Telling the Bees | Hacker News Reader

Telling the Bees

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375 pointspenguin_booze254 comments

I know it’s only tangential related to the topic, but reading this article just overflows me with this feeling I’m describing below. I didn’t voice this out somewhere before, it somehow just started very recently and it’s so difficult for me to let go of it.

I can’t get over the fact that we all must die. Everybody you ever knew and could be able to know will. You who are reading this message, I, all the other significant people in our lives, all the users on this platform. Everybody who is right now experiencing their consciousness in this universe. All the consciousnesses before - the person in the article who asked to tell the bees about their dead.

It’s as if whatever is and ever could be completely collapses once your consciousness is gone. Saying it doesn’t make sense to try to make sense about it makes no sense because once it’s over it’s as if there never was and will be no sense to begin with.

It’s filling me with nothing but deep dread, tears, pain and suffering all over my body.

Still, beautiful to see how others tried to cope with it by telling the bees.

Life and our eventual death is f-ing scary. Anything anyone wants to do to help cope with that, no matter how batshit crazy it is to other people, is fine by me (as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else).

death is scary because we decided to protray it in that way. What's scary in an endless sleep? From a sleep deprived person pov, it seems like a pretty good ending.

From a sleep you wake up, from death nobody's sure....

Death isn't scary, but our view of it is. We were already dead for 14 billion years and that doesnt seem to bother anyone. The next 14 billion will be much the same.

If anything, a bunch of inanimate matter suddenly springing up and wreaking havoc is the scary reality. If a bunch of sand on the beach suddenly became conscious and started talking to me, and swallowing people up, that would be far freakier than death itself.

I think part of what makes death so weird is that we don't really experience it. We don't really know when it's coming, except for sometimes when it's imminent, and even then it's mostly just guessing. So, even though it's inevitable, most of the time we don't view life through the lens of death, simply because it's impossible to work backwards from.

> Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps 20. And yet it all seems limitless.

-- Paul Bowles

Honestly for me, I almost take comfort in this thought. Everything is temporary. Enjoy it as you can. Nothing will matter soon - so who cares if you make mistakes, nobody can possibly judge you. There is no objective other than what you decide to aim for, so just go and live life :)

I went through a similar existential conclusion and tried to impart the sentiment to some of my friends. Reactions ranged from mixed to negative. Some people exist and thrive in structure. It made me a little sad. It takes a certain optimistic mindset to carry this idea forward, otherwise it seems entirely nihilistic.

Me too, I used the wecroak app to send me reminders throughout the day that I am going to die.

It helps bring me back to the present moment.

Just installed wecroak because of you. Thanks.

No problem, I really like it, it's a very simple app.

I rarely actually open it to see the quotes.

I recently gave in and got a fitness tracker, most apps I blacklist for notifications, but it's nice to whitelist this so that throughout the day my watch reminds me I'm going to die :)

I'm sure it's a great conversation starter!

Consider the alternative possibility that everything is permanent, in a sense. Every habitual response, your actions, dialogues and relationships ... everything... is etched in a type of eternal hologram which you will live throughout eternity. Not unlike the experience of dreaming.

This is and was a common conclusion of mystics the world over, clothed in different words.

What you've described is the human condition--our reconciliation of a relatively short, finite existence with the unceasing passage of time. Time doesn't really exist, it just affects us, so effectively it does exist.

What you're feeling has lead to civilization, essentially. I think the finite nature of a human life isn't an inherent property of the concept of humanity, but I think a lot of the ideals thats we use to define humanity are born from this finite nature (respect for life, respect for each other etc., the idea of "respect"). Separately, I think the term "respect" has been taken over by game theroretic ways of thinking, which I find disappointing. Such is life, I suppose.

It's a realization we all have at one point. We all come to different conclusions about it.

For me, I heard someone say something to the effect of "Plant trees you will never rest in the shade of" and like, that hit a weak spot for me. Right through the armor. I changed a lot of my life to go out and restore ecosystems, restore healthy forests, and plant trees.

That reminded me of another saying: it would have been best to have planted a tree ten years ago, but the next best time is now.

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/12/29/plant-tree/ (the page also mentions the one you did)

From an ecological perspective, I think it is quite extraordinary that pine trees grow so quickly. Just planting conifers exclusively is not going to reverse all the environmental instability that we have caused, but it's a stopgap method of reducing carbon in the atmosphere that we could implement almost immediately.

I can’t give you the very specifics of my own experiences but I would like to remind you that there have been 14 Dalai Lamas on this planet.

Life is very short if you live it the traditional way. By the time you realize what is what (or, what you came here to learn in this life) it feels like there is little time left to enjoy it.

But a lot of this comes down to self-awareness and whether or not it interests you. There are many actively religious places on this Earth (India, Nepal, Bali(!)) who will happily laugh at you for saying we live only once.

And as for me. I distinctly remember when I was five years old, I used to think we could only have one life and my parents used to think that way too. And then you wake up to the reality and you realize that life isn’t finite. But imagine if it was? How different would the experience be on this planet?

But how do you know the idea that soothes these worries about the end are just hallucinations of this cognition of ours hallucinating in order to keep us going, surviving, multiplying and preventing us from jumping over the next bridge? Just like the bees are just a way to cope and deal with this grave grave pain.

You've landed on the (non-)paradox of the meaning of life. The meaning is that there is no meaning, which means the meaning is whatever you make of it. The axiomatic truths upon which you base your life, your worldview, your understanding of reality are yours to define. What happens next is up to you and how you contend with your worldview vis a vis your perceptual experiences.

You can accept certain conditions on the world as given, but you can never know they're correct. You can decide on the meaning (and sense) of your perceptions and interpretations, and since that's all you can do, you might as well lean into it. Accept your (non-)fate and all will be clear to you(r habitual and critical understandings of the world).

This perspective is broadly described as nihilism. There's different ways to express such a philosophy, depending primarily on how collectivistic vs individualistic you ultimately decide to be.

I somewhat agree with what you wrote, though that doesn't sound like nihilism to me. Perhaps philosphers use the term differently. To me, I just hold the realistic view; the reality is that I experience my reality. Nothing more, nothing less. And I get to be clever with the "realistic" word choice too!

I understand the feeling. I felt it often as a child and would run to my parents crying about it in the middle of the night. It's the dread of utter dark—like every light in the world going out at once.

It turns out this question—how do we contend with the question of death?—is one of the most, if not the most, studied questions in human history, second perhaps only to why we came to exist. The collective answer by each of the world's cultures is encoded in myth, poetry, and spiritual and religious traditions. I would recommend the Bhagavad Gita, translated and commentated by Eknath Easwaran (https://www.amazon.com/Bhagavad-Gita-2nd-Eknath-Easwaran/dp/...). It's not necessary to practice or believe in any particular religion to gain something valuable from these books, nor is it incompatible with science to delve spiritually.

Thanks for the recommendation, I will check it out.

I’m already reading the Dhammapada (Gautama Buddha’s take on these and many other things) by Eknath Easwaran and can greatly recommend it to everybody as well.

Ah, that's on my list. I'm currently working through the Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living (https://www.amazon.com/Bhagavad-Daily-Living-Verse-Verse-ebo...), which is basically a line by line reading of the Gita, except each line has extensive commentary by Easwaran on its interpretation and applicability to daily life.

It's much longer, and definitely not meant to be read in one sitting. Instead, I read it a little bit every morning, a little bit every night. To me, living a good life is hard and requires constant effort—the wisdom in these texts can't possibly sink in after just a single reading. Sustained reading and re-reading grooves the text into the brain, and over time changes our thoughts, which over time changes our actions, which changes the whole world.

Ira Schepetin does a really good reading series on the Gita. Very accessible for atheists, since he reads it by way of advaita, which is not a belief-based system but demands you to observe the proofs first-hand.

I still feel like running crying to my parents about it as an adult sometimes - it’s very easy to spiral into obsessively dreading my own inevitable demise, it sneaks right up on me, especially lying in bed at night.

I didn’t figure out how to cope with it until sometime in highschool, when it really hit me that laying await all night having a mini panic attack about dying someday was really bad for my life. It made the next day suck, and for what? Worrying about something I ultimately can’t do anything about? Entirely unproductive - unhealthy even.

I’m better at setting it aside now. I recognize when I’m getting fixated on it, and I deliberately change tack - I put on music, I read, I go curl up with my dog on the couch - anything to distract myself sufficiently. And half an hour or so later, it’s passed, and I can lay back down and fall asleep. Ebooks and podcasts are super good distractions too.

I hate it. The whole thing. I hate that coping with it is even necessary. But I literally have no choice. Doom is on the horizon, and I need to get my beauty sleep so I can enjoy the time I have left. Boooooo.

I sometimes had this experience as well. But i recently participated in and cared for my mother's end of life care. I'm pretty young to be doing something like that and it was the most horrifying thing i may ever experience, simply incomprehensible. Everyone was relieved when it was over, even her.

But instead of having known the terror of a slow painful death debilitating me, it's kind of done the opposite. It can get so bad that you're glad it's ending. And thank fucking God that it ends. Holy shit hell on earth exists for some people and death is the final freedom from the fire. I'm so infinitely grateful that it was able to end, it was such an immense relief, that it kinda broke that whole illusion of terror. I remember crying inconsolably to her when i was very young when i realized some day she would die. It was so scary, and that fear stayed with me up until i saw what real fear was. Now that the fear has passed, only i remain.

Thanks for telling me that, I appreciate it.

Yours is a very individualistic view point. The individual can't survive forever, but if you think of humanity as a single living organism, kind of like a mold that has colonized this rock called Earth, then it is immortal. Thinking of it as a single organism allows you to see that, like all life, it keeps itself healthy by having older elements die off while new ones are regenerated. Each individual doesn't matter much.

This point of view is good for thinking environmentally, "we" will live forever as long as we keep the planet habitable. But there's a range of other perspectives between the individual and planet-wide organism. For example, some like to focus on keeping their nation alive, or their race, or their culture, or just their own bloodline. If you elevate any of these it lessens the despair of the inevitable death of the individual.

You are definitely right. I would like to add that what we need to make this happen is empathy for each other.

While there are plenty of historical thoughts on this, a recent and profound take on it is Everything Everywhere All at Once. If you haven't seen it, check it out.

I believe the Oscars are a scam, but I was still thrilled when EEAAO swept them this year. That film was darn near perfect and I can't praise it enough. The first and only time I've ever cried in a movie just because of beautiful cinematography. (I've cried plenty due to emotional writing, but I'm still surprised that EEAAO's visuals alone were still enough to make me cry at certain parts.)

A masterpiece of a film and one that came at the perfect time for me in my life. I made the jump from theism to atheism months before it came out and I had just started grappling with the sudden exposure to nihilism I was experiencing. I was uncertain and a little scared and that movie helped me navigate and understand those feelings in a way I don't think anything else could have.

Life is absurd. Why anything exists at all is absurd. So absurd in fact I find it unconvincing that life is nothing but a large deterministic automaton without initial cause. Maybe religions are a coping mechanism for deluded people, but I hope they point to some deeper truths that we may never fully grasp.

