Do we actually know that we will die?

Ripheus27 · Mar 18, 2015

Sometimes, certain scientistic types will claim that at death, our minds cease to exist or function, and that waiting for an afterlife is a cowardly rejection of the fact of such cessation. However, I have never died (to my knowledge), so how do I in fact know that I will ever die? I have never even directly seen another person die, even. If I'm going to limit my beliefs about the afterlife to what "empirical evidence" seems to suggest, shouldn't I be skeptical about not just the afterlife, but death itself?

Tinker Grey · Mar 18, 2015

Ripheus27 said:
Sometimes, certain scientistic types will claim that at death, our minds cease to exist or function, and that waiting for an afterlife is a cowardly rejection of the fact of such cessation. However, I have never died (to my knowledge), so how do I in fact know that I will ever die? I have never even directly seen another person die, even. If I'm going to limit my beliefs about the afterlife to what "empirical evidence" seems to suggest, shouldn't I be skeptical about not just the afterlife, but death itself?

You've never seen a dead thing? The potato on your plate? Do you doubt that hamburger comes from cows? Chicken from chicken? Pork from pigs?

I suppose if you're going to doubt the whole of human experience as reported by your fellow creatures, you're free to doubt death too. But, you should be prepared to doubt heart transplants, cancer treatments, that man landed on the moon, that anyone has flown around the world, or for that matter sailed around it, etc.

Received · Mar 18, 2015

Ripheus27 said:
Sometimes, certain scientistic types will claim that at death, our minds cease to exist or function, and that waiting for an afterlife is a cowardly rejection of the fact of such cessation. However, I have never died (to my knowledge), so how do I in fact know that I will ever die? I have never even directly seen another person die, even. If I'm going to limit my beliefs about the afterlife to what "empirical evidence" seems to suggest, shouldn't I be skeptical about not just the afterlife, but death itself?

Yeah, we have no idea at all how death "works" from a first-person experience, so we can't really speak about it at all. Appealing to things that have died is in a way totally different because it's looking at objective corpses rather than subjective experiences of death.

Ripheus27 · Mar 18, 2015

Tinker Grey said:
You've never seen a dead thing? The potato on your plate? Do you doubt that hamburger comes from cows? Chicken from chicken? Pork from pigs?

I've seen moving things stop moving, granted. Plants, though... If "life" had a better definition, I might readily admit that plants are living things, as defined. However, maybe there is no such thing as life at all (maybe the word "life" has too vague of an application, one lending itself too readily to discredited theories like vitalism).

I suppose if you're going to doubt the whole of human experience as reported by your fellow creatures, you're free to doubt death too. But, you should be prepared to doubt heart transplants, cancer treatments, that man landed on the moon, that anyone has flown around the world, or for that matter sailed around it, etc.

Some humans have testified of an afterlife (or God, for that matter). If I accept the existence of death on testimony, oughtn't I to accept the existence of an afterlife for similar reasons?

Ripheus27 · Mar 18, 2015

Also, even if I had credible evidence of large numbers of other people dying, I would not have sufficient evidence of everyone throughout history having died (my religion suggests a minimum of two exceptions/reversals), and I certainly wouldn't have proof that I myself will ever die. I might even be an exception in the end, for all I know.

ananda · Mar 18, 2015

"Life", IMO, is better characterized as "life stream". Within this life stream which we identify as "ourselves", things are constantly changing, whether it is our cells, our thoughts, our feelings, or otherwise ... parts of our life stream are constantly leaving us, other newer parts are constantly merging into ours. "Death" is merely another step within this life stream. Dying cells decay into their constituent parts to become part of other life streams. The energy behind thoughts and feelings do as well.

In a sense, we are always renewing ourselves, and always dying. There is no final cessation in the Western sense of "death".

jayem · Mar 18, 2015

Ripheus27 said:
Sometimes, certain scientistic types will claim that at death, our minds cease to exist or function,

I've had general anesthesia a few times for medical procedures, so I've experienced what it's like when your brain is turned off. There is no conscious awareness of anything. And no dreaming. Total oblivion. When we die, that state is permanent. I realize that for those of us who enjoy living, this isn't a pleasant thought, but it is what it is.

However, I have never died (to my knowledge), so how do I in fact know that I will ever die? I have never even directly seen another person die, even. If I'm going to limit my beliefs about the afterlife to what "empirical evidence" seems to suggest, shouldn't I be skeptical about not just the afterlife, but death itself?

I work in health care. I've seen people die. I've seen death confirmed with flat EKGs; flat EEGs; absent pulse, respiration, and blood pressure; absent brain stem reflexes; and body temp equilbrating to room temperature. I know biological death is real. I can't say with absolute metaphysical certainty that nothing of personhood continues to exist after it. But other than wishful thinking, there's no reason for me to believe it.

Eudaimonist · Mar 18, 2015

Ripheus27 said:
shouldn't I be skeptical about not just the afterlife, but death itself?

Be as skeptical as you like, but death as the end to one's subjectivity seems to be a strong inference based on what is known about the mind through brain science. Yes, one could hold out some doubt, but only in the face of strongly compelling reasons to see death as the end.

