Confessions of a mortician
medium.com
medium.com
It goes by the name of "Terror Management Theory" and a decent review is here: https://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.16...
Interesting to note how difficult it was for them to get their idea taken seriously. Let that teach us to beware over-valuing our contemporaries opinions.
Note: a more recent review that's harder to get full text is here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215091914...
Everything we do is motivated by reproduction. Avoidance of death increases the probability of it.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Loves-Executioner-Other-Tales-Psychoth...
1) Becker's "The Denial Of Death" is an incredible summary of Otto Rank's psychoanalytic work, explains Freud"s fallibility and explains more about human motivations in life and death (from corporations to cults, from fetuses to fetishes) than any book I've ever read.
2) A colleague once told me "life is like cake". I immediately asked him to stop because it sounded banal, but he continued with something like this: Don't waste the enjoyment of eating cake by worrying that you can't eat it forever. Just because it doesnt last forever doesn't mean you shouldnt ennoy it (just tbe opposite) . Things weren't so bad before you had the cake... and when you've finished yours, who knows, maybe you'll get to have cake another time later..
I probably butchered it and who knows where he got that from, but I found it much more motivating and comforting than carpe diem.
It's relieving, in a way, to know that I'm not the only human to chronically go through it.
I especially enjoyed his comment on the difficulties of erecting a comforting fantasy of an afterlife:
> I’ve endeavored, in my weakest moments, to believe in heaven — or at least some vague, harpless afterlife my brain won’t snicker at. But I’m still pretty much paralyzed with fear.
It's a curse, in a way, to have (be?) a brain trained to recognize and solve problems, optimize expected outcome, and see through bullshit when the popular solution to existential debilitating dread — religion — crumbles at the slightest analysis. Ignorance is bliss, to add to Puchner's ostensibly empty bromides.
That said, I've personally found that two core ideas can consistently keep me grounded (even in fits of hypercritical 4 a.m. breathless terrors):
1. I'm conscious, which is fundamentally the only thing I can really be sure of. For consciousness to arise in a completely material universe is so outside of any scientific understanding (at least currently) that there may very well be room for a kind of immortality. If consciousness is the universe experiencing itself (to borrow from Alan Watts), perhaps life is just a temporary segmentation of a tiny piece of eternal consciousness that will later be rejoined.
2. If you're reading this (ie: enjoying the temporary luxury of life), you've got a fair chance of living considerably longer than any human that has ever existed (Kurzweil et al.). It's possible that unbounded mortality could be achieved within your lifetime. This presents a new problem: the inevitable heat death of the universe (I realize the irony of immediately complaining about a lifespan that has reached eons, but it would still be a finite existence), but it's possible that there are areas of physics that have yet to be discovered that would permit hopping to a new one.
I write this precisely three weeks before getting married to the most wonderful, caring, talented, driven, intelligent, and just generally enjoyable companions I could have imagined spending my life with. I think this event has resurfaced these previously successfully buried distresses: when you have more, you have more to lose.
I'm reminded of the "4EVER YOURS" story from this year's Valentines Day Google Doodle[1] that really hits me hard:
> "This will end someday...someday, one of us will die, then the other will die, but we have now."
The mental tricks are nice for when I'm in a moment of weakness, but there is something starkly beautiful and painfully focusing about the possibility that this could be it. That every time I hold her hand, every adventure we take together, and every late night goofy conversation is limited. It's a clear and constant reminder to really make these cherished moments count, though I wish with every fiber of my existence that I could make them last forever.
It's a curse, in a way, to have (be?) a brain trained to recognize and solve problems, optimize expected outcome, and see through bullshit when the popular solution to existential debilitating dread — religion — crumbles at the slightest analysis. Ignorance is bliss, to add to Puchner's ostensibly empty bromides.
The disagreement is fundamental in nature. The afterlife was never demonstrated to be false. It was rejected because it contradicts naturalism. Believers didn't make some mistake in logic along the way, they started from a different set of assumptions.
To rephrase your original statement:
It's a curse, in a way, to have (be?) a brain trained in logical positivism, to only accept scientific answers, and reject out-of-hand any other possible answers which might provide hope rather than existential debilitating dreadchristiangenco does not speak for everyone when he (apparently) claims that existential dread is an unavoidable curse of intelligence and rationality.
Academic results and IQ are mostly about solving puzzles quickly, though. That's what most exams are about after all [0]. But the problem we are talking about is different, since you have as much time to reason about it as you want and IQ and grades probably don't affect what you finally arrive at very much. What matters is thinking deeply and honestly.
[0] Depending on your field of study, memorization may also play a role.
You could of course define rationality to be only caring about what is observable, measurable and understandable with the currently accepted models, but the history of science would have been very boring if everyone always took that stance. You're free to do whatever you want with this, of course, my point is that it's a personal choice which is not directly related to whether you are a rational being. ("Thinking deeply and honestly" sounds like intellectual hand-waving to me, but I suppose a lot of people would agree with it).
Thinking deeply and honestly starts with considering all the Gods and then considering their existence.
If you find that you can blithely dismiss the existence of all of these Gods except for the Christian (Jewish, Islamic) God and not be stunned by that hypocrisy then you have not yet begun the journey of understanding.
