On 12/21/2014 6:14 PM, 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?
> 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.
The two are not comparable because I doubt that you think the latter two will prevent your
death or even delay it much. So the decisions differ greatly in both cost and benefit.
Most people estimate that the benefit of having their head frozen is very low because
resuscitation is improbable and a bearable second life is even more improbable and death
is still only delayed. So spending 100K$ on that vs. 1K$ on health care which promises
better quality of life, if not more life, seems to indicate you place an extremely high
value on continuation. On the other hand 100K$ is pocket change to some people and even
spending it on insurance against being abducted by aliens might not be indicative of fear.
Brent
> 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?
John K Clark
Bruce
About 57 billion human beings have lived on this planet over the last
million years, and although many have made similar sounding greeting
card style statements not one of those 57 billion has actually taken
that advice to heart and survived. In the last hour of his life I
don't think Robin Williams feared death, or at least there were other
things that he feared more.
John K Clark
John Clark wrote:
On Sun, Dec 21, 2014 , Bruce Kellett <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>An instinct for self-preservation is unrelated to whether or
not
you have a fear of death, or of oblivion
Unrelated?? Don't be ridiculous! Why the hell do you imagine
Evolution
invented the fear of death in the first place?
Evolution did not "invent a fear of death". That is purely
cultural, and is
not even associated with consciousness -- it comes only with
self-awareness
and an inner narrative. Evolution gave living things an instinct for
self-preservation. But you can have such an instinct operating
healthily and
still not fear death. Fear of death probably comes from a fear of
the
unknown, and is linked to the fear of prolonged suffering. But
oblivion is
oblivion -- it is not something to be feared because no-one has ever
experienced it, or can ever experience it.
Bruce
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