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Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

I've never understood or been able to relate to the seemingly common intense curiosity as to cause-of-death. Is it related to the desire to fit names we know into a narrative structure that lets us reason about them as entities? It seems like an irrelevant detail, to me personally.

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I think it's likely just part of human nature. When something bad or tragic happens, we want to know what happened and why. It seems plausible that there's an evolutionary explanation for it, to do with learning how to avoid such happenings.

The desire to know is usually in proportion to the unexpectedness. Perhaps its an evolutionary curiosity (Avoid how they died)?

Why is it hard to understand?

Two days ago, a cousin (who I only barely know because we connected on facebook, genealogically) informed me that her father - my mother's brother - had passed. My mom's first question was "any particulars?" It's natural to want to know what happened, and it's not shameful to be curious.

For some, it comes from wanting to avoid death. The desire to add it to your database of how death happens in order to know your enemy. I'm not arguing this is following a scientific principle. This is more emotional.

I think it’s human nature. I have it intensely and not sure why. Maybe a desire to make it make sense in your head somehow?

Human nature. If your child is late from a party, say, the mind wonders and eventually thinks the worst.

Sometimes it's just fun to speculate.

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