Embracing Death as a Natural Part of Life: A Scientist's Perspective

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thoughts on death... revisited

Zen master Shunryu Suzuki Roshi once said, "You will always exist in the universe in one form or another." For an existentialist, this is easy to understand without having to resort to things like reincarnation, a soul that survives death, or any other similarly related supernatural idea.

I accept the fact that I will return my constituent parts back to nature and possibly provide some nutrients for other living things. Heaven knows I've taken a lot from other living things to sustain this body during my lifetime. So it seems like it's only fair.
 
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I like mark twain: I do not fear death.I had been dead for billions and billions of years before i was born,and had not suffered the silghtest inconvenience from it.

the billions of dark years have no meaning at all .im alive and aware right now.one day ill cease to be aware (imho liking to sutting down a computer for the last time) at that point, i will likely not be able to continue having all the fun I am having, of being alive. its a bit iritating to me that the fun has to stop so soon.i just got here dam it.
 


In a material sense, your atoms and energy are coming and going all the time from and to all sorts of directions. However, when you start thinking about the forms that the atom- and energy- exchanges take, there are many possible relationships between them. I like the idea of reincarnation and the "eternal return" generally because it stimulates the mind to conceive of energy-matter configurations as occurring in repetition and therefore allows for the possibility of eventually returning to become the object of one's own actions. In this way, conscious choices become meaningful as having the long-term effect of affecting oneself in the same way one chooses to affect others. What other effect could relative free-will have in a universe otherwise determined by forces beyond conscious control? Actions of choice have the effect of stimulating chains of emulation that result in repetitions of the choice, which lead to the eventual experience of subject becoming object, whether through reincarnation or during the same lifetime. What is flawed in seeking repetitions of event-relations through multiple occurrences?
 


My general thought about death is that I am opposed to it if it involves me.
I'm not afraid of it; I just don't care to think of a universe that doesn't include me.
 


runner said:
Zen master Shunryu Suzuki Roshi once said, "You will always exist in the universe in one form or another."

I think the dynamics of me is eternal and exists independently of the Universe. However, it is only when me is instantiated in material form, as biology at present, that we observe me. Think of all the dynamics associated with every small feature of me, my neurons, my biochemistry, and my consciousness, all of me, reduced to pure mathematics. It is those mathematics which I believe are eternal and exists independently of physical me, and of the Universe in particular and if the Zen master was alluding to this then I agree with him but if he rather meant all that spiritual stuff then I do not.
 
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Death is like drugs. Just say no to death!