Death: What's the problem?

[INTJMom]

Originally Posted by Xander

...
Would you be concerned if I wasted our time, usually spent arguing about anything and everything (often in one overarching argument), in just sitting there weeping considering the time which may come when I am still alive and you are dead? No. So then why waste such time considering death at all? It will come, we have no means nor method of halting, predicting or slowing the final date. It is like an accident which has no cause.
...

Why must there be an all or nothing approach?
When we are young we think we are indestructible.
That kind of thinking can lead to foolish behavior.
To remember that we are mortal is part of maturity.

[INTJMom]

Originally Posted by Xander

...
The man born without limbs has a point. Do not dwell on death, live instead by those things you value. Let those around when you die miss you and indeed give them something to miss.

If that's what you are doing, then I am happy for you.

Perhaps that is the self serving point to life, to cause the maximum level of pain in those you leave behind.
...

I'm sure you will be successful.

[Antisocial one]

This assumes a few things; that there is an absolute truth, that the human mind can understand and that the human has the means to uncover it.

What makes you think that a cold rational evaluation, devoid of emotion and spirituality, is anymore likely to figure out the answer to this cosmic question? As we do not know that answer, you do not know that it can be uncovered through rational thought and empirical measurement (considering empirical can't provide an explanation for more than 5% of the matter we know must exist in the universe I'd say it has a good way to come yet). It is as likely that some deep spiritual meditation may reveal the true nature of reality as some hard cold science. I do prefer the science approach, it at least often gives result people mostly agree upon.

All I'm suggesting is that your rational quest for enlightenment may be running down the wrong path and you'd be as immune to see how as the spiritual guru is of seeing your route, if you do happen to be on the true path to understanding reality

I will not hide that I don't agree with you.
I am aware of the fact that my argument wasn't democratic.

People believe that both ways are good for the searching the truth and I don't agree with this at all.

Here is way:

For thousands years religion did not made any real discovery. All the time entire thing is spining around few terms like happiness , truth , trust , pain , salvation ........

For thousands of years there is no progress of any kind in this area at all.

On the other hand science has done so much that you would need at least 30life times just to learn all of it and that is in the case that you dont forget any thing.

Plus, the rate of coming to new understandings is skyrocketing.

Because of this I have concluded that one side has the potential and the other is a fairy-tale that feels good to some people.

[INTJMom]

When I was a teen, I read a book called "Life After Life".
It tells the stories of people who were declared clinically dead who then came back to life.
After that, I was convinced that there is an afterlife and that there is a heaven and hell,
and I definitely wanted to get to heaven and not hell.

[Xander]

Originally Posted by INTJMom

Why must there be an all or nothing approach?
When we are young we think we are indestructible.
That kind of thinking can lead to foolish behavior.
To remember that we are mortal is part of maturity.

Then would it be fair to say that to dwell on our mortality is to age too quickly?

Originally Posted by INTJMom

If that's what you are doing, then I am happy for you.


I'm sure you will be successful.

I'm not sure I want the second to be honest. To inspire, perhaps. To warn, maybe. To cause pain, not usually.

[bbites]

I have no problem with death.

[Dom]

Originally Posted by INTJMom

It might seem rather morbid to some people, but I have educated myself in proper wake/funeral "etiquette". It's amazing how many people say stupid, useless and even hurtful things to the grieving. It's better to simply say, "I'm sorry for your loss." than to try to say anything more.

What's also important for many grieving people is to not be alone. That's why I will attend a wake even if I didn't know the person well. Just the presence of other people in the same room is comforting.

There are proper ways and improper ways to deal with emotional trauma or loss.
Not grieving properly can stunt emotional growth.
Grieving is an important emotional process even if it doesn't seem all that logical.

I quite agree, I had to attend my first wake as you American's have them recently. I was a bit confused as to what it was for, the body there in the casket and everyone going and having a look. As I said this wasn't helped by not knowing the person very well. I supposed some people expect to the see them one last time, even if it is merely their body. When my step dad died i was a bit upset when I saw his body lying in my parents bed. Pete was so obviously gone, the body so very lifeless, god it made me want to yell and cry (I didn't mum was still practically hysterical) but I didn' feel like I needed to see it at any point. Each to their own I guess.

Originally Posted by Antisocial one

I will not hide that I don't agree with you.
I am aware of the fact that my argument wasn't democratic.

People believe that both ways are good for the searching the truth and I don't agree with this at all.

Here is way:

For thousands years religion did not made any real discovery. All the time entire thing is spinning around few terms like happiness , truth , trust , pain , salvation ........

For thousands of years there is no progress of any kind in this area at all.

On the other hand science has done so much that you would need at least 30life times just to learn all of it and that is in the case that you dont forget any thing.

Plus, the rate of coming to new understandings is skyrocketing.

Because of this I have concluded that one side has the potential and the other is a fairy-tale that feels good to some people.

