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I’m sorry you feel that way. Death is inevitable. It is natural. It is universal. Birth, Death, and ideally reproduction in between- that’s the essence of life.

I’m sorry you feel that way. Death is inevitable. It is natural. It is universal. Birth, Death, and ideally reproduction in between- that’s the essence of life. You have to look beyond yourself as an individual. Humanity was here before you were born, but you were part of it in your ancestors’s genes. Humanity will continue after your death, and you will be part of it in the genes you pass down to your children, and the ripples of your actions in life. Death is a change, but it hold no more horror than pre-birth. Be at peace. Embrace your time. Live your life with purpose, love, humility and hope. Our ephemerality makes every moment meaningful, enjoy it.

nullsense 6y ago
"it holds no more horror than pre-birth" is an excellent way to phrase how I think/feel about it. I wasn't able to be bothered by it then, and I won't be able to be bothered by it when it happens. I'm only able to be bothered by it now, so I mostly choose not to be bothered by it even now.
- ericmay 6y ago
  You weren’t bothered by it because you had no previous experience of life. I think some (maybe many?) people aren’t afraid of “being dead” they’re afraid of all the things they know exist and are enjoyable. Life is the greatest, and most tragic blessing. Once you know you can’t un-know.
  - nullsense 6y ago
    You can unknow at the point you no longer posses the capacity to know. Which is why pre-birth and post-life are the same. The mistake is in projecting the current emotions of attachment to the current capacity to experience all the things to a time where no such capacity exists. If you do that you will feel afraid of death in this way. If you see pre-birth as fundamentally exactly the same as post-life and aren't bothered by the pre-birth phase, then you have no problems.
    - ericmay 6y ago
      It’s not fear of being dead once you’re dead, it’s fear of losing all of these joys in life while you’re alive and knowing that it’s all going away. I’m only not bothered by pre-birth because I wasn’t alive to understand the wonderful existence I have now. It’s like being at a great party but knowing that your ride home is coming soon. I’d rather stay at the party.
      - nullsense 6y ago
        Bad metaphor. You're still alive after a party and could go to another. You're still projecting your aliveness onto the dead state. You choose how you feel about it based on how you frame it. If I frame it the way you do, then I feel the same way. If that ever happens, which on the odd occasion it does, I reframe it to my preferred frame and those feelings disappear.
        ericmay 6y ago
        > You're still alive after a party and could go to another. Hmm. What I’ve said is basically that it’s the only party - but that’s to evoke a feeling not to be taken literally. > You’re still projecting your aliveness onto the dead state I’m not sure I follow. Can you elaborate? I’m speaking about specifically being alive and enjoying that, not fearing death in the act of being dead. I fear death as an alive person, not as a dead person. When I say I fear death it’s not that I fear being dead. There won’t be anything. But as an alive person I know there’s lots of awesome stuff I’d like to be a part of. I would like to continue that experience. I don’t care what death holds.
        nullsense 6y ago
        To summarise "don't think about it". Why do you fear it as an alive person? I get that you do, and I can make myself feel this way too if I indulge that same frame of reference. But why do you feel those emotions? Losing something hurts. But why do you feel bad about that loss? Most likely it's because you _can_ feel bad about it while you are alive. And, I certainly get that. It does make sense. But I see it as a fundamental error to feel this sense of loss about not being able to enjoy all the experiences of being alive because as a rule I take into account the fundamental state change that occurs after I'm dead. I look at that period only from the perspective of being dead, as that's how I'll be. If you look at being dead from the perspective of being alive, a frame in which you have emotions you can feel, then it feels bad, but this is some sort of strange faux-state that doesn't actually exist in reality as once you're dead you're dead, and while you're alive you're not dead. You're mixing aliveness and deadness together where I choose to cleanly separate them. I don't think about being dead from the perspective of being alive or having had been alive.
animesh 6y ago
One - that this needs to be is surprising. May be different world views and approaches contribute to this kind of feeling. Two - you have expressed the sentiment beautifully. I may want to steal it later. Thank you sincerely.
mjevans 6y ago
I disagree, but CGP Grey says it better in The Fable of the Dragon Tyrant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZYNADOHhVY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZYNADOHhVY
- Trasmatta 6y ago
  I don't think these are conflicting ideas. We should absolutely do what we can to fight against the aging process, which is horrible in so many ways. But defeating aging will never mean that we've defeated death. Accidents, murder, disease, and disasters would still happen. And the 2nd law of thermodynamics would still reign supreme eventually, even over effectively "immortal" humans. So it's important to understand and accept death, even if we continue to work towards a world where nobody has to die of old age.
  - jackcosgrove 6y ago
    Immortality would be horrible. Our brains aren't big enough to hold an eternity of memories, so you would forget who you were to make room for what you'll become. What's the point of immortality without continuity? That's a living death. And forget about actually cheating death. Imagine if somehow you survived long enough to witness the heat death of the universe. Stuck on some Dyson sphere around a white dwarf for billions of years as the entire universe fades to black and all the things you used to do become impossible because there isn't enough energy to do them. And in the end you still get sucked into a black hole like everyone else, wondering if you are the last living thing in the universe. Nah I'll just die when the sun still shines.
