim to be universal and work very well, especially when they become dogmas.

The most interesting thing is that the very concept of "life", as well as the "meaning of life" was also invented by people, and their "meaning" depends only on what they put into this concept. And if someone believes that the truth is in wine, and the meaning of life is in money, then it will be so. There are people who like to live at the level of concepts invented by others. Some go further - create their own concepts and live within them, calling it all "philosophy of life".

There are people who do not trust words and concepts, but trust only their own feelings. And if you want, you can drop all the words that life has taught you right now and look inside yourself. There is nothing but your feelings, which will easily give an answer to this simple question:

Are you happy?

And it's not just "yes" or "no" - it's just a feeling. And if you're happy, then you're in the wrong place. This is the state of life, and you live in the state of LIFE, and the difference between them is not only in the size of the letters.

If you decided to stay not only out of curiosity, it means that now there is no feeling of happiness inside you. And there is a certain reason for this.

Half of unhappy people seek and find the cause of their unhappiness in the outside world. In circumstances, parents, fate, state. But first of all - in the surrounding people. It seems to them that these people and these circumstances make their lives miserable. Sometimes, at the cost of incredible efforts, they manage to change their environment, but soon they attract into their lives people with different names, very similar to their predecessors. Although sometimes even the names remain the same.

The surrounding people make the life of these people unhappy for one single reason - asserting themselves at their expense, playing just such games, they become a little happier. At least for a while. This is just an illusion of happiness, nothing more, but many people prefer to live in a world of illusions.

People who see the cause of their unhappiness outside usually exit through this door:

The other half of unhappy people sees the cause of their unhappiness not in the outside world, but in the inside. In this case, the person projects the feeling of guilt onto himself. There is a substitution of concepts - and instead of taking over responsibility they take over guilt. They most often exit through this door, and stay there for a long time:

There are two constants in many people's lives: guilt and fear.

But there is a state free from fear and guilt. All over the pages of the Life Project you will see a picture of a little man walking past a lion.

Now the lion is looking at the child, and the next moment the little man will look directly into the eyes of his fear, and he will have a choice: to be afraid or to understand that fear is just an illusion. That the lion does not really exist is just an outward manifestation of the inner state of man. In the first case, a person runs away, in the second, he goes through fear.

Don't forget that you always choose your life. And if in your life there is a place for feelings of guilt and fear - this is only your choice. Maybe - unconscious, but a choice. Guilt and fear are the biggest obstacles that prevent us from changing our lives. And when we find strength in ourselves and overcome obstacles, everything changes. When we deal with guilt, responsibility appears, and when we conquer our fear, fearlessness arises.

If you want, you can go down a path where your life becomes a struggle, and if you are lucky and put in your best effort, you will definitely come to the finish line first. In this case, people will call you the Winner, and those whom you overtook - the Losers. In a Life that has become a struggle, Few become winners. Some win only a few life stages, while others become Losers. So what to do? After all, life is a struggle, and you know that this is the law of life. So right?

Who told you this?

All laws exist only within the person himself, and since the internal = the external, any statement that exists inside will manifest itself in the outside world. You yourself can choose the words that will sound inside you: for example, Adler's words: "To be a man means to feel your inferiority all the time," or the words: "All limitations exist only in our mind," or some others.

You always have a choice, and if you want, you can go the other way. Unlike the first path, here you will have no competitors - so it doesn't matter how fast you go. If you persevere enough, one day you will find yourself in this amazing place where the social status that society gave you, the money that your job gave you, the name that your parents gave you, do not matter. This is the place where you become completely yourself. Not many reach it - the majority all life play the habitual roles imposed from the outside.

And when you become yourself, you will understand that for this you didn’t have to go anywhere, be someone, change something - you just had to understand. But what? To understand what cannot be explained in words - because you can only know it yourself. But what to know? When you find out, you will have no doubts. You will just - know. The place where a person becomes himself is useless to look for in the outside world, it is inside, and therefore the most fascinating journey is a journey inside oneself.

Although you can go beyond - make millions, become a president or even an emperor - but will you live your life? Your Life has a very definite criterion - this is a feeling of happiness.

Mark Twain once said: "There were two great men in the 19th century: Napoleon and Helen Keller." Napoleon, under whose feet almost the whole world lay, summed up his life with the words: “In my life there were hardly a few happy days". The words of the American writer Helen Keller were different: "My life is so beautiful." She could not conquer the whole world even if she wanted to, because she was deaf-blind-mute.