Well personally I find this an inaccurate interpretation of history, Columbus used calculations made thousands of years before he lived to attempt to sail around the earth, it's why he thought he had rediscovered china and India, all because the ancient Greeks couldn't agree, two camps, one had calculated the diameter of the earth accurate the other made it about 4000 miles to small (this is the group Columbus went with lol). Monks and the Church became the repositories of knowledge and thought. Aquinas was a monk and the first humanist; the first guy writing about appealing to peoples reason and using it to understand the world a pretty 18th century enlightenment Idea, odd that is found in a monk in the 13th century.... There is value in their endeavors, even if our current paradigm decides they were nothing but fools stumbling in the dark, funnily enough that is exactly how they viewed people who had existed in the paradigm that preceded them.

Originally Posted by Xander

Let me first respond to the most recent post and then work back wards.

Dom, I'm no more an automaton than you. The matter of whether I find enjoyment in considering possibilities or leaping from a tall building with nothing but a table cloth to keep me from being the consistency of raspberry preserve is irrelevant. I enjoy my approach and intend to keep it. It satisfies who I am and therefore I do treat with suspicion those suggestions which appear to work against what I feel is more comfortable to me. That is not to say that I don't change, just because two paths never cross does not mean that neither winds and curves, only that they travel different paths. I do however watch more now for signs that I'm going too far down one path or the other, keeping your words in mind even if I choose not to follow them but merely to limit my divergence fro them.

Anyhow, back to the original question and the thrust of your later argument. Death does not define me, merely limit the time in which I have to define that which is me and to investigate everything and basically live it up (heck if nothing else life is hedonistic, no?). What concerns me, and thus is the central thought running through my mind as I go through this thread, is why on earth people make such a fuss about death.

To pull in the philosophical bent which you yourself included, according to some you are dead as soon as you leave my field of vision/ hearing. You cease to be as someone who interacts wit my conscious experience of the world and hence are, to me, effectively dead. Should I mourn your loss each time you leave my company? Should I take against any and all who may take your presence from mine? A reasonable man would say no, I'd wager. So then why should I mourn those who leave my side by manner of death? Sure I have a whole lot less hope of ever having them by my side again and yes that hurts like hell in certain instances but to go from that into, to quote another's words, borrowing stress from the future by continually thinking about their loss and mine is, to my mind, daft. Would you be concerned if I wasted our time, usually spent arguing about anything and everything (often in one overarching argument), in just sitting there weeping considering the time which may come when I am still alive and you are dead? No. So then why waste such time considering death at all? It will come, we have no means nor method of halting, predicting or slowing the final date. It is like an accident which has no cause.

If you don't consider that you may cause a mass pile up every time you approach a road then why consider the end of your life any more than that?

Well I of course incline to let you follow whichever path you choose. I'd merely remind you that the most comfortable is often not the best route for personal growth and leave it at that.

As for you philosophical argument I have a number of points, firstly we are not less than 3 years old and thus psychologically do understand that things continue to exist once they are away from our senses. The entertaining suggestion that they don't is of course nothing but an interesting piece of philosophical jiggery pokery, an interesting thought and nothing more. But you make a valid point, when I used to leave Gen behind in the states, I did mourn parting from her, when dad visits from New Zealand I mourn him when he leaves. It is not as strong as when someone dies but the feelings are still there. Most people feel sadness at parting from friends, even alive ones! With death it is so much more acute because there is no "visit again soon", no Skype, no email to make the gulf separating us (assuming they are anywhere at all) smaller. Honestly Death is the only totally permanent separation that we suffer. Also you wrote about how how it is borrowing stress form the future to mourn? I'm confused by your words here, it sounds like you are suggesting the futility of worrying over someones death in the future, that I quite agree with, though that is not to say death is meaningless or insignificant; just unstoppable. However if you mean that constantly think of your loss when you have lost someone, then I can't see how that would be "borrowing stress from the future" and if it became a permanent state then I would also suggest that is unhealthy.

It seems we may be a cross purposes as I was talking about grief for someone who has died, and not about whether one should worry incessantly about the time or manner of their or their loved ones death, that would be a total waste of time, though if it means you take the time to put a seat belt on then maybe it will move the time of ones death. However, I'm not saying death should dominate our lives, you are quite right one would do nothing in life out of fear of death.

Hmm how about this, a courageous man doesn't know no fear, they feel fear still, but they overcome it and are hence courageous (or maybe just plain stupid) One can fear death, desire to avoid it and hope their loved ones avoid it for as long as possible and still live a full life, unconcerned for the motorway pile up you mentioned. They are either courageous or stupid. I refute though, that there is nothing worth fearing about death (and I mean in general and not just ones own) there most certainly is. Death may not define us, but the defination of who/what we are certainly changes upon death. When I die I will become merely what reminds of me in people's memories, that's a pretty big change from my point of view...

[Antisocial one]

Originally Posted by INTJMom

When I was a teen, I read a book called "Life After Life".
It tells the stories of people who were declared clinically dead who then came back to life.
After that, I was convinced that there is an afterlife and that there is a heaven and hell,
and I definitely wanted to get to heaven and not hell.

What made you to think that data in that book is correct?

[INTJMom]

Originally Posted by Xander

Then would it be fair to say that to dwell on our mortality is to age too quickly?

Oh dear! That would be sacrilege! Forget I ever said a thing!

[INTJMom]

Originally Posted by Antisocial one

What made you to think that data in that book is correct?

Because I decided that it was.