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It's really hard to change perceptions about death when it requires considering one's own mortality. It is in this only that I understand the desperate quest fo

It's really hard to change perceptions about death when it requires considering one's own mortality. It is in this only that I understand the desperate quest for religion. The idea of going dark forever is terrifying to me, and considering I'm pretty much an atheist, I don't have much hope of anything else. When people ask me if I'm religious, I usually tell them I'm hopeful that I'm proven wrong. I know we all die. I know our lives on a cosmic scale are infinitesimal. But even I - as rational as I am, am extremely scared of facing that reality head on. So convincing the entire nation/world to do so... Well, good luck with that.

sago 12y ago
It doesn't frighten me. It won't go dark forever. Just as there was no 13.5bn years of darkness before I was born. There will be no qualia of time. I think attitudes are changing. The campaign to be able to determine how and when we die is shaping up to be a significant battle for a fundamental civil right. I think we'll win it. Whether it is soon enough for my wife to avoid threat of prosecution if she is with me when I choose to act, I don't know. I suspect not.
- baddox 12y ago
  The 13.5 billion years of darkness before I was born is frightening as well, but it's done and over with, plus it's way shorter than the upcoming darkness.
  - visarga 12y ago
    The universe itself is the life you have, it doesn't die, just makes more conscious entities. Life itself will not die with me, but go on forever. We just need to think large when contemplating death.
    - sireat 12y ago
      What is your reasoning behind thinking that life will go on forever? Life - conscious life with qualia. Even for allowing for unobservable universe that is not given either. There is no guarantee that there will be more conscious entities say 200 years from now.
- themartorana 12y ago
  Right - it's that ceasing to be, as before I was, that scares me. Now that I have existed, I like it much better than before. That said, that's my hangup, and has nothing to do with your right to choose to die with dignity. It's silly to me that you could choose to jump off a bridge, but can't choose something much less gruesome without fear that your or a loved one might find themselves tangled up legally.
  - sago 12y ago
    I know this is getting OT, so apologies. And thank you for the second paragraph. But I'm interested in the first. To me it doesn't seem like I will cease to be, in any meaningful way. To cease to have something is to have it at some point but not another. I will never experience not being. So I find it hard to worry about that. Of course I enjoy being, but it's not like I would rather be than not be, because the latter would suck. So I find your first paragraph strange. And therefore interesting. [edit, add:] I scan sympathise with the point made about others: I'd very very much rather my wife was than ceased to be. But me? Only for other people's sake. I can't imagine how it could possibly make any difference to me. I can't even imagine the idea that I'd miss out on all those good experiences I'd have if I lived. Because again that just presupposes that I'd be missing something.
    - themartorana 12y ago
      I never said it was a rational feeling :) I don't know the right way to explain the feeling. I think it's mostly the same sadness that one experiences when anything particularly wonderful comes to an end. I have known loss in a variety of ways, and I imagine dying taps in to that same idea of mourning. Something that I enjoy terribly must end, I have to say goodbye to not only a terrific experience - but to experience itself. It's mostly the anticipation of the thing, not so much the thing. I'm sure once I'm dead I won't care so much that I'm dead. I just care now that one day I will be. And thus concludes my inability to lend written word to irrational emotion. Edit: as I sit here reflecting now, I wonder if part of it isn't the fear of regret - of not having taken full advantage, of not having loved enough or having wasted time on things actually inconsequential. It's also making me wonder if I already know that I'll have those regrets and maybe should make a few changes. Tonight got deeper that I expected it to...
- the_gipsy 12y ago
  > It doesn't frighten me. I don't think that's entirely true - it's just that all functioning members of society displace or ignore their fear of death with some method. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_anxiety_%28psychology%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_anxiety_%28psychology%29
  - Ntrails 12y ago
    Why in gods name would I be frightened of oblivion? Dying is terrifying, because it comes with implications of suffering. No longer existing is simply enthralling. I will simply be gone. A just reward for making it through a lifetime imo.
    - the_gipsy 12y ago
      I can't tell you why the thought of ceasing to exist would be frightening. It simply is to me, and I believe to most people. And most people, including me, ignore it and focus on the joys of life. There are of course different degrees of this displacement, some people may still acknowledge the idea but others might completely convince themselves that there is nothing to be scared of - or maybe there really is a way to enjoy a finite life span. Mind you that this a very intimate and subjective topic, and I am not saying that you are fooling yourself, but from someone who is indeed scared of death (the end of life), it does seem plausible.