Introduction

1. Scientific definitions of the concept of "life"

2. Definition of death in terms of science

3. Life - death - immortality: philosophical and religious aspect

Conclusion

Bibliography

The mysteries of life and death, the problems of the immortality of the soul - this worries everyone. This problem is relevant for all time. But the whole meaning of the problem of death, its definition, its understanding, is to solve the problems associated with life: to understand what is the meaning of life, how to live here on Earth, why to live, how to live your life in such a way that there was no feeling of dissatisfaction with the life lived, no feeling of its uselessness, failure. Appeal to the problem of death has a moral value when death is seen as the result of life, its general summary assessment, as a comprehension of the deep foundations of human existence. Therefore, the task of philosophy and ethics is not in the study of "other worlds", but in the creation of the concept of life and death. And there is no doubt that this concept will eventually be worked out in the near future.

Life and death are the eternal problem of human existence. And it is also an eternal dispute between a person's desire for a morally worthy life and the frailty of his physical existence.

The problem of life and death is both global, and personal, and world-historical, and purely individual. This is how any philosophical problem should be. And today it is being more and more actively discussed by philosophy, ethics, is being promoted to its rightful central place in philosophy, and is one of the signs of the renewal of spiritual life in our country. The problem is complex and multifaceted. It can be divided into several levels - philosophical, psychological, ethical, medical, legal, sociological.

The purpose of the work: To reveal the problem of life and death in modern science and religion. Tasks: To give scientific definitions of the concepts "life" and "death"; consider the philosophical and religious aspects of the problems of life, death and immortality.

There are many definitions of life, since ideas about it have changed, the scientific picture of the world and its philosophical understanding have improved. Let's look at some well-known definitions. For the natural sciences of the XIX century. the most successful can be considered the definition of F. Engels, according to which life is a way of existence of protein bodies, and this way of existence consists essentially in the constant self-renewal of the chemical constituents of these bodies. This definition was the foundation of dialectical materialism and many branches of natural science that developed on its basis, up to the middle of the 20th century.

In the XX century. the concept of life has deepened significantly. The qualitative structural difference of life at all its stages is that the structure of the living is dynamic and labile. Living things are not limited to protein as a substrate and metabolism as a function. Modern science has fully proved that the qualitative difference between the living and non-living lies in the structure of their compounds, in the structure and relationships, in the features of functions, in the characteristics and organization of interacting processes. At the same time, complete unity was established in the composition of the chemical elements of living and non-living.

In the second half of the XX century. the following definition was proposed: life is a way of existence of matter, naturally arising at the level of high-molecular compounds and characterized by dynamic, labile structures, self-exchange function, as well as processes of self-regulation, self-recovery and accumulation of hereditary information. In this definition, life is a dialectical unity of three features - form, functions, processes, while the definition of F. Engels is a dialectical unity of two features - form and functions.

Among other definitions, we note the definitions of modern scientists: the Russian Chelikov and the Canadian Selye. According to the first, life is a way of existence of a specifically heterogeneous material substrate, the universality and uniqueness of which determine the expedient self-reproduction of all forms. organic world in their unity and diversity. According to the definition of the famous Canadian biologist G. Selye (1907-1982), life is a process of continuous adaptation of organisms to constantly changing conditions of external and internal environment. Adaptations consist in maintaining the structure and functions of all key systems of the body when exposed to environmental factors of various nature. Adaptations are the basis of the stability and productivity of all organisms.

In studies of the problem of the origin of life, several main approaches can be distinguished. First of all, the substantive approach should be mentioned. It was developed by A.I. Oparin, J. Haldane. The key to the origin of life, according to this approach, is the presence of a certain substance, certain of its structures. One of the prominent representatives of this trend, V.A. Engelhardt believed that a genuine study of the problem of life should be based on the data of chemistry, not mathematics. As for Oparin, he emphasized the irreducibility of biology to physics and chemistry.

The next important approach is the functional approach, the main authors of which were A. N. Kolmogorov and A. A. Lyapunov. Proponents of this approach considered a living organism as a thermodynamic "black box", i.e. they were only interested in signals at the entrance to the system and at the exit from it. Distinctive feature living organisms, they considered the existence of "controlled processes" of information transfer. They did not give special significance connection of life with certain chemical elements and even allowed for the possibility of non-protein life forms. One of the representatives of this trend, V. N. Veselovsky, recognized “dynamic self-preservation” as the defining feature of the living.

Life has its own unique specifics, its own quality and various bright facets. “Living forms...,” wrote P. Kemp and K. Arms, “is an expression of an unceasing flow of matter and energy that flows through the body and at the same time creates it... We find these continuous changes at all levels of biological organization. In cells, there is a constant destruction of its constituents. chemical compounds, but in this destruction it continues to exist as a whole. In a multicellular organism, cells continuously die, being replaced by new ones, but the organisms continue to exist as a whole. In a biocenosis, or species, some individuals die, while others, new ones, are born. Thus, any organic system appears to be continuously existing.

The emergence of life is associated with a number of important principles of development: dissymmetry, historicism, etc. Great value to understand life has a life cycle. Life could arise only in an environment of a kind of dissymmetry, different from the usual environment of the biosphere. This process, according to L. Pasteur, is regulated by the P. Curie principle, according to which dissymmetry can be formed only under the influence of a cause that has the same dissymmetry.

