Back in March 2016, I took a couple of swimming lessons. Starting from scratch, I learned enough to be able to cross the pool using a desperate and random sequence of arm/leg strokes.

I thought I knew enough to jump into the swimming pool in my apartment complex. It was a quiet evening, and I was the only person in the swimming pool. Without thinking too much, I jumped into the pool, started executing the weird moves, and managed to reach the middle of the pool. It was at that time that the horror began.

Suddenly, I realized that I was in the middle of this 8' pool (I am 6' and some change) and that the water was pulling me in. I felt really helpless, and at that moment, it struck me that I might be drowning. This was it.

I was 23, fresh out of college with a decent job, had a whole bunch of plans, and it was all going to evaporate just like that. I didn't get any flashbacks of the life I've had so far, but I clearly remember thinking that my parents will be really sad and that the travel plans I had for the next month will never materialize. I really did think that I was going to die. I screamed out for help, but there wasn't anyone around (and I might not have been making much sound).

Fortunately, I didn't give up, and something told me to keep moving my arms and legs. I felt that I was finally moving ahead. I gave it everything I had and grabbed a corner of the pool. I came out and ran back to my apartment. All of this took about ~20 seconds or less. Still, I could have been dead (later that night, I looked up the statistics for the number of deaths per year due to drowning in a swimming pool, and it was a non-trivial number, ~4000/year in the US IIRC).

So anyway, that incident changed my perspective of life and death altogether. I care about my life a lot, and I don't want to die, but something changed that day. I developed an urgency to get to things on my to-do list, because I realized that the lights can go off rather unceremoniously and without much notice. I also like to think that I'm less scared of death now, but who knows, really.

I don't suggest having a near-death experience to lose your fear of death, but maybe try not to overthink things not in your hand in general. Some things are just too random to worry about.

In case it might save a life... there’s a technique [1] for survival where you exhale to remove buoyancy, sink to the bottom, and launch off the floor to get a gasp of air before repeating .

It’s arguably the first technique people should teach/master when learning to swim as an adult, as it’s the ultimate “fallback technique” in a situation like one you describe. It’s widely taught in the US Navy, but applicable in freshwater swimming, as well.

Drowning is indeed a shockingly common and particularly tragic way to die. Most multigenerational families personally know of at least one person that’s drowned, to put the statistic you shared in perspective. :/

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drownproofing

I was a kid, maybe 12 when I fell into a deep pool.

After a wave of profound panic, time slowed and I found myself able to think and did that method.

Worked.

When I got out of the pool, I rested for a very long time, just staring at that blue sky, my mind quiet.

I felt both detached, like I was not really here, and profoundly aware, senses tuned to the max, vivid.

Slowly, it all came together again, and the emotions washed over me, I wept.

Processing that event took a long time. I can tell you the will to thrive is something I cultivated.

The rest is sort of fear of fear. We need fear to survive and respond, but we also need to be present and for me it is a sort of detachment. Like a cold, do what I can core comes up and is in charge, until later, danger past.

A near car accident saw a similar thing happen much later in life, time slows and thought is action.

Like, nothing else matters. And to a person in those moments, maybe that is true.

While I write this, it may seem cool, or a boast.

It is not either of those. I feel messed up, like thrashed and it is all very unpleasant. Sometimes I feel like I should not be here, or that I had help, or got super lucky, or it was just not my time.

It will be. What then? Will that state not take hold, leaving only fear to remain?

All that said, yes! I have taught that method to others, just in case. I have no idea what compelled me to do it that day.

Why are some of us not so compelled?

I’ve been doing this for fun (and rest) since I was 12 in swim team. I enjoy the feeling of controlling whether I float or sink, and launching off the bottom is less strenuous than treading water. I had no idea it was a Navy standard procedure.

It's actually a really good technique that everyone should be taught in their first swimming lesson or at school, even if you don't do any swimming classes.

It's such an easy thing.

Now, next thing is to make learning to swim mandatory at all elementary schools.

I'm sorry if this comes across as crass (maybe you have a severe phobia) but to be clear, you panicked and thought you were going to die while at the halfway point of trying to cross a pool only 8 feet wide? even thrashing about should have been enough to get you across the remaining four feet to grab an edge, no?

Seems to be 8’ deep, not wide.

Yeah it was 8 feet deep (I mentioned my height for reference).