In any case, pain and other conscious beings are as real as it gets, so no matter how brief one lifetime is, you can have a real impact by making it better for those around you.

Exactly. Until proven otherwise, the only sane assumption is that this is all one big joke.

What you wrote reminded me of one of my favorite quotes:

"The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves."

- Alan Watts

Well, I certainly don't want to starve and then be not alive. Not a dig at capitalism specifically, just saying that maybe there'd be a lot more of "just living" if there wasn't so much pressure to do draining stuff for a while per day. On the absurd end, sometimes I wish I could walk through a vast meadow or something and sleep beneath the sky, without being affected by hunger, tiredness, or anything else. Just seeing and walking.

Here's one of mine:

The world is like a ride in an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly colored and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question: "Is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say: "Hey, don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." ... and we kill those people. Ha ha, "Shut him up. We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up. Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as ONE. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defense each year, and instead spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.

- Bill Hicks

FWIW, I am at risk of sudden cardiac death due to unpredictable, rapid-onset ventricular fibrillation. I've been defibrillated twice, the first time after an out-of-hospital VF episode, which has a 1-in-5 survival rate. The second time was by an implanted defibrillator. In that episode I had no more than five seconds from awareness that I was feeling faint to passing out.

I now accept that it could happen again at essentially any time, and that the defibrillation might not work. And yet my life continues pretty much as normal (although I'm no longer able to drive). I still get up, do the chores, enjoy the other aspects of my life, get bored, etc etc.

I've recognised that there is a difference between death itself (which doesn't now frighten me), and the process that causes it. I've now come to believe that VF is actually how I would like to die, when the time comes. It seems infinitely preferable to a slow painful process due to cancer, or Alzheimer's.

It sounds like a good way to go, when the time comes. Like you say, there are many crazy ways to die that aren’t fun.

Sudden deaths are, in my experience, much worse for the family. Especially when you feel like you could have “done something” to help in an emergency but you’re not there. The one case I’m thinking about came out of the blue. A father of two died without any warning, nobody knew.

Thanks for sharing your story.

It's hard for me to understand that as I've experienced the opposite. A long drawn out process of terrifying deconstruction happened to my mother as her cancer slowly took every faculty that made her human, but didn't let her die for months. Us guys all did the best we could for her, and i contributed the most despite being the youngest. But the experience has simply shattered us. Life changes a lot when you realize you are wishing, with very good reason, for your loving caring mother to die. We all did, even her. It was a year of impossible torture. I got a little closure, but it took her speech months before she died so even that could never really be wrapped up.

I'm not saying my experience is the matter of fact worst. But that it can go both ways, i literally cannot imagine thinking i could've done anything to save her. But giving more than you have for a year just to witness inhuman terrors beyond your comprehension is no walk in the park.

I'm sure there's a way to die well, i think we as a society should all be trying better to find such a means and make it available if desired. Especially since we now have the means to create living hells in the name of rote survival.

That sounds awful. I’m sorry. I hope you and your family is doing better today.

I realize now that perhaps these are two different kinds of suffering. For the kids of the dad who died suddenly, they had to take it all in right then, in a matter of moments. They couldn’t say goodbye, or be held hand during the time leading up to it.

But they could all remember him exactly as he were. Healthy, strong, caring, responsible. If they’d been forced to see him erode and weaken slowly, I’m not sure how they’d take it.

> I'm sure there's a way to die well, i think we as a society should all be trying better to find such a means and make it available if desired.

Absolutely. The details may be complex, but the ethical foundation is crystal clear, to me: we own our lives, including the right to end it.

Isn't it like between a rock and a hard place. Can you think of an existence where one is never able to die? Or even worse in that your consciousness is never able to stop existing? Somehow, it feels ceasing to exist is a kinder option than existing forever.

I've always felt like the happy compromise would be a system where everyone lives in healthy, youthful bodies for as long as they like, and then dies whenever they decide to.

I am very afraid of death. But I also don't want to live for eternity. I feel like I'd quite enjoy a 200 or even 500 year life though if my body could be made to stay fully functional for that long.

I just feel any finite time that we get to live would feel the same way. Even if we were to enjoy a longer youth with perfect health, we would have lifestyles, actions and culture adjusted for that finite amount of time, robbing us of the intended benefits that we purportedly could enjoy. In a way I tend to think, death is what defines a life. Death makes life meaningful, joyous and liveable. With the finality of death removed there is no such thing as life.

Strongly agree. I don't understand the people who support technology to enable us to live forever. If they could somehow experience such a life in a vision I think they would understand what you're saying. Immortality sounds nice on paper but people don't remain constant. Perhaps they understand that deep down but are so afraid of death? For such a frequent occurrence it should be more normalized in culture, not like a TV show but as something real.

In my fantasy world (yes, this became a storytelling session), aside from the normal humans living on normal Earth, there are other humans who wield magic. Immortality (from old age) can be achieved but not easily; otherwise these magic humans will live for around 200 years. Most don't strive for immortality; some even die earlier because they're utterly content and literally just pass on. There are warriors who fight for various reasons but they almost unanimously agree to let the peaceful majority just live, since (IMO) there's no blessing quite like being able to live a life of wonder and beauty without the looming threat of death.

Kinda rambling LOL.

> I am very afraid of death. But I also don't want to live for eternity.

Very understandable. I don't want to die young or from a car crash or something. Is it unrealistic for me to want to live until, say 80 without much cognitive decline?

This feeling is why I just don't get the petty quibbles and politics of humanity.

This life is only one we have so why not make it the best for everyone.What else is the point of life but to live to the fullest and help everyone else live to their fullest (happiest). You can't take it with you, there is no prize for dying with the most money or power.

The meaning of life is only what we want it to be.

The problem comes when a significant number of people believe, whether correctly or incorrectly, that acquiring more money/power/etc (and sometimes specifically more money than their neighbor, family member, rival peer, etc) is what will bring them the most happiness.

Actually it's probably more basic than that. Competing over scarce resources brings out the best and worst in us as biological entities.

Conversely: people are basically forgetting "John Wayne" (to name a larger-than-life character of recent memory).

I made a reference a few years ago to "Let's put on the 'Theme Song from Rocky' and get this done!" (in reference to having figured out a bugfix or something for the project of the day), and I was met with blank stares by my (admittedly younger) co-workers. It really kindof broke me for a second that something that was _such_ a cultural phenomenon is currently "unimportant" or "irrelevant".

If "The Theme Song from Rocky" can be forgotten, what chance do I have of making an indelible mark on life?

Maybe John Wayne movies still come on every once in a while, but as a global community, we're losing a lot of "broadcast shared culture" in favor of "unicast, A/B-tested, divisive entertainment", and specifically "entertainment" rather than "culture".

So don't focus on making an indelible mark on life-at-large, or being a larger-than-life character like John Wayne... but instead focus on making positive impacts to the people closest to you, and especially yourself.

> what chance do I have of making an indelible mark on life?

If there is an after life, perhaps we can ask King of Kings Ozymandias. ;)

> So don't focus on making an indelible mark on life-at-large, or being a larger-than-life character like John Wayne... but instead focus on making positive impacts to the people closest to you, and especially yourself

This is something I constantly find myself flip-flopping on. Part of me believes I should be more productive, min/max my career, be as frugal as possible, etc.. The other part of me knows, perhaps on a deeper level, that most of the "shoulds" do not matter in the end. Hell, most of those aspirations and ambitions probably are not even mine to begin with but rather a strongly influenced by society.

Life feels like a game of Tetris to me. One can make all the wrong moves or all the right moves, and the only way to keep playing is to just keep on surviving.

> If there is an after life, perhaps we can ask King of Kings Ozymandias. ;)

We arrive there only to hear a suspicious familiar story by a traveller from an antique land...

> This is something I constantly find myself flip-flopping on. Part of me believes I should be more productive, min/max my career, be as frugal as possible, etc.. The other part of me knows, perhaps on a deeper level, that most of the "shoulds" do not matter in the end. Hell, most of those aspirations and ambitions probably are not even mine to begin with but rather a strongly influenced by society.

Man. I don't even know how exactly I feel about this. Man. Definitely important to consider though. I hear that people who get old contemplate whether they lived worthwhile lives. Let's strive to not (terribly) disappoint our future selves, yeah?

I found it much easier to get less terrorized by the “shoulds” once I realized the mechanism of how they got embedded into my cognition in the first place - and by that why previous attempts of trying to get rid of them failed miserably.

See, it’s not something you can easily (or even at all) think yourself out of, similar to how you can’t think yourself easily out of loving somebody, mourning your deceased loved parents or needing to release the leftovers from your metabolism.

Schema “Should X” was conditioned into my cognitions by binding via association to a (previously) learned Schema of “Y is unsafe”/“Y impacts your probability of survival/mating/continued existence negatively” or summed up “Y makes you anxious”.

Somewhere in this process your brain (maybe falsely) infers ¬X -> Y. This might be e.g. by purely experiencing Y and ¬X at the same time (e.g. being bullied for ¬X, being in a overwhelmed state - think not enough met bodily needs, not enough slept, too much stress, too much hangover etc - and focusing on ¬X), explicitly arguing for the validity of the implication in some discussion (e.g. “People who chose to ¬X leads to Y, as we learned by reasons Z”).

The pitfall here is that once Y is concerned, it can for many of us be very difficult to stay rational. That is, because Y was in this recursive way already associated with the topic of bodily safety. And as we know, in war and love there are no rules, so basically one run risk of associating many many new ¬X to Y, which then themselves become new Y for the next recursive step, because the reasons Z seem to be true while they might be not.

And I get it, let’s not take chances, we might be playing with our lives here and end up without a partner, without a long list of exciting experiences, bad health etc.

But where is the end to this style of thinking? Eventually people realize this and stop conditioning themselves and others to new “Shoulds”, but what I see with many is that the huge stock of already conditioned Ys is not worked against, rather, they continue to seek to fill the Shoulds they already collected and lower the rate of adding new baggage of Shoulds.

The approach I chose is to be as conscious as possible (e.g. do all the things they say, eat well, sports, meditations, journaling etc etc) in order to witness - on a meta level if you will - when my behavior is a function of the “Y makes me feel unsafe” schema. And then, consciously and hard not to fulfill it and instead seek other ways to make me feel safe. Then I have the chance to break the conditioned association, stop adding new baggage, and slowly reverse the huge amount of Shoulds that exist in my cognition.

So to sum it up, it’s not sitting down and actively thinking “Should I really?”, it’s more like “I probably believe I should because I’m scared. Let’s remove being scared to wash out the interference. Then let’s lay out whether I really should”.

And most often, the answer really is “No, I shouldn’t”.

To me, it doesn't matter too much either way. Should we live a 'good' life, or go around doing 'bad' things? How could it possibly matter either way

What's beautiful about the tradition is an acknowledgement of a fundamental connectedness of all things.

Some may scoff, but as a young man I had a nice little mushroom trip, topped off with a little baby woodrose in the hills above an English town.