A. Einstein said well about the principle of historicism: “Life has one more element, although logically different from the elements of physics, but by no means mystical - this is the “element of history””. Life cycle includes the totality of all phases of the development of the organism. Animals distinguish between simple and complex cycles. The latter includes metamorphoses, such as transitions from larva to pupa and then to butterfly. At higher plants one-year, two-year, multi-year life cycles can be distinguished.

In conclusion, let us mention the concept of "orthobiosis", at the origins of which is the outstanding Russian biologist I.I. Mechnikov (1845-1916). According to his ideas, "orthobiosis" is the regulation of life with the help of science, which is the result of the activity of the mind, aimed at changing nature.

Death, cessation of the vital activity of the organism and, as a result, the death of the individual as a separate living system, accompanied by the decomposition of proteins and other biopolymers, which are the main material substrate of life. At the heart of modern dialectical-materialist ideas about death lies the thought expressed by F. Engels: “Even now, they do not consider scientific that physiology that does not consider death as an essential moment of life ... that does not understand that the denial of life is essentially contained in life itself, so that life is always conceived in relation to its necessary result, which is constantly in its embryo, death.

Sometimes the concept of partial death is singled out, i.e. death of a group of cells, part or whole organ. In unicellular organisms - protozoa - the natural death of an individual manifests itself in the form of division, since it is associated with the cessation of the existence of this individual and the emergence of two new ones instead. The death of an individual is usually accompanied by the formation of a corpse. Depending on the causes of death, higher animals and humans are distinguished: natural death (also called physiological), which occurs as a result of a long, sequentially developing extinction of the body's main vital functions as a result of aging, and premature death (sometimes called pathological), caused by painful conditions of the body, lesions of vital organs (brain, heart, lungs, liver, etc.). Premature death can be sudden, i.e. occur within a few minutes and even seconds (for example, with a heart attack). Violent death can be the result of an accident, suicide, murder.

The death of warm-blooded animals and humans is associated primarily with the cessation of respiration and blood circulation. Therefore, there are 2 main stages of death: the so-called clinical death and the so-called biological, or true, following it. After the period clinical death When a full restoration of vital functions is still possible, biological death occurs - an irreversible cessation of physiological processes in cells and tissues. All processes associated with death are studied by thanatology.

Obviously, the problem of the meaning and purpose of human existence, the problem of life and death, is the central problem of philosophy.

Naturally, when each person is a separate link in the endless chain of all mankind, it is quite easy to determine the meaning of existence of this separate link, because without it the chain will break. But the same materialists argue that death is not only an individual, but the whole of humanity. In general, nothing is eternal under the sun. Yes, and the sun will go out sooner or later, and even a space flight to another galaxy will not save humanity, because sooner or later another galaxy will explode, and in the end the entire Universe will shrink back into an infinitesimal size. It is known that, in accordance with the concept of universal evolutionism, 15-20 million years ago, all the matter of our Universe was concentrated in a "singularity" - a certain physical state that does not obey the usual laws of physics. All matter was concentrated in an unusually small volume with gigantic density and monstrous temperature. The latest research shows that this "singularity" was created from nothing. And from this "nothing" everything arose, so that after a certain time it would turn into this "nothing" again.

Life is the opposite of lifelessness, and death is the opposite of birth, for death and birth are poles and boundaries human life, its limits. Death is even more necessary than birth, since this or that person could not be born, since his birth depended on many accidents. But once he was born, then nothing can save him from death.

Life and death - eternal themes spiritual culture of mankind in all its divisions. Prophets and founders of religions, philosophers and moralists, figures of art and literature, teachers and physicians thought about them. It is unlikely that there will be an adult who, sooner or later, would not think about the meaning of his existence, impending death and the achievement of immortality. These thoughts come to the mind of children and very young people, which is what poems and prose, dramas and tragedies, letters and diaries say. Only early childhood or senile insanity save a person from the need to solve these problems. A.P. Chekhov wrote in one of his letters: “Philosophize - the mind will spin”, referring to this or that way of solving the problems of life and death. However, true philosophizing is impossible without addressing these eternal themes.

As a matter of fact, we are talking about the triad: life - death - immortality, since all the spiritual systems of mankind proceeded from the idea of ​​the contradictory unity of these phenomena. Most Attention Here, death and the acquisition of immortality in another life were given, and human life itself was interpreted as a moment allotted to a person so that he could adequately prepare for death and immortality.

With few exceptions, people of all times and peoples have spoken quite negatively about life. Life is suffering (Buddha, Schopenhauer, etc.); life is a dream (Vedas, Plato, La Bruyère, Pascal); life is the abyss of evil (ancient Egyptian text "A conversation of a man with his spirit").