I don't have any phobia of water. In fact, a week after the incident I signed up for more swimming lessons (8 1:1 sessions) and I believe I'm a pretty decent swimmer now.

I was actually planning to start training for the Alcatraz swim but moved out of the Bay before that could happen!

I know exactly how you feel. If I really contemplate death -- not the act of dying, but of being dead, the infinite nothing, it takes my breath away. I strongly, strongly recommend you avoid thinking such thoughts at 2 AM, by the way.

Objectively, I know it won't hurt any more than before I was born, and it won't really be infinite nothing because to experience that I'd have to have consciousness, which I won't have. But it really is difficult for me to really grasp the concept of my own non-existence.

On a related note, sometimes I feel pangs of great sorrow when I look out on the world and realize I will one day not be able to experience this. Looking off into the hills, at the trees, the mountains, nature -- is so strikingly beautiful, that I can't imagine being deprived of it. Not exactly a rational fear, since again you can't feel the deprivation if you don't exist. But it strikes at odd times, just like grief for my dad, or my brothers, and in some ways it feels like shades of the same feeling.

Sorry I've got nothing witty to say, but you are definitely not the only person to have such thoughts. I hope you find a way to keep them from tormenting you too much. I've mostly managed to cure the 2AM habit of staring into the abyss, which is a step in the right direction.

> There can't be anything worse than death. There just can't. Pretty much any amount of bad is preferable to infinite nothing.

During a particularly horrific drug trip, I realized that this is very much not true. I thought I was stuck in an eternal state of suffering, of which there was no escape. The level of suffering was indescribable, and the thought that it was going to continue forever was unbearable.

Now, I'm not really afraid of death. It's just the complete cessation of consciousness. Not that different from a deep, dreamless sleep. Infinitely preferable to that unceasing hell I thought I was stuck in.

What if we're in a simulation and getting to level 2 requires that one prefer consciousness not to cease upon death?

This just sounds like a version of Pascal's Wager.

Yes! It wasn't until I'd posted the question that I realised its aptness for today (Easter Sunday).

However I'm not saying people should believe in an afterlife. Rather I'm reflecting that not wanting there to be an afterlife could conceivably manifest as the flat belief that consciousness does not persist after death. And if I am the stupendous Creator running a simulation game for developing AGIs then, when it comes to selecting candidates for the next phase, the criterion of their wanting to persist might be the decisive one.

You’ve already experienced being dead for 13.8 billion years. And, it wasn’t so bad. Was it?

Dying looks like it’s probably not going to be fun. But, I’m not worried about being dead.

I see this logic a lot, and it doesn't quite sit right with me because it doesn't really address the actual problem, which is:

I'm not as afraid of being dead, so much as I am most afraid of the short time before. Knowing that I'm dying, that soon I will be dead.

And also the finality of it. Pre-birth ended with my birth. Death will never end.

That's not quite right. If you can't be afraid of actually being dead because you won't be experiencing anything, then you in fact won't be afraid in the moments before, so there would be no reason to be afraid of the moments before either.

But you actually can be afraid of death, even though death doesn't come with any negative experiences, because you can and do care about things besides anticipated experiences. It's a common misconception that you can only care about experiences, but the counter to any conceptual argument that purports to prove that is that you do in fact care about some things that aren't experiences, death being a great example.

My friend Ronny discusses this at some length in this podcast https://clearerthinkingpodcast.com/?ep=032

> Death will never end.

As far as we know. It seems logical based on our existing knowledge, but really, anything can happen.

Certainly we’ve never seen someone come back from the dead in recent history.

I don’t know why, but your comment seems pretty profound. Especially if you’ve ever looked at those timelines of the far future on Wikipedia where something like 10^10^10^10...........^10 quadrillion years will pass but a there’s a probability that a quantum fluctuation could create a new universe in that time.

I've heard of an actor who got so into role-playing, he forgot he was an actor playing a role.

He was meant to slay dragons, but terribly afraid of getting eaten in the process.

It kept him up at night, he asked people how to cope with the stress and got plenty of advice, to which he replied the suggestions don't address his actual problem.

The only thing we have in life is the present moment. So, the only thing we lose in death is the present moment.

This is a special way of being afraid

No trick dispels. Religion used to try,

That vast moth-eaten musical brocade

Created to pretend we never die,

And specious stuff that says No rational being

Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing

That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,

No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,

Nothing to love or link with,

The anaesthetic from which none come round.

