In: Psychology
In the history of philosophy there are many philosophers who have varied views on the topic life and death. Richard Dawkins proposed his views on life and death, and biological Materialism.
Materialism states that, the human consciousness has evolved over the generations, the genes which are helpful and have made efforts for survival has been passed on to the future generations whereas the others weren’t.
Richard Dawkins said that the memories which were passed onto the future generations help them to survive death. This means that the human brain eventually learns how to survive death through his previous experiences (which was passed on). The genes which are passed on have played a role as survival machines.
These philosophical views led few psychologists to believe that humans eventually develop a psychological need to believe their body can survive its decay and death. This caused an extreme resistance to the concept of materialism. This position was known as scientism, as the view wasn’t scientific and empirically proven. Scientism is an ideology which a group of people or a person believes without any source of evidence.