It cumulated in my lying, sinking into the ground. I felt quite profoundly certain that this would be the experience of death. A return to the wholeness from whence I came.

I think back to that experience whenever I'm troubled by mortality.

The Malvern Hills?

Good spot, but no. Further north.

Here's a song I quite like that touches on that perspective: Yard Act ft. Elton John - 100% Endurance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3HSa4CLO8k)

First off, I think everyone deals with this at some point. I think, also, since you are always changing as a person, what helps you cope at one point of your life might not work as life goes on. Various things have all contributed, in some way or another, to helping me in the past and present. Most recently, I came across a VSauce video from a year ago:

"Do Chairs Exist?" by VSauce [1].

Now, the thrust of the video deals with mereology [2]. However, the final line from Michael at the end surprised me a lot, and in the days since watching it, has been an extremely strong comfort for me:

"I am not a thing that dies and becomes scattered, I AM death and I AM the scattering."

I think it is worth spending the 40 minutes to watch the whole thing, as makes this line make more sense and extremely impactful. Anyway, this helped me recently, maybe it can help someone else :)

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXW-QjBsruE [2]: https://plato.stanford.edu/Archives/sum2005/entries/mereolog...

Thanks. Another way of saying this is that you are a process.

What?! But...where's my code? And my heap?

I wonder if layers upon layers of self-modifying code can create something resembling consciousness.

Yeah… um, not that kind of process.

For me, there's no existential dread because there's so much life after death. In the limit, it's all life, viewable as one. Focusing on who has it when is just petty detail. :P

Well, the fact that we know we are going to die can also make us appreciate life more, and make conscious decisions how we are going to spend our limited time on earth.

Your only data point is being sucked into existence and having no knowledge if you existed before. You will die, but you are not you.

Have you considered taking magic mushrooms in a clinical setting where it’s legal? Simple drugs can let you dissociate to understand that you are not a single conscious being; you just operate like one.

I feel similarly from time to time. I refer to it as “existential dread.” I’m a Christian, but I’m not free of doubt. And when I have these moments of existential dread my beliefs feel so absurd. It usually starts with immense fear at the thought of death, and of nothing being beyond that, like you describe. But then it spirals into the absurdity of everything. The fact that I’m a sentient ape on a spinning ball just feels … nonsensical. In these moments the only thing that makes sense is for nothing to exist at all.

I try to take comfort in the fact that, as crazy as it seems, I really am a sentient ape on a spinning ball. My experiences right here, right now, prove that there is something instead of nothing. And things don’t have to make sense to me for things to be real. In fact, whatever the absolute truth of the universe is, it’s probably too complex for us to comprehend, let alone for us to figure out. Even as a Christian, I accept that large parts of my beliefs are completely wrong, or at best simplifications. Because the absolute truth is something beyond understanding.

I don’t know, saying it out loud doesn’t feel very comforting. I had a bit of an attack of existential dread typing this out. But I felt the need to share my experience with you

I've lurked HN for a long time, but finally signed up just to say thank you for this post. This kind of dread has hit me really hard over the last year or so, leading to a kind of existential anxiety/existential OCD.

Everything you've said, and your conclusions echo my thoughts almost exactly. I find myself torn between the absurdity of life and being an sentient monkey in a seemingly endless universe, and then considering the other side, infinite nothingness - or nothing existing at all. Ironically, it seems both of these absurdities have existed at some point.

All I know is that I wake up every day, and life seems to continue as it did the previous day. Channelling Occam's Razor, it seems like this must be real, as everything I experience points to that being true. Until something points to that not being the case, it makes sense to believe it. Maybe if we were a smarter species all of this would make perfect sense.

Thanks again though, I do take comfort in the fact that I'm not alone when it comes to these thoughts and feelings.

One of the very few “very odd” meditation experiences I’ve had which were not “merely relaxing” was one where I got up and immediately sensed something was different… I did sort of an internal mental inventory/inspection and with some shock realized that my entire fear of death was completely gone. And the thing I must absolutely convey is that this made me aware of a unique perspective, which is that we are all, ever-present with a fear of death, even when we don’t notice it… because EVEN THAT got taken away from me after that meditation. It was… such an odd feeling. And it wasn’t like I was going to angle for death, or anything… It was just… a sense of total peace about it.

It only lasted a few days and was honestly so jarring that it frightened me from trying meditation again for some time after

This sounds like a really interesting experience (to say the least).

Would you mind sharing your mediation experience and practices?

Thanks

Things like this help me:

Matthew 10:29-31: Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

For those of you that don't find this helpful, well, if there's nothing at the end, then there's nothing to fear. If you're gone, what use are your worries then? What use are your plans? If there's nothing, then there's no pain - you go to sleep, and that's it. (very Ecclesiastes, I know)

My own take on "existential dread" is that it could be in part the fear that "If something does come after this life, then maybe I'm not ready for it." I think that's a fear a lot of people share, regardless of their beliefs.

I don't mean to put words in your mouth, though - I'm interested to hear about what bothers people about the end.

The waves rise and fall, somehow individual yet a part of a whole. They fall back to the whole after they rise. You always were and will always be.

Thich Hanh wrote something very similar. He also compared death to the transformation of a cloud into rain: it is not an end but a transformation.

I have a very similar thing, even call it existential dread.

I ended up on anxiety medicine for something else and it has made them less frequent. Turns out they may be a sort of panic attacks

Thanks for that, I usually just lurk but that post really spoke to me. I felt the same way for some time and it's good to know im not the only one

It is all hevel, vapor. There is no sense to anything, no _meaning_ to anything. It just _is_. Eat, drink, and find satisfaction in your lot.

"The Courage to Be" by Paul Tillich is a profound analysis of this aspect of human experience and on how to relate to it. Warmly recommended.

I know this feeling, so hopefully this is going to be as helpful to you as it was for me.

There is a budhist parable called the Parable of the Poisoned Arrow, from a Theravada sutta. You should read a good translation on the "accesstoinsight" website, but it goes somewhat like this: Malunkyaputta, one of Gautama Buddha disciples, asks him to answer the metaphysical questions that were afflicting him (questions about the Universe, life after death and such) - and if Gautama failed to answer him, he would renounce His teachings. To which Gautama Buddha basically responded that he never promised to answer those questions, and the reason is:

"Imagine as if a man were wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison. His friends & companions, kinsmen & relatives would provide him with a surgeon, and the man would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a priest, a merchant, or a worker.' He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know the given name & clan name of the man who wounded me... until I know whether he was tall, medium, or short... [lots of "until I know" later].. He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was that of a common arrow, a curved arrow, a barbed, a calf-toothed, or an oleander arrow.' The man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him."

So those questions were, in fact, useless. No matter the answer, the arrow was still there inflicting pain. And Gautama follows that by saying that his Teachings were the way of removing the arrow and treating the arrow wound, and not a way of answering those questions.

I'm not budhist, but I read this passage in a moment of my life I actually spent nights awaken because thinking about death was simply too dreadful (it's a very personal background, but I was VERY christian until the very night I noticed after my prayers, at 20 yo, that it was not that I believed in christianism, but I was just afraid of not believing in anything at all), so I was looking into anything I could support myself with. This story made me understand a couple of things:

1. Someone around two millenia ago also had trouble sleeping because of those questions. That's weirdly comforting, knowing that this is something part of our human condition, and something we've been trying to figure out how to deal with for as long as we became self aware.

2. The story aknowledges that what we are feeling, this existential dread, is pain. Is real pain, even if a mental and emotional one. That means that we can and should find a treatment to it, philosophically or not.

3. Most important of all, looking for answers of the kind "Is there life after death?" Is independent of not fearing death anymore. Someone two millenia ago noticed that we can live a happy life and not suffer from the existencial dread NO MATTER your own personal answer for those questions.

Again, I'm not buddhist, and by no means I no longer fear death. I still have my existential crysis now and then, still have some trouble sleeping sometimes. But it's a process of facing this feeling and understanding that it is possible to face our little time alive with human dignity and without feeling overwhelmed by death. We still can treat this pain and live happy with ourselves and our loved ones. Everyone deserves this.

Anyway, hope this helped, even if a little bit. No matter what you believe, knowing someone faced this same problem before and actually discovered a way to live happily is something that soothed me in my worst nights, hopefully it can start something good to you too.

This is arguably bad advice if you're already sad, but in any case, coping for me is all about perspective. I read a book called The Five Ages of the Universe a few weeks ago. It's pretty fascinating to see a timeline of the entire universe like this and to realize that the Stelliferous Era, the only age in which stars will exist, is so short compared to everything else that ever has or ever will happen. The universe will eventually run out of hydrogen. Black holes will evaporate. If the grand-unified theory predicting proton decay is true, baryonic matter will eventually no longer exist. Even if that one isn't true, protons will still eventually decay because of quantum tunnelling, just on much longer timescales. The accelerating expansion of the universe will eventually permanently causally disconnect whatever is left when we no longer have galaxies from everything else.

All the things people try to save, themselves, their cultures, their religion, their species, the earth, it is all not only temporary, but barely an infinitesimal slice of nothingness, a rounding error indistinguishable from zero on any global timeline. At the same time, it's a miracle we ever got to exist at all. Enjoy what you get and stop longing for the impossible. Everything will die. Whoever or whatever you love, go love it while you still have the chance.

Pema Chodron writes:

> When we talk about hopelessness and death, we're talking about facing the facts. No escapism. We may still have addictions of all kinds, but we cease to believe in them as a gateway to happiness. So many times we've indulged the short-term pleasure of addiction. We've done it so many times that we know that grasping at this hope is a source of misery that makes a short-term pleasure a long-term hell.

> Giving up hope is encouragement to stick with yourself, to make friends with yourself, to not run away from yourself, to return to the bare bones, no matter what's going on. Fear of death is the background of the whole thing. It's why we feel restless, why we panic, why there's anxiety. But if we totally experience hopelessness, giving up all hope of alternatives of the present moment, we can have a joyful relationship with our lives, an honest, direct relationship, one that no longer ignores the reality of impermanence and death.

Is this from “How we live is how we die”?

Sorry, it's from a chapter in _Things Fall Apart_

Well, I can tell you even with beliefs that consciousness (or at least awareness) persists as pure awareness without form can still leave the body with deep, existential dread.

With the bees, it’s not necessarily a coping, but also recognizing how life moves beyond our own: https://youtu.be/OGXbOiiaI24

In the song, the boy learns from his mother that his father died in the war. She tells him to go tell the bees.

Later, he met someone and fell in love. They got married, and he went to tell the bees.

Then they have a child together, and when his child was born, he went to tell the bees.

(The front man for that band passed a few years ago: https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/nottingham-news/tributes... )

I haven’t heard anyone express this before, but when it comes to my death and the deaths of others, I take comfort in the idea of the Block Universe. On the Block Universe concept, time isn’t real in the way we think about it—everything that ever happened or will happen exists in a timeless, eternal block of spacetime. (This video by Sabine Hossenfelder explains it nicely: https://youtu.be/GwzN5YwMzv0.)