In regards to Greek Mythology (adopted by the Romans), the majority of people I know have learned about this in their public school curriculum (multiple years). So "blithely" is a fallacious argument.
>Considering all the Gods and then considering their existence
Many people do study multiple religions. I happen to be one of them. Everything from modern day Jewish, Mormon, and Scientology beliefs, to more Ancient Hindu, Buddhist, Mayan, Nordic, and Egyptian beliefs, etc., etc. There are a lot of similarities between these belief systems (too many to discuss here -- and probably more than most people who have never studied these belief systems would be comfortable admitting too).
It takes a lot of courage to call other people hypocritical, when dismissing ALL gods without sufficient study of various belief systems, no?
What kind of God do you believe in? Is it more of an omni-potent being (like the Abrahamic God), or just a being with supernatural properties (like a Roman god), or just "something out there" (like a "first mover" of the universe)? Do you believe in any single god, such as Alah/Jahveh/Christian God, or Vishna (Indian God), or any of the Roman, Greek, Pagan or other gods? If yes, how do you rationalize your belief in this particular god, and the exclusion of some/all other gods? Do you consider your belief to be the ultimate "truth" (i.e. the people who don't believe or believe in something else are wrong)? If not, then I assume it's a personal belief - is it not just a "good feeling" belief, not a rational and universal "fact"? Edit: are you open to renegotiating your belief (i.e. stop believing or believing something else)?
Sorry for the onslaught of questions, but I just can't see how one could rationalize an belief of some unsubstantiated "truth" no matter how hard I think about it, so I'm looking for someone to change my view - hopefully a rational person (as you claim to be) that presents rational, well-thought-out arguments.
Very intelligent, otherwise rational people believe in false propositions that make them feel happy, relieved or secure all the time. Unless there's evidence, that belief is as unfounded as the belief of most people that their husband is noble, their wife is beautiful, their child is special, that they deserve what they have, etc. It's a very human, completely fine thing to believe all of these things (even necessary for a healthy life), but when you look at them rationally, you cannot suppose that they are true.
An afterlife doesn't need to be proven false. There just has to be some evidence, (not even proof, just any evidence beyond 'I feel it') to make it a proposition worth considering. Until then, since so many have looked for evidence and failed to find it, the only rational view of the situation is to suppose (and behave) like it doesn't. You're made of meat, death is final, there is no do-over. Make this life count, try to bring about the change that you want to see, because there is no higher authority, there is no second chance.
Human testimony is evidence, especially if corroborated by multiple unrelated sources (i.e. countless mystics from many different backgrounds and eras, many of which are completely absolved of having a material interest). A collective conscience, i.e. the fact that practically all ancient peoples believed in God and an afterlife can be considered atleast a "shred" of evidence.
I think it's wrong to say that there isn't a "shred" of evidence.
It is said that Aristotle believed that women had fewer teeth than men. He never thought to check by counting them.
If this is your standard of evidence, then your standard of evidence as a way of differentiating any objective truth is useless.
Also, alternative explanation: we're all the same species, and all have the same mental "bug" which causes us to think it's plausible that there's a dude (obviously a dude) in the sky who knows our name. Human testimony is one of the single most fallible sources of information. I can't even remember what my doctor told me to do this morning, while that would actually run the risk of concretely improving my quality of life.
Science is a good tool for positive filtering (as in "hey, because of these observations I think how this works, and I think that by doing the following tests I can get some further confirmation of that") but as soon as you use it as a negative filter (as in "hey, there's no proof of it so for all practical purposes it doesn't exist, sorry"), you're just rejecting things based on a technicality.
Exactly. I too have found that many people like to have their "ears tickled". It feels like people don't want to put up with sound reason and instead believe in doctrines and beliefs that suit their own personal tastes.
>An afterlife doesn't need to be proven false. There just has to be some evidence,
Very true, many belief systems over the millenia have taught an afterlife scenario (commonly following a 'Good Afterlife' vs. 'Bad Afterlife' theme). This comes from many belief systems carrying the notion of a "part" of the human that carries on immortally beyond the physical body (believed to be an immortal soul by Christian groups -- interestingly, the bible carries no support of this notion).
Even people who believe in this immortality notion cannot provide evidence of it's existence, yet work on the assumption that it can't be proven false. (Although, depending on your authoritative scriptures, it sometimes can be.)
A political Jewish group in the days of Jesus were known for strongly believing in the Torah, but not in this immortality notion [0].
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadducees#General
>You're made of meat, death is final, there is no do-over.
I agree. Humans cannot stop death on their own, if they were to ever have a hope of overcoming death it would have to be via some external force that was vastly more powerful and smarter than they. Many ancient belief systems attribute this power to either a God, multiple gods working in unison, or to 'The Universe' (as in: that is simply the ways thing are).
In summation, it's NOT okay to say: GOD EXISTS! or GOD DOES NOT EXIST! or whatever oversimplified nonsense you can angrily yell in under 5 seconds and proceed to use as the foundation of the ideals for your entire life.
A truly rational person understands this.
