Why Do We Fear Death According to Psychological Theories?

[spikebrdr]

not really philisophical more pyscological but anyone got any theories on why we fear death? isn't it supposed to be the solution to our pain? I've got my theorieso n it but i want to hear others...

 

[phoenixthoth]

not sure why this is under 'logic' but here goes nothing.

we fear death for the same reason we fear the unknown (eg some people fear a dark room). it is a natural safety response to prevent suffering; a mechanism meant to avoid suffering. it is learned by sometimes being biten when touching a dog we were curious about or sometimes being bitten by the unknown in general. now if one were to find out that the object in the unkown cannot result in suffering, and one is sure of this with certainty, then the fear goes away. fear can also be de-conditioned as the primary mechanism for avoiding that which may cause suffering. this is what leads people to try to reassure themselves and each other that the life after death is possible, which i will only know once i get there, and need not involve suffering. then a subgroup of that group uses that natural fear to push a certain lifestyle thought to lead to reduced suffering after death. a careful contemplation of fear can lead one to realize that it needn't be in place in order to have a healthy respect for the unknown and one needn't have it in order to avoid the certain suffering, like shooting yourself in the foot. having written that, it's still difficult to sublate fear of course because it is so ingrained in our biochemical makeup and thus other factors contribute to fear.

 

[Sariaht]

Nothing needs to be the same, neither place, matter, way of thinking, being, looking or anything else before as after you get unconscious,
(which include dying). When you die you forget everything, thereby you remember nothing about your earlier life, when you slowly begin to wake up. Even if there will exist an identical visible independent universe to ours after the ether has fallen back to it's earlier energylevel (Big Bang) in chaos, somewere in the universe, there should then also exist a universe were you did other things, looked or thought in another way, were a grasshoper or a duck or anything. Since nothing needs to be the same before as after you get unconscious, you could become anything or anyone in your next life.

No point or every point is in the center of the universe, and the universe is not expanding, but cooling down; matter is being transformed into ether and exitating the ether. expansion is an illusion, caused by this matter-transformation. See for yourself.
The black hole radiation exitate the ether, why it's so hard to see.

Cause something that's neverending can't expand!

This must be considered logic. Or?

 

[THANOS]

i came to the conclusion awhile back that it is not exactly death we fear. Rather fear of pain. Ask someone if they will agree to not think ever and no pain nor pleasure and some might accept it. But if extreme pain can be avioded they will aviod it.

 

[tabloid]

about death

im yet to meet someone who went throu death and came to tell us about it.what i know is that reality is internal;i fear death because of wat i think should be my punishment against human morality or system that we impose on other pple.are there humans who kill other humans out there,and why?

 

[tabloid]

probability of death

will be high if you take high risks;but still you never know when it will happen so wats the point of fearing-chances are youll still die one way or the other..

 

[Polly]

"Why do we live in such terror of death? Because our instinctive desire is to live and to go on living, and death is a savage end to everything we hold familiar. We feel that when it comes we will be plunged into something quite unknown, or become someone totally different. We imagine we will find ourselves lost and bewildered, in surroundings that are terrifyingly unfamiliar. We imagine it will be like waking up alone, in a torment of anxiety, in a foreigh country, with no knowledge of the land or language, no money, no contacts, no passports, no friends...
Perhaps the deepest reason why we are afraid of death is because we do not know who we are. We believe in a personal, unique, and separate identityl but if we dare to examinine it, we find that this identity depends entirely on an endless collection of things to prop it up: our name, our "biography", our partners, family, home, job, friends, credit cards...It is on their fragile and transient support that we rely for our security. So when they are all taken away, will we have any idea of who we really are?"

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche, p 16.

 

[elwestrand]

I do not fear death

I never have feared death, not even as a child. One of the first things I ever realized, before I could speak, was that I had never come into existence. Not being able to come into existence, it is not possible to die.

 

[Sariaht]

Nothing needs to be the same, neither place, matter, way of thinking, being, looking or anything else before as after you get unconscious.

I know.

Then what's the difference between dying and getting unconscious?

When you're about to die you forget everything.
When you're about to become, you remember nothing.
There between you get memories to remember.

If you don't have any memories, you're surely not conscious.

If you're bad, you will be treated bad one day.




All i know is that i did not kill 2-3 million jewes in this life.
No one should treat me like Hitler.

