Which is more traumatic, birth or death?

Dooku's Disciple · Post by **Dooku's Disciple** » 2005-07-03 03:36am

For the person being born or dying, natch...

Obviously it depends on the circumstances and the exact manner of death, but right now my money's on birth.

Before you arrive in this world you spend nine months in an idyllic micro-universe, oblivious to all that goes on outside your uterine safe-haven. The second you get out of there you're cold, wet and at the mercy of the world, with no way to express yourself other than screaming your everlovin' head off. It's no way to start a life but it's the only one we know.

I think there's a reason the human mind doesn't consciously remember much of very early childhood, it's a bloody nightmare.

On the other hand, death is a walk in the park if it occurs under the "right" circumstances. Say you've lived to a ripe old age and you have a wealth of memories and achievements to look back on. You also have a feeling that your time will soon be up. How peaceful it must be think "no regrets, but enough already" as you close your eyes and slip quietly into the great beyond.

Even if the situation is less idyllic and more sudden than the one I've just described, is death really that bad if it brings relief from irreversible and physical suffering?

Looking back over this post I fear I've only scratched the surface of what I wanted to say. There is a point here somewhere, even though I haven't made it very well. Your thoughts, ladies and gents?

DD

(Feel free to move to SLAM if you so wish)

dworkin · Post by **dworkin** » 2005-07-03 03:56am

Well, I survived being born

Zero · Post by **Zero** » 2005-07-03 04:16am

I'm going to go with birth.. I don't remember it, but it was shit.

I'm sure this won't go over at all well with the crowd here, but I can say from experience then death isn't NEARLY as scary as it may seem. Once you accept that you're done, and just wait for it all to end, it's one of the most calming experiences you can imagine. I use the memory to put myself to sleep much of the time, in all honesty. Birth sounds scary, though. Entering a new strange place is always harder then leaving it.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2005-07-03 11:23am

I would have to say that death is the more traumatic experience. Well, less the actual event itself, and more the lead-up to the event.

When you're born, you don't yet have a sufficiently advanced theory of mind to comprehend what's going on. It's just something that happens, and is lost a moment later in the flood of experiences washing over you. You're acting entirely on instinct, as your forebrain hasn't been fully wired yet. Now how traumatic your birth is on your mother and your anxious father is another question entirely, but for you, there's not enough of "you" there to possibly be able to quantify it in any meaningful manner.

But, when you are going to die, you don't have the excuse of having no developed mental framework with which to evaluate the world (unless you're in the terminal stages of Alzheimers, or you've lapsed into a coma and have gone into a PVS.) I mean, most means of accidental death tend to involve a sufficient amount of trauma that one's body is permanently and terminally broken. That tends to involve a fair bit of trauma, unless one is rendered unconscious or comatose by the cause of their troubles. Most natural means of becoming dead aren't too pleasant either. Pneumonia, influenza, Killer Virus of the Month, and Antibiotic Resistant Bacterium of the Week tend to leave one feeling rather miserable and possibly wishing they were dead. Heart attacks and strokes aren't all that much fun either. And that realization that, very soon, you and everything about you is about to come to an abrupt and permanent halt. About the only pleasant way of becoming dead is to do so from being extremely old, and doing so in a way that you never see coming. That is, going to bed one night and waking up dead the next morning.

Thusly, I maintain that death is the more traumatic experience. Yet, I accept that. After all, I'm human and an animal with an especially keen instinct of self-preservation. Being dead sortof violates the whole self-preservation thing. Now, that's not to say that other factors, such as the sense of inevitability, wouldn't serve to attenuate the trauma some. And for other folk, they're effectively not around to witness their own deaths, so for them, it's as traumatic as being born.

Junghalli · Post by **Junghalli** » 2005-07-03 01:01pm

I'm going to go with death. I don't believe in the afterlife and I find the concept of ceasing to exist as a self-aware entity extremely frightening. Plus, most ways to die usually involve a certain amount of excruciating agony.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2005-07-03 05:33pm

You have your whole life to get over the shock of being born.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2005-07-03 07:26pm

DPDarkPrimus wrote:You have your whole life to get over the shock of being born.

But you have forever to get over dying.

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » 2005-07-03 07:29pm

"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome."
- Isaac Asimov

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2005-07-03 11:02pm

I don't remember the one experience, and I'm not all that eager to experiment with the latter.

Tinkerbell · Post by **Tinkerbell** » 2005-07-03 11:24pm

This will probably be met with some strange glances, but I don't think either are incredibly traumatic.

Birth - As it's been said earlier, birth isn't entirely traumatic. You don't have the perspective on life that you do now. Thinking that birth is some horrible experience comes from being more than a bit jaded. The world is a horrible place that's out to get you, and you are thrown to the wolves with no means of protection.

Death - Call me a cynic. I don't think its that bad. I dont mean that I would like to die anytime soon, I just think it gets too much hype. There are so many different opinions of death. Some fear it, some want it, some bring it upon themselves, and some think that its coming for them.

I think wether you think birth or death is more traumatic depends on your view of life. If you think life is horrible, birth makes more sense. If you think life is wonderful, death.