    - sinenomine 6y ago
      This is over-dramatizing. For many people, life is obviously a valuable enough experience to be extended many times over.
    - varajelle 6y ago
      > Our brains aren't big enough to hold an eternity of memories, so you would forget who you were to make room for what you'll become. This is already the case anyway. I still want to live even if I don't remember everything and who I am have changed over time
adrusi 6y ago
Obviously it's not great to feel the fear of death constantly following you, wherever you go. But it's possible to not have that experience while also not (falsely) accepting death as inevitable. I know because I am neither constantly plagued by the fear of death, nor do I believe it's inevitable. To say that death isn't inevitable isn't the same as saying it's particularly likely that any of us will evade it, but the chance is not literally zero, and by my own estimates, I say it's non-negligible. It's pretty uncontroversial to say that life extension technology is possible. There are times in the past when people didn't live as long as they now do. Finding more effective cancer/Alzheimer's/heart disease treatments is life extension. It's within the realm of possibilities that life extension tech will advance enough to let us live for some centuries. Cryonics (freezing yourself after death) is also something that could possibly work. It's possible that in the future, we'll figure out ways to successfully thaw and revive people who undergo cryonics. Neither of these are immortality, exactly. For that you would need some sort of mind-state backup system or "consciousness uploading." That tech might not be available for a long time, but life extension/cryonics could hold many people over until it's available. Many people believe that it's either impossible, or that it wouldn't "be you" when you were restored from a backup. I think that these positions are wrong, but regardless, anyone who takes such a position has to allow that there's some possibility that they're wrong, and in fact such tech is possible and would work as intended. The theories of personal identity argued in Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit are relevant here. I think it's important that we don't accept death as inevitable, because if people don't hold out hope of conquering death, then it's less likely that we'll conquer it in time. I never struggled with an intrusive fear of death, so I don't have detailed suggestions for how to overcome it. But facing up to the fact that you are probably going to die, and introspecting into what specifically makes you so afraid, then taking measures to address it — that sort of thing — will probably help. Measures that might help, depending on the nature of one's fear: - Starting a mindfulness meditation practice to learn to notice when you fear death, and learn to dismiss the fear - Seeking psychotherapy with a similar goal - Study philosophy. It's possible that your intrusive fear of death stems from contradictory beliefs you hold, and you just haven't noticed the contradiction. - Registering for cryonics, so that you know that you have done something to fight back against death (this might well increase your fear of death, beware) - Switch careers to work on life extension technology. When vikings raid your village, you will be afraid. But the nature of your fear will depend on whether you decide to cower in fear or take up arms and fight back. Maybe you prefer the fear felt by someone fighting back. But remember that death is horrible, and it's right and proper to fear it, as long as the fear isn't too intrusive.
cheschire 6y ago
This seems like telling a depressed person "I'm sorry you're depressed when there's so much to be happy or content with." And then proceeding to list all the things you are happy or content with. And then concluding with "Don't be depressed."
- bordercases 6y ago
  How would you get out of depression?
- Trasmatta 6y ago
  I dealt with severe death anxiety for awhile. Reading posts like the one above didn't fix it, but they did give me things to think about, consider, and research. Over time, those types of insight did come to help. I don't think anyone posting here is expecting to receive therapy in the replies.
- pbronez 6y ago
  hmm I didn't mean to come off that way. Obviously I'm not gonna change someone's opinion about something this significant in a single online comment. I'm just genuinely sad that they have that fear. I'm glad that I don't, and tried to present an alternative perspective on a complex issue.
  - cheschire 6y ago
    Oh I get it, I didn’t think your motivations were wrong, just that your message wasn’t going to deliver the way you probably thought it would. The reason I responded was to let you know that so that you could decide if you wanted to adjust your approach or not with more complete information in the future.
sinenomine 6y ago
Don't mean to offend, but I find it a remarkable collection of acceptable platitudes on the topic. Yes, death exists. No, it's not something to be in awe of, something to appreciate like a beautiful tree. Time arrow points in the direction of less beauty existing.
- pbronez 6y ago
  sure, but how does moping about the inevitable heat death of the universe help? Life is good, we should try to get more of it by taking better care of ourselves, other people, and the fragile blue ball that carries us through space. Eventually the sun will explode and the blue ball will go away. Maybe we can take life far & fast enough to survive that! Heat death of the universe probably catches us eventually. Would it be better for a living things to be scared waiting for cosmic doom? Sure you need some motivation to keep pushing forward. I think it's good to strive for more life. I think you can do that while simultaneously accepting that you cannot achieve infinite life.

