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I was thinking about death occasionally until I got my first anesthesia (around 45). I then realized what death is: a switch is flipped off and you are done. N

I was thinking about death occasionally until I got my first anesthesia (around 45). I then realized what death is: a switch is flipped off and you are done. No memories, nothing. You just stop to exist. From then on I do not worry anymore and stopped wondering about death altogether.

ericmay 3y ago
I think for many people, myself included, the worry isn’t “the switch flipped” it’s losing everything and everyone you’ve ever cared about. Life is pretty awesome. Don’t want to give that up for any reason.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- plasticchris 3y ago
  What has been lost? You no longer know loss then.
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    Right, and we won’t be anxious about it then. But now is not then.
    - digging 3y ago
      That's what they're saying, though. The anxiety today is not useful because it's anxiety about something that will never happen. You'll never be aware of having died or lost anything through your own death. It's just insanely difficult for us to internalize that idea because we're animals, we avoid death instinctively and fear loss instinctively.
      - hotnfresh 3y ago
        Yeah, I get it. None of that does anything to mitigate the feeling when the yawning expanse of inevitable non-existence comes into one's mind. [EDIT] Oh, also: > The anxiety today is not useful because it's anxiety about something that will never happen. Ceasing to exist will happen. It's guaranteed to happen. The fact of anxiety being useless doesn't do much to get rid of it. If it did, there wouldn't be much of it at all.
        digging 3y ago
        > Ceasing to exist will happen. It's guaranteed to happen. Not from your point of view! You can experience every moment leading up to your death and may be lucky enough to realize you're about to die, but it's not possible to be aware of the end of your own existence. It is always a future event. (Based on our best models, that is. Obviously the living can't possibly know what it's like to be permanently dead.) > The fact of anxiety being useless doesn't do much to get rid of it. I don't agree; it's valuable to be aware of the unconscious motivations of anxiety - it's just that awareness alone isn't sufficient to cure the anxiety. > None of that does anything to mitigate the feeling when the yawning expanse of inevitable non-existence comes into one's mind Again, I don't agree! Being able to think about "the event" from different angles gives the brain an escape hatch from anxiety traps. The anxiety might come, but now you have tools to handle it instead of be dominated by it.
        hotnfresh 3y ago
        Yeah, I've done the stoicism thing and all that (since before it was cool, LOL). It's not like I'm crippled by anxiety about death. I just find "why worry, you won't experience it!" to entirely miss the point.
        digging 3y ago
        > since before it was cool, LOL You must be quite old, then! > I just find "why worry, you won't experience it!" to entirely miss the point. What is the point then?
  - da25 3y ago
    I think, I do understand both the perspectives (or at least believe so). One, that after death, you lose your continued existence. And the other, that, this non-existence isn't a loss, since you can't experience it anymore. Inevitably, the distinction lies in the belief of, whether the world continues to exist once you die - because if it does, then your non-existence is still a loss for your peers and the rest of the world. On other hand, your qualia (sense/experience) of the world is all you have - i.e. your sense of sound, sight, touch etc. So, at most, this sense of experience is what you can call your "world" - nothing more, nothing less. And once that ceases there is no "world" anymore.
- BrandoElFollito 3y ago
  Well, you are not losing anything because you just don't exist. You have everything, and then you are not there anymore to feel that your lost something. But I can relate to what you are saying, I see it rather like a form of "future nostalgia": it is Sunday afternoon and your are sad that it is going to be over. This is something I learnt to actively fight and live in the present.
rootusrootus 3y ago
I don't worry much about it being unpleasant, hurting, whatever -- I too have had the experience of general anesthetic. That's never been the part that bothered me about dying. It is the permanence. You get your shot, then you're done, forever. There are going to be fascinating discoveries and developments in the future that I'd like to see play out. Ah well. But it's definitely true, worrying about death is a privilege granted only to the living.
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  > There are going to be fascinating discoveries and developments in the future that I'd like to see play out. I used to feel this way, but looking at how things are going, particularly in regard to climate change, I no longer envy children born today for the world they will live to see. I try to be more optimistic, but that isn't exactly my nature, and events seem to be moving even faster than my pessimism would have predicted.
- jebarker 3y ago
  I've often pondered this Christopher Hitchen's quote on this: “The clear awareness of having been born into a losing struggle need not lead one into despair. I do not especially like the idea that one day I shall be tapped on the shoulder and informed, not that the party is over but that it is most assuredly going on—only henceforth in my absence. (It's the second of those thoughts: the edition of the newspaper that will come out on the day after I have gone, that is the more distressing.) Much more horrible, though, would be the announcement that the party was continuing forever, and that I was forbidden to leave. Whether it was a hellishly bad party or a party that was perfectly heavenly in every respect, the moment that it became eternal and compulsory would be the precise moment that it began to pall.” I can't honestly say whether I find eternal life more appealing than permanent death. Recently, my two-year-old daughter asked me where she was in a picture of me and her mom. I made the mistake of saying she "didn't exist yet". She seemed horrified by the idea of non-existence. I had never considered before that the eternity of non-existence before birth could be just as horrifying as the eternal death afterwords. I actually find it kind of comforting that death will be no different than before I was born.
webnrrd2k 3y ago
I find it comforting, somehow, and it helps me to keep a healthy perspective, to think about how, Right now, I don't exist on the top of Mount Everest, or the bottom of the Marianas Trench, or on the Sun, Moon, Mars, or any other potentially infinite places. And it's not a problem. I also don't worry about not existing almost every place and at every time that I could have existed. There is no direct pain or suffering associated with it.

