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Of course it's horrible. Life is all there is. When you die, from your perspective, that is the end of all things. That's pretty horrible. Just because it's nat

Of course it's horrible. Life is all there is. When you die, from your perspective, that is the end of all things. That's pretty horrible. Just because it's natural doesn't make it good.

deleted 13y ago
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nostrademons 13y ago
I remember discussing this in both of my philosophy courses, Intro and MetaEthics. In the intro course, the question was "Why should you fear death? When you're dead, by definition, you're not around to fear it, so why should you care?" In meta-ethics, the question was "What does it mean for something to be horrible in the first place? How do you decide something is good or bad in the first place? If you fear your own nonexistence, why do you not fear the nonexistence of, say, unicorns?" I never took an evolutionary psych course, but I read a bunch of their textbooks. I'd imagine the answer they'd give is "Of course you believe death is horrible. If your ancestors didn't, they wouldn't have an aversion to death, and so they would never have been around to reproduce, and so you wouldn't have been born. Therefore, we select for animals that fear death, because all animals that do not fear death never come into existence." There's something comforting about that perspective, knowing that our fears are nothing but evolutionary chance at work, but it's interesting to think that our fear of nonexistence is a consequence of our existence.
- repsilat 13y ago
  There was a book on that a little while ago by Shelly Kagan (decent excerpt at [1]). I think the evolutionary perspective is clearly "correct," but it doesn't quite answer the big questions for me. It establishes that "death is bad" is an axiom of our ethical system (and not a theorem of it,) but it has nothing to say when we ask whether we should attempt to adjust our morality. 1: http://chronicle.com/article/Is-Death-Bad-for-You-/131818/ http://chronicle.com/article/Is-Death-Bad-for-You-/131818/
masterzora 13y ago
> Life is all there is. When you die, from your perspective, that is the end of all things. So? Why does that matter? From my perspective, before I was born and after I die are equivalent on account of me not being able to have a perspective. 13.8 billion years of the universe where I didn't exist wasn't horrible before so I don't see why it will be so horrible in 60 or 80 more years when I don't exist again.
- pjscott 13y ago
  It's weird how people get very philosophical and accepting about death form old age, but are horrified by murder, suicide, deadly airplane crashes, gas explosions, and so on. You get just as dead either way, but somehow death from old age is considered to be just a natural part of the Plan.

Of course it's horrible. Life is all there is. When you die, from your perspective, that is the end of all things. That's pretty horrible. Just because it's natural doesn't make it good.

deleted 13y ago

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nostrademons 13y ago

I remember discussing this in both of my philosophy courses, Intro and MetaEthics. In the intro course, the question was "Why should you fear death? When you're dead, by definition, you're not around to fear it, so why should you care?" In meta-ethics, the question was "What does it mean for something to be horrible in the first place? How do you decide something is good or bad in the first place? If you fear your own nonexistence, why do you not fear the nonexistence of, say, unicorns?" I never took an evolutionary psych course, but I read a bunch of their textbooks. I'd imagine the answer they'd give is "Of course you believe death is horrible. If your ancestors didn't, they wouldn't have an aversion to death, and so they would never have been around to reproduce, and so you wouldn't have been born. Therefore, we select for animals that fear death, because all animals that do not fear death never come into existence." There's something comforting about that perspective, knowing that our fears are nothing but evolutionary chance at work, but it's interesting to think that our fear of nonexistence is a consequence of our existence.

repsilat 13y ago
There was a book on that a little while ago by Shelly Kagan (decent excerpt at [1]). I think the evolutionary perspective is clearly "correct," but it doesn't quite answer the big questions for me. It establishes that "death is bad" is an axiom of our ethical system (and not a theorem of it,) but it has nothing to say when we ask whether we should attempt to adjust our morality. 1: http://chronicle.com/article/Is-Death-Bad-for-You-/131818/ http://chronicle.com/article/Is-Death-Bad-for-You-/131818/

masterzora 13y ago

> Life is all there is. When you die, from your perspective, that is the end of all things. So? Why does that matter? From my perspective, before I was born and after I die are equivalent on account of me not being able to have a perspective. 13.8 billion years of the universe where I didn't exist wasn't horrible before so I don't see why it will be so horrible in 60 or 80 more years when I don't exist again.

pjscott 13y ago
It's weird how people get very philosophical and accepting about death form old age, but are horrified by murder, suicide, deadly airplane crashes, gas explosions, and so on. You get just as dead either way, but somehow death from old age is considered to be just a natural part of the Plan.