How do you deal with your fear of death?

[Lagmonster]

As George Carlin put it, "We're all going to die. I'm sorry to remind you of it, but it is on your schedule".

With the exception of the suicidal, we all tend to like ourselves and want to see ourselves have some form of continuity of consciousness. From what I've seen, the number one human method for dealing with our fear of death is outright denial: people insist that their bodies may die, but their consciousness is immortal and indestructible. Problem is, a lot of us don't believe in an afterlife, and thus cannot console ourselves with fantasy. So the options seem to be either to summon the constitution to not be afraid, just 'let go of what we can't control', or try ignorance - to simply put it out of mind and quite literally don't think about it.

It's easy to accept annihilation as inevitable, but that doesn't necessarily bring one comfort, that being what we really need so that we don't let our fears force us to live paranoid lives. So a fear of death being an entirely rational thing to be afraid of, I thought it might be nice to hear some thoughts on conquering the fear of death from people NOT likely to tell me the one about the ghost of their old uncle Angus.

[Teleros]

In short, cross my fingers and hope that we make some big breakthroughs in science (either to download a mind into a computer or anti-ageing treatment). Beyond that... meh I just don't think about it. There's enough going on for me to worry about, but on this point I do envy those who can bring themselves to believe in the bearded bloke in the clouds.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Try not to think about it, try to live longer, and not to die.
That, and i'm not joking when I say that I intend to live long enough, and to get rich enough that I'll eventually be able to make a copy of my personality (or a preservation of my brain in some other form, be it cyborg, biot or clone).

[Sarevok]

I have 2 simultaneous ways of dealing with it.

Teh Rational View : Looking out the window and into the vast night sky should comfort every atheist out there. I may not be one but even I realize how insignificant human lives are compared to the epic scale of the universe. We are just a bunch of atoms moving in certain patterns. Out there stars, supernovas, galaxys, quasars etc reshape matter in a way we will never approach even one percent of it. It does not matter if you die a lonely internet nerd or the next Alexander the Great after crushing Eurasia with your tanks.... ultimately the universe does not give a shit. There is nothing to be worried about and no regrets regardless of how much or how little one achieves before death. While being able to exist forever would be terrific right now we are stuck in the shitty era of hairless apes on terrestrial worlds rolling around in vehicles burning prehistoric animal remains. Maybe in centuries there will be much awesomeness involved with immortal posthumans around but right now there is not a damn thing we can do about it. So better to pick some arbitrary goal in life, try to achieve that and then disappear happily into oblivion instead of depressing oneself about inevitable.

The faith based view : I get to muslim heaven..:d

[salm]

It's easy to accept annihilation as inevitable, but that doesn't necessarily bring one comfort, that being what we really need so that we don't let our fears force us to live paranoid lives. So a fear of death being an entirely rational thing to be afraid of, I thought it might be nice to hear some thoughts on conquering the fear of death from people NOT likely to tell me the one about the ghost of their old uncle Angus.

You don´t neccessarily need anything that brings comfort. You might simply have to erredicate the things that bring discomfort.
Bad things look like they happen often but in reality the probability of most bad things is very low.

Fear of death by old age can be take care of by the good old "after death is just like before birth"

[Vendetta]

I don't "fear" death in any ongoing existential sense (as opposed to the immediate sense of, for instance, dangling over a cliff). There's no point. Sure, I want to prolong my life as much as the next guy, but only because of the positive aspects of being alive, sensory and emotional pleasures, not because I am "afraid" of the alternative.

I really don't think that the ongoing existential fear of death is a rational response, specifically because it's inevitable and you can't do anything about it. All that time and wasted hormones you spend worked up getting all fearful over death in an existential sense could more productively be used going to a decent horror film and getting all fearful over death in an immediate sense for enjoyment.

[Knife]

I try not to look at death as some great looming threat, rather as a reminder that I have to do all the things in life I want to do. Most people think of death as that date somewhere out there. In fact, death can take you at anytime, so it's more of a statistical chance. Everyday you are making a saving role v life.

[Lagmonster]

Correct me when I'm wrong:
Teleros advocates ignorance - don't think about it and it won't bother you.
DEATH puts in another vote for willful ignorance coupled with a different kind of fantasy known as the 'long odds' fantasy - sure it's possible, but is banking on it not a sign of overreaching reality?
Sarevok suggests what I assume is a dismissal of ego - if you don't think your continuity of consciousness matters, you won't care about it.
salm seems to ignore the problem: knowing that when you ARE dead, you won't know it and thus won't care, seems to me to ignore the problem of fearing a loss of self while you still have a self to lose.
Vendetta gets closer, with:

I really don't think that the ongoing existential fear of death is a rational response, specifically because it's inevitable and you can't do anything about it. All that time and wasted hormones you spend worked up getting all fearful over death in an existential sense could more productively be used going to a decent horror film and getting all fearful over death in an immediate sense for enjoyment.