If this is true, then our lives are eternal—not in the way envisioned by religious people, but eternal in a very real sense. It’s true that I am finite in time in exactly the same way that I’m finite in space, but just as I don’t lament the fact that my body isn’t infinitely large, I shouldn’t lament the fact that my life doesn’t extend through all of time. (I wouldn’t mind living for a lot longer, but that’s a different matter :-D.)

I realize this conception of immortality will be too abstract to provide any consolation to many people. But ideas of an afterlife or reincarnation are abstract, too. This one at least has the advantage, to my mind, of being plausible.

It’s not that I once was not, then I was, and after I die I will be no more. My life, my presence, this experience—it’s eternal and ever-present.

It's a nice concept but it's not how we experience time.

It’s filling me with nothing but deep dread, tears, pain and suffering all over my body.

Cheer up. You were OK for the first 13 billion years of existence, and there's no reason to think the next trillion years will be any different.

I think this is a feeling everyone should meet at some point, FWIW my perspective is that it adds to your experience - it's unique and temporary. On the other hand nothing matters too much because it's all so temporary, so that helps to not overthink too much

Life is finite, life is short. It can also feel quite long in certain stretches, particularly when you are in any kind of agony (whether physical, emotional, or in your case philosophical). But ultimately it is quite short, especially compared to the scale of things we can be aware of but not directly perceive. It is a painful realization, but usually this pain passes. It will pass more quickly if you don't try to fight it, eg by trying to figure out a solution or by wallowing.

It is repeated acts of acceptance that will get you through this painful realization. It is even possible to become cheerful about the whole endeavor. But the first step is to stop bashing your head against the brick wall of reality thinking that somehow helps you to keep doing it. Accept and experience the pain of your realization, as deeply as you need to, but stop wallowing and digging yourself deeper into the unpleasantness of it.

Of course you can lose yourself entirely if you devote your life to plumbing the depths of sadness that can be evoked by staying locked into all the loss you will ever experience as often as you can. Choose not to do that. It doesn't help anything, and it hurts far more than necessary like digging into an open wound for days and weeks on end. It doesn't mean pretending the reality away. Just experience the pain and move on with your day.

Eventually, like an adult who no longer breaks down in tears over a stubbed toe, you'll get used to experiencing the pain without it effecting your mind too much. You might even give a sad, knowing smile to yourself from time to time when these thoughts arise. This is the first signs you are on the track to cheerful acceptance of our mortality, which is an incredible tool to have in life.

Good luck with your profound struggles, and may they lead you somewhere worthwhile!

Very helpful. Thank you. Wish to connect with you more but I suppose that’s not possible.

I was fortunate enough to experience death (I got better!) a few years ago. I passed out, and then came back to awareness six or seven days later. It was a piece of piss. Easy. One moment I was there, then I wasn't, then I was again. If that "again" hadn't happened, it wouldn't have mattered (to me) at all. Not in the slightest. I wasn't there!

I'm still moderately afraid of _dying_ - pain is unpleasant, and so is loss of physical faculties - but the non-existence part of death? I've been there, and it's no big deal.

I doubt this helps you - it wouldn't have helped me, had I been told it prior to experiencing it - but it is immensely comforting to me now.

The continuity of self is also an illusion if you think about it. We aren't who we were when nine years old. Maybe we share some memories and DNA with that kid, but he's gone now, or at least exponentially decayed. We've died many times in one lifetime.

Speaking of bees. The average worker bee lives about 1 month. Workers will sting and sacrifice themselves because it is the hive that matters, not the individual. They don't live that long anyway.

Who we are is defined by those who raised us and the rest of humanity. We are a reflection of it, not distinct. We owe everything to our collective existence and should cherish each other more, past and present. It is the only thing that persists.

> We've died many times in one lifetime

In fact we die and are reborn in nearly every moment.

i wouldn't call that experiencing death. you passed out and lost consciousness for a while. i've done that too, and also been under general anesthesia. i'm not convinced that either one is equal to death, simply because life re-continues after you regain consciousness. you're still alive. death is not reversible. ipso facto you did not die.

also, general anesthesia usually involves memory blocking chemicals, so it's not even clear that it's truly an unconscious experience. what if you're conscious the entire time, but just don't remember it?

It doesn’t matter because a response is not there in a form of a heart rate, adrenaline, etc. There’s no sign of the whole chain of imminent reactions that pain creates. And when an anesthesiologist sees it, they stop the procedure and act immediately. If there’s no psychological trauma after you wake up, you felt nothing. But it may be if a team was negligent.

i'm not convinced that either one is equal to death

I can’t see why. Imagine you’re unconscious: anesthesia, fainting, dream, coma, knockout. Is there something else that must happens to your consciousness that will make you dead? To me it’s like turning off the main switch when lights are already out. You just can’t Alexa turn them back on, that’s it.

> Is there something else that must happens to your consciousness that will make you dead?

Death is a thing that you don’t come back from[1], so it’s impossible for anyone living to tell us what it’s like after dying. Being knocked out, is not death. If you don’t dream at night, you don’t die every night.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_death

This implies it is like something when you never return from knockout, opposed to when you eventually do. Which is why I’m asking the question above.

If you don’t dream at night, you don’t die every night

Of course you do not. We talk about states, not their finality.

Not me. I'm working hard not to die. I have a whole plan for it :)

It's not going to work

I've grappled with that pain for a long time now. I don't have a perfect answer, but I'll throw out another reading recommendation: The Sunny Nihilist by Wendy Syfret. It's not specifically about death, but about finding (or defining) meaning in the face of meaninglessness.

I'll also say there's a difference between engaging philosophically with the idea of death, and having panic or anxiety attacks about it. When my existential thoughts turned into panic attacks I sought therapy, which gave me tools to ground myself and get out of the downward spiral of dread.

Look into stoicism. It helps.

If you realize that the space your brain takes is not special and holds no “soul”, it becomes obvious that consciousness must be sort of a field that sort of resonates with islands of enough complexity.

That means you are actually a billions-eyed monster whose eyes grow anew and go blind from time to time. Rather than fearing being gone, fear that you, right now and in the past, experience the horror of existence of all organisms that ever existed. Be thankful for your current “eye”’s relative comfort which is rare. And dread the next experience somewhere in <choose a shithole> as a <choose your species>.

Recently I've come to accept this view as well. In a way consciousness isn't a thing to be destroyed or created, but rather it's a kind of immutable force that emerges sometimes given the right hardware instruments (human body, elephants, apes, octopuses, etc). The body equipment implants senses and feedback unto consciousness when it develops. Ofc, all that we really know of the universe is through conscious awareness. Perhaps consciousness is to humans like water is to fish, and we can't ever truly know what consciousness is 'outside of itself'.

the fact that you are an intelligent being instead of, say, a mosquito (which would be a million times more likely), then perhaps means that intelligent beings are more likely to be a source of consciousness ... ?

A mosquito couldn’t post this comment, so isn’t this fact just an effect of anthropic principle.

I don’t think c. is a binary attribute or even a linear one. C. is a set of experiences and qualia. A human has many, a mosquito less and/or different, a tree (a forest?) maybe zero or lost in the noise.

I suspect the flame grows less bright in mosquitos. Perhaps they are conscious but at a lower level than mammals.

> If you realize that the space your brain takes is not special and holds no “soul”, it becomes obvious that consciousness must be sort of a field that sort of resonates with islands of enough complexity.

But if you believe that, then truth, wisdom, justice and love are as meaninglessly attractive as turds to the little buzzing flies we are.

Alternatively, maybe what you think of as the cold, hard reality is just the best reality your tiny pink meat brain can understand and reality us much, much richer.

Do you think it’s mutually exclusive? Flies seem to sincerely like it all in all.

I don't have anything to say on the nature of consciousness , but I think truth, wisdom, etc. are meaningful because I make them so. As a collective, we make them so (but with different ideas, of course). My username means void or emptiness in Latin. It used to just be a kewl word but then I attributed my own meaning to it: we as humans live as if in a personal void that we fill with experiences, beliefs, thoughts, ideals. Paint a universe on your canvas and maybe it'll come to be that way. It's the same as painting yourself. Gaze into a mirror and see not just your literal appearance but the you that you are. You've known yourself all along, but perhaps you just haven't realized it yet.

Add enough complexity and the mind of the universe wakes up inside the human.

If the party never ended, it wouldn't be a party.

Maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way!

Cherish people and your memories of them. Have faith that they will do the same for you.

Been there, done that. Some of my favorite solutions:

1. Realize that /regardless of what it's all about/, making oneself miserable by dwelling on fear (of nonexistence, or of anything else) is a really lousy use of the time they have, so stop thinking about it. Easier said than done; it takes practice, but it's possible.

2. Existential dread comes from thinking that one is separate from the rest of the world, which would mean that when an individual dies, something invaluable is extinguished forever. Talk to some hippies about that separateness; they can suggest ways to set yourself straight.

3. My sister likes to say that I was "down in Florida playing with the alligators" about things that happened before I was born. What will happen to 'me' when I die? Well the question is nonsensical because it implies a 'me' that is ontologically separate from the universe, but if it must be answered, I guess I'll be back to Florida, playing with the alligators.

You are a real time experience machine, the stick holding up the tent, the force behind the wave. Eventually it collapses.

I have been following this thought route the past few months, coupled with anxiety/depression/extreme-work-duty-avoidance, and sometimes I feel it’s taking me down a dark path.

I also wonder if/assume people take religion to avoid/deal with these thoughts.

I'm not religious but I believe "deal[ing] with these thoughts" is prominent. You're going to die, so live life in a way that reflects your maker's benevolence and virtues. Be gracious and charitable with your family, your friends, and others besides, because you are all humans graced by your maker. In that way, I think religious people find meaning in their life and see death not as something to feared (ideally; qualms are understandable) but rather as the peaceful passing-on to the afterlife after a fulfilling life. Even without religion, I think people can find meaning in their lives and not fear death so much.

// I can’t get over the fact that we all must die

I think what I am about to share is the Jewish perspective although I suspect many people have the same view.

I imagine the following scenario. I am old, I have several grown children who have grown up to be good strong people and who are starting families of their own, I have set up systems that continue to support charitable causes that I care about, I reflect on my past with fondness (eg people I helped and mentored, things I built, etc.)

In that scenario, does death bother me? Not in the least. Because the things that I care about (family, ideas, causes) continue. Knowing that things I deeply care about go on is the big thing.

So then rather than worrying about death, life becomes about doing things in such a way that maximizes the chances of these outcomes. Regardless of whether I believe in a literal after-life, I believe in this metaphorical after life strongly.

The Epicureans would put this on their tombstone: I was not. I was. I am not. I do not care.

You will die and you won't care. Why worry about that fact now and ruin your life?

Socrates made another point: do you mind going to sleep at night? What is sleep but the suspension of consciousness? Death is the same. Or there is an afterlife and then you don't need to worry about it.

Ha! I like that.

Who among us does not stay up late because they don’t want the night to end?

The universe has a mind (at least one of you think only your exists), it always asks 'why' and 'what made me'

There is a good chance you will relive this exact same life again, over and over, for all eternity. Feeling the same way, doing the same things. So if you can feel content with each moment of your life, then you are content with the concept of eternity. No need for dread.