Though I doubt that made sense to anyone else, it's my $0.02.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2005-07-04 01:18am

I would most likely say birth. As xBF so sagely puts it, death as a whole has been given a bad rap. Certainly it is the end of life, but it will happen to us all anways, and if your content with the life you've lived, or if you go out doing something you enjoy or feel proud of, it really wouldnt be so bad. Heck, even if you just die in your sleep, its better than being torn out of a little utopian existance and shoved into a strange, cold, blinding world without the mental acuity necissary to rationalize whats happening.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2005-07-04 06:50am

Being born is more traumatic, not having anything to compare it against does not mean your pain receptors and fear responses are not working. In fact, a baby is hypersensitive as its head gets contorted through the birth canal. And let's not forget that labour can often go on for days, and the baby can still end up having to be removed by caesarian section. Many babies are born essentially dead from the experience, too, so many have the trauma of almost death to deal with.

Now, a lot of deaths are unpleasant, that much isobvious, but often when a brain starts dying, it will start to disassociate with the sensory information it's getting, and you get an NDE, which makes the whole experience less traumatic. You're not actually present for your own death, as Epicurus said, you don't know you're gone.

The Jazz Intern · Post by **The Jazz Intern** » 2005-07-07 12:25am

Well, If I was dying and could tell I was dying and it was real slow and could see the people around me, I'd say death. But otherwise, birth.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2005-07-07 02:55am

Death seems the most horrible terrifying frightening thing I can possibly think of. Not existing anymore? It makes me nervous just thinking about it.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2005-07-07 03:55am

I do not remember my birth, and you only remember your own death if there is an afterlife. (and in some religious traditions not even then, eg. reincarnation)

Dark · Post by **Dark** » 2005-07-07 04:06am

I'd say birth is more traumatic for you but death for those around you.

Post by **Zaia** » 2005-07-07 01:33pm

To SLAM with thee.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2005-07-07 04:14pm

Depends on the specific circumstances of the death. Dying in my sleep at the age of 113 would be incredibly non-traumatic; dying in a jetliner slamming into a building 9/11-style would be horribly traumatic, for example.

Mr. T · Post by **Mr. T** » 2005-07-07 07:33pm

What a fucked up question

I'd go with death, since your old enough to actually make sense of it all.

Alliance SpecForceTrooper · Post by **Alliance SpecForceTrooper** » 2005-07-07 08:38pm

Got to go with Death.

The lead up is like being in a boat thats leaking too fast for you to bail out. The inevitable finality doesn't mean that you don't try (generally speaking) to stave it off or reverse it completely. We are hardwired with survival instincts which may, in some cases, make it worse.

Of course, the exception to the rule are the people (usually) who've had near-death experiences. Alot of them claim to no longer be afraid of Death.

Xuenay · Post by **Xuenay** » 2005-07-15 05:27pm

I must admit that I don't understand how death can be considered traumatic. By definition, you *stop existing* when you die - death is the moment when you're "turned off". How can an event be traumatic if, the moment it happens, you're not there to comprehend it anymore?

wolveraptor · Post by **wolveraptor** » 2005-07-15 05:48pm

He probably was referring to the lead up to death, as in "dying".

How peaceful it must be think "no regrets, but enough already" as you close your eyes and slip quietly into the great beyond.

Who the fuck would ever think, "enough already"? Only if you have a strong religious faith. Then I could see someone being eager to reach heaven.

I personally plan on freezing myself. I have little doubt that cryogenics will perfect itself within my lifetime, considering that I am not yet an adult. The only problem would be that I'd never see my friends and family again. Maybe I could convince them to come along...

Zero · Post by **Zero** » 2005-07-15 06:04pm

wolveraptor wrote:He probably was referring to the lead up to death, as in "dying".

How peaceful it must be think "no regrets, but enough already" as you close your eyes and slip quietly into the great beyond.
Who the fuck would ever think, "enough already"? Only if you have a strong religious faith. Then I could see someone being eager to reach heaven.

I personally plan on freezing myself. I have little doubt that cryogenics will perfect itself within my lifetime, considering that I am not yet an adult. The only problem would be that I'd never see my friends and family again. Maybe I could convince them to come along...

Freezing yourself is only delaying the inevitable. Besides, the notion of "no regrets, but enough already," is something young folks like us wouldn't likely understand. We're young, our lives are knowably ahead of us. Once you've had enough experience, the whole thing gets tiring, and troublesome more then enjoyable. Lazarus Long once said that there wasn't a thing he hadn't done.

Personally, I can understand contentment with death better then contentment with heaven. If heaven is eternity, then if there's any chance at all of something happening, it will happen infinite times, over and over and over and over and over and over and over... everything would get repititious, pointless.. the same is true of living forever. Everything gets old, repititious, boring. Life is no fun if it isn't limited.

Xuenay · Post by **Xuenay** » 2005-07-15 06:10pm

Zero132132 wrote:Freezing yourself is only delaying the inevitable.

"I'd like to live forever, of course. Barring that, I'd settle for a couple of thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice." -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

It might only be delaying the inevitable, but if freezing yourself means you have a chance of getting revived in an era when aging has been cured and people can be young forever, only dying in accidents or suicides... well, sounds good to me, even if you'd inevitable die at some point.

Zero · Post by **Zero** » 2005-07-15 06:24pm

Xuenay wrote: "I'd like to live forever, of course. Barring that, I'd settle for a couple of thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice." -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

It might only be delaying the inevitable, but if freezing yourself means you have a chance of getting revived in an era when aging has been cured and people can be young forever, only dying in accidents or suicides... well, sounds good to me, even if you'd inevitable die at some point.

It also gives a significant chance of never being revived at all, and there isn't necessarily even a good possibility of being able to be young forever. Actually, being young forever is impossible, as the universe will eventually die its heat death. Besides, even being young would get old after so long. Personally, I wouldn't want to live more then a century or so. Of course, the same isn't true for all, and I understand this.