nullsense 6y ago

"it holds no more horror than pre-birth" is an excellent way to phrase how I think/feel about it. I wasn't able to be bothered by it then, and I won't be able to be bothered by it when it happens. I'm only able to be bothered by it now, so I mostly choose not to be bothered by it even now.

ericmay 6y ago
You weren’t bothered by it because you had no previous experience of life. I think some (maybe many?) people aren’t afraid of “being dead” they’re afraid of all the things they know exist and are enjoyable. Life is the greatest, and most tragic blessing. Once you know you can’t un-know.
- nullsense 6y ago
  You can unknow at the point you no longer posses the capacity to know. Which is why pre-birth and post-life are the same. The mistake is in projecting the current emotions of attachment to the current capacity to experience all the things to a time where no such capacity exists. If you do that you will feel afraid of death in this way. If you see pre-birth as fundamentally exactly the same as post-life and aren't bothered by the pre-birth phase, then you have no problems.
  - ericmay 6y ago
    It’s not fear of being dead once you’re dead, it’s fear of losing all of these joys in life while you’re alive and knowing that it’s all going away. I’m only not bothered by pre-birth because I wasn’t alive to understand the wonderful existence I have now. It’s like being at a great party but knowing that your ride home is coming soon. I’d rather stay at the party.
    - nullsense 6y ago
      Bad metaphor. You're still alive after a party and could go to another. You're still projecting your aliveness onto the dead state. You choose how you feel about it based on how you frame it. If I frame it the way you do, then I feel the same way. If that ever happens, which on the odd occasion it does, I reframe it to my preferred frame and those feelings disappear.
      - ericmay 6y ago
        > You're still alive after a party and could go to another. Hmm. What I’ve said is basically that it’s the only party - but that’s to evoke a feeling not to be taken literally. > You’re still projecting your aliveness onto the dead state I’m not sure I follow. Can you elaborate? I’m speaking about specifically being alive and enjoying that, not fearing death in the act of being dead. I fear death as an alive person, not as a dead person. When I say I fear death it’s not that I fear being dead. There won’t be anything. But as an alive person I know there’s lots of awesome stuff I’d like to be a part of. I would like to continue that experience. I don’t care what death holds.
        nullsense 6y ago
        To summarise "don't think about it". Why do you fear it as an alive person? I get that you do, and I can make myself feel this way too if I indulge that same frame of reference. But why do you feel those emotions? Losing something hurts. But why do you feel bad about that loss? Most likely it's because you _can_ feel bad about it while you are alive. And, I certainly get that. It does make sense. But I see it as a fundamental error to feel this sense of loss about not being able to enjoy all the experiences of being alive because as a rule I take into account the fundamental state change that occurs after I'm dead. I look at that period only from the perspective of being dead, as that's how I'll be. If you look at being dead from the perspective of being alive, a frame in which you have emotions you can feel, then it feels bad, but this is some sort of strange faux-state that doesn't actually exist in reality as once you're dead you're dead, and while you're alive you're not dead. You're mixing aliveness and deadness together where I choose to cleanly separate them. I don't think about being dead from the perspective of being alive or having had been alive.

animesh 6y ago

One - that this needs to be is surprising. May be different world views and approaches contribute to this kind of feeling. Two - you have expressed the sentiment beautifully. I may want to steal it later. Thank you sincerely.

mjevans 6y ago

I disagree, but CGP Grey says it better in The Fable of the Dragon Tyrant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZYNADOHhVY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZYNADOHhVY

Trasmatta 6y ago
I don't think these are conflicting ideas. We should absolutely do what we can to fight against the aging process, which is horrible in so many ways. But defeating aging will never mean that we've defeated death. Accidents, murder, disease, and disasters would still happen. And the 2nd law of thermodynamics would still reign supreme eventually, even over effectively "immortal" humans. So it's important to understand and accept death, even if we continue to work towards a world where nobody has to die of old age.
- jackcosgrove 6y ago
  Immortality would be horrible. Our brains aren't big enough to hold an eternity of memories, so you would forget who you were to make room for what you'll become. What's the point of immortality without continuity? That's a living death. And forget about actually cheating death. Imagine if somehow you survived long enough to witness the heat death of the universe. Stuck on some Dyson sphere around a white dwarf for billions of years as the entire universe fades to black and all the things you used to do become impossible because there isn't enough energy to do them. And in the end you still get sucked into a black hole like everyone else, wondering if you are the last living thing in the universe. Nah I'll just die when the sun still shines.
  - sinenomine 6y ago
    This is over-dramatizing. For many people, life is obviously a valuable enough experience to be extended many times over.
  - varajelle 6y ago
    > Our brains aren't big enough to hold an eternity of memories, so you would forget who you were to make room for what you'll become. This is already the case anyway. I still want to live even if I don't remember everything and who I am have changed over time