Proverbs and sayings say the same different peoples type "Life is a penny." Ortega y Gasset defined man not as a body and not as a spirit, but as a specifically human drama. Indeed, in this sense, the life of every person is dramatic and tragic: no matter how successful life is, no matter how long it is, its end is inevitable.

Death and potential immortality is the strongest lure for the philosophizing mind, for all our life's affairs must somehow be measured against the eternal. Man is doomed to think about death, and this is his difference from the animal, which is mortal, but does not know about it. True, animals feel the approach of death, especially domestic ones, and their death behavior most often resembles a painful search for solitude and tranquility. Death in general is a retribution for the complication of the biological system. Unicellular are practically immortal and the amoeba is a happy creature in this sense. When an organism becomes multicellular, a mechanism of self-destruction at a certain stage of development, associated with the genome, is built into it, as it were.

For centuries, the best minds of mankind have been trying, at least theoretically, to refute this thesis, to prove, and then to bring real immortality to life. However, the ideal of such immortality is not the existence of an amoeba and not an angelic life in a better world. From this point of view, a person should live forever, being in the prime of life, reminiscent of Goethe's Faust. “Stop a moment” is the motto of such immortality, the impulse of which is, in the words of Ortega y Gasset, “biological vitality”, “ life force", akin to that "that sways the sea, fertilizes the beast, covers the tree with flowers, lights and extinguishes the stars." A person cannot accept the fact that it is he who will have to leave this magnificent world, where life is in full swing. To be an eternal spectator of this grandiose picture of the Universe, not to experience "saturation of days" like the biblical prophets - could anything be more tempting?

But, thinking about it, you begin to understand that death is perhaps the only thing before which everyone is equal: poor and rich, dirty and clean, loved and unloved. Although both in antiquity and in our days, attempts were constantly made and are being made to convince the world that there are people who have been "there" and returned back, but common sense refuses to believe this. Faith is required, a miracle is needed, which the gospel Christ performed, "trampling death by death." It has been noticed that the wisdom of a person is often expressed in a calm attitude towards life and death. At the same time, many great people realized this problem in tragic tones. An outstanding domestic biologist I.I. Mechnikov, who thought about the possibility of “cultivating the instinct of natural death,” wrote about L.N. Tolstoy: “When Tolstoy, tormented by the impossibility of solving this problem and haunted by the fear of death, asked himself whether family love calm his soul, he immediately saw that it was a vain hope. Why, he asked himself, raise children who would soon find themselves in the same critical condition as their father? Why should they live? Why should I love them, raise them and watch over them? For the same despair that is in me, or for stupidity? Loving them, I cannot hide the truth from them—every step leads them to the knowledge of this truth. And the truth is death.

So, we can single out the first dimension of the problem of life, death and immortality - biological, because these states are, in fact, different aspects of one phenomenon. The hypothesis of panspermia, the constant presence of life and death in the Universe, their constant reproduction under suitable conditions, has long been put forward. Stars, nebulae, planets, comets and other cosmic bodies are born, live and die, and in this sense no one and nothing disappears. This aspect is most developed in Eastern philosophy and mystical teachings, proceeding from the fundamental impossibility of understanding the meaning of this universe circulation only by reason.

Awareness of the unity of human and human life with all life on the planet, with its biosphere, as well as potentially possible life forms in the Universe, is of great ideological significance.

This idea of ​​the sanctity of life, the right to life for any living being, by virtue of the very fact of birth, belongs to the number of eternal ideals of mankind. Ultimately, the entire Universe and the Earth are considered as living beings, and interference with the still poorly known laws of their life is fraught with an ecological crisis. Man appears as a small particle of this living Universe, a microcosm that has absorbed all the richness of the macrocosm. A feeling of "reverence for life" (A. Schweitzer), a sense of belonging to wonderful world living to some extent inherent in any worldview system. Even if the biological, bodily life is considered an inauthentic, transitive form of human existence, then in these cases (for example, in Christianity), human flesh can and should acquire a different, flourishing state.

The second dimension of the problem of life, death and immortality is connected with the understanding of the specifics of human life and its difference from the life of all living things. For more than thirty centuries, sages, prophets and philosophers different countries and peoples are trying to find this watershed. Most often it is believed that the whole point is the realization of the fact of impending death: we know that we will die and are feverishly looking for a path to immortality. Everything else living quietly and peacefully completes its journey, having managed to reproduce new life or serve as fertilizer for another life. A person is doomed to lifelong agonizing thoughts about the meaning of life or its meaninglessness, torments himself, and often others, and is forced to drown these damned questions in wine or drugs. This is partly true, but the question arises: what to do with the fact of the death of a newborn child who has not yet had time to understand anything, or a mentally retarded person who is not able to understand anything? Should we consider the moment of conception (which cannot be accurately determined in most cases) or the moment of birth to be considered the beginning of a person's life?