—Philip Larkin, Aubade

(italics original)

Not existing doesn't hurt, of course. But humanity is probably going to get up to a lot of cool shit we will miss out on.

We've experienced a lot of cool shit that our grandparents missed out on. It's not like progress ever stops.

As someone who's always struggled with depression, your view is very strange and alien to me. Ceasing to exist in this hell is near the top of my wish list most days xD

Hope you're getting the help you need. Depression can be literal hell.

Well, that's a rather depressing view on life. I'm on the opposite side of this spectrum. This makes me a rather flegmatic person and perhaps the only thing that makes me at least somewhat worried is not doing enough during my lifetime. If you want to join the ranks of flegmatic people, I'd suggest to diversify your bookshelf with Plato, Hermes and Hesiod.

I also think that there's no afterlife. Soon as the brain stops working, everything goes dark. Eternal peace. I find it comforting in a strange way.

> Eternal peace. I find it comforting in a strange way.

I feel the same way.

But I didn't always feel that way. It took time, a lot of anxiety, a bit of meditation, some drugs, and reading philosophy to get me to the point where I no long really fear death. Sure, the process of dying itself can still be scary, because of the potential for pain. But I'm not really afraid of what comes after.

For OP or anyone else reading this dealing with similar death anxiety: I'd recommend a combination of therapy, philosophy, and some meditation. Psychedelics help some people, but they can also make it worse, so I'd be really careful unless you have a guide that you trust.

The anxiety / fear / angst is a state that arises in your brain and body, as part of the survival instinct. It can also malfunction and kick into a much higher gear. It's possible to sort of re-wire your brain in such a way that it no longer responds to the idea of death in the same way. Your brain shapes your reality, and it's possible to change how you perceive and respond to things. It can just take some work, and maybe some therapy and medication in some cases.

I've actually thought of something that sort of comforts me when I think about death. Our brain is just a mix of chemicals interacting with eachother. When we die, our brain starts to decompose. This changes the chemicals in our brain. At some point, we go from being a being that knows the difference between itself and everything else to being nothing that doesn't know the meaning of self and non-self. We sort of meld into everything else. We lose our identity and become part of everything. It's all sort of hand wavey but it seems beautiful to me. Kind of like an Alan Watts vibe.

Same. I really enjoying sleeping (i.e. being unconscious) and being dead would be the same.

> I'm pretty sure we're just meat sacks and when my heart stops beating that'll be the end of all that I am, and that scares the shit out of me.

Should one be "pretty sure"? I take it you are assuming that materialism is true, that the mind is ultimately dependent on a functioning physical brain for its existence, such that if the brain permanently ceases to function, the associated mind will permanently cease to exist.

But, what if some day, in the infinite future, random processes cause atoms to spontaneously reassemble into a working brain, and not just any working brain, but a proper continuation of your individual particular brain, in proper continuity with your last conscious moment before death? Would that not be a genuine personal afterlife? You can say the probability of such an event is unimaginably small, but can we say that it is absolutely zero? And if it is not absolutely zero, then given an infinite future, any event with non-zero probability will almost surely eventually occur, including that one. Following this line of thought, you can arrive at the conclusion that an afterlife is possible, maybe even likely, maybe even highly likely. But unlike religious conceptions of the afterlife, we cannot be confident that it will make any sense – it is just as likely (even more likely) to be the absurd hell of a solitary hallucinating Boltzmann brain [0] floating through the cold blackness of space, as the final triumph of the just and the good which the Abrahamic religions promise.

In an infinite universe, how certain can you really be that anything is ever permanent, including the cessation of one's existence? Faced with the potential infinity of the future, being certain, even just being "pretty sure", that any end is permanent seems to me to be having far more confidence than one rationally ought to have.

If the choice is between a religious afterlife which makes sense, and a non-religious afterlife of infinite absurdity, maybe we ought to hope that (some) religion is true?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

Everything goes in cycles. All things die and are reborn in some fashion. Not in the Buddhist sense necessarily, but you can't truly end something, just change it so it no longer resembles what it was. You're made of the same stuff as everyone else, and can change to anything. Being sad of losing what you are is only normal, but the alternative of being the same forever is much scarier.

I can relate.

For some of us, religion has answers. My wife's grannie lived long. She told us a bit too long!

The world sort of got away from her. Husband, friends, gone and yet she continues on.

