Death is neutral. Why we shouldn't be fearful.
Living comes with its risks. To live is to have the ability to struggle to live, to suffer, to be damaged or threatened, broken or injured. To be hurt. But it also comes with the pleasures of life; the indulgence of the senses, creativity and thought, desirable emotions, success and power/ability and love/sex.
So death, as a void of all living qualities must neither be a particularly bad or good experience. It's likely not even an experience at all. In this sense death is akin to a "dreamless sleep" which most would argue is a relatively fine and comfortable state of being.
We have culturally designated death as an ultimatum and applied a good and bad outcome to it. It's natural to do so. Because all we know (being living things) are the prospects of these two opposite and how they impact us and our survival. But it's a big assumption and illogical moreover. The irony of religious concepts of heaven and hell, of paradise and torture, is that these are qualities of life not death. We can live in paradise or in hell. Dead things cannot.
So fear comes back to definitive uncertainty. A need to know what is going to happen. A desire to control every possible event that could/will befall us naturally. Deaths neutrality is really a loss of identity. A dissolution of self. Is it nothing though? Is death absolutely nothingness with no conscious aspect to it at all? I'm not sure. That's really down to an understanding of awareness/consciousness. If death is a form of awareness only then could I I understand a rational reason to fear it.
So death, as a void of all living qualities must neither be a particularly bad or good experience. It's likely not even an experience at all. In this sense death is akin to a "dreamless sleep" which most would argue is a relatively fine and comfortable state of being.
We have culturally designated death as an ultimatum and applied a good and bad outcome to it. It's natural to do so. Because all we know (being living things) are the prospects of these two opposite and how they impact us and our survival. But it's a big assumption and illogical moreover. The irony of religious concepts of heaven and hell, of paradise and torture, is that these are qualities of life not death. We can live in paradise or in hell. Dead things cannot.
So fear comes back to definitive uncertainty. A need to know what is going to happen. A desire to control every possible event that could/will befall us naturally. Deaths neutrality is really a loss of identity. A dissolution of self. Is it nothing though? Is death absolutely nothingness with no conscious aspect to it at all? I'm not sure. That's really down to an understanding of awareness/consciousness. If death is a form of awareness only then could I I understand a rational reason to fear it.
Comments (38)
and unassailable. Life cannot become non life and vice versa.
A piece of wood cannot become a living being. A living being cannot become a piece of wood.
You absolutely should fear death. That fear motivates you to take care of yourself, which results in a better quality of life. It prevents you from putting yourself in a situation of high risk. It helps you evaluate and think about situations before you get in there, and its too late for regrets.
But that is all we should fear. We should not fear what comes beyond, whether there is any existence or is not. We should fear the loss of what we have now, and the potential we could have while in THIS life. Death means no more breathing. No more sunsets. No more encounters with people, deep thoughts or emotions. Its the end.
If you do not fear that, then there is something wrong with you that you should get looked at or worked on. The base state of life should be to desire to keep living. It is a fundamental to being a "living" being, and not merely a non renewable chemical reaction that reacts and burns out without any say in the matter.
And if you actually try to understand or ask questions in a decent manner I will respond. Pompous much!
Quit your regimented ad hom and actually respond with some nuance.
And how about answering my simple question. Fingernails???
It seems like the OP's topic is being forgotten though. Asif, forgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems like English may be a second language to you. Perhaps in your language what you stated would be better understood, so forgive us native speakers for not quite understanding your meaning. Are you stating that one cannot "die" because then that would be the negation of one's identity as a living being?
The best I can think of is if you were "dead", it wouldn't be "you", because "you" are a living being. The shell left behind would be dead matter, but it would not be you. Let me know if I'm on the right track, or if there is further explanation needed.
If this is so, how does this relate to fear? Do you believe that because one's identity is living, it is impossible for a living thing to ever cease to be living? Thus we have no need to fear death?
Of course death is not some trivial event. We have Family and things we want to do. And it can involve pain and the unknown so thats why there is fear. To say nothing of religious upbringing tainting this anxiety.
And English is my first language. Maybe I write too well for philosophy. :cool:
I agree. :up:
[i]“I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens.”
“You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.”
“I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don't want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.”[/i]
? Woody Allen
The principle of Identity is an expression of Life and conceptualized by humans. It's not some platonic non living idea seperate from life. Doors do not self identify.
The whole notion of conflating Life with non life is what creates this confusion. You do realise that life has never been seen to arise from non life? You know why? Because it's impossible. Life is it's own proof. We are here typing.
Proof for matter creating life?
Asif, are we not completely made up of matter? I think we're emphasizing that there is some great difference between life and non-life, when that is not a given. As a basic descriptor, life seems to be a material and chemical reaction that actively seeks to sustain itself.
For example, if I mix baking soda and vinegar together, we get a reaction. Once it ends, its over. The vinegar does not seek to replenish itself or the baking soda. "Life" is a chemical reaction that seeks to replenish itself. When it is running low on the things it needs to sustain itself, it gets water or food. When it realizes it can no longer extend itself, it creates some type of copy of itself to keep going.
But this is ALL matter doing this. The need for self-identity is not relevant to life either. Bacterium do not know what they are. I think you are describing intelligence, which is when matter gains greater awareness and ability to replenish its chemical reaction.
To me, fear is an impetus to drive the chemical reaction that is life to keep going, or avoid things that would end its reaction prematurely. All of this is done through energy and matter. Can you back up your claim that life does not come from matter? Is this a purely spiritual or mental identity on your part?