It is known that the dying L.N. Tolstoy, addressing those around him, said that they should turn their eyes to millions of other people, and not look at one lion. Unknown, and touching no one except the mother, the death of a small creature from starvation somewhere in Africa and lavish funeral world famous leaders in the face of eternity have no distinction. In this sense, the English poet D. Donn is deeply right when he said that the death of each person detracts from all of humanity and therefore “never ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for you.”

It is obvious that the specifics of life, death and immortality of a person are not directly related to the mind and its manifestations, with the successes and achievements of a person throughout life, with the assessment of his contemporaries and descendants. The death of many geniuses in young age, undeniably tragic, but at the same time there is no reason to believe that their subsequent life, if it had taken place, would have given the world something even more brilliant. There is some kind of not entirely clear, but empirically obvious pattern, expressed by the Christian thesis: "God takes first of all the best".

In this sense, life and death are not covered by the categories of rational knowledge, they do not fit into the framework of a rigid deterministic model of the world and man. To talk about these concepts in cold blood is possible up to a certain limit. It is due to the personal interest of each person and his ability to intuitively comprehend the ultimate foundations of human existence. In this respect, everyone is like a swimmer jumping into the waves among high seas. We must rely only on ourselves, despite human solidarity, faith in God, Higher intelligence etc. The uniqueness of a person, the uniqueness of a person is manifested here in the highest degree. Geneticists have calculated that the probability of the birth of this particular person from these parents is one chance in a hundred trillion cases. If this has already happened, then what amazing, imaginative variety of human meanings of being appears before a person when he thinks about life and death?

The third dimension of this problem is associated with the idea of ​​gaining immortality, which sooner or later becomes the center of attention of a person, especially if he has reached adulthood. There are several types of immortality associated with the fact that after a person remains his business, children, grandchildren, etc. (of course, not everyone), the products of his activity are personal things, as well as the fruits of spiritual production (ideas, images, etc.). d.).

The first type of immortality is in the genes of offspring, close to most people. In addition to principled opponents of marriage and family and misogynists, many seek to perpetuate themselves in this way. One of the powerful drives of a person is the desire to see his features in children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In the royal dynasties of Europe, the transmission of certain features (for example, the nose of the Habsburgs) over several generations has been traced. Inheritance is associated with this not only physical signs, but also the moral principles of family occupation or craft, etc. Historians have established that many outstanding figures of Russian culture of the XIX century. were related (albeit distantly) to each other. One century includes four generations.

The second type of immortality is the mummification of the body with the expectation of its eternal preservation. The experience of the Egyptian pharaohs, the practice of modern embalming (V.I. Lenin, Mao Zedong, etc.) indicate that in a number of civilizations this is considered accepted. Achievements in technology at the end of the 20th century. made it possible to deep freeze the bodies of the dead with the expectation that the physicians of the future will revive them and cure now incurable diseases. Such a fetishization of the human corporality is typical mainly for totalitarian societies, where the power of the elderly becomes the basis for the stability of the state.

The third type of immortality is the hope for the dissolution of the body and spirit of the deceased in the Universe, their entry into the cosmic "body", into the eternal circulation of matter. This is typical for a number of Eastern civilizations, especially Japanese. The Islamic model of attitude to life and death and various materialistic or rather naturalistic concepts are close to such a solution. This is about loss. personal qualities and the preservation of particles of the former body that can go into the composition of other organisms. This highly abstract kind of immortality is unacceptable to most people and emotionally rejected.

The fourth path to immortality is connected with the results of human life creativity. No wonder members of various academies are awarded the title of "immortal". Scientific discovery, the creation of a brilliant work of literature and art, indicating the way for humanity in new faith, the creation of a philosophical text, an outstanding military victory and a demonstration of state wisdom - all this leaves the name of a person in the memory of grateful descendants. Heroes and prophets, martyrs and saints, architects and inventors are immortalized. The names of the cruelest tyrants and the greatest criminals are forever preserved in the memory of mankind. This raises the question of the ambiguity of assessing the scale of a person's personality. It gives the impression that what large quantity human lives and broken human destinies lies on the conscience of one or another historical character, the more chances he has to get into history and gain immortality there. The ability to influence the lives of hundreds of millions of people, the "charisma" of power causes many a state of mystical horror mixed with reverence. Legends and traditions are composed about such people, which are passed down from generation to generation.

The fifth path to immortality is associated with the achievement of various states, which science calls "altered states of consciousness." Basically, they are the product of a system of psycho-training and meditation adopted in Eastern religions and civilizations. Here, a “breakthrough” into other dimensions of space and time, travel to the past and future, ecstasy and enlightenment, a mystical feeling of belonging to Eternity are possible.

