John Clark wrote:
On Sun, Dec 21, 2014 PM, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> > Bob and Don are crossing a street when a large truck turns
a corner and is heading straight for both of them. Bob has a fear of
death but Don has a instinct for self preservation, please tell me
about the unrelated and very different procedures Bob and Don use to
get out of the way.
> They should both jump for safety! Don's instinct for self
preservation makes this jump instinctive -- and successful. Bob's
fear of death leads him to freeze in his tracks, and he is killed.
And for that reason the fear of death was weeded out of the gene pool
500 million years ago. Oh wait it hasn't been.
>> It [death] is not something to be feared because no-one has ever
experienced it
> Your paraphrase is very telling. I said no-one has ever
experienced oblivion, not that no-one has died [death].
If death doesn't mean oblivion then what the hell does it mean?
No one is denying that death results in oblivion. But that is not the
point. My claim was that no one has experienced oblivion. In common
parlance, we routinely say that everyone experiences death at the end of
their lives. Hence the distinction made between death and oblivion in
this context.
> since we all die at some point, fearing death is scarcely rational.
Having a emotion is neither rational nor irrational, it's just having a
emotion. But never mind, all this started because I said I planned to
be cryogenically frozen someday; explain to me why that demonstrates a
greater fear of death than say going to the doctor or even taking a
vitamin pill.
No, it started because you said that you feared oblivion.
"... Cryonics could literally be the difference between life and death,
between consciousness and oblivion."
To which I asked:
"What's wrong with oblivion?"
and you said:
"It's just not my cup of tea,"
The idea that oblivion was something to be feared then gradually took
hold in the conversation.
> Fearing suffering is rational, however, because we actually
experience that
and rationally try to avoid it.
If true and if somebody gets great joy out of having experiences why is
it irrational to fear that stopping but rational to fear something that
gives us great pain will continue?
Who said it was irrational to stop an experience that one finds
pleasurable? All I am saying is that death comes to us all, and that it
is irrational to fear death per se, because once you are dead you are
not around to worry about missing anything.
Bruce
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