I made a mistake in flatly stating that an ongoing fear of death is rational; But that still leaves us without a solution - knowing that fear is wasteful doesn't dismiss the emotion.

For the record, I don't have a paralyzing fear of death (although I'm like everyone else - I'd prefer some form of continuity of consciousness), but it occurs to me that a lot of people have invested a lot of time in creating fantasies involving everything from superstitions to far-fetched future technologies as a way of denying themselves a fear of loss of self. It sounds so far like the only solution people HAVE is either ignorance, hopeful thinking, or somehow simply refusing to be afraid (although many people cannot refuse an emotional response). Should we suppose that the gift of an ego creates a need in most people for some level of either fantasy, denial or ignorance in order to preserve itself against the knowledge that it will end?

[Samuel]

I don't fear death. I fear pain and suffering, but since I have never experienced dying, I don't fear it. Isn't it nice to have a brain that isn't so good at imagining new stimuli?

[fuzzymillipede]

My view of death is like this:

Since I will no longer exist after my death, death itself shouldn't be much of a concern. It is simply a permanent end to the stream of consciousness, and we already routinely experience temporary lapses of consciousness (sleep). All I can wish for is to be content when I die, rather than desperate or hopeless. I feel that ultimately, it is the last moment of life that is the most important, because it is the last moment of a consciousness that exists solely in the present. In other words, to die happy is as good as eternal happiness, at least to me. Therefore, my life goal is ensure that I die a favorable death, hopefully by leading a satisfying life and ending it on a good note. Why wish for eternal life when you can die happy?

[General Zod]

I think Epicurus put it most succinctly. "Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?"

Personally it's not the death part that worries me, it's the rather nasty, painful stuff involved right before it. I'm easily one of the last people inclined to believe in the supernatural on here, but if I wanted to hold out for any type of continuation after death some form of reincarnation would be my ideal. Of course I realize that's most likely just wishful thinking, so there's not much else but to just accept it.

[Kanastrous]

I've come close enough to it (usually in the setting of vehicular mishaps) to know that it's an emotional blank spot, for me. It's not something I dwell on or explore under normal circumstances (along the lines of the why-worry-about-the-inevitable perspective) and I find that when it's suddenly an immediate thing with which I'm confronted...I don't actually care. To the degree I have ever thought about anything at the critical moment, it's been feeling sad for people who would probably miss me.

[TithonusSyndrome]

I put my eggs in the life extension basket. In fact, I plan to devote much of my earnings when I leave school towards paying for these treatments, and it's part of the reason I can't responsibly allow myself to reproduce if I'm going to be consuming resources indefinitely.

[Kanastrous]

Alcor?

A friend of mine is their senior transport coordinator. If you want a line on someone good to talk with there, let me know.

[Coyote]

OTOH, I actually do believe in the possibility of an afterlife, but that doesn't mean I'm in a hurry to embrace it. I also accept the possibility that there may not be. It's one of those "I won't know until I get there" sort of things.

Basically, like others have mentioned, I don't waste time worrying about death. It's going to happen, and when the time comes, may as well embrace it as the next/last experience you'll have. The time spent worrying about it is time you could spend having fun and loving others while you still can.

Also, like others have mentioned, I don't fear the death in and of itself so much as I am uncomfortable with the idea of it being a painful process. I'd also dislike a long, slow, drawn out process that wears down people around me that I care about.

[Surlethe]

Every once in a while, I contemplate death. I have a gut reaction, but then I can quiet myself and regard it calmly. I accept that I am going to die; similarly to Zod, the part that bothers me is extensive pain before death or the prospect of leaving my family before they're ready for me to go. I want to die quietly, in my sleep, without pain, when I am old and gray. I want to leave with two or three generations of well-raised offspring around me, as I look back on a well-lived, well-spent life. I do not want to leave a single mother and two-year-old daughter, and the prospect of doing that horrifies me more than the prospect of blankness.

[Covenant]

Err... why would I be afraid of dying? Haven't any family members died around you? Dying of old age means you go relatively peacefully in your sleep. It's not like dying is the hard part. It's living that's a bitch.