We can say that the meaning of death and immortality, as well as the ways to achieve it, are reverse side problems of the meaning of life. It is obvious that these questions are resolved differently, depending on the leading spiritual attitude of a particular civilization.

In the history of the spiritual life of mankind there were many concepts of life, death and immortality based on a non-religious and atheistic approach to the world and man. Irreligious people and atheists are often reproached for what for them earthly life is everything, and death is an irresistible tragedy that essentially makes life meaningless. L.N. Tolstoy, in his famous confession, painfully tried to find in life that meaning that would not be destroyed by death, which is inevitably coming to every person. For a believer, everything is clear here, but for an unbeliever, there is an alternative of three possible ways to solve this problem.

The first way is to accept the idea, which is confirmed by science and just common sense, that in the world it is impossible to completely destroy even an elementary particle, but conservation laws apply. Matter, energy, and, it is believed, information and organization of complex systems are conserved. Consequently, the particles of our "I" after death will enter the eternal cycle of being and in this sense will be immortal. True, they will not have a consciousness, a soul, with which our "I" is associated. Moreover, this kind of immortality is acquired by a person throughout his life. You can even say in the form of a paradox: we are alive only because we die every second. Every day, erythrocytes in the blood die, epithelial cells on our mucous membranes, hair falls out, etc. Therefore, to fix life and death as absolute opposites is in principle impossible either in reality or in thought. These are two sides of the same coin.

In the face of death, people in the full sense of the word are equal to each other, as well as to any living being, which erases the inequality on which earthly life is based. Therefore, the calm perception of the idea of ​​the absence of eternal life of my "I" and the understanding of the inevitability of merging with "indifferent" nature is one of the ways of a non-religious approach to the problem of immortality. True, in this case the problem arises of the Absolute, on which one can base one's moral decisions. A.P. Chekhov wrote: “You need to believe in God, and if there is no faith, then do not take its place with hype, but search, search, search alone, alone with your conscience.”

The second way is the acquisition of immortality in human affairs, in the fruits of material and spiritual production, which are included in the treasury of mankind. To do this, first of all, you need confidence that humanity is immortal and that the cosmic destiny is in the spirit of the ideas of K. E. Tsiolkovsky and other cosmists. If, however, self-destruction in a thermonuclear ecological catastrophe is real for humanity, as well as due to some kind of cosmic cataclysms, then in this case the question remains open. Among the ideals and driving forces of this type of immortality, the struggle for the liberation of mankind from class and social oppression, the struggle for national independence and the acquisition of statehood, the struggle for peace and justice, etc. This gives the life of such fighters a higher meaning, which merges with immortality.

The third path to immortality, as a rule, is chosen by people whose scale of activity does not go beyond their home and immediate environment. Here we can talk about the movement "deep", about what is expressed in the words of Goethe's Mephistopheles: "Theory, my friend, is dry, but the tree of life is green." Without expecting eternal bliss or eternal torment, without going into the "tricks" of the mind that connects the microcosm (i.e. man) with the macrocosm, millions of people simply float in the stream of life, feeling themselves a particle of it. Immortality for them is not in the eternal memory of blessed humanity, but in everyday affairs and worries. “Believing in God is not difficult... No, you believe in man!” - Chekhov wrote this without at all assuming that it was he, himself, who would become an example of this type of attitude to life and death. To characterize it, L.L. Kogan proposed the term "twisted" as a criterion that characterizes all possible signs vital activity necessary for the normal functioning of a human being.

We can also mention other concepts of gaining immortality aimed at changing the laws of nature (“common cause” by N.F. Fedorov, pantheism in the spirit of the ideas of A. Einstein), achieving “life after death”, as well as numerous mystical currents based on the real the presence of the other world and the possibility of communication with the departed. Moreover, information appears that each person has a kind of energy phantom, which leaves a person shortly before physical death, but continues to exist in other dimensions. This generally leads to a different type of understanding of the problem of immortality, which is associated with the need for self-determination in the eternal world of information and energy entities.

Modern thanatology (the doctrine of death) is one of the "hot spots" of natural science and humanitarian knowledge. Interest in the problem of death is due to several reasons. Firstly, this is a situation of a global civilized crisis, which, in principle, can lead to the self-destruction of mankind. Secondly, the value attitude to human life and death has changed significantly in connection with the general situation on Earth.

Almost one and a half billion inhabitants of the planet live in complete poverty, and another billion is approaching the mark, one and a half billion earthlings are deprived of any medical care, a billion people cannot read and write, there are 700 million unemployed in the world; 200 million children are forced to work from infancy in order not to die of hunger. This leads to a pronounced devaluation of human life, to contempt for the life of both one's own and that of another person. The bacchanalia of terrorism, the growth in the number of unmotivated murders and violence, as well as suicides, are symptoms of the global pathology of mankind at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. At the same time, at the turn of the 60s. in Western countries, bioethics appeared - a complex discipline located at the intersection of philosophy, ethics, biology, medicine and a number of other disciplines. It was a kind of reaction to the new problems of life and death, organ and tissue transplants, genetic engineering, in vitro fertilization, etc.

