Drawing on a wide spectrum of topics-including politics, cosmology, the arts, philosophy and religious beliefs, 1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think traces the exponential growth of human knowledge across the centuries. Ranging from the ancient wisdom of Confucius and Plato to the cutting-edge theories taking shape in the twenty-first century, this book offers a wealth of stimulation and amusement for any reader with a lively and curious mind.
This richly informative and entertaining book provides a wide variety of answers to those eternal questions: How was the universe created and what is the place of humans within it? How should a person live? And how can we build a just society?
But 1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think also includes a host of speculations that are remarkable for their sheer weirdness-from the concept of the transmigration of souls to parallel universes and the paradoxes of time travel (what happens if you travel back in time and kill your own grandfather?).
Readers will discover how the Greek philosopher Zeno 'proved' a flying arrow never moves and the mathematical proof of the existence of life in other galaxies. The inspiring ideas explored range from Gandhi's theory of civil disobedience to Mary Wollstonecraft's groundbreaking advocacy of women's rights. A wide variety of cultural movements are also covered, including Neoclassicism, Surrealism and Postmodernism
This richly informative and entertaining book provides a wide variety of answers to those eternal questions: How was the universe created and what is the place of humans within it? How should a person live? And how can we build a just society?
But 1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think also includes a host of speculations that are remarkable for their sheer weirdness-from the concept of the transmigration of souls to parallel universes and the paradoxes of time travel (what happens if you travel back in time and kill your own grandfather?).
Readers will discover how the Greek philosopher Zeno 'proved' a flying arrow never moves and the mathematical proof of the existence of life in other galaxies. The inspiring ideas explored range from Gandhi's theory of civil disobedience to Mary Wollstonecraft's groundbreaking advocacy of women's rights. A wide variety of cultural movements are also covered, including Neoclassicism, Surrealism and Postmodernism
For example-
c. 40,000 BCE
Soul
Unknown
The belief in a non-physical entity with certain essential characteristics
A dead person’s soul travels through the underworld in this ancient Egyptian papyrus (c. 1600–1100 BCE).
The belief in the existence of souls has been prevalent in humankind for millennia. The concept of a soul isthought to have appeared around the same time as the emergence of shamanism in c. 40,000 BCE, which can be seen as the first example of religion. The discovery of ritual items at shamanistic burial sites suggests that those carrying out the burial believed in the afterlife, which in turn implies that they believed individuals to have a non-physical component that survives after death. This non-physical component—or soul—can be defined as the immaterial essence or animating principle of an individual life. It is generally viewed as separate to the body and is often credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion.
The oldest religious traditions—shamanistic, polytheistic, and monotheistic—generally agree that the soul grounds the identity of a given thing, and contains in it an organizing life-principle for that entity. Thus, for example, the vegetative life and identity of a rose is grounded in its soul, in the same way that the sentient life and identity of a zebra is grounded in its soul. For some religious traditions—shamanism, for example—the type of soul in a rose, zebra, or human is not clearly distinguished, which often leads to the notion that everything with a soul is of equal value. However, other traditions argue that the soul of a human is immortal and rational, and so is more valuable than the soul of a rose or a zebra, both of which are mortal and non-rational.
The near-universal belief that the soul of a human is immortal has led to the near-universal belief in both an underworld that houses the unworthy souls of the dead and a heavenlike place that welcomes the worthy souls. In the underworld the souls are seen in misery, partly because they are without bodies, whereas in the heavenlike place the souls are often depicted enjoying the fruits of the body. AB
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