One of her favorite things was to talk about her youth, how it all was. I recorded this for family to come and it gave her great comfort.

Near her end she was not in pain, but just tired. She would awaken and sometimes say, "Oh, I am still here. Ok then, can I get my hot tea please?"

She felt it was time to go home, where others had gone. She wondered why she was still here after so many close to her were already home, gone.

I am not religious, so none of that works for me. I wish it did sometimes.

I have lost people, some recently during this pandemic. I hate it. I hate that I too will be lost to someone to whom I matter.

Hate that an awful lot.

So far, nobody reports back, so this is it for us. I don't fear it as much.

I fear losing mine more than being among the lost.

I hate that lonely feeling when someone is dead, gone forever, no more, but for the parts of them they leave with others.

As I travel, I have come to value experiences, others, and what I can share with younger people, those parts of me that will endure.

Right now, I have balance. This is all OK. I know it will not endure, so I try hard to amplify the good and be present.

When my spouse or I die, the other will be tested hard. We married young and sharing this journey with someone is the best!

We may be here to help others thrive.

I fear neither of us will when our time here together ends. I fear that a lot.

These human experiences are part of what convinces those of us who are religious that there is an aspect of human experience that is not physical. We believe that deep fears and deep connections are evidence of a level of consciousness that goes beyond what other animals are capable of. Yes we do see instances of the animals displaying mourning for dead comrades or even mating for life, but those examples are noteworthy because they are the exception and because they appear to be human. If God has given humans a privileged place in the universe it gives our existence meaning and a hope after death.

We may well be connected in ways we do not understand well at all.

I have a high affinity with animals. They are far more capable and present than many of us recognize.

Here is an observation for you:

Communication. Higher order animals, and us humans have abstractions, and we humans have them deeper and to higher orders than we see, or can understand and relate to, in animals.

Animals live their story. How they move, where they place themselves, and vocalizations all speak to their mind.

They are like us, just simpler.

When animals are in a harmonious environment with one another, and humans who grok them, it is robust. There is joy, wonder, pain, play, love, comfort, nature, and a sense of being present in this world.

They have souls. While they may not burn as brightly as we may understand human souls do, they are unique as we are, travellers as we are.

I strongly question whether we are unique as beings in all this.

We are more complex, and can build on our understanding of one another and the world around us in ways animals do not because of that complexity.

Otherwise, we are all beings here.

What we can do suggests precisely nothing about what, if anything comes after death.

So far, nobody reports back, and we have no definitive record from anyone but us, here alone but for our furry companions.

Please, do not take that as some bad or negative statement to your faith. I simply do not share it, despite seeking it at times.

Like the animals, we are here for a time and that is all.

Or, should this all be a cycle or transitory state, it is for them too.

It may all be one body conscious, for that matter and it concentrates, ebbs and flows through beings of all kinds.

Nobody knows. Maybe we can know, and I hope so one day we do.

Take what comfort you can fellow traveler!

It is all anyone who walks this world can do.

And by all means, enjoy the ride, maybe leave it better than you found it

my perspective on this evolved over time to understand it in a comforting way.

Inside our bodies, cells are constantly dying, and new cells are returning in their place. Death isn't something that happens someday; it's something that is always with us. In this way, we see life and death aren't separate; they're the same thing. There is no "someday I'll be dead." There is only a continuum of change. A cloud in the sky doesn't spontaneously appear and vanish from existence by magic. It appears to be magic, but really we know it just changes forms. Existence and nonexistence are magical inventions of the human mind. Reality is beyond that.

So we have this concept of death as being in a dreamless sleep forever, but that's just a concept of the mind. Whatever we think death is, it's just a thought. Death is beyond thought and concept, so our understanding is forever inaccurate.

We talk about nothingness as if it's being locked up in any abyss. But where did the universe come from? Well, it came from nothingness. If that nothingness can birth a universe and reality, returning to that after death isn't so bad... you're just going home.

It is said that death is impossible for humans to understand. We don't have a concept of 'nothingness.' We like to imagine being in some void.

More simply, I think we just cease to exist and don't feel anything. Just as you didn't exist before you were born, and so on.

My only fear of death is for my family. They depend on me for so much. So, I took out giant life insurance policies, and that gives me a weird comfort in it.

> It is said that death is impossible for humans to understand. We don't have a concept of 'nothingness.' We like to imagine being in some void.

