Submitted by Catchabula on Mon, 08/09/2008 - 16:47.
Catchabula
Posts: 25
An Excerpt on Death
(From the Kyronian Dialogues, MMVIII A.D.)
Kyros:
Why? Why do we fear death? Isn't it the same reason many people fear spiders, or the dark, or loud noises? The various phenomena we arose from instilled a healthy fear of death in us, since without that there would be no human civilization (or even humans at all). But with the advent of a large developed brain and the capability for rational thought is this really necessary anymore? I think that one of the major factors in the vast power that religion wields in most peoples lives is that fear of death (the quote "There are no atheists in foxholes" comes to mind, but that makes me ask the question "Is religion just a knee-jerk reaction?"). Wouldn't it be better not to fear death as it would probably be better not to fear spiders, since neither death itself nor (or at least usually not) spiders hurt us? The thing-that-causes-death is what hurts us: the heart attack, the cancer, the car crash, and only then by stealing time from us. Death is inevitable, whether our lives are cut short by harsh conditions to a mere 30 years or whether technology preserves our health for 5,000 years. Fearing death when your growing older is almost like fearing baldness because of a receding hairline, its just not held as ridiculous like baldness-fear would be. Don't get me wrong, I would really like to live 5,000 years and learn all kinds of neat things, and I think it would be a shame if the last thing I do is slip into oblivion. So, treat death with sadness at the least, but not fear.
Catchabula:
Ok, let's begin with another brainstorm (I realize now how sloppy and unclear I was during my first treatment of this matter). First of all a purely terminological approach, exploring the notions involved in this analysis. Dead is "just dead". It is a property that can be attributed to many entities, as being opposed to "being alive" or "living", which may not be completely the same notion. For example a rock is dead but an amoebe is not. Now an amoebe that's not alive anymore is also dead, but one generally thinks of an amoebe as both living and being alive. With humans "dead" is not so much a property as well as a condition, mostly determined by medical criteria; take the notion of braindead for example. That someone is dead can only be said as long as some connection with the living subject can be made. A corpse of one day can easily be called a dead man and so can a corpse of one year. But it becomes more dubious with a skeleton and even more with an incomplete one (a skull is not a dead man: it's just a skull). "Death" can be defined as that moment in time during which a living organism, e.g. a human being, passes from the condition of "being alive" to the condition of "being dead". So we have the following and consecutive series of loosely defined notions: (being) alive - dying - death - (being) dead. Now why is this important and where exactly is the problem? It seems to me that the problem is situated in notion number two: "dying", being a process characterised by time as well as by the inevitable approach of death. Death itself is just a short and passing moment, but it is very effective in determining and influencing the human mind during the process of dying. Indeed many people are less afraid for death than for dying, while they fear that period in life in which death is most intensively present in their lives and colours each passing moment. Now this reminds one of Churchill's motto: "There is nothing to fear but fear itself". Fear is indeed not an inevitable ingredient in the process of dying, and there may be many people who are dying or have died without knowing fear. But in many cases fear is present, being the product of a mind that is able to imagine and anticipate, filling in the unknown with suppositions and hypotheses, such as hell and damnation or black nothingness. Fear is always caused by anticipation; animals do not fear death and they even have no idea of it at all, because they live in the moment and do not have a human's time horizon. Now in a second approach we can distinguish several ways of dying, death being always the same as a relatively short moment of transition. First according to time: dying can take a (very) long or a (very) short time. Even life as a whole can be seen as one long period of dying, during which death -or at least its notion- regularly comes and goes in our minds and "hearts". But one can also state that dying means being still alive and living, and indeed people do many life-oriented things when dying, such as making their will or actively saying farewell to the world. Another relevant distinction is between dying by natural causes and dying by violence or murder. The absolute immorality of murder in all forms is that life is being taken from someone who does not want to die at all. It is the most profound negation of the desire of one's fellow human being (rape is the same kind of negation but on a different scale). The pain of being murdered is at least partly due to the violation of one's will to live, as well as by the forced shut-down of all these well-functioning biological mechanisms that enable life to be present. And of course there is suicide, considered in many cultures as the contrary of murder, while seen as the triumph of personal (free) will over life and its biological mechanisms. A modern form of suicide is euthanasia, which must always be backed by the explicit desire of the subject involved, in order to be morally and juridically acceptable. As to "life" there has to be made a clear distinction between human life and biological life, and this brings us to the notion of "existence"... Well, it seems this was just a start. Further investigation is needed.