I'm more worried about breaking my hip, or having a stroke, or getting alzheimers and other forms of dementia, at which point I would look into how well I can treat it--and if I can't make it livable, I'd look into a form of suicide. So death isn't a big deal. You get 80+ years if you take care of yourself, that's enough time. You can get more years than that if you've taken good care of yourself and are lucky.

So in short, again, I'm not at all worried of death. It's like a nap I won't get up from. I hope I don't get senile or bed-bound, but I think we all would like that, regardless of age.

[Mayabird]

Umm, what if there's no fear of death to deal with? If there's nothing after death (what I'm expecting) it'll be like the dreamless parts of sleep - nothing - and almost nobody's afraid of going to sleep. The only thing I fear is that one of these days I may have a really bad depressive episode (an 'episode' can last for months) and carry out my suicide, and that's a matter of watching my emotional states and trying to keep myself stable.

[Lagmonster]

Umm, what if there's no fear of death to deal with? If there's nothing after death (what I'm expecting) it'll be like the dreamless parts of sleep - nothing - and almost nobody's afraid of going to sleep.

That seems to confront the fear of *dying*, but not necessarily the fear of *being dead*. It strikes me that someone heavily concerned about maintaining their continuity of consciousness would be far more annoyed by the prospect of not existing than of the fact that they may have to suffer to get there. Of course, such a person would also hate going to sleep for all the experiences they miss while they're unconscious.

[General Zod]

It strikes me that someone heavily concerned about maintaining their continuity of consciousness would be far more annoyed by the prospect of not existing than of the fact that they may have to suffer to get there. Of course, such a person would also hate going to sleep for all the experiences they miss while they're unconscious.

I actually tend to fall under this, somewhat. Almost to the point that I don't get enough sleep at times because there's so much else I can do that sleeping seems to be wasteful.

[Pinjar]

Against the Fear of Death

What has this bugbear death to frighten man,
If souls can die, as well as bodies can?
For, as before our birth we felt no pain
When Punic arms infested land and main,
When heaven and earth were in confusion hurled
For the debated empire of the world,
Which awed with dreadful expectation lay,
Sure to be slaves, uncertain who should sway:
So, when our mortal frame shall be disjoined,
The lifeless lump uncoupled from the mind,
From sense of grief and pain we shall be free;
We shall not feel, because we shall not be.

This is from one of the first books my mother bought for me. In fairness I could barely read at the time. Therefore perhaps it had more of an effect on me than the text warrants. It has however been my position ever since. I have absolutely no idea why I find it so comforting.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

It is a fine way to relax and not be concerned over such a trifling matter as death, which is irrelevant to you the moment it happens (and honestly a release from the suffering of the world into a nirvana of utter, total nonexistance). Given the option of immortality, I would take it, but I find the idea of sleeping for eternity to be deliriously comforting at times, particularly when I'm exhausted. That doesn't, however, imply one is suicidal since that suggests you're under a compulsion to take an active measure to end your life. The active measure itself, however, is an exertion, and the very nature of that exertion removes all temptation from the mind of a healthy individual. But, really, if you are happy with all of your life to date, then why fear being dead? You will in your last moments know only that your existence has been happiness and contentedness, and what is ten years of contentedness, or one second, really, as you're dying? Both become your eternity; all that matters is to die happy.

Now, if we get uploading to work sometime in the next 70 years, I'm definitely set for eternity barring accidents, considering my family remains mentally functional into their mid-90's. And 70 years ago, it was.... 1939. Didn't even have the first computer yet, so I'm fairly reasonably betting on an immortality of being the computer-brain of a slowship doing galactic exploration. On the other hand, if someone walked up to me right now and shot me in the chest, my only complaint would be that I hadn't talked to Meredith yet today.

[Guardsman Bass]

I'm hoping for life extension or some equivalent, but it's not so much that I'm afraid of death; rather, I'm just puzzled by it. It's hard to wrap your mind around the idea of permanent, complete cessation of consciousness, about the idea of being non-existent and not being able to see how humanity makes out.

[aerius]

Acceptance. I've lived my life well and when I go, I go. There's a time for everything and it all comes to an end at some point, when my time is up, it's up. Life's a gift, enjoy the moments, cherish the memories, and live your life the best you can. There's no afterlife, there's no 2nd life after death, and there's no wishing my way around that. Live the life I do have as best I can, and whatever happens, happens.

[The Defenestrator]

I think a lot of the "fear" of death, at least for me, comes from the insistence on trying to imagine what it'll be like to experience it. Trying to imagine not existing is impossible, so your brain keeps trying to approximate it, which leads to kind of a feeling of darkness and time stretching out in front of you.

Although, I didn't get much sleep last night, so maybe that doesn't make sense.