This coincided with the growing interest in human rights, including in relation to one's own bodily and spiritual existence and the reaction of society to the threat to life on Earth, due to the aggravation of global problems of mankind. Currently, bioethics covers such areas as ethical issues euthanasia, decortication, abortion, suicide, organ transplants, including brain, new childbirth technologies (including surrogate pregnancy), genetic engineering, human gender identity, mental health attitudes, etc. These problems are solved on the basis of existing normal and ethical approaches within the framework of global and national religions, humanistic ethics of freethinking, as well as various legal systems.

In recent years, euthanasia (literally “happy death”) has attracted special attention as a new phenomenon in the life of society that requires deep philosophical reflection. The term itself has appeared since the time of F. Bacon, who proposed to call easy death in this way in order to stop suffering in case of incurable diseases. Obviously, this phenomenon is based on the concept of a person's right not only to life, but also to death, which also applies to the phenomenon of suicide. There are the following types of euthanasia: active, voluntary; active, involuntary; passive, voluntary; passive, involuntary.

Solving the issue of the legality and moral validity of euthanasia, doctors have to solve a dilemma known since the time of Hippocrates: on the one hand, the doctor should not be a murderer, even at the request of the patient, and on the other hand, he should alleviate the plight of the sufferer. AT modern world euthanasia is legally permitted in the Netherlands, while in other countries, including Russia, it is prohibited. However, the problem exists in a number of countries (USA and others), even devices for painless death have been invented, which the patient himself can put into action. In the history of philosophical thought, there have been many statements regarding the right of a person to make such a decision. So, Montaigne believed that when there is more evil in a person's life than good, then the hour has come when he can leave. In a number of Western countries, it is becoming a tradition to "commemorate while alive", when a terminally ill person, feeling the approach of death, asks to gather relatives and friends. For several decades, "hospices" have been functioning - hospitals for hopeless patients, where you can die "humanly".

If a person has something like a death instinct (which Freud wrote about), then everyone has a natural, innate right not only to live as he was born, but also to die in human conditions. One of the features of modernity is that humanism and humane relations between people are the basis and guarantee of survival for mankind. If earlier any social and natural disasters left hope that the majority of people would survive and restore what was destroyed, now vitality can be considered a concept derived from humanism.

Life and death... Aren't these stages of the same process? Isn't dying a part of life? Philosophers and scientists are now trying to ask difficult questions. Only it is not clear to what extent we are able to answer them today. Haven't you completely forgotten how?.. How can a competent living assembly be useful when discussing such an abandoned topic? Is that the experience of his life - so everyone has his own. experience own death?.. This is already more interesting. But here complex games usually begin: “No one has returned from there yet”, “those who return have no evidence that they really have been there”, “halfway is not yet a way”, etc.

Reflecting on the problem of life and death, one inevitably comes to the need to answer the question: for what can a person be responsible, and for what not? After all, the level of responsibility of a person for his or her life that has taken place or has not taken place depends on the degree of freedom to choose alternatives to his life.

The problems of life and death have been developed by philosophers and ethicists for centuries. Why do we return to them? Because these are eternal problems that people will always think about as long as humanity exists. New social and moral experience is constantly accumulating, and the need arises to raise questions again, to give them new solutions. And the social and moral experience of the 20th century provided especially much material for generalization. Therefore, the questions of life and death have arisen in our time with great acuteness.

Aries F. Man in the face of death. - M., 1992.

Life and death: riddles and contradictions (According to the materials of the "round table". Moscow, 1999). - M., 2000.

Ilyin N.A. modern science about life and death. - Chisinau, 1995.

Kemp P., Arms K. Introduction to biology. - M., 1996.

Oparin A.I. Life as a form of motion of matter. - M., 1993.

The Human Phenomenon: An Anthology. - M., 1999.

Philosophy. - Rostov n/a. - 1996.

35 useful tips by Robin Sharma. We are not acquainted? - then we read below and gain experience that the writer and the motivational specialist share.