      - Luc 12y ago
        It's perfect, since nobody can ever prove they're not fooling themselves. Perhaps I'll keep fooling myself until I die and die a fool.
      - Ntrails 12y ago
        Life is not [just/only] full of joys, but of obligations, troubles, and pain. Those who enjoy life are doubtless scared of losing it - it's foolish to assume that everyone does though. Nor can such a position be swept away as illness or irrationality. It is neither. If someone gave me a way out right now that caused nobody for whom I care any pain, I'd take it. If I am honest I reckon I'd probably wonder about "what's next" for a good few minutes before saying yes...
michaelochurch 12y ago
If this makes accepting death easier, the good news is the near-death experience. While I certainly don't intend to convince you that it's an afterlife experience (because no one knows quite what they are) it is typically positive and very powerful. Subjectively, it's an intense spiritual experience that seems to be unmatched by most things in life. As for whether it's entrance into an afterlife or the shutdown sequence of a dying brain... who knows? I don't think we'll have that answered within our natural lifespan. Both you and I are likely to die before we, as a species, know whether there's an afterlife. So we have to go into death without full knowledge but, to be honest, we go into every experience without full knowledge. Tomorrow we might wake up and find that the sky is purple. It's extremely unlikely, but it could happen. Honestly, I'm as irreligious as you are but I tend to think the odds are better than even that there's some consciousness after death, although "after" might not be the right word because I'm not sure whether time is even well-defined outside of this physical universe. Presuming that I came from nothing, that means that "nothing" can produce qualia, which means that if I become "nothing" after death... it makes a plausible case for rebirth. As Voltaire said, "It is not more surprising to be born twice than once." So, if the last moments of this life are a positive experience and the "next moment" is either nonexistent or a continuation that might be called an "afterlife", then I don't see much to worry about either way. Of course, others' deaths are still really hard to take, and I'm a hypochondriac who hates the thought of sickness (for the embarrassment and sense of failure, not the danger) but I don't fear my own impending death. I'm not likely to hurry it, but I have a lot of curiosity about it and I look forward to the experience.
- jodrellblank 12y ago
  The two main disagreements I have with this are, one that I can't put into words very clearly and will come back to, and my generally repetitive comment on these issues that you - MichaelOChurch2015 - weren't born, you were made by your life experiences. A child was born, a nearly blank slate, and formed into 'you' by experiences. The idea that you could have been born "somewhere else" or "to someone else" or "in another time" is a nonsense idea. We know exactly what happens to children born elsewhere and elsewhen and to other parents - they become other people. Not people we clairvoyantly share qualia with, not people we are superimposed-upon or people we are hiding-inside, not "us" in any way shape or form, just 100% other people. Following that, the idea that someone could be born twice also seems nonsensical. (Boltzmann Brains excepted; MichaelOChurch2015 might appear for a few Plancktimes in the near heat-death void. Not that we'll ever know). The first point; moment by moment in life we experience our surroundings. Continuous sensory input which we continually respond to in large and small scales from planning the next week to blinking and shifting in our seats. I suspect this pervasive connection from experience to physical reality to be fundamental to qualia and consciousness, and so the idea that we could go to an afterlife with no body, no senses, no time, no drive for physical sustenance - and still in any way remain who we are - doesn't fit. If you don't get up in the morning, because you have no body and didn't sleep, and you aren't in your normal environment, you don't put on your clothes because they don't exist anymore along with all your other property, don't breakfast or exercise, don't stretch your achey ankle, don't prepare yourself for your day filled with not going places and not doing things that could affect the organisation of matter and cash, and you don't do all that in absense-of-time and there are no faces to recognise... then who are "you" in such an afterlife anyway? Especially if you arrived there age 95, demented and memoryless. If such an afterlife exists, so what? It's so different as to be not worth thinking of as a continuation of oneself. "Imagine waking up in someone else's body". "Is that what the afterlife is like?" "No, imagine not waking up. And you're not in a body". "What do I see?". "Nothing, you have no eyes and you aren't anywhere". That should have been laughed out the first time it was suggested. (I guess the short version is "we don't have a body. We are bodies").
unabridged 12y ago
>I know our lives on a cosmic scale are infinitesimal. I like to think of each consciousness as a prime number, an inevitable pattern if you write out every possibility. Our brains are contained within some 3 dimensional finite configuration of atoms, and in a large enough scale it will be repeated again. Even its exact position when you read this message.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