 

[paglren]

People fear death because death brings separation from all that people know. The more: death is a (painful) separation from ourselves.
Who doesn't fear death is either inconscious or illuminated: both are not tied to anything, so they cannot loose anything.
I could tell about my memories that confirm what I'm saying but this would not help anyone.
What a difference with a dream?

 

[elwestrand]

hi

In the sort fiction piece I am working on, it gave me an idea:

There is no remembering or forgetting, only change, a cycle. Remembering is forgetting and forgetting is within remembering. Like spring and winter.

So have you ever thought of the possibility that when you are "asleep" or unconscious in this life, you might be awake, living in an entirely different reality, in a different life (not realted to your dreams), and when you are awake here you are asleep there. You cannot remember. Our existence does not depend on our memory.

We have been conditioned all through our upbringing to believe such and such. Regardless of a person's intellectual disposition or philosophical or religious inclination, the besic enculturing is roughly the same. We fear death because we have been taught to fear death. By being taught that no one is sure what death means and by observing their reaction to it. I do not believe that fear of death, as so many athiests or reductionists or evolutionists claim, is a latent psychological mechanism.

In psychology I was taught that an infant believes its mother has blinked out of existence as soon as it cannot see her-- such is the mind of an infant. Whether or not it is true, similarly, we the athiest believes a person has blinked out of existence as their physical body is dead.

 

[Polly]

Elwestrand, you have the weirdest experience I have ever heard and that must be one of the reasons you are able to contemplate death in such a detached and indifferent manner. It's all very well to think that life and death are only different states of a cycle until one entertains the possibility that one state is the outcome of another, that there is connection between the reality of one state and that of its predecessor. You may treat the reality and yourself even as an illusion, a dream, totally unreal, but if we are to be absolutely honest, I think we have to admit that everything we have experienced in this state is REAL (and that is why we experience all sorts of intense emotions) and my greatest fear is that our experience in the next state, which is a natural outcome of current state, is equally real.

 

[Nice coder]

It is a survival mechanism, to stop people from killing themselves (or at least try).

People who fear death, would try to avoid it causing them to lve longer and on average reproduce more, causing it to be passed down from generation to generation. Isn't evolution grand!

 

[elwestrand]

Hi nice coder, you know you're right at a certain level.

Our physical bodys are designed for the continual progagation of the species. Fear is a process of the physical mind-- not the transcendental mind. Fear, pain, pleasure. But this is an incomplete philosophy. WHY? What is the point or purpose for the continual progagation of the species? It is illogical to say "because we want it" because our want for it is within the degign for it. As a muscle requires resistance to hypertrophy, so too do our transcentanasl selves need the resistance of the anmial intinct to evolve. The purpose of human life is to overcome it.

 

[Sariaht]

elvestrand, I love your posts!

 

[THANOS]

the more lazy the spieces get, the more they think. Thats just a quick non-thoughtful remark (lazy). Humans create ways to be lazy, like "technology" and "tools" because they aren't "able" or to make things "easier" to do certian things. But all humans and animals alike will do what is nessesary to survive. But since humans most treasured aspect is the mind, once we lose our mind we don't know what we will do to get it back. Death sometimes a solution which is not nessesary.

 

[elwestrand]

I gather that probably no one here "believes" in a soul. Why should you? I heard that we seldom choose our beliefs, they choose us. If anyone of you were born 250 years abo in Tibet, I bet that you would believe in Buddhism. Almost every belief people have can be explained by how and where and around whom they grew up. Must it be said that YOU are independant of what you believe? When I was 12, I thought in very different ways than I do now. But I was still me. The self, soul is more or less a catalyst for all these things: personality, thoughts, beliefs. As raindroplets or a prism are to a rainbow and as sunlight is to expereince. The sunlight is not a rainbow. Nor Are wood and oxygen fire. Nor are neurological substrates and stimuli life or consciousness. This is a scientific observation. Prisms, heat and a soul colalesce these things into recognition. It is a very simple allegory.

I forgot what I am responding to. Oh yeah, so any openminded individual is not attached to his beliefs. That makes one similar to the average religious zealot who places his mental speculations before his life. Hense such a person, if not believing in a soul, should ask "does not soul believe in me?" If you deny your soul, could your soul not abandon you and then it is indeed your case that when you die, you simply no longer exist. This should make you think. If my spouse didn't believe I existed, would I continue to be their spouse? The soul makes your life and consciousness possible, she why then does an atheist not drop dead? When I divorse my wife, I am still attached. I pay allimony and support her. Maybe the athiest's soul is paying allimony to the athiest.