adrusi 6y ago

Obviously it's not great to feel the fear of death constantly following you, wherever you go. But it's possible to not have that experience while also not (falsely) accepting death as inevitable. I know because I am neither constantly plagued by the fear of death, nor do I believe it's inevitable. To say that death isn't inevitable isn't the same as saying it's particularly likely that any of us will evade it, but the chance is not literally zero, and by my own estimates, I say it's non-negligible. It's pretty uncontroversial to say that life extension technology is possible. There are times in the past when people didn't live as long as they now do. Finding more effective cancer/Alzheimer's/heart disease treatments is life extension. It's within the realm of possibilities that life extension tech will advance enough to let us live for some centuries. Cryonics (freezing yourself after death) is also something that could possibly work. It's possible that in the future, we'll figure out ways to successfully thaw and revive people who undergo cryonics. Neither of these are immortality, exactly. For that you would need some sort of mind-state backup system or "consciousness uploading." That tech might not be available for a long time, but life extension/cryonics could hold many people over until it's available. Many people believe that it's either impossible, or that it wouldn't "be you" when you were restored from a backup. I think that these positions are wrong, but regardless, anyone who takes such a position has to allow that there's some possibility that they're wrong, and in fact such tech is possible and would work as intended. The theories of personal identity argued in Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit are relevant here. I think it's important that we don't accept death as inevitable, because if people don't hold out hope of conquering death, then it's less likely that we'll conquer it in time. I never struggled with an intrusive fear of death, so I don't have detailed suggestions for how to overcome it. But facing up to the fact that you are probably going to die, and introspecting into what specifically makes you so afraid, then taking measures to address it — that sort of thing — will probably help. Measures that might help, depending on the nature of one's fear: - Starting a mindfulness meditation practice to learn to notice when you fear death, and learn to dismiss the fear - Seeking psychotherapy with a similar goal - Study philosophy. It's possible that your intrusive fear of death stems from contradictory beliefs you hold, and you just haven't noticed the contradiction. - Registering for cryonics, so that you know that you have done something to fight back against death (this might well increase your fear of death, beware) - Switch careers to work on life extension technology. When vikings raid your village, you will be afraid. But the nature of your fear will depend on whether you decide to cower in fear or take up arms and fight back. Maybe you prefer the fear felt by someone fighting back. But remember that death is horrible, and it's right and proper to fear it, as long as the fear isn't too intrusive.

cheschire 6y ago

This seems like telling a depressed person "I'm sorry you're depressed when there's so much to be happy or content with." And then proceeding to list all the things you are happy or content with. And then concluding with "Don't be depressed."

bordercases 6y ago
How would you get out of depression?
Trasmatta 6y ago
I dealt with severe death anxiety for awhile. Reading posts like the one above didn't fix it, but they did give me things to think about, consider, and research. Over time, those types of insight did come to help. I don't think anyone posting here is expecting to receive therapy in the replies.
pbronez 6y ago
hmm I didn't mean to come off that way. Obviously I'm not gonna change someone's opinion about something this significant in a single online comment. I'm just genuinely sad that they have that fear. I'm glad that I don't, and tried to present an alternative perspective on a complex issue.
- cheschire 6y ago
  Oh I get it, I didn’t think your motivations were wrong, just that your message wasn’t going to deliver the way you probably thought it would. The reason I responded was to let you know that so that you could decide if you wanted to adjust your approach or not with more complete information in the future.

sinenomine 6y ago

Don't mean to offend, but I find it a remarkable collection of acceptable platitudes on the topic. Yes, death exists. No, it's not something to be in awe of, something to appreciate like a beautiful tree. Time arrow points in the direction of less beauty existing.

pbronez 6y ago
sure, but how does moping about the inevitable heat death of the universe help? Life is good, we should try to get more of it by taking better care of ourselves, other people, and the fragile blue ball that carries us through space. Eventually the sun will explode and the blue ball will go away. Maybe we can take life far & fast enough to survive that! Heat death of the universe probably catches us eventually. Would it be better for a living things to be scared waiting for cosmic doom? Sure you need some motivation to keep pushing forward. I think it's good to strive for more life. I think you can do that while simultaneously accepting that you cannot achieve infinite life.