sago 12y ago

It doesn't frighten me. It won't go dark forever. Just as there was no 13.5bn years of darkness before I was born. There will be no qualia of time. I think attitudes are changing. The campaign to be able to determine how and when we die is shaping up to be a significant battle for a fundamental civil right. I think we'll win it. Whether it is soon enough for my wife to avoid threat of prosecution if she is with me when I choose to act, I don't know. I suspect not.

baddox 12y ago
The 13.5 billion years of darkness before I was born is frightening as well, but it's done and over with, plus it's way shorter than the upcoming darkness.
- visarga 12y ago
  The universe itself is the life you have, it doesn't die, just makes more conscious entities. Life itself will not die with me, but go on forever. We just need to think large when contemplating death.
  - sireat 12y ago
    What is your reasoning behind thinking that life will go on forever? Life - conscious life with qualia. Even for allowing for unobservable universe that is not given either. There is no guarantee that there will be more conscious entities say 200 years from now.
themartorana 12y ago
Right - it's that ceasing to be, as before I was, that scares me. Now that I have existed, I like it much better than before. That said, that's my hangup, and has nothing to do with your right to choose to die with dignity. It's silly to me that you could choose to jump off a bridge, but can't choose something much less gruesome without fear that your or a loved one might find themselves tangled up legally.
- sago 12y ago
  I know this is getting OT, so apologies. And thank you for the second paragraph. But I'm interested in the first. To me it doesn't seem like I will cease to be, in any meaningful way. To cease to have something is to have it at some point but not another. I will never experience not being. So I find it hard to worry about that. Of course I enjoy being, but it's not like I would rather be than not be, because the latter would suck. So I find your first paragraph strange. And therefore interesting. [edit, add:] I scan sympathise with the point made about others: I'd very very much rather my wife was than ceased to be. But me? Only for other people's sake. I can't imagine how it could possibly make any difference to me. I can't even imagine the idea that I'd miss out on all those good experiences I'd have if I lived. Because again that just presupposes that I'd be missing something.
  - themartorana 12y ago
    I never said it was a rational feeling :) I don't know the right way to explain the feeling. I think it's mostly the same sadness that one experiences when anything particularly wonderful comes to an end. I have known loss in a variety of ways, and I imagine dying taps in to that same idea of mourning. Something that I enjoy terribly must end, I have to say goodbye to not only a terrific experience - but to experience itself. It's mostly the anticipation of the thing, not so much the thing. I'm sure once I'm dead I won't care so much that I'm dead. I just care now that one day I will be. And thus concludes my inability to lend written word to irrational emotion. Edit: as I sit here reflecting now, I wonder if part of it isn't the fear of regret - of not having taken full advantage, of not having loved enough or having wasted time on things actually inconsequential. It's also making me wonder if I already know that I'll have those regrets and maybe should make a few changes. Tonight got deeper that I expected it to...
the_gipsy 12y ago
> It doesn't frighten me. I don't think that's entirely true - it's just that all functioning members of society displace or ignore their fear of death with some method. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_anxiety_%28psychology%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_anxiety_%28psychology%29
- Ntrails 12y ago
  Why in gods name would I be frightened of oblivion? Dying is terrifying, because it comes with implications of suffering. No longer existing is simply enthralling. I will simply be gone. A just reward for making it through a lifetime imo.
  - the_gipsy 12y ago
    I can't tell you why the thought of ceasing to exist would be frightening. It simply is to me, and I believe to most people. And most people, including me, ignore it and focus on the joys of life. There are of course different degrees of this displacement, some people may still acknowledge the idea but others might completely convince themselves that there is nothing to be scared of - or maybe there really is a way to enjoy a finite life span. Mind you that this a very intimate and subjective topic, and I am not saying that you are fooling yourself, but from someone who is indeed scared of death (the end of life), it does seem plausible.
    - Luc 12y ago
      It's perfect, since nobody can ever prove they're not fooling themselves. Perhaps I'll keep fooling myself until I die and die a fool.
    - Ntrails 12y ago
      Life is not [just/only] full of joys, but of obligations, troubles, and pain. Those who enjoy life are doubtless scared of losing it - it's foolish to assume that everyone does though. Nor can such a position be swept away as illness or irrationality. It is neither. If someone gave me a way out right now that caused nobody for whom I care any pain, I'd take it. If I am honest I reckon I'd probably wonder about "what's next" for a good few minutes before saying yes...