I suggest giving Cormac McCarthy’s final novels, the pair The Passenger and Stella Maris, a read. With these feelings, you might find that they read very powerfully for you.

When I was very little, my parents left me alone at this party they were attending at night. It had an inground swimming pool and an inground hottub, both lit. The water jets had the water circulating and little whirlpools would form, moving counterclockwise around the edge of the hottub. I could see the dents in the water, but more importantly the shadows and light spots cast on the sides of the hot tub from the refraction of the light through the moving water. I would track one and its progress.

And as a little science nerd, I understood that the whirlpools weren't one thing, water molecules came in and water molecules came out, but the whirlpool remained ... for a little while. Sometimes it would just fade, or split in two, but never constant, never more than a full circle around the edge. I watched and watched, and suddenly I was struck that we as people were these tiny whirlpools, sucking in matter and expelling matter but somehow remaining, for a little while, and the light and the dark on the hot tub walls were very much like our minds, a product of the vortices themselves, but dependent on and therefore less real than the spinning water. And so just as these little water tornadoes would fly apart into nothing, no longer doing anything with the light, so would I and everyone else I knew. I was definitely going to stop spinning, stop taking things in and pushing things out, and instead it would all just settle.

That'll probably come with me to my deathbed. Some days I am very tired of spinning and bouncing against the walls, to no great end, and then when I think of flying apart and the refractions I could no longer produce against those walls, I find it more comforting than the idea of enduring.

Ever been to Disney world?

When you first walk through the gate it's like 8am and it's incredible. There's so much to do and see. So much potential. You don't know where to start.

So you get a map and you look at all the rides and attractions and you start doing them by what interests you.

As the day goes on, you're having a great time but you kinda have to take a break at 3-4pm because your feet kinda hurt and youre hungry.

But you still have the other half of the park to get to so you get back to it.

Eventually, night time rolls around and you did everything you wanted to do. You rode all the rides that looked fun, and you saw all the attractions that looked fun.

Now, you have been wandering around main street looking at all the shops, wondering what you're going to buy as you wait for the fireworks display, and you realize, you're exhausted. You have been on your feet since early this morning. You have walked literally 20 miles today. You have had a great time though.

The firework show starts and it's just fantastic. It spends the rest of the mental energy you have and then it's time to head back to the hotel and go to sleep.

Now instead, imagine that someone locks the front gate and you can never leave. You can never go home. You can never sleep again. You must stay in the park forever. Imagine how exhausting that sounds...

Obviously I am equating this to the life events of being born, being a kid, living life as a young adult through mature adult, through your senior years until it's time for you to pass on. And being trapped in the park is like living forever...

Realize that by the time it's all over, you should be able to look back and say "I rode all the rides I wanted and I eat all the waffle cake I could", rather than "Boy I really wish I didn't complain that my feet were sore for an hour and I never got to ride that one ride".

Except that life is not for enjoyment and entertainment.

What is life for if not for striving towards enjoyment and entertainment? Surely everything we work for as individuals is at least for some kind of happiness in the end?

Of course, here my thesis is that love and family fall into these things as I am fortunate enough to have an enjoyable and entertaining family :)

For me at least the metaphor of Disneyland seems apt!

> What is life for if not for striving towards enjoyment and entertainment?

Duty.

Everyone gets to decide what life is for. Maybe you should reevaluate your view.

I'll tell you a bit of a secret: when you die you don't really die. First of all - there is no real you. Each human experience is nothing but an illusion. There is no percieved 'self.' We all are everything all at once - an infinite array of lifetimes experiencing everything and perceiving it as a fractured self. In reality - everything that you do you do to yourself. This comes with both dire but also amazing consequences. Each animal you slaughter is you. Each hero you elevate is also you in another timeline. You are all that is and everything that will be - you just don't fully understand it yet. This response that I'm writing is to myself and yes I'm fully aware of it. You should read this is water by David Foster Wallace to maybe get a glimpse of what I'm talking about but even then it's a very small glimpse of who we truly are. Also you should thank god that you don't live forever. Living forever would be hell in your current form. Trust me on this one. Enjoy and fully embrace this life :)

This Is It, by Alan Watts also describes some of the same feelings. I picked it up recently and am still trying to digest the concepts he describes.

Although I agree with you, I do not agree that This Is Water is helpful in learning the truth of which you write.

I suppose you're correct. Maybe this conversation with Alan Watts is a better description of what I'm talking about: https://youtu.be/NpS85_E4xj4

Thank you for writing this. I believe almost the exact same thing and it's nice to see someone else feels similarly

Living forever would be hell in your current form. Trust me on this one

Uhm, this knows why it’s bad to use this form, but why in general? This asks for elaboration.

Actually you're right - living forever in general would be a nightmare regardless of intelligence i suppose, but neither I or you yourself can comment on it since I don't believe humanity is close to having super-intelligence yet? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding your question though. If you're asking why living forever would be a nightmare - this quite by James Joyce sums it up nicely: "What must it be, then, to bear the manifold tortures of hell forever? Forever! For all eternity! Not for a year or an age but forever. Try to imagine the awful meaning of this. You have often seen the sand on the seashore. How fine are its tiny grains! And how many of those tiny grains go to make up the small handful which a child grasps in its play. Now imagine a mountain of that sand, a million miles high, reaching from the earth to the farthest heavens, and a million miles broad, extending to remotest space, and a million miles in thickness, and imagine such an enormous mass of countless particles of sand multiplied as often as there are leaves in the forest, drops of water in the mighty ocean, feathers on birds, scales on fish, hairs on animals, atoms in the vast expanse of air. And imagine that at the end of every million years a little bird came to that mountain and carried away in its beak a tiny grain of that sand. How many millions upon millions of centuries would pass before that bird had carried away even a square foot of that mountain, how many eons upon eons of ages before it had carried away all. Yet at the end of that immense stretch time not even one instant of eternity could be said to have ended. At the end of all those billions and trillions of years eternity would have scarcely begun. And if that mountain rose again after it had been carried all away again grain by grain, and if it so rose and sank as many times as there are stars in the sky, atoms in the air, drops of water in the sea, leaves on the trees, feathers upon birds, scales upon fish, hairs upon animals – at the end of all those innumerable risings and sinkings of that immeasurably vast mountain not even one single instant of eternity could be said to have ended; even then, at the end of such a period, after that eon of time, the mere thought of which makes our very brain reel dizzily, eternity would have scarcely begun."

I think it's quite sad and pessimistic to be so unable to deal with the horror of death that you actually go as far to deny that you even really exist right now.

I'm not sure where you got that message from. Nowhere in my response did I state that I or anyone else should deny existence - in fact what I'm implying is quite the opposite. I'm simply stating that our perceived experience of having a fractured existence as individual beings that die and are extinguished within a single lifetime is an illusion (i.e. you not only exist currently but you exist in a myriad of forms). In fact - time itself is also an illusion. Read about the theory of relativity if you don't believe me. Brian Green also explains it well in his Frozen River chapter in Fabric of the Cosmos.

You said that we should consider our existence as an illusion. I am not scared of death enough that I feel the need to consider my existence to be an illusion.

Trust me, I practised Buddhism quite heavily with a teacher. I understand what impermanence and no-self means. I still think that it's sad to use impermanence and no-self to cope with death. Accept your clear, bright vitality, despite death.

> In fact - time itself is also an illusion. Read about the theory of relativity if you don't believe me.

I have a PhD in theoretical physics and this is very incorrect.

Ah thank you for this. I'm a little too early in my physics career to feel comfortable speaking authoritatively when people come out like this.

Besides, if everyone is you than isn't that a pale approximation of unending life? I hate it when people either read or think up an interesting philosophy of existence but then become convinced that they know The Truth. If existence is a vast and strange as claimed is it not equally if not infinitely more likely that they have no idea what the hell they're talking about? I mean, no matter how many human lifetimes you traverse you're still just a human. That is, unless your philosophy also involves you being the One True God, which i think devolves into narcissism pretty fast.

I must admit i have found myself wishing that i had been all of them in separate times. It's just so alluring to think i was Einstein and Feynman and Turing and everyone else. I can almost convince myself that i can see enough similarities to make it possible. But that's actually crazy. It's a sensation, a desire. A way of fighting off both the fear of death and the fear that this life won't matter as much as I'd like. After all, who cares, one day I'll be the leader of the free world and i guess also an asshole most likely. It's just a cope for me.

It's also sad that so many purely pull to the authority of physics to justify their personal philosophy. "Quantum" has been butchered by popular media in such a way that everyone just takes it to mean what they want it to mean. Anyways, I'd love to read or hear about your PhD in theoretical physics, I'm about a year away from starting a PhD

You're not understanding the message at all. There is nothing narcissistic about what I posted - the message is supposed to be more about how interconnected we all are and how the human experience is in fact an illusion. "A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." - Albert Einstein

Sorry for the very late reply. /u/dang has imposed a severe rate limit on my account

Honestly I think it's just best to accept the life that immediately presents itself to us: totally localised to each separate being, facing death as exactly the horror that it seems. I think that, unless you have genuine insight into some kind of deeper reality, then anything else really is just wishful thinking. I just think it's quite sad to go so far in that wishful thinking so as to wish away the reality of the life you currently have.

> It's also sad that so many purely pull to the authority of physics to justify their personal philosophy. "Quantum" has been butchered by popular media in such a way that everyone just takes it to mean what they want it to mean. Anyways, I'd love to read or hear about your PhD in theoretical physics, I'm about a year away from starting a PhD

I totally agree. I'm pretty jaded about science communication because of it. Also it really implies that we have some really strong philosophical ideas about what physics means, when we really don't. We actually have no idea how to interpret the results of quantum mechanics and relativity.

Our perception of time as having a 'flow' is an illusion is what I meant to say. Saying that I'm incorrect when you aren't even comprehending what I'm saying I think means that having this conversation with you is useless. Good luck with your physics PhD.

Also - I'm not scared of death. You come out attacking assuming that I'm sprouting new age stuff. I'm not. I'm simply trying to respond to a pessimistic comment in a positive way and to make the author feel better about his perception of existance. I've studied physics for well over 20 years now and I've met and talked to many others who have PhDs as well. QED by Feynman is actually my bible. I actually bring it with me everywhere I travel. Either way - before offending someone and coming out firing next time, maybe you should calm down and take a deep breath. I'm not trying to offend or hurt anyone - although it appears to me that you are.

Sorry for the very late reply. /u/dang has imposed a severe rate limit on my account

> You come out attacking assuming that I'm sprouting new age stuff. I'm not.

I mean, you honestly are, quite objectively. You are literally relaying your own interpretation of Buddhist philosophy, specifically the teachings of no-self and impermanence.

> I've studied physics for well over 20 years now and I've met and talked to many others who have PhDs as well. QED by Feynman is actually my bible. I actually bring it with me everywhere I travel.