Catchabula
Posts: 25
An Excerpt on Death
(From the Kyronian Dialogues, MMVIII A.D.)
Kyros:
Why? Why do we fear death? Isn't it the same reason many people fear spiders, or the dark, or loud noises? The various phenomena we arose from instilled a healthy fear of death in us, since without that there would be no human civilization (or even humans at all). But with the advent of a large developed brain and the capability for rational thought is this really necessary anymore? I think that one of the major factors in the vast power that religion wields in most peoples lives is that fear of death (the quote "There are no atheists in foxholes" comes to mind, but that makes me ask the question "Is religion just a knee-jerk reaction?"). Wouldn't it be better not to fear death as it would probably be better not to fear spiders, since neither death itself nor (or at least usually not) spiders hurt us? The thing-that-causes-death is what hurts us: the heart attack, the cancer, the car crash, and only then by stealing time from us. Death is inevitable, whether our lives are cut short by harsh conditions to a mere 30 years or whether technology preserves our health for 5,000 years. Fearing death when your growing older is almost like fearing baldness because of a receding hairline, its just not held as ridiculous like baldness-fear would be. Don't get me wrong, I would really like to live 5,000 years and learn all kinds of neat things, and I think it would be a shame if the last thing I do is slip into oblivion. So, treat death with sadness at the least, but not fear.
Catchabula:
Ok, let's begin with another brainstorm (I realize now how sloppy and unclear I was during my first treatment of this matter). First of all a purely terminological approach, exploring the notions involved in this analysis. Dead is "just dead". It is a property that can be attributed to many entities, as being opposed to "being alive" or "living", which may not be completely the same notion. For example a rock is dead but an amoebe is not. Now an amoebe that's not alive anymore is also dead, but one generally thinks of an amoebe as both living and being alive. With humans "dead" is not so much a property as well as a condition, mostly determined by medical criteria; take the notion of braindead for example. That someone is dead can only be said as long as some connection with the living subject can be made. A corpse of one day can easily be called a dead man and so can a corpse of one year. But it becomes more dubious with a skeleton and even more with an incomplete one (a skull is not a dead man: it's just a skull). "Death" can be defined as that moment in time during which a living organism, e.g. a human being, passes from the condition of "being alive" to the condition of "being dead". So we have the following and consecutive series of loosely defined notions: (being) alive - dying - death - (being) dead. Now why is this important and where exactly is the problem? It seems to me that the problem is situated in notion number two: "dying", being a process characterised by time as well as by the inevitable approach of death. Death itself is just a short and passing moment, but it is very effective in determining and influencing the human mind during the process of dying. Indeed many people are less afraid for death than for dying, while they fear that period in life in which death is most intensively present in their lives and colours each passing moment. Now this reminds one of Churchill's motto: "There is nothing to fear but fear itself". Fear is indeed not an inevitable ingredient in the process of dying, and there may be many people who are dying or have died without knowing fear. But in many cases fear is present, being the product of a mind that is able to imagine and anticipate, filling in the unknown with suppositions and hypotheses, such as hell and damnation or black nothingness. Fear is always caused by anticipation; animals do not fear death and they even have no idea of it at all, because they live in the moment and do not have a human's time horizon. Now in a second approach we can distinguish several ways of dying, death being always the same as a relatively short moment of transition. First according to time: dying can take a (very) long or a (very) short time. Even life as a whole can be seen as one long period of dying, during which death -or at least its notion- regularly comes and goes in our minds and "hearts". But one can also state that dying means being still alive and living, and indeed people do many life-oriented things when dying, such as making their will or actively saying farewell to the world. Another relevant distinction is between dying by natural causes and dying by violence or murder. The absolute immorality of murder in all forms is that life is being taken from someone who does not want to die at all. It is the most profound negation of the desire of one's fellow human being (rape is the same kind of negation but on a different scale). The pain of being murdered is at least partly due to the violation of one's will to live, as well as by the forced shut-down of all these well-functioning biological mechanisms that enable life to be present. And of course there is suicide, considered in many cultures as the contrary of murder, while seen as the triumph of personal (free) will over life and its biological mechanisms. A modern form of suicide is euthanasia, which must always be backed by the explicit desire of the subject involved, in order to be morally and juridically acceptable. As to "life" there has to be made a clear distinction between human life and biological life, and this brings us to the notion of "existence"... Well, it seems this was just a start. Further investigation is needed.