The artist is a result of the complexity of the paint?
All these words ,fear,impetus these are attributes qualities of Living beings not matter.
Yeah,I back up my claim. My desire my animation is physical not material. I sculpt and use matter just like any artist.
Your claim is what, that a special brew of paint starts moving having will desires and starts talking then starts studying the paint brew that created him! And you want me to back up my claim! Yours is a miraculous extraordinary claim. Mine is shown every time I waggle my finger.
I think you're still talking about intelligence, and not life itself. If you want to talk about intelligence as something separate from life, we can go down that route after. But first, do you not think a bacterium is composed of matter? Matter interacts with other matter all of the time, and in that clash, a new shape emerges. Life is simply a set of complex reactions that seeks to preserve itself. When an amoeba is hungry, it is running out of energy to sustain itself, so it seeks out more matter to sustain its chemical reaction.
This is not strange or fiction. This is the reality of the world around us.
How are you distinguishing them? Matter is not Intelligent. Life/intelligence arranges matter and creates dynamic new shapes and patterns.
Matter does not self organise nor seek out energy to sustain its form.
Materialism is more than strange or fiction its positively a falsehood. Reality? Come now. A set of dogmas and misobservations trumps human experience and the logic of Identity. Wow!
Platonism/reification surely has confused many minds on even the most basic fundamental logic!
Materialists don't seem to realise they have replaced the dogma of monotheism with the dogma of material monism.
To say a something is alive is to point to its qualities not just contrasting it to things not alive!
And words they are an expression of life,the expressor is alive. Let's distinguish between spoken and written words.
Spoken words are living. The speaker is living.
First:
Simply by a the biological imprinted self-preservation instict everyone is afraid to die. That is GOOD! It gives us the ability to characterize things, situations, animals and people as dangerous before they affect us which helps us to survive. Thanks to that fear you made it so far. Yay!
And second:
When this fear though becomes an intellectual topic getting analyzed and discussed, it forms not only basic questions of what "life" and "death" is but also entire concepts based upon. And depending what culture we live in this concept varies. Some concepts reunite the departed back with the earth in form of reincarnation, others lift their souls to a new place of existence and other concepts again try to bridge between both.
Despite all different models you can summond that it includes the wish for immortality.
Now, because we express our existence as either "to be or not to be", being dead would mean "not to be" anymore - the ending of your own consciousness.
[i]"Cogito, ergo sum"
"I think, therefore I am."[/i]
And since you cannot be aware of your first "state of being", (you just gain awareness that your existence must have had a starting point and collect memories down the road) being set in your own "being" and only experienced yourself that way, we are able to define timelines from our point of existence which we call "past", "presence" and "future". And the "future" is where the fear kicks in again. We then try to visualize us the next level of "being". Since death obviously appears to be that border everyones life runs toward to, we look for a word of what is behind that side we know, behind here and there, and call it “hereafter”.
Dying as a metamorphosis offers now two options:
The continued existence (whether in a metaphysical form or by reincarnation through another real physical being) or the absolute vanish.
With these options in mind, we are confronted inevitably with the question: "What does death look like?" And picturing "being dead" is a terrifying thought. On top of that such an abstract one that you can't put it any other way but picturing “nothing”. A "nothing" consisting any but darkness and emptiness. We cannot visualize this emptiness other than an room open to all sides.
But even this wallless space must have a starting point, a "point 0" if you will to even be capable to imagin it. And that is YOU. You in this center from which this emptyness expands.
But since death first was deterministically defined as the end of consciousness, that fear-based concept became a recursive construct, that excludes your own existence on one hand and on the other putting yourself the center of this non-existence.
It is an attempt to make a thought tangible that is not tangible. Fear awaits impossible thinking.
The hereafter is therefore a creation of an imaginable concept as a way out of a circumstance that is inconceivable.
————
However, after all debates and philosophical analyzes death remains a threattening circumstance, here is a more suitable idea for the logical-atheistic-minded that should serve as a replacement for the idea of the afterlife:
In your entire life you leave traces behind which are either from a a material or intellectual nature. Already in the pursuite of the self-realization we create things like art, writings (as this one), music and other content that leaves an impression in other people, kickstarts a discussion and lastly shapes somebodies character. And if we are just a little bit ambitious to want to enrich the lives of others in a positive way, this is an ascertained and multiplied continuation of our own existence in the world.
Neither death is of any importance nor the duration of one's own life, but only the meaning of which man is capable of giving one's own life and that of others.
I dont see how fearing death necessarily encourages/motivates you in life nor how not fearing death is a bad thing for having a good life. You could just as equally argue that fearing death could give you such anxiety around risk that you never even leave your apartment in case you die. What kind of quality of life is that. I dont fear death. That doesnt make me any less motivated to live it simply makes me less preoccupied with what happens at the end
Given that we don't have proof of a single human being ever having visited death and returned to file a report, all theories about death seem best greeted with a sense of humor.
When you are driving along the road, a car careens in front of you, you instantly mash the brake and wonder if you were in time to stop what could be a fatal crash. If you walk in the woods and a large viscious and angry bear charges at you, you will feel fear. That is all fear of death.
If you had no fear for your own safety at all, you would likely not survive very long. Also, this is not to be confused with deciding to act on that fear or not. You can still fear something, and act against it.
Tell that to Diogenes :D haha