Well that doesn't really mean anything. Physics doesn't say that time is an illusion. In relativity, time, like space, is a very important parameter, since it is when events occur. In fact, gravity on our Earth is primarily due to the bending of time. Hardly seems like relativity is telling us that it's illusory. In Quantum Mechanics, time is a very important parameter, and can't even be easily reconciled with space.

> Either way - before offending someone and coming out firing next time, maybe you should calm down and take a deep breath. I'm not trying to offend or hurt anyone - although it appears to me that you are.

This quite well illustrates what I'm talking about. You are very quick to apply the Buddhist teachings of no-self and impermanence to the "pessimism of death", but now that you want to be mad and offended, you quickly forget about it. Your irritation is too clear and vivid to ignore, just like your life.

"Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. We should strive to awaken. Awaken! Take heed! Do not squander your life." - Zen Master Dogen

In Zen we called what you are doing "attaching to emptiness"

"I mean, you honestly are, quite objectively. You are literally relaying your own interpretation of Buddhist philosophy, specifically the teachings of no-self and impermanence."

I'm sorry - but could you show where I'm actually implying or stating that there is 'no-self' or 'impermanence'? I'm implying that we're infinitely powerful beings that misperceive the interconnection within reality. I'll once again pull up a quote from Einstein to reiterate my position:

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” - Albert Einstein

All I did was attempt to state that we are all inter-connected. Everything else you talk about is your own skewed and incredibly wrong interpretation of what I'm trying to state.

"Well that doesn't really mean anything. Physics doesn't say that time is an illusion."

And the same back to you. Your PhD in Physics means nothing to me, so blatantly talking about it like it gives you some sort of extra credentials makes you look extremely ignorant. Also - apologies for stating something in a manner which wasn't clear. Time is clearly a PARAMATER IN THIS UNIVERSE AND IS NOT AN ILLUSION. I can't think of anyone who would be stupid enough to deny the existence of time. What I meant to say is that the 'FLOW' of time is an ILLUSION. Here - this is a great watch for anyone that's non-you and that wants to understand what I truly meant to say:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y-JmocB84Y

"Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. We should strive to awaken. Awaken! Take heed! Do not squander your life." - Zen Master Dogen

I 100% agree with this statement.

In Zen we called what you are doing "attaching to emptiness"

Once again, I'm not sure where in the world I'm "attaching to emptiness." Once again - you're adding your own interpretation here so I have no further comments for you.

While we're at it, why not make up a whole load of things to believe in? Like your comment.

I'm not sure what your insinuating here. What I'm attempting to say is that the universe is ONE thing. It's not a fractured state of personalities that are living and dying - we are all interconnected. Even after you die, you and the memories and actions here will travel along well into the future without you realizing it, so it is wise to treat everyone with compassion and respect and to live life to the fullest. Also - death is a gift. Living forever would be a nightmare. Those are my beliefs and solely mine. Maybe you don't believe in them and that's fine.

> What I'm attempting to say is that the universe is ONE thing.

But the point is, I don't experience reality in this way, I experience reality as a totally separate individual. I don't think coping with death is a good reason to deny that I experience reality completely as an individual, and never as "the whole universe".

> Also - death is a gift. Living forever would be a nightmare.

If "time is an illusion", then birth and death are also illusory, as Buddhism teaches. Therefore, according to your own philosophical views, you do live forever.

The flow of time is an illusion. This has already been undoubtedly proven and discovered and the theory of relativity implies that the flow of time is nothing but an illusion. Here - read pages 68 to 76 to understand what I'm talking about:

https://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/science_and_technology/The...

Recommend reading the sci-fi book Permutation City by Greg Egen.

While I agree with your statement today, it might not be the case going forward.

“Yes, and?”

—- that’s a Zen response not a snarky question.

To me, the fact that this will all end eventually fills me with hope. I live a nice life - but imagine the opposite. A lifetime of nothing but accumulated tragedy, grief, pain - and it never ends. You would know countless people you were close with that would die.

Since your consciousness will never know or regret it is gone, nothing is truly lost. It encourages one to live every minute to its fullest and enjoy what you have. imagine how cheaper life would be if it was infinite.

I love that this is a discussion here. How profitable! There are very few questions that are of greater importance than the one you have alluded to.

I'm a Christian and, oddly, don't suffer from the same existential dread as most admit any more, but I used to be consumed by it.

The simplest way I could say it is this: once you are shown what is behind the curtain and you place your trust in the one who's running the show then dread gives way to overwhelming peace. That's what happened for me and I guarantee that anyone who seeks the same true God will find the same peace.

Easy to dismiss, I know, but I guarantee it's true. Odd, eh?

Part of dealing with your existential dread is accepting the fact that you're right to be afraid, but not for the reasons you first think. This will be a bridge too far for some, but a discerning reading of this could be the catalyst some need: https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/edwards_jonathan/Sermon...

What should an open-minded nonbeliever do to maximize the chance of seeing what's behind the curtain and find the peace you describe?

You don't need to eat the whole cake at once. It's astonishingly tough to give advice on this sort of thing. A couple of starting points which might work for some people:

1. Dwelling on the utter absurdity of the universe appearing from nowhere without the intervention of a power well beyond our means to understand is a good start.

2. Try to move from the dominant paradigm of scientific analysis (nothing wrong with it, in its place!) which breaks things down into smaller things, to a narrative or holistic view of the world. They're both equally valid, and both can be considered fundamental. There are things happening in the world and to you. Those things are all imbued with meaning. Nothing is meaningless. What is the story of your life, what is your mission? If the events of your life were trying to tell you something, what would that be?

Alternatively, the fact that we don't yet know how the universe came to be doesn't imply that there has to be some great power that created it. Things are happening all the time, of course, but there is no need to see meaning anywhere. Humans have a strong need to seek meaning, and will even go so far as to make it up where it does not exist.

> doesn't imply that there has to be some great power that created it

Ah but it does! There's lots of modern apologetics around this, not in the least the Kalaam argument, which go into it.

If everything that exists has a cause, and a higher power that created the universe exists, something else must have caused it to exist. What caused God?

This is one of the ontological arguments for the existence of God. Any intelligible first cause must have a prior cause. Therefore the first cause is unintelligible. The thing which caused the universe is beyond our understanding.

Thank you for sharing this. I’m a Christian as well and have found the same peace about death. At the same time, I get stressed out easily about work and probably have an existential dread about negative reputation or “wasting my potential” - clearly my work-related identity is an idol (in Christian parlance).

I was watching “Hustle” (Adam Sandler basketball movie) yesterday and strangely enough a line he said resonated with me: “they can’t kill you if you’re already dead.” (The context in the movie was that the youngster protagonist missed his official chance of playing in the NBA by failing the combine, and thus was “dead.” He had nothing to lose when he got a random last-ditch chance to demonstrate his skills in another venue.). As a Christian we believe that our old selves have died and that we are born again in the Spirit, even while we are here on earth. This gives those who believe this the confidence to face any fear or challenge in this lifetime, as we have already died anyway, there is nothing to lose since our new lives are secure in Christ (even after a physical death process).

I'm Christian, and feel likewise - no existential dread. We recently had various deaths and mortal health scares in our family and among friends. I hadn't really confronted death before that but I realised that because I had complete faith in the fate of the departed (or the person who was unwell etc), it was the people around them that I worried about more, but even that was tempered by the fact that I knew they'd be taken care of too.

Well that's obvious, right? Of course people who believe in an afterlife don't fear dying, as they believe they will respawn/go to another place

Imagine playing Minecraft on hardcore... And now imagine dying for real...

It's a bit more complicated than that. Imagine playing a game of Minecraft where the game was constantly being updated to help you get the most out of it, and where you experienced something much deeper as a result of engaging in that process.

The problem with Christianity is that all this stuff about God, Christ's sacrifice, and letting yourself have faith is all very nice, but the ethical side of the religion is, to me, quite deplorable.

Could you please expand on this? Full disclosure, I am a Christian myself and am genuinely interested in which ethical parts of Christianity you find deplorable.

To me, the ethics essentially come down to mirroring Christ in my own life in everything I do; the moral compass is Christ himself in the Christian life. I fail often but that's the goal / struggle. With that, I'd like to know what those outside of the faith find deplorable about the way Christ lived His life?

And I do understand that deplorable ethical decisions have been made by those or the body calling themselves Christians (and sadly, myself too at times). I would say this is a sin / shortcoming of the person or group and not of what Christ has asked that person or group to live like.

James 1:27: "Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained by the world."

Well, some things in the bible are quite deplorable, right? Like slavery, or killing people who love people with the same gender?

Please explain. I'm not on either side but you've left a very strong claim without backing it up. At the very least someone who responds will likely have an entirely different version of what you said than you do

I do not think a God that allows his children the option to damn themselves for all eternity is morally good. That is pretty much my main ethical issue in terms of the basic theology. I think the morally correct action for God would be to override the wishes of humans. I do not think that "free will" is a good excuse to allow people to be damned forever. A parent who allows his child to touch the stove is a bad parent.

I don't think it's necessary to believe in eternal damnation in order to be a Christian. Hans Urs von Balthasar and David Bentley Hart are two preeminent theologians who would agree. That's just from the little I know on this subject.

I mean it’s surely possible to find theologians that don’t but it’s the official doctrine of all real existing sects, and regardless, even if you forget about eternal damnation then is still implies that you aren’t saved unless you put faith in Christ.

My other issue with Christianity is that Jesus comes off as genuinely unhinged sometimes. For example, when he tells the Jews that the only way to be saved is to eat his flesh, and when they say “surely that’s just a metaphor, how do we eat your flesh?” he says “no, I’m being totally serious”. There are a bunch of times in John where the stuff he is saying sounds crazy even to his disciples. Let me ask you, if someone today came and said those things, would you believe them? The only difference between him and a modern person on drugs is the records of his supposed miracles

Others have talked very well about the concept of self, so I won't. I just wanted to add that we feel like there should be some meaning to our lives, make an impact that will be remembered for a long time. Sure, fine things to pursue but it's good to do so dispassionately keeping in mind that far greater achievers are not generally remembered. From the top of mind, I don't know who invented the safety pin or stickers or tshirts or ruled notebooks.

I take comfort in participating in this huge system of life and death and in knowing that billions have lived ordinary lives and died. I don't dye my hair and don't ignore signs of aging. I'm happy to grow older and retire and reduce my needs and spend more time with friends and family and when I die I'll join the legion of billions of decent, hardworking, perfectly ordinary people. It's a fine group to be part of.

There will be a point in the future when you are thought about for the final time.

Life is beset with pain, misery, and regret. Imminent death amplifies all of the above, if one lets it. Feel these feelings, accept them, as they are perfectly rational responses to the stimuli that life brings. But recognize that we are here together. Kindness, compassion, and love are the salve only we can give. In giving, we receive.

> I can’t get over the fact that we all must die.

This probably won't help, but I find this expressed rather well in the poem Dirge Without Music by Edna St. Vincent Millay [0].

Perhaps the note of anger in that poem is a helpful accompaniment to the despair for me. I can't win, but I can express my disapproval and temporarily resist by attempting to live a good life.

Look after yourself and others.

[0] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52773/dirge-without-m...