But the soul is very unconditional. It understands that You are it and you nonbelief in yourself is just very amusing.

I have memories of dying before, in other bodies. Most people can't remember because naturally the memories are not stored in the brain, and most people only know how to use the brain.

If you are sincere about it then every one can experience thoughts separate and away from the physical body and brain. But you must seek out experiences, experiences seldom seek out you. This is the meaning of philosopher.

 

[tabloid]

"Perhaps the deepest reason why we are afraid of death is because we do not know who we are"

very wise words.

 

[olde drunk]

Originally posted by elwestrand
The purpose of human life is to overcome it.

may i rephrase??

the purpose of life, as we know it, is to use it (human life) to learn more about ourselves and reality.

our senses are 'focused' very finely in the physical so that we may experience reality on a micro level.

human life is like a kindergarden for us to play in and learn.

peace,

 

[Sariaht]

If my DNA changed just a bit, I'd become a monkey!
That monkey would still be me...

Believe it or not!?

You shouldn't have any children of your own. If nothing needs to be the same before after you die, the risk is lower that you become your own descendants. Also, the world is overpopulated for the time being.

 

[KALI]

Hi, This a very interesting thread. The answers make me question just what I do believe... First, I believe what Einstein said; energy cannot be destroyed, just transformed. If indeed that is true, death is only a window to another state of being. That is demonstated to me in the changing of the seasons. Some plants die at the end of fall, others only go dormant. The leaves of hardwoods turn colors, & drop off only to have new buds the next spring. Animals live on in part from their prodigy. Everything in this life continues one way or another. I do believe in Gods, but only as personifications of our higher selves & one of those gods is science itself.

Ingat ka [take care]

 

[Sariaht]

If consciousnes is using things in the best possible way to survive, like your nose, then i presume living is not a hell all in all, but a paradise. Imagine being a dear. What a wounderfull life. Peace and quiet; no teachers, no demands, only tasty grass. That's how life should be, neither more nor less. You should get what you give.

Lifeforms shouldn't really fight, they should be able to get there energy without being bound to the society, and think for them selves.

Hard to fulfill, but anyway.

But we wouldn't have had nuclear plants, if we had continued like that, right?

 

[Sariaht]

Imagine; energy from practically nothing.

The more energy we get, the more we can work and think.

 

[KALI]

Hi Sariaht, But a deer has to survive through all manner of predators,winters snows & freezing nights while providing for her fawns. Its life is filled with survival punctuated by moments of sheer terror until it ends. You have to be happy being you because you are an integral part of the life that surrounds you.

Ingat ka,

 

[Sariaht]

Originally posted by KALI
Hi Sariaht, But a deer has to survive through all manner of predators,winters snows & freezing nights while providing for her fawns. Its life is filled with survival punctuated by moments of sheer terror until it ends. You have to be happy being you because you are an integral part of the life that surrounds you.

Ingat ka,

Yes. That's true.

Allthough winter don't cover all the year, it's a hard time for a dear, shame they don't have anywere to go. You have a point. If I'm not totaly wrong here, global heating depends on the energyconsuming society. Instead of heating a whole house, you should use heated clouths. In that way the Earth wouldn't get so damn hot etc.

But the other way around, If the Earth became an ocean, there would be more life hear, and I imagine the Earth would be a much better place, cause the oxigenlevel would rise, (and could without causing any fires). More life could live on the planet and there would be no winter. The increase of oxigen in the water would let the organic lifeforms become very smart and strong, it would also help in the metabolism. There wouldn't be any problem to get food, and the major part of life would be algies, so anyone could be a vegetarian. No one would have to go hungry, cause the world wouldn't have any blank spots, and we would never really get dark, cause the light would reflect in the atmosphere and the water. That would be an ideal world. Creatures who caused to much true pain in the ocean could be killed.

 

[Sariaht]

By the way, shouldn't light substances move against the pools?

Like stone containing alkalimetals and gases in free form inside of stones etc. what comes there, stays there. I thought about this rare and precious metal, what's it's name?