michaelochurch 12y ago

If this makes accepting death easier, the good news is the near-death experience. While I certainly don't intend to convince you that it's an afterlife experience (because no one knows quite what they are) it is typically positive and very powerful. Subjectively, it's an intense spiritual experience that seems to be unmatched by most things in life. As for whether it's entrance into an afterlife or the shutdown sequence of a dying brain... who knows? I don't think we'll have that answered within our natural lifespan. Both you and I are likely to die before we, as a species, know whether there's an afterlife. So we have to go into death without full knowledge but, to be honest, we go into every experience without full knowledge. Tomorrow we might wake up and find that the sky is purple. It's extremely unlikely, but it could happen. Honestly, I'm as irreligious as you are but I tend to think the odds are better than even that there's some consciousness after death, although "after" might not be the right word because I'm not sure whether time is even well-defined outside of this physical universe. Presuming that I came from nothing, that means that "nothing" can produce qualia, which means that if I become "nothing" after death... it makes a plausible case for rebirth. As Voltaire said, "It is not more surprising to be born twice than once." So, if the last moments of this life are a positive experience and the "next moment" is either nonexistent or a continuation that might be called an "afterlife", then I don't see much to worry about either way. Of course, others' deaths are still really hard to take, and I'm a hypochondriac who hates the thought of sickness (for the embarrassment and sense of failure, not the danger) but I don't fear my own impending death. I'm not likely to hurry it, but I have a lot of curiosity about it and I look forward to the experience.

jodrellblank 12y ago
The two main disagreements I have with this are, one that I can't put into words very clearly and will come back to, and my generally repetitive comment on these issues that you - MichaelOChurch2015 - weren't born, you were made by your life experiences. A child was born, a nearly blank slate, and formed into 'you' by experiences. The idea that you could have been born "somewhere else" or "to someone else" or "in another time" is a nonsense idea. We know exactly what happens to children born elsewhere and elsewhen and to other parents - they become other people. Not people we clairvoyantly share qualia with, not people we are superimposed-upon or people we are hiding-inside, not "us" in any way shape or form, just 100% other people. Following that, the idea that someone could be born twice also seems nonsensical. (Boltzmann Brains excepted; MichaelOChurch2015 might appear for a few Plancktimes in the near heat-death void. Not that we'll ever know). The first point; moment by moment in life we experience our surroundings. Continuous sensory input which we continually respond to in large and small scales from planning the next week to blinking and shifting in our seats. I suspect this pervasive connection from experience to physical reality to be fundamental to qualia and consciousness, and so the idea that we could go to an afterlife with no body, no senses, no time, no drive for physical sustenance - and still in any way remain who we are - doesn't fit. If you don't get up in the morning, because you have no body and didn't sleep, and you aren't in your normal environment, you don't put on your clothes because they don't exist anymore along with all your other property, don't breakfast or exercise, don't stretch your achey ankle, don't prepare yourself for your day filled with not going places and not doing things that could affect the organisation of matter and cash, and you don't do all that in absense-of-time and there are no faces to recognise... then who are "you" in such an afterlife anyway? Especially if you arrived there age 95, demented and memoryless. If such an afterlife exists, so what? It's so different as to be not worth thinking of as a continuation of oneself. "Imagine waking up in someone else's body". "Is that what the afterlife is like?" "No, imagine not waking up. And you're not in a body". "What do I see?". "Nothing, you have no eyes and you aren't anywhere". That should have been laughed out the first time it was suggested. (I guess the short version is "we don't have a body. We are bodies").

unabridged 12y ago

>I know our lives on a cosmic scale are infinitesimal. I like to think of each consciousness as a prime number, an inevitable pattern if you write out every possibility. Our brains are contained within some 3 dimensional finite configuration of atoms, and in a large enough scale it will be repeated again. Even its exact position when you read this message.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]