Try a thought experiment. Close your eyes and imagine you will die and that your consciousness will cease to exist forever, eternally-- never to return. Death then, is not sleep, because the comfort of sleep is that we are partly dreaming, and even when we aren't conscious, our unconscious mind is at rest. But death is the end of your consciousness, so you cannot logically call it sleep. Your world (you only know of this world as a subject) will cease forever. Whether humanity lives on for thousands or millions of years, or whether another species eventually evolves is irrelevant to the world you lose, because you will never be apart of it. Nothingness is not a state, and neither is it sleep or bliss. The nothingness before you were born is irrelevant here, because you had not come into being yet. But here you are. Now to the question: Does that scare you?
2007-03-03 06:54:50 · 12 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
no i dont fear death
2007-03-03 06:59:09 · answer #1 · answered by caleb m 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Funny how these types of questions always try to pin one to a wall, where the only possibilities are those imposed by another.
Accept no limitations at all.
The only concern I have about so-called ¨death¨ is that if everyone knew what it really was we would be ´commiting´suicide by the millions. The truth is that the scary part is getting ´born´.
We are energetic beings in an energetic ´Universe´, and energy can neither be created or destroyed, only transformed into another form.
2007-03-03 15:50:00 · answer #2 · answered by cosmicvoyager 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It makes me wonder, but it doesn't really scare me....right now I'm here alive...the birds are singing outside my window...the sun is shining....this moment contains eternity, and moments are all that I will ever have(until the time of death)...
....if this nothingness awaits me at the time of death, then that makes this moment(and every moment) all that more precious, n it makes living so much more worthwhile...
If something else besides nothingness is the case after death, then that won't matter either....now is all that matters...
Excellent question:))
2007-03-03 08:03:12 · answer #3 · answered by .. 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No, I find it strangely comforting. Isn't it nothingness before birth, but oblivion after death? Oblivion implies loss of memory, but nothingness speaks for itself. And the world will go on without us--with the passage of time, it will not even remember us. This is as it should be, or it would be different.
2007-03-03 06:59:53 · answer #4 · answered by Michael M 3 · 2⤊ 1⤋
After a sufficient number of decades of somethingness, you might find the prospect of nothingness appealing? Anyway, death is merely a transition to the "next level" of the ongoing saga/drama, so don't worry :)))
2007-03-03 10:13:47 · answer #5 · answered by drakke1 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm convinced we do not fear death, we fear suffering. We fear what we believe death is, since we cannot really know what it is, and we believe it is painful. And it's perfectly natural to fear pain.
But, at second thought, one doesn't want to lose himself - literally speaking. As we lose so many people we love throughout our lives, it's not a happy thought to lose our own life, whatever it encompasses. So we sympathize with others for the harm caused by our own deaths.
2007-03-03 07:45:00 · answer #6 · answered by Johannes 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
i believe that death is the beginning of a second life, not nothingness...so no the thought of oblivion doesn't scare because i don't believe it will happen. but i am afraid of what kind of life comes after this one. i think you are always a little afraid of what you know nothing about, and no one can ever pedict exactly what comes after life.
2007-03-03 07:06:13 · answer #7 · answered by Colie B 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Instead of fear it actually makes me want to make a difference while I'm here. If as you say, this is all I get then every morsel may be my last and I will savor every bite.
2007-03-03 07:04:19 · answer #8 · answered by doe 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
"How should I fear death? When I am, death is not; and when death is, I am not" -Epicurus
"Where, o death, is your victory? Where, o death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law."- St. Paul of Tarsus
2007-03-03 09:34:18 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Michael is right. It's comforting. Life is a circle, man.
2007-03-03 07:02:58 · answer #10 · answered by redrancherogirl 4 · 1⤊ 1⤋
No. If I am nothingness then how could I be scared when there are no stimuli's?
2007-03-03 07:04:37 · answer #11 · answered by elizabeth m 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