Maybe there is an infinite chain of universes simulating other universes simulating our Universe, or maybe there is a finite such chain that contains a universe with infinite free energy. If so, there in principle are no obstacles to recreating you and making you live forever in some other, extended world.

I hear you. I used to have stronger negative feelings because of this in the past. Subscribing to stoic philosophy has helped me. I almost don't dread being not alive in the future anymore. Mostly because I am not suffering PTSD from not being alive before my birth and not being scared of losing my consciousness when I sleep.

You're not alone. I think that this idea is what drives people towards religion.

Realizing that there is likely no god means facing this very existential feeling as well as loneliness. There is no god you can talk to.

PS: Even if there is a "god" that caused the big bang billions of years ago, it won't interact with you in any way.

You weren't alive for billions of years and it didn't bother you.

The idea of impermanence can also be liberating. All our mistakes, failures, and problems will ultimately be washed away by the crashing waves of time. It takes the pressure off a bit.

At least that's how I use the same realization to provide comfort at times.

I'm an avid buyer of books, and I recently realised that, given that an 80 year lifespan is a mere 4000 weeks, I could read a book every week and not get through my collection. I thought I had so much more time.

To make it even worse, you might get hit by a bus tomorrow!

Imagine we go to the beach, and we observe the waves. A wave is born in the sea, then rolls forward until it dies on the beach. Each wave is different, and how sad it is that it's gone once it reaches the beach.

The thing is, a wave is basically some water particles and energy. The water particles don't go away, and as we know from physics, neither does the energy. So how can a wave die when all of its components don't die?

The truth is, a wave doesn't really exist. It's a concept in our head. "Here is some part of water that is higher than the rest, let's call it a wave". And now the wave can be "born" in the sea and "die" at the beach. But in fact nothing was created nor removed. It's just a concept. Everything is in fact interconnected. The disconnected parts that we see are concepts in our head. A tree, the sun, the rain, grass, ... . Nothing stands on its own.

You and me and everyone here, we are just concepts like the wave. What are you composed of? Some DNA from your ancestors, some cultural influence, the plants and animals you eat, the water you drink. After the concept of "you" dies, everything is still here. Everything that you were composed of is still here.

You're not an entity on your own. You are interconnected with everything around you. You are the water you drink and the water is you. Your thoughts are the thoughts of your ancestors, of your fellow humans, etc, and your thoughts are theirs.

So even if the waves die on the beach, the sea is still there. An therefore, the waves are also still there.

Comforting, but being a wave is the cool part. The composition of our parts is what makes us regardless of whether or not they carry on existing. Is a car still a car when the engine, wheels and chassis are separate?

It's not so much as we are composed of parts, it's more that the parts compose us.

The water and energy will express itself into a wave. The same as human evolution will express itself as you and me. Basically you are only 1 of the many possible outcomes, and other outcomes will occur which will resemble you very much, just because it's the same system that created you.

The concept that I'm describing is that you really need to think about what 'you' is. What is really yours? Your DNA you got from your parents, your culture from the people around you, your body from your food, etc. Are you still the same you as yesterday? Are you the same you when you were a baby?

Of course I didn't invent this philosophy, it basically comes from Zen Buddhism.

There is this thought experiment where you are transported to another location by cloning you, and then killing the original. The question is then if you die or not. In the end, you live on through the clone, which has the same body and brain composition and memories. But your body, the original, is killed. So do you die or not?

It's of course how you look at things. If you agree that the 'you' of yesterday is the same as 'you today', then why also not accept other transitions?

To come back to your car, when the parts are separate it's indeed not a car. Let's say I put the engine, wheels and chassis back together. Is it still the same car? What if I replace the wheels of a car. Is it the same car or a different one? What if over the years I replace part by part, and end up with all parts of the car replaced. Is it still the same car as before, or is it a separate one?

All these questions basically comes down to how you define the concept "same" or identity. And the universe really doesn't give anything about concepts. Whether you consider it the same car or not, and I think the opposite, it doesn't have any impact on reality. The car is the car, whether it's "the same one" as yesterday or not.

Edit: so to come back to the 'death' question. Basically before you were born, you were already there. Everything that made you was already there. During your lifetime, you constantly change. Parts of you die and are born again. The 'you' changes into another you. And when you die, everything will still be there.

The wave will return. All the things that make the wave are still there.

Ignoring the metaphor but taking the thinking to its logical extreme - the real problem is the cruel trick of evolution that means we think we are unique beyond the things that compose us. It makes sense that we think so because all the people who can accept the truth don't mind dying off quietly. The ones that breed vigorously are those who think differently.

But just because there is strong evolutionary pressure to believe something false doesn't make it true. It just means the illusions we labour under seem very real.

We and the wave are constantly in flux. Every morning you are different than the day before. To a smaller extent, in every moment as well. So being the wave is an illusion. You are only the wave for a moment. Then you are a different wave. The moment where you pass from life to death is no different. We feel distress about death because we are attached (emotionally) to a particular wave-form.

Do other animals know about their ultimate demise? I'm not sure. It seems like a human problem due to our incredible capacity for foresight.

Transcending this distress is part of our growth IMO. Some folks resolve it w/ a belief in an afterlife.

Wow - an amazing and incredibly insightful response. Thank you for this. Would you mind if I shared your insight on my blog? The explanation you provided is sublime :)

Sure! But credit where credit is due: I didn't invent this but got it from Thich Nhat Hanh, so it's a Zen Buddhism philosophy.

This story for me made the click of how Zen Buddhism looks at the world.

I love Thich Nhat Hanh as well! I didn't realize this was directly from him! Thank you!

It is the most common way of explaining an aspect of the relationship between Atman (the individual self) and Brahman (Universal Self) in Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism. https://www.indianetzone.com/38/ayam_atma_brahma.htm

    He turned to the center idol: “Why did you take my son?”

    In singsong sighs, the center idol answered: “You have heard it said:

    > If the red slayer thinks he slays
    > Or if the slain thinks he is slain
    > They know not well the subtle ways
    > I keep and pass and turn again.

    Your son is not dead. You never had a son. You drew a line around a
    cloud of atoms and qualities and divine fire, and called it a son. Now
    each has dispersed in turn. In Baghdad, there is an oilman with a
    nitrogen atom in his thymus that was once in your son’s parietal
    cortex. In Belmopan, there is an orphan who has your son’s smile; in
    Bratislava, a businessman with your son’s kind nature. In Bangkok
    lives a very holy monk who just had a thought that nobody but he and
    your son have ever thought before. Thus is it written:

    > He is made one with Nature: there is heard
    > His voice in all her music, from the moan
    > Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird;
    > He is a presence to be felt and known
    > In darkness and in light, from herb and stone,
    > Spreading itself wherever that Power may move
    > Which has withdrawn his being to its own;
    > Which wields the world with never-wearied love,
    > Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.
    > 
    > The splendors of the firmament of time
    > May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not;
    > Like stars to their appointed height they climb
    > And death is a low mist which cannot blot
    > The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought
    > Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair,
    > And love and life contend in it for what
    > Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there
    > And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.

an excerpt from Idol Words by Scott Alexander -- https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/idol-words

As much as all the suggestions of us not existing before and that our selves are an illusion etc. are comforting. They don't answer the fact that I find being alive really really really good. I don't want that to stop; I don't want to age; I want to keep going on forever and ever. At least until I decide that I'm done!

The only comforting thing is that literally everyone has to go through it.

Other than that, it's totally horrible, and there's no way to really cope with it. That is by design. No animal doesn't cling on for dear life at the end. Dying is the absolute worst thing that can happen to any being. If you tell yourself otherwise, you are really just deluding yourself

Also, as Zizek says, it is a total fiction. Death is so horrifying because it's something that is a total non-element of our reality. By definition, we can't access it, we can't think about it, we can't refer to it.

I don't know if it will help you, but I found Alan Watts' lectures comforting in some regard. What is your consciousness? Where does it start? Where does it end? At what moment does the fetus in the womb go from a presumably unconscious egg and sperm to a thinking, feeling, being? The hard problem of consciousness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness) is a fiendish problem and while I don't like the idea of dying either, I also suspect that we might be more connected than we realize, which gives me some kind of solace.

We are borrowed energy to create a temporary self aware consciousness. We are the universe aware of itself. When we die we return that energy.

I first experienced this after reading On the Beach[0]. I realized that just like everyone in that book (no spoiler here), I'm going to die - I just don't know when. I was twelve, and I never talked about this with anyone, I just fucking carried it for at least two of years of often sleepless nights, until I'd become so inured to the existential dread that it no longer really hurt me.

The conclusion I came to is that I didn't exist before I was born, and it wasn't a problem. I won't exist after I die, and it won't be a problem then either. While its completely logical, it isn't enough on its own, but maybe its one piece of the puzzle that will help you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(novel)

Consider yourself fortunate to have come to such a place! For me, the awakening was when I visited the Capuchim crypt in Rome, a place intentionally designed to bring its visitors to this revelation. I highly recommend a visit.

Now the question is what will you do next...

This is a Derek Parfit quote, famous for refusing the idea of a stable "self" of psychological continuity:

> My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the end of which there was darkness... When I changed my view, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in the open air.

I'm no monk or saint, but have some intuitive sense of the continuous material flow of life that counterbalances the small feelings of loss that accompany gradual physical decay. "A single ocean for all the droplets, a single voice raises the clamor of Being"... It's a strange adventure, this universe and this human culture that basically arose from accounting statements just a hundred thousand months or so...

Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination

"Many of us do most of what we do, in spite of the fact that we will eventually die. In this sense life is a distraction from the reality of death. We live as Ernest Becker wrote ‘in a state of death denial’. After all, we are in a strange situation... We're all going to die just as surely as if we had already fallen from a cliff. We just do our best to ignore the resulting feeling of weightlessness and the roar of the wind in our ears. In the meantime, whatever ordinary happiness we achieve, seems somehow diminished when we consider the fact that our lives in this world will come to an end.

"But there is a way of turning this logic around. We can begin to do things not in spite of death, but because of it. More and more, we can lean into the truth of impermanence. And rather than make us morbid, it can make us appreciate just how beautiful life is. You're alive! What do you get to do today? You can go for a walk. You can make pancakes for someone you love. You can read a good book.

"When you do these things, in spite of death, everything can seem ultimately pointless. But when you truly embrace impermanence, the point is always now. You get to make full contact with the reality of life... now! What other point or purpose could you hope for?

— Sam Harris (Waking up App)

I try to approach this knowledge as freeing: all of the mistakes and faux pas I make are meaningless, ultimately. The pressure is off and I can happily enjoy my personal human experiment.

Also ultimately it humanizes and connects all of us: no one is exempt from dying.

I'd advise not looking for a coping mechanism.

But feel deeply into it. It's heartbreaking yes, but love is underlying that heartbreak. The love of experiencing life.

Death is a doorway really. It grants freedom from the tyranny of the beliefs that things are permanent or they have to be a certain way. Every moment dies to the next and we are the constant awareness, aware of ourselves and the "things" we name that is actually just one thing - the totality of experience.