I certainly don't want to die any sooner than I have to; I'd like to see my own kids grow up, be sure they are given the opportunities I had (education, etc.) but I don't really fear dying. I'm not sure why anyone would, it's inevitable after all.
I really dislike the idea of not only having no experiences, but never even having a chance of having any experiences again. I'd like to believe there could be some kind of afterlife, but I think it's overwhelmingly likely that there isn't one.
That's the only thing that frightens me.
There's also the aspect that I'll never be able to experience the undoubtedly amazing inventions and innovations in technology, food, entertainment, etc. that will sweep the world in the next few centuries and millennia. Many future humans will lead lives we could never even begin to dream of, and I won't even be able to observe that from afar, let alone actually participate in it.
Another fear of mine is that I will have just barely undershot the window of biological immortality. It's very possible I've missed it by 200-300 years, maybe even 100 years, which on the grand scale of human history and the universe's history is exceedingly small. So close, and yet so far.
Sure, but that's no different than before you were born, and that wasn't so bad.
That's a very existentially depressing statement. I tend not to experience "true" happiness on a daily basis, but at least in the course of a year I can accrue many experiences which make me very happy.
I sincerely hope you eventually come to find general pleasure with life.
These are some of the ideas that have helped me along, in case is useful for anyone. Take what works for you, ignore the rest.
1- Don't spend too much time thinking about it. Your time is short, it is silly to waste it worrying. You cannot do much about it anyway.
2- Death is the price you pay for living. Be grateful that you had the chance. It is truly a miracle that you are even alive.
3- Enjoy life and leave a legacy. It can be as simple and as important as the way you lived your life. Your example.
4- All the evidence tells me that there is not an afterlife. But I still save a little hope. There may be things that are unknowable. May be on the form of your 1) area. So, who knows.
Of course, the price you pay for living is not just death at the end of your life but also suffering throughout. Just how much suffering you will experience depends on many random factors the effects of some of which (like genetics and early childhood environment) are either very difficult or impossible to mitigate.
The hardest question to confront is whether the price of living is one worth paying. The antinatalists among us think that the answer to that question is generally a "no".
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism, "Moral Responsibility".
The logic of atheism is inescapable, but then what? What is the point of an axiom that leads to not only nothing, but actual nothingness?
Then we stop telling ourselves comforting fairy tales, and start treating aging and death as the catastrophes that they are. For me, that means regular donations to sens.org.
Also, I would point out that atheism is sort of silly. Who cares about what you don't believe in? Instead focus on what you do believe - for me, that the physical universe exists in some sort of substantial way and the other humans I meet are similar to myself (not automatons or figments of my imagination). I take it on faith that I'm not actually completely alone.
Is it? I find that when people refer to atheism, they implicitly add to it things it does not mean. The broad definition of atheism would be the absence of belief that any deities exist, but in practice, most people who define themselves as atheists lump it up with a set of false beliefs that, although being far better than believing in a "bearded old guy in the sky who cares what I do", are still very far from being solid truths.
For example, atheism usually comes bundled with the belief that consciousness is some unreal emergent property of real stuff that is "out there" or the belief that there exists a separate material world "out there" which is different than my subjective experience "in here" (while any honest introspection into where is it that "you" leave off and the rest of the world begins would start to show the cracks in this belief).
Personally, I find the various nondual teachings far more advanced in understanding these truths than atheist-materialist philosophies and definitely far more than childish religious beliefs, and therefore better at dealing with suffering, change or acceptance of the end of a personal existence.
Of course these are deep questions and while I admit to not having clear answers, I do think answers are achievable (though not at an intellectual level) and there are enough hints to follow for who really wants to find them or (to paraphrase from an old Hassidic story), at least learn where not to look for them.
I told one once, in venice beach, that if there is a judgement in the afterlife, i'll be sure to make my judgement on his god kinder than his god's on me. He blew up on me -- enough that the cops had to tell him to calm down, which as one of said cops explained, is unusual because street preachers there get a lot of training on what's borderline acceptable legally.
At least that one was sincere in his beliefs, I guess!
“Being saved” could quite literally mean having the pattern of our existence stored outside the universe. “Omniscience” is simplified when you can pause a virtual machine to inspect its memory. And maybe, just maybe, there could be a way to escape the VM.
"I’m cold," Snowden said. "I’m cold."
"There, there," said Yossarian. "There, there," He pulled the rip cord of Snowden’s parachute and covered his body with the white nylon sheets.
"I’m cold."
"There, there."
Joseph Heller, "catch-22"
I've never been frightened of it even when I've had serious health scares, I actually find my atheism comforting in that regard, you live your life and then you die and that's it.
“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” - Mark Twain
It helps when I'm in the beginning of writing my will and directives -- 'cause I expect to die sometime, hopefully later than sooner.
I wonder if the dearth of comments here is due to a general uncomfortableness with nonexistence.
A nice reminder that we should all be doing what we love.
Similarly, the religious often talk about how they're "not really saying goodbye," yet they seem to grieve as though they really are saying goodbye forever.
Not judging or anything, losing a loved one hurts and people need ways to cope. Still, people's stated beliefs often seem at odds with their actions.
Edit: a word.