Doubting that one will die physically one day borders on insanity. It requires a caricature of empiricism -- an exception-making for yourself based on nothing but feigned ignorance. You might as well believe that you are Superman and jump in front of automobiles and off of tall buildings because you've personally never experienced death in that way before.

eudaimonia,

Mark

Paradoxum · Mar 18, 2015

When people get hit on the head they can lose memory, personality, or function. If you hit every part of the brain really hard, you will lose all function.

If your memory, personalty, and way of thinking are destroyed, what is left to survive?

To be honest, I'm not sure I want to take away peoples' hope though, if they really want it.

quatona · Mar 18, 2015

Ripheus27 said:
Sometimes, certain scientistic types will claim that at death, our minds cease to exist or function, and that waiting for an afterlife is a cowardly rejection of the fact of such cessation. However, I have never died (to my knowledge), so how do I in fact know that I will ever die? I have never even directly seen another person die, even. If I'm going to limit my beliefs about the afterlife to what "empirical evidence" seems to suggest, shouldn't I be skeptical about not just the afterlife, but death itself?

Would you dare to check out, experimentally, whether, say, being run over by a train will kill you?

Received · Mar 18, 2015

quatona said:
Would you dare to check out, experimentally, whether, say, being run over by a train will kill you?

You first.

quatona · Mar 18, 2015

Received said:
You first.

I´m not the guy who has any doubts that he will die.

Davian · Mar 18, 2015

Ripheus27 said:
Sometimes, certain scientistic types will claim that at death, our minds cease to exist or function, and that waiting for an afterlife is a cowardly rejection of the fact of such cessation. However, I have never died (to my knowledge), so how do I in fact know that I will ever die? I have never even directly seen another person die, even. If I'm going to limit my beliefs about the afterlife to what "empirical evidence" seems to suggest, shouldn't I be skeptical about not just the afterlife, but death itself?

If "mind" is a process, produced by the brain, where did it go when you slept last night?

Received · Mar 18, 2015

quatona said:
I´m not the guy who has any doubts that he will die.

Let's not get too dark now...

ThinkForYourself · Mar 18, 2015

Ripheus27 said:
Do we actually know we will die?

Yes.

Visit your local funeral home. Ask for a tour, say you are very interested in seeing some dead bodies.

Received · Mar 18, 2015

If you really wanted to get, like, all existentialist technical, you should probably have two words for death, one implying "death of self to self" and the other "death of another self to self," or something like that. We have absolutely no experience of death of self to self, fundamentally because this is an impossible experience. My favorite kneejerk response to any client I have with death anxiety who fears "blackness for eternity" is that "blackness" implies you're conscious of this blackness. Death is beyond blackness, therefore there is no experience of blackness.

Which means that death (of self to self) is a complete mystery, and even further complete madness. My guess as to why we have death anxiety isn't that we fear the pain of dying or the fear of being "stuck with blackness" forever (which is impossible), but because death makes no sense. It is incomprehensible -- even more incomprehensible than God playing dice with quantum mechanics.

"But you experience death all around you with people dying ever--" stop, that's not the death of self to self that's important here, but rather death of another self to self -- objective death, not subjective death. Infinite, infinite difference.

quatona · Mar 19, 2015

Received said:
If you really wanted to get, like, all existentialist technical, you should probably have two words for death, one implying "death of self to self" and the other "death of another self to self," or something like that. We have absolutely no experience of death of self to self, fundamentally because this is an impossible experience.

It´s not even a concept, to begin with, It´s just a word pointing nowhere.

Which means that death (of self to self) is a complete mystery,

Actually, it´s an impossibility, not a mystery.

and even further complete madness. My guess as to why we have death anxiety isn't that we fear the pain of dying or the fear of being "stuck with blackness" forever (which is impossible), but because death makes no sense.

The actual question, to me, is: Why do people create (non-)concepts that make no sense, and then suffer from them?

Another interesting question: Why don´t they do the same with their (non-)state prior to being born?
If non-existence is an incomprehensible mystery (instead of just nothing), we all have billions of years of experience with it.

Eudaimonist · Mar 19, 2015

Received said:
If you really wanted to get, like, all existentialist technical, you should probably have two words for death, one implying "death of self to self" and the other "death of another self to self," or something like that. We have absolutely no experience of death of self to self, fundamentally because this is an impossible experience.

The idea of experiencing one's own nonexistence is, of course, impossible because it is an outright contradiction.

But I would explain it like this: what were you doing in the 1400s? Ponder that a moment. Death is like that.

eudaimonia,

Mark

Ripheus27 · Mar 19, 2015

For what it's worth, I have repeatedly attempted suicide, never to any avail. Of course, perhaps (probably) my methods were flawed. However, the question for me remains: how do I know that I will ever die without an afterlife, when both dying and an afterlife are only known to me by testimony?

Eudaimonist · Mar 19, 2015

Ripheus27 said:
For what it's worth, I have repeatedly attempted suicide, never to any avail. Of course, perhaps (probably) my methods were flawed. However, the question for me remains: how do I know that I will ever die without an afterlife, when both dying and an afterlife are only known to me by testimony?

You are Superman, and completely indestructible. Now go fight crime.

eudaimonia,

Mark

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