As experience continuously morphs, we remain at peace as that which hears these words. That which knows the thoughts that arise.

Death, in how we conceptualise it, is illusory. There is no evidence of anything apart from our awareness of it. Think of it like a move screen. To the characters in the movie, death is real. To the observer of the character it's a play. And what is a play with no stakes?

There are structural beliefs that we are this body. Are you this body? Does the body contain consciousness or is the body made up of consciousness (as in, without awareness of a body, how can it be known to exist). Same with our thoughts and feelings.

All concepts arise within this (whatever this is) but do not colour the colourless canvas that we are.

Yes, death is an experience but is it really the awareness, that which you are, that dies? Or is the thoughts of a body to which we attribute the thought of death?

I'm not talking about personal awareness. What would that mean? Awareness would be both aware of the term "personal" and "impersonal". Leaving the awareness still colourless as these thoughts come and go within it, inseparable from it.

So don't shy away from this, look closer and see it clearly. It's okay to have the beliefs we have about being the body but we cannot confuse it for our direct experience. And our direct experience of death, which is a thought.

Thank you for sharing this.

I too have experienced this existential dread, and sometimes still do.

Your post triggered a multitude of responses from different people experiencing the same, each with their own set of beliefs and coping mechanisms.

I found it fascinating - thank you.

It always surprises me that we are in a minority - most people go through life without experiencing this, or wondering about this. When trying to discuss this with one of them, they are usually baffled, and truly cannot understand you. It is almost as if we're speaking different languages. As a side note - I am wondering if there is something in common in all those who experience this dread.

I always thought bee communication through "dancing" was visual. On reading more, it seems the bees build up electric charge which interacts with the antennae on other bees.

Excerpt [1]:

> Honeybees accumulate an electric charge during flying. Bees emit constant and modulated electric fields during the waggle dance. Both low- and high-frequency components emitted by dancing bees induce passive antennal movements in stationary bees. The electrically charged flagella of mechanoreceptor cells are moved by electric fields and more strongly so if sound and electric fields interact. Recordings from axons of the Johnston's organ indicate its sensitivity to electric fields. Therefore, it has been suggested that electric fields emanating from the surface charge of bees stimulate mechanoreceptors and may play a role in social communication during the waggle dance.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waggle_dance#Mechanism

This is amazing.

This does need the context that you would communicate much more with your hive then just death and weddings. You need to build a relation with them. Ask permission to enter the hive, take good care of them, all that. And yes, there are people (like me) that still do it that way. And yes, I do think our bees / colonies recognise me and my wife as their keepers.

Could you share more about why you think that, or your relationship with your bees please? How do they recognize you and behave to you? Do they have a group intelligence or do individuals know you?

I ask because I’d love to keep bees myself someday and the relationships people have with bees are something I don’t know well, or don’t understand, but am fascinated by. (The tradition linked for this thread is one I’m familiar with, for example — but what I don’t know is what makes people believe it. What is the experience of beekeeping that leads people to believe bees understand?) It’s one primary reason I’m keen to become a beekeeper, to experience and to learn. I’d love to hear whatever you have to say.

I keep bees and I like them, but there's a reason you wear a protective suit to work on them; they aren't all that keen to be friends. Tame bees will pretty much just ignore you, and that's probably the best you can hope for. But you do get to see what they're up to and watch them work which is pretty impressive. It's not particularly hard to get started keeping them if you want to give it a shot.

I think this is a good approach and the right attitude. I think that people tend to discount insects because they are small, simplistic, and ephemeral. Yet, social insects such as bees are part of a larger organism: the colony/hive. And collectively, that hive carries a lot of sentience, memory, and agency. We didn't coin the term hive mind for no reason!

So while this custom seems perhaps superstitious and frivolous, it carries actual layers of meaning and importance, because animal husbandry, even insect husbandry, is steeped richly in tradition and knowledge handed down across generations, for millennia, more than we can even comprehend.

My wife and I are not bee keepers, but we have a hive nearby and our garden receives many bees during the day, particularly when looking for moisture during dry times. It is so beautiful watching how calm they are with my wife sharing the garden with them as she potters and they swirl.

i keep Asian honeybees on Lantau Island / Hong Kong - fully agree with you, there is so much more to it the more time one spends with bees. you will like this book a lot [Song of Increase]: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/28862364

Love this! It effectively a type of therapy or mindfulness for bee keepers, much like prayers and confession.

I wander if as we all start to use chat based LLMs in our everyday lives similar "superstitions" and traditions may appear? People telling them the things that have happened in their lives...

People are already using GPT for therapy. It's usually pretty compassionate so it's probably not the worst thing.

Depends if LLM is local or in Cloud.

My intuition is that the AI thing will be a closer experience to journaling than to confession. It's a more convincing facsimile of a conversation, but a bee colony is a living thing in a certain way that an AI definitely isn't right now. This conception is an important part of the experience, in the same way that talking to a mute but living cat is a different kind of experience than talking to a furby.

Though I sincerely practice prayer and confession which ironically probably makes me an unreliable witness to their mechanisms and value in this venue.

You would still be a more reliable witness than someone who has never done so. The ideal would surely be someone who used not to, and can remember how they felt both before and after starting to practice.

One of the reasons why Terry Pratchett's _Discworld_ books are so beloved by its fans is that he was very widely read, and put lots of things in his books where you go "ha, nice world building, gives his fantasy world a good fantasy like feel" and then later find out he just took something real and copied it.

This practice is in _Carpe Jugulum_, IIRC.

Sir Terry is on record as using "Brewers's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable". You can see the seeds of inspiration throughout his books.

First thing I thought of was Granny Weatherwax!

Telling the Bees - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28667197 - Sept 2021 (59 comments)

The 2021 comments were some of my favorites.

It's early morning, I'm looking at my family as things start to come to life in the household... I wasn't really mentally ready for that top comment, and the followup after a couple of weeks, from the guy whose wife died. But then I guess neither of them were particularly ready, too... Heavy stuff.

A similar thing is done in Chekov's short story Misery. It is short enough that you can read it in about 10 min https://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/ac/misery.htm

Also a framing device in Laline Paull's novel _The Bees_, which otherwise mostly features bee characters, and is pretty accurate to what we know of bee's lives and social organization. It's one of my favorite novels!

(Yes, bees don't have much individuality, perhaps she gives them more than they really have to make a book, but it's also part of the fun to see how she succesfully makes a story from characters mostly without much personality or individuality).

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/18652002

I recently watched a video where someone visits the Hadza, a Tanzanian hunter-gatherer people, and asks them about life and goes on a hunt with them.

They say the important things in life are to have meat from hunting and to have honey from the bees, and that’s it. Meat and honey is the meaning of life.

The videos are:

1: https://youtu.be/TAGjuRwx_Y8 Asking questions to some Hadza

2: https://youtu.be/Ny4bHOnSg0o Going hunting with the Hadza

I love how they just resolutely refuse to give philosophical answers.

"What happens when you die?" "Well, we bury you in the ground and then we move somewhere else"

"What is your greatest fear?" "Lions"

The guy is desperately trying to get some "ancient tribal wisdom" from them and they're like "yeah, Lions are pretty scary".

They're probably too busy trying to survive to spend much time navel-gazing

Probably. They don't seem super-stressed though.

It’s not mentioned in the Wikipedia entry, but this is also present in Margaret Atwood’s excellent book series, Maddaddam.

You can edit the page and add that nice detail.

Yeah right! This is Wikipedia! Any edits will be reverted within minutes by bots or the self-appointed "owner" of the page.

is this hyperbole or actually true?

IME that is not gonna happen in a scenario like the described, assuming the claim is sourced.

In my experience, it really depends on the page. Some pages will go years with no editors reviewing them, and some articles you will get reverted that same day for literally any change you make. Something like this is probably obscure enough that any change you make should be able to go under the radar.

Hyperbole. There are certainly jerks on Wikipedia, and it's really frustrating if you run into one, but the vast majority of good faith edits will never encounter this problem.

It's like when someone gets banned from a Reddit sub for a stupid reason and concludes that every one of Reddit's thousands and thousands of mods is an evil power-tripping egotist.

Def true. I've tried on several occasions to fix small issues in the Max Stirner wikipedia page and had them reverted within minutes.

Color me not shocked that some philosophy major has carved out a fiefdom on wikipedia and jealously guards it against all would-be contributors.

I have made a modest number of contributions to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. I would say the worst experience was going through a somewhat bureaucratic process to have a page updated to then be ghosted by the person who suggested the process. Eventually I just did a WP:BOLD and made the edits myself, which remain there to this day. The best experience is being 'thanked' (there is a button for it on a page's edit history) by a page's self-appointed 'owner'.

From my perspective, if the edits are uncontroversial, it appears as though the response will be too. Editing Wikipedia is, socially, neither an overwhelmingly positive nor an overwhelmingly negative experience for me. I do it now and then as a purely altruistic endeavour.

I have added lots of bullet points to the "In popular culture", "In film", "In TV" sections on Wikipedia.

I have never once had any of them removed. Nor can I imagine why anyone would do that if it was factually correct and relevant.

I do make sure to add a single source to a major news publication review of the show/film/etc. that mentions that the work is indeed about the thing or involves it as a major plot point.

Superstitious ignorance.

How could they not know that they needed to twerk it to communicate these messages?

Could simply be a tradition that helps make sure that nobody forgets to take care of the beehives when somebody dies or leaves the home.

I think they're joking. The twerking part is a reference to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waggle_dance

A song from my favorite band, Big Big Train:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adbrWWnyMKg

I do this with my servers

The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles has a nice exhibit on this, "Tell the Bees... Belief, Knowledge and Hypersymbolic Cognition" https://www.mjt.org/exhibits/bees/bees.htm

Can you imagine the scandal if the Royal Beekeeper failed to do his duty, and the bees became angry, and swarmed and stung the Royal Family during the Coronation; how frightful. How do you explain that to the kids.

Yeah, that used to be done in Czech rural regions, but > 50 years ago.

One distant relative was a beekeeper (indeed a teacher of beekeeping) and when he died around 1970, his wife (born 1922, my great-aunt) would tell the bees.

Evoked masterfully by Terry Pratchett in the Tiffany Aching stories.

So I just learned about this custom from this post, and after an hour, I've started watching the Midsomer Murders, and a reference to this tradition pops up. You know, like you learn a new word, and suddenly the word starts popping up everywhere

Sometimes called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion

Reminds me of a book by Stanislav Lem, 'the Invincible'. The alien in the book was a swarm of very small robot, maybe the people who tell the bees are thinking of them as some collective swarm intelligence, or something like that...

Fascinating. Wonder if this is why Pratchett’s Granny Weatherwax keeps and communes with bees.

Likely relevant: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20180319-are-lithuanians-...

Reminds me of https://aleteia.org/slideshow/the-mystery-of-icon-preserving...

And yes today was another great day of telling the beeeeezzz

so glad to know someone else likes watching others save the beeeeezzz

So the bees will punish people for not telling them about death in the family by their OWN death. This is so gentle.

Wisdom.

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