ericmay 3y ago

I think for many people, myself included, the worry isn’t “the switch flipped” it’s losing everything and everyone you’ve ever cared about. Life is pretty awesome. Don’t want to give that up for any reason.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
plasticchris 3y ago
What has been lost? You no longer know loss then.
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  Right, and we won’t be anxious about it then. But now is not then.
  - digging 3y ago
    That's what they're saying, though. The anxiety today is not useful because it's anxiety about something that will never happen. You'll never be aware of having died or lost anything through your own death. It's just insanely difficult for us to internalize that idea because we're animals, we avoid death instinctively and fear loss instinctively.
    - hotnfresh 3y ago
      Yeah, I get it. None of that does anything to mitigate the feeling when the yawning expanse of inevitable non-existence comes into one's mind. [EDIT] Oh, also: > The anxiety today is not useful because it's anxiety about something that will never happen. Ceasing to exist will happen. It's guaranteed to happen. The fact of anxiety being useless doesn't do much to get rid of it. If it did, there wouldn't be much of it at all.
      - digging 3y ago
        > Ceasing to exist will happen. It's guaranteed to happen. Not from your point of view! You can experience every moment leading up to your death and may be lucky enough to realize you're about to die, but it's not possible to be aware of the end of your own existence. It is always a future event. (Based on our best models, that is. Obviously the living can't possibly know what it's like to be permanently dead.) > The fact of anxiety being useless doesn't do much to get rid of it. I don't agree; it's valuable to be aware of the unconscious motivations of anxiety - it's just that awareness alone isn't sufficient to cure the anxiety. > None of that does anything to mitigate the feeling when the yawning expanse of inevitable non-existence comes into one's mind Again, I don't agree! Being able to think about "the event" from different angles gives the brain an escape hatch from anxiety traps. The anxiety might come, but now you have tools to handle it instead of be dominated by it.
        hotnfresh 3y ago
        Yeah, I've done the stoicism thing and all that (since before it was cool, LOL). It's not like I'm crippled by anxiety about death. I just find "why worry, you won't experience it!" to entirely miss the point.
        digging 3y ago
        > since before it was cool, LOL You must be quite old, then! > I just find "why worry, you won't experience it!" to entirely miss the point. What is the point then?
- da25 3y ago
  I think, I do understand both the perspectives (or at least believe so). One, that after death, you lose your continued existence. And the other, that, this non-existence isn't a loss, since you can't experience it anymore. Inevitably, the distinction lies in the belief of, whether the world continues to exist once you die - because if it does, then your non-existence is still a loss for your peers and the rest of the world. On other hand, your qualia (sense/experience) of the world is all you have - i.e. your sense of sound, sight, touch etc. So, at most, this sense of experience is what you can call your "world" - nothing more, nothing less. And once that ceases there is no "world" anymore.
BrandoElFollito 3y ago
Well, you are not losing anything because you just don't exist. You have everything, and then you are not there anymore to feel that your lost something. But I can relate to what you are saying, I see it rather like a form of "future nostalgia": it is Sunday afternoon and your are sad that it is going to be over. This is something I learnt to actively fight and live in the present.

rootusrootus 3y ago

I don't worry much about it being unpleasant, hurting, whatever -- I too have had the experience of general anesthetic. That's never been the part that bothered me about dying. It is the permanence. You get your shot, then you're done, forever. There are going to be fascinating discoveries and developments in the future that I'd like to see play out. Ah well. But it's definitely true, worrying about death is a privilege granted only to the living.

hotpotamus 3y ago
> There are going to be fascinating discoveries and developments in the future that I'd like to see play out. I used to feel this way, but looking at how things are going, particularly in regard to climate change, I no longer envy children born today for the world they will live to see. I try to be more optimistic, but that isn't exactly my nature, and events seem to be moving even faster than my pessimism would have predicted.
jebarker 3y ago
I've often pondered this Christopher Hitchen's quote on this: “The clear awareness of having been born into a losing struggle need not lead one into despair. I do not especially like the idea that one day I shall be tapped on the shoulder and informed, not that the party is over but that it is most assuredly going on—only henceforth in my absence. (It's the second of those thoughts: the edition of the newspaper that will come out on the day after I have gone, that is the more distressing.) Much more horrible, though, would be the announcement that the party was continuing forever, and that I was forbidden to leave. Whether it was a hellishly bad party or a party that was perfectly heavenly in every respect, the moment that it became eternal and compulsory would be the precise moment that it began to pall.” I can't honestly say whether I find eternal life more appealing than permanent death. Recently, my two-year-old daughter asked me where she was in a picture of me and her mom. I made the mistake of saying she "didn't exist yet". She seemed horrified by the idea of non-existence. I had never considered before that the eternity of non-existence before birth could be just as horrifying as the eternal death afterwords. I actually find it kind of comforting that death will be no different than before I was born.

webnrrd2k 3y ago

I find it comforting, somehow, and it helps me to keep a healthy perspective, to think about how, Right now, I don't exist on the top of Mount Everest, or the bottom of the Marianas Trench, or on the Sun, Moon, Mars, or any other potentially infinite places. And it's not a problem. I also don't worry about not existing almost every place and at every time that I could have existed. There is no direct pain or suffering associated with it.