I don’t experience very much fear of death in my daily life, possibly because there isn’t much that would trigger it. I would feel it if I was trapped in a burning building. I also feel something like a fear of death when I imagine being very old, or AGI being developed, though I think that I’m more afraid of poor health or pain or facing the deaths of the people I care about. I expect to feel a fear of death more acutely when AGI seems close, or once I am old.
I remember that there was a time when I felt afraid of death more regularly. As a teenager, I felt agitated by the thought that continuity of self might not survive sleep. Or for that matter a full waking day, because by evening, events that happened early in the day would already feel like they almost happened to someone else. Later on, I read thought experiments about personal identity and did meditation, and became less concerned about continuity of self being a real thing in the first place. Then I also stopped worrying about losing it to things like sleep.
I think I also have a preference for life whose reason isn’t mentioned in your post. It’s something like an aesthetic preference for the person who I am. I think it’s cool that a person like me exists. I’d like him to continue existing, the way I’d like to see the continued existence of all the other people who I like. I approve of his aesthetic choices—in fact, I would make exactly the same choices myself.
I don’t experience very much fear of death in my daily life, possibly because there isn’t much that would trigger it. I would feel it if I was trapped in a burning building. I also feel something like a fear of death when I imagine being very old, or AGI being developed, though I think that I’m more afraid of poor health or pain or facing the deaths of the people I care about. I expect to feel a fear of death more acutely when AGI seems close, or once I am old.
I remember that there was a time when I felt afraid of death more regularly. As a teenager, I felt agitated by the thought that continuity of self might not survive sleep. Or for that matter a full waking day, because by evening, events that happened early in the day would already feel like they almost happened to someone else. Later on, I read thought experiments about personal identity and did meditation, and became less concerned about continuity of self being a real thing in the first place. Then I also stopped worrying about losing it to things like sleep.
I think I also have a preference for life whose reason isn’t mentioned in your post. It’s something like an aesthetic preference for the person who I am. I think it’s cool that a person like me exists. I’d like him to continue existing, the way I’d like to see the continued existence of all the other people who I like. I approve of his aesthetic choices—in fact, I would make exactly the same choices myself.