I can remember being 4 years old, laying in bed, scared I would die in the night and wake up a skeleton. Only, then I would realize what it would mean to be dead, and I not only couldn’t really conceive it except abstractly, but felt deep fear even trying to conceive it. But, being the kind of person I am I guess, I made myself look at it for as long as I could. It didn’t really work, but I’d try.
You could say I had to try to stare into the face of my own death for 37 years until I was finally able to see it.
As I see it, my death is “worlds that exist without me”. If I die today, tomorrow the Sun will still shine, only I won’t be there to see it. The people I know will be there, only I won’t be with them. It’s similar to imagining people living on a different planet. Things will happen, beyond my control, without me being able to see the result, just like if they happened in a distant galaxy.
I will not be there. There will be no me anywhere. Ever. That kinda sucks, because right now I have some wishes about things I would like to do and experience and learn; and if I die, that’s not going to happen. But there won’t be any me to experience the frustration.
If someone killed me right now, instantly and painlessly, it wouldn’t be a frustrating experience at all. (It would be no experience.) The frustration comes from my ability to make plans, to have expectations; and then imagining those plans and expectations failing. So right now, I strongly prefer that I live. But if I died, I would have no preferences anymore.
So I think there are three components in the fear of death. First, if you imagine something bad happening afterwards. (You wake up in Hell, where the devils will painfully stab you with pitchforks, forever. Or the people will bury your unmoving body, while you are helplessly screaming in your mind; then you will be lonely, suffocate, and experience pain as your body decomposes.) These things are bullshit; none of that is going to happen; that’s just you imagination insisting that in some sense you will still be alive; but you won’t. Second, the circumstances of death are often unpleasant. Yeah, that is a legitimate worry. But it’s not about death per se, it’s about the things that may happen near the end of your life. Third, the loss of control. You won’t be able to do the things you wanted to do, or to help the people you love; you won’t even learn how various things turned out. I think it is perfectly legitimate to wish for things to be not like that. (Whether you can actually do something about it, that is a different question. But I think it is perfectly legitimate to say, even if you can do nothing about it, that you’d prefer if things would be different.)
(Actually, fourth, quantum immortality. I do not have a good model of what it actually feels like, once things get strange enough. Maybe it doesn’t feel like anything; maybe the entire idea is flawed or substantially incomplete. I don’t know.)
Yes, very much so.
I can remember being 4 years old, laying in bed, scared I would die in the night and wake up a skeleton. Only, then I would realize what it would mean to be dead, and I not only couldn’t really conceive it except abstractly, but felt deep fear even trying to conceive it. But, being the kind of person I am I guess, I made myself look at it for as long as I could. It didn’t really work, but I’d try.
You could say I had to try to stare into the face of my own death for 37 years until I was finally able to see it.
As I see it, my death is “worlds that exist without me”. If I die today, tomorrow the Sun will still shine, only I won’t be there to see it. The people I know will be there, only I won’t be with them. It’s similar to imagining people living on a different planet. Things will happen, beyond my control, without me being able to see the result, just like if they happened in a distant galaxy.
I will not be there. There will be no me anywhere. Ever. That kinda sucks, because right now I have some wishes about things I would like to do and experience and learn; and if I die, that’s not going to happen. But there won’t be any me to experience the frustration.
If someone killed me right now, instantly and painlessly, it wouldn’t be a frustrating experience at all. (It would be no experience.) The frustration comes from my ability to make plans, to have expectations; and then imagining those plans and expectations failing. So right now, I strongly prefer that I live. But if I died, I would have no preferences anymore.
So I think there are three components in the fear of death. First, if you imagine something bad happening afterwards. (You wake up in Hell, where the devils will painfully stab you with pitchforks, forever. Or the people will bury your unmoving body, while you are helplessly screaming in your mind; then you will be lonely, suffocate, and experience pain as your body decomposes.) These things are bullshit; none of that is going to happen; that’s just you imagination insisting that in some sense you will still be alive; but you won’t. Second, the circumstances of death are often unpleasant. Yeah, that is a legitimate worry. But it’s not about death per se, it’s about the things that may happen near the end of your life. Third, the loss of control. You won’t be able to do the things you wanted to do, or to help the people you love; you won’t even learn how various things turned out. I think it is perfectly legitimate to wish for things to be not like that. (Whether you can actually do something about it, that is a different question. But I think it is perfectly legitimate to say, even if you can do nothing about it, that you’d prefer if things would be different.)
(Actually, fourth, quantum immortality. I do not have a good model of what it actually feels like, once things get strange enough. Maybe it doesn’t feel like anything; maybe the entire idea is flawed or substantially incomplete. I don’t know.)