 

[RHuang]

Death is something everyone is afraid of, but no so much the pain of death. We are all afraid of not knowing what comes next. Where do we go? What happens next? Is there EVEN an afterlife? These questions have plagued mankind since the beginning of time. Certainly, not knowing what comes next is a feeling everyone is a afraid, but I have come to realize this is not why I fear death. I don't fear death because of the unknown. I don't fear death because of the pain. In fact, I don't fear death at all, but I don't want to die. Why? Simply because I feel life is like movie. The Earth has had a phenomenal history record and an even brighter future awaiting us. We are all in the midst of this movie. We have seen half of the movie and then we leave. What is going to happen AFTER we die on Earth? What advancements are going to be made? Will theories that have existed for thousands of years finally be proved wrong? Are we finally going to understand the objective of life? THIS is what I don't want to miss. I want to see the future of the world. I think a lot of people share this same ideology with me. There are too many unanswered questions in this world and too many optimistic plans in the future that I just don't want to miss. I don't fear death at all. What I fear, is leaving the world with too little knowledge of its future.

 

[Loren Booda]

Survivors fear death because its avoidance is imprinted upon them through mostly negative behavioral conditioning and fight-or-flight natural selection.

 

[Sariaht]

I don't want to die fearing death in my next life.

 

[Sariaht]

Cause that's no good.

 

[Sariaht]

Why shouldn't you wake up after death when you wake up from all other unconscious states?

 

[Sariaht]

Since life is eternal, no matter if I publish this.

That the neverending universe is not expanding, but the ether is getting more and more excitated has a consequence. You can get energy from nothing. You can create a small big bang. I can't solve the problem right now, but perhaps I will be able to do that soon. Can this be used when traveling through space you wounder.

 

[olde drunk]

Why shouldn't you wake up after death when you wake up from all other unconscious states?

holy cow! gee wiz, batman!

do you think you found a way of proving that reincarnation really exists?

love & peace,

 

[pocebokli]

whatever the purpose of human life is, it certainly needs the life for it. and as someone said above, fear of death is a survival mechanism. it is psychologically confirmed that humans have sorts of switches that prevent suicide, and also that keep our instinct running. that's all in our sub-consciousness so we have no or almost no control over it, it's like breathing.

also it is fear of unknown and fear of loosing everything familiar.

one who has rich and fullfilling life is more afraid of death than one who has nothing or almost nothing to loose.

but it's not dependant wether you wish to die or not, it is that, even a suicide bomber's mind, eager for glory and paradise girls, is taken over by a rush of instincts, much like when you're in a state of shock or similar.

trust me, when the clock ticktacks it's final ticktack and you cross the border, and when awareness of the inevitable abruptly suffocates the last breaths of your consciousness...if we'd have ANY control of ourselves in the moment of death, we'd **** our pants.

 

[pocebokli]

hey why are the stars there for? i said "sh1t" ...for all those who don't jump to conclusions:-)

 

[Dayle Record]

undefinedThe question is why do we fear death? The question might better be, why do you fear death? Not everyone fears death, or even worries about the inevitibility, of it. I don't have any pat answers about what death's transition brings, and yet I don't fear death. I do like being alive in this human form, so I preserve this body, to some extent, and respect the rights of others to live, so I don't run over people as I drive around. I don't kill other people and take their groceries. Though I get more groceries than some people, who die for lack of them.

This is a personal question, why do you fear death? Why do you? The one time I was sure I was going to die, a friend was driving and hit a curve marked 15 miles per hour, and we were doing 75, and excelerating. My response to this influx of information, was to laugh my head off, saying to myself, "I would have never thought that this would be how I met my death!"

It is my opinion that death is just one event, in an infinite string of events. So it is life that you have to worry about, worry about how you live, rather than how you die. Worry about death simply parks you at the abyss.

 

[Al]

I would like to point out that form the conciousness point of view, there is no "before" birth (or conception, or first neuronal burst...) and there is no "after" death. Time, universe, reality only "exist" because we see it, so it is likely that we won't experience death. I think that the behavior of conciusness nearing death is like the behavior of a particle approaching a singularity (black hole) as predicted by physicists, time stretches as they grow nearer, in such a way that for an outside observer, it never actually reaches the singularity. From the point of view of an observer next to the particle, the last instant becomes eternity.

 

[loseyourname]

Then how come, from the point of view of someone observing the dying, they die instead of becoming eternally frozen?

 

[Al]

It is just an analogy. I was trying to stress the fact that we consiousness is determined by the perception of succesive events, that is time, and time is relative. for the external observer an events follows, and person dies. The dying concioussnes remains in the last event, indefinitely, or until another event involving it happens.
But don't take me wrong, I'm just trying to inferre.