Here are the tips themselves:
1. Remember that the quality of your life is determined by the quality of your thoughts.
2. Keep promises made to others and to yourself.
3. The thing that scares you the most should be done first.
4. Small daily improvements are the key to stunning long-term results.
5. Stop being busy just to be busy. This year, remove everything that distracts you from work and life, and focus your attention on a few of the most important things.
6. Read the book The Art of War.
7. Watch the movie "Fighter" (2010).
8. In a world where technology is commonplace, some of us have forgotten how to act like a human being. Become the most polite person.
9. Remember: all great ideas were first ridiculed.
10. Remember: critics scare dreamers.
11. Be like Apple in your obsession with doing everything right, even the little things.
12. Every weekend, use 60 minutes to work out a plan for the next seven days. As Saul Bellow once said, "A plan saves you the pain of choice."
13. Let go of what is holding you and love this one. New Year. You cannot foresee if you don't love.
14. Destroy or be destroyed.
15. Hire a personal trainer to get in the best shape. Stars focus on the value they receive, regardless of the cost of the service.
16. Give your friends, clients and family the greatest gift of all - your attention (and presence).
17. Every morning ask yourself: “How can I best serve people?”
18. Every evening ask yourself: “What good (five points) happened to me this day?”
19. Don't waste your most valuable morning hours doing simple work.
20. Try to leave each project in best condition than you started it.
21. Have the courage to be different. Have the courage to create in your chosen field something significant that has never been created before.
22. Every job is not just a job. Each work is a great tool to express your gifts and talents.
23. The fears you avoid limit your options.
24. Get up at 5 am and spend 60 minutes fueling your mind, body, emotions and spirit. This is the most productive time. Be a superhero!
25. Write romantic letters to your family.
26. Smile at strangers.
27. Drink more water.
28. Keep a diary. Your life is worth it.
29. Do more than what was paid, and do it in such a way that everyone around you will take their breath away.
30. Leave your ego at the door every morning.
31. Set yourself 5 goals every day. These small victories will lead you to almost 2000 small victories by the end of the year.
32. Say THANK YOU and PLEASE.
33. Remember the secret to happiness: do the work that matters and be necessary in your work.
34. Do not strive to be the richest person in the cemetery. Health is wealth.
35. Life is short. The biggest risk is taking no risk and agreeing to be mediocre.

As a start, some information from Wikipedia:

Life is an active form of the existence of matter, in a sense higher than its physical and chemical forms of existence; a set of physical and chemical processes occurring in a cell that allow metabolism and cell division (life does not exist outside the cell, viruses exhibit the properties of living matter only after the transfer of genetic material into the cell). Adapting to environment, a living cell forms the whole variety of living organisms. The main attribute of living matter is genetic information The used for replication.

More or less accurately define the concept of "life" can only enumerate the qualities that distinguish it from non-life. Currently, there is no consensus on the concept of life, however, scientists generally recognize that the biological manifestation of life is characterized by: organization, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli and reproduction. It can also be said that life is a characteristic of the state of the organism.

Also, the word "life" is understood as the period of existence of a single organism from the moment of its inception to its death.

Definitions

There are a large number of definitions of the concept of "life", reflecting different approaches. Numerous definitions of the essence of life can be reduced to three main ones. According to the first approach, life is determined by the carrier of its properties (for example, protein); according to the second approach, life is considered as a set of specific physical and chemical processes. And, finally, the third approach is to determine the minimum possible set of mandatory properties, without which no life is possible.

Friedrich Engels gave the following definition: "Life is a mode of existence of protein bodies, the essential point of which is the constant exchange of substances with the external nature surrounding them, and with the cessation of this metabolism, life also ceases, which leads to the decomposition of the protein."

Life can be defined as active, going with the expenditure of energy received from outside, the maintenance and self-reproduction of the molecular structure.

The Russian scientist M. V. Volkenstein gave a new definition to the concept of life: “Living bodies that exist on Earth are open, self-regulating and self-reproducing systems built from biopolymers - proteins and nucleic acids” [source not specified 822 days].

According to the views of one of the founders of thanatology M. Bish, life is a set of phenomena that resist death.

From the point of view of the second law of thermodynamics, life is a process, or a system, the development vector of which is opposite in direction to the rest, "non-living" objects of the universe, and is aimed at reducing its own entropy (see Thermal death).

V. N. Parmon gave the following definition: “Life is a phase-separate form of existence of functioning autocatalysts capable of chemical mutations and undergoing a rather long evolution due to natural selection.”

According to Ozanger and Morowitz (English) Russian: “Life is a property of matter, leading to a coupled circulation of bioelements in aquatic environment, driven ultimately by the energy of solar radiation on a path of increasing complexity"

There are also cybernetic definitions of life. According to the definition of A. A. Lyapunov, life is “a highly stable state of matter that uses information encoded by the states of individual molecules to develop conservation reactions.”

There is also a physiological definition of life given in 1929 by A.F. Samoilov, which was not fully explored by the great scientist:

"Life is vicious circle reflex activity. The break of this circle in any of its places (the state of "coma") means a sharp limitation of the parameters of life or even the absence of life. Now we can somewhat expand this concept and indicate the reasons on which this “vicious circle” depends. Namely: the state of the external environment, the “power of the will” of the individual, the internal vegetative principles of the organism, which are not subject to the “power of the will”. Note that the concept of "power of will" was also introduced into scientific circulation by A.F. Samoilov.