Week 6 Essay

1.  Faqir Chand was an Indian sage and meditator who practiced controlled meditations that could result in near-death conscious experiences. He termed the coin “The Chandian Effect,” which describes a mystical encounter with a sacred form, of which the object of devotion is relatively unaware (Lane 15). He states that most of these inner visions are simply a projection of one’s own mind and the result of one’s faith and beliefs. Gurus, which are spiritual leaders with many followers, are typically unaware of the visions that other people have of them. These manifestations are created by our own mind and are an attempt to encourage our own self-preservation. Our subconscious mind oftentimes collects information and reveals to us in visions what course of action will best ensure our survival. By placing ourselves in near death experiences, our mind pushes itself to reveal key information about our present, not necessarily the future.


2.  
“Philosophy done well is science; philosophy done poorly remains philosophy” means that scientific explanations support most philosophical theories. We exhaust all scientific explanations, from biology to physics to chemistry, before turning to philosophy as an answer. Therefore, everything we hold as true in philosophy is based off something that science is not. When a scientific hypothesis is examined, tested, and proved accurate, it becomes scientific. But when a philosophical hypothesis is made, science must prove that it is true, or done well.