Metaphysics of Death - Page 3 - Science, Math and Philosophy Forum

Combine determinism with eternal recurrence and you're trapped in an eternally recurring process, in which you have no control.

This idea has bothered many thinkers.

Doesn't sound particularly fun at all...

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10-14-2016 , 08:24 AM

#52

FoldnDark

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Originally Posted by meale

So you think the badness of death occurs to us while we're still alive?

When else?

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10-14-2016 , 08:17 PM

#53

spanktehbadwookie

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Meale, there are a few ways to approach smaller than total death. One basis is to recognize death is a transformation of particular quality and then relate to other transformations found in life which relate with that particular quality.

Another example, more folksy, is to wonder about what can be meant to be killed by a joke.

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10-14-2016 , 11:51 PM

#54

meale

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Originally Posted by FoldnDark

When else?

Makes sense. But the obvious counterargument is that death has not occurred while we are alive and so it is merely the thought of death that creates this badness?

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I'm not quite sure what you're getting at again or whether it pertains to metaphysics.

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10-15-2016 , 12:06 AM

#55

FoldnDark

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Originally Posted by meale

Makes sense. But the obvious counterargument is that death has not occurred while we are alive and so it is merely the thought of death that creates this badness?

Pesky thoughts.

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10-15-2016 , 12:32 AM

#56

meale

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Originally Posted by FoldnDark

Pesky thoughts.

Indeed so it may be said then that it is our anxiety towards death and the dying itself that is where the badness manifests, and not in the actual death?

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10-15-2016 , 04:14 AM

#57

David Sklansky

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The many worlds physics theory where basically every logically possible combination of things and events is happening somewhere adds another layer of interest to this discussion.

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10-15-2016 , 10:48 AM

#58

spanktehbadwookie

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Originally Posted by meale

Makes sense. But the obvious counterargument is that death has not occurred while we are alive and so it is merely the thought of death that creates this badness?

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at again or whether it pertains to metaphysics.

As supposed from the OP, death is the particular end of experience, though I'd qualify individual death is an end of an experience. So that is a transformation from experiencing to not experiencing. So death is a transformation and one of it's particular qualities is the supposition that what changes is the state of experience.

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10-16-2016 , 05:41 AM

#59

meale

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Originally Posted by spanktehbadwookie

Still not sure what your point is here.

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10-16-2016 , 05:59 AM

#60

FoldnDark

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Originally Posted by meale

Indeed so it may be said then that it is our anxiety towards death and the dying itself that is where the badness manifests, and not in the actual death?

In a manner of speaking, but that doesn't make death any better or worse, does it?

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10-16-2016 , 09:54 AM

#61

spanktehbadwookie

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Originally Posted by meale

Still not sure what your point is here.

That life contains many changes in the state of experiencing so significant events of changing experience in life are able to be likened as little deaths. For the purpose of better understanding death through metaphysics and experience.

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10-16-2016 , 06:56 PM

#62

meale

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Originally Posted by spanktehbadwookie

On the other hand, one might argue that death is the furthest thing from a change in experience. Since it is the abolishment of experience altogether. I don't think likening change in life to tiny deaths is helpful in dealing with its metaphysics either.

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10-16-2016 , 07:41 PM

#63

spanktehbadwookie

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Originally Posted by meale

Thinking about it is a fruitful manner of deciding any helpfulness of such an approach. So if you haven't yet thought about it much, I doubt you are yet helpful towards deciding if it's helpful. If it interests you to explain how or why it's not helpful I am all ears.

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10-16-2016 , 07:46 PM

#64

meale

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Originally Posted by spanktehbadwookie

I just can't conceptually get my head around death having anything to do with experience. Or how change could be interpreted as any sort of death since change is recurrent and death seems to be one and final. Could you explain to me how to think about it in the way you propose that would shed any light on death metaphysically?

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10-16-2016 , 08:11 PM

#65

spanktehbadwookie

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Originally Posted by meale

Death, by appearances, is occurring virtually perpetually. You can parse that an individual death is distinct by it's appearance of finality- but that doesn't divide it from the whole concept derived from observing death. One which also includes an apparent continuum of deaths.

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10-16-2016 , 08:42 PM

#66

meale

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Are you differentiating death from the first person as distinct from the third person?

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10-16-2016 , 11:13 PM

#67

spanktehbadwookie

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Originally Posted by meale

Are you differentiating death from the first person as distinct from the third person?

Either. The question essentially is does total death the concept make partial or not total death the concept irrelevant. One answer is both can have meaning that is sharable and personal so both can have relevance.

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10-16-2016 , 11:31 PM

#68

meale

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Can you define these terms, total and partial death?

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10-16-2016 , 11:39 PM

#69

spanktehbadwookie

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Originally Posted by meale

Can you define these terms, total and partial death?

Well why? Don't they contain definition as is?

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10-17-2016 , 12:55 AM

#70

meale

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I have no idea what a total or partial death is.

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10-17-2016 , 03:53 AM

#71

Tuma

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To think of death one must conceptualize time on a more perfect plane. It is perhaps likely that the conscious state of being -- life, and all of its carbon based analogues know time as just the same, but a more advanced understanding would not see it as a start and an end, instead a super state where all events happen more simultaneously.

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10-17-2016 , 08:08 AM

#72

meale

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Originally Posted by Tuma

Perfect plane?

Harry S. Silverstein invokes four dimensional space-time to explain why, contrary to Epicurus, death is bad for us in his paper "The Evil of Death". I don't buy it though.

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10-18-2016 , 09:30 AM

#73

spanktehbadwookie

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Originally Posted by meale

I have no idea what a total or partial death is.

Sure you may. You must have a clue what partial and total are, and death speaks for itself, unless it's dead then somebody else can .

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10-18-2016 , 10:27 AM

#74

spanktehbadwookie

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Originally Posted by Tuma

Now is as good time as ever.

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10-19-2016 , 05:36 AM

#75

Dominic

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As someone else has already said, it is the thought of non-existence that dampens our enjoyment of existence. I know my ego cannot fathom the idea of not existing...I know it's going to happen, but it's obviously "over there," and not something to really worry about right now.

If we truly understood what it meant to cease existing, I think a good many of us would be unable to do much else but cower in existential dread.

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