I think the closest we can get pre-death is the experience of being under general anesthesia. It's not a pit, or a void, or darkness. Just a complete cessation.

(Of course, this is assuming that general anesthesia does actually cause the complete cessation of all conscious processes, and not just the formation of memory. I don't know enough to say whether we're entirely certain about that.)

I agree, general anesthesia feels like the closest thing we can experience. It's a little startling to go under, only to instantly wake up a few hours later and realize you just lost those few hours without even a trace. When you're asleep at night, you don't lose the sense of time, but under general anesthetic it's completely gone.

But I totally understand your point about how maybe it's just the amnesia part, maybe you do experience time, you just don't remember. I had the same kind of experience when I had a endoscopy, and I know that I had to be semi-conscious to participate in the procedure, but the time was completely lost to me and seemed instant, just like a general.

Definitely somewhat conscious, for me. Last time I went under, the nurses said they had to hold me down and wondered who Charlotte was, because I kept mentioning her while fighting.

Charlotte was a datacenter I was concerned about at work, pre anesthesia.

This is amazing. Did you tell them afterwards?

I didn't...but not on purpose. I was so out of it when I came to, I didn't even put two and two together. I just said I didn't know anyone named Charlotte.

It wasn't until the car ride home that someone asked me again that I was like...oh, no, Charlotte the city not the person.

a friend's wife is a doctor and her "lights off, that's it" attitude has never sat well with me. I'm surprised to see it repeated so much in this section. for me, I cannot accept that these consciousnesses and shared reality are destroyed

I'm probably quoting someone somewhere sometime with "our bodies are vessels, driven by souls, enroute to infinity", but I think this is the closest approximation to what I mixedly believe about life and death

evidently we are unique in our animal kingdom for having this soul/consciousness, whether it be planted or evolved, created or random

I like to toy with the ideas among civilisations of the belief that their afterlife can be envisioned here on Earth, passing on to a pre-imagined place

I live in the hope that those I love are reunited in death, on some remote-but-familiar plane of existence. the problem with this is that memory must be preserved to some degree and transcribed, as it would be odd e.g. to reunite with my father in his infancy. but problems and their questions such as these rest more easily than the cliche answers to the broader "what happens when"

at first I was hesitant to quote Iron Maiden lyrics here but then remembered a discussion from the other week on rap music, and the beautiful refrain seems poignant, so here goes "I will hope, my soul will fly, So I will live forever. Heart will die, my soul will fly, And I will live forever."

I'd say I'm roughly half afraid, half curious about what will happen when I die, but will never be persuaded it is nothing, so long as I live..

ultimately hope, belief, and online pondering are of little value, just more locks on the door to the unknown

Honestly I can’t understand this perspective, despite having come from a religious background and heard it many times.

When you turn your computer off the RAM is erased, the state is lost. Our brains are running on RAM.

Perhaps we have persistent, non-volatile storage too, but we have no way to access and continue running our conscious, outside of our brain.

There’s nothing to fear about that- it is the world we’ve always lived in, and the state after your brain stops processing is no different from the state of the universe before you were born.

the difference is that computers are manmade, they do not have a consciousness to wonder where they came from. we know how RAM works and that it was designed to forget. the bits that once flowed through them had a predefined source and destination. when they were volatile they were electronic in nature, but once discarded reduced to atoms and heat as exhaust

I agree there is currently no known way to transfer the state of a human brain, like there was no concept of RAM back when religions were started

> evidently we are unique in our animal kingdom for having this soul/consciousness

Why do you say that? We have mountains of experimental evidence that animals of all kinds experience consciousness to a degree that rivals our own. We’re better at some forms of consciousness and they are better at others.

while it's true animals can teach us a lot about ourselves, this obviously has a limit. I would rather believe alien beings interfered with a chimpanzee than the lowly animals could ever match our level of consciousness. when you start splitting consciousness into forms it just gets messier having to account for intelligence, emotions, empathy etc.

when I think of human consciousnesses and souls the first thing I notice is how unalike we are to other animals, it is uniquely human, and the comparison with other animals begins and ends there

I dunno. I think its like my last visit to the dentist with to get my wisdom teeth removed. I had some serious necrotic pain and had to get them removed. Horrible pain. I sat there and the tech shot something in my arm. I said to myself, "That did nothing." I woke up getting rolled out of the office in the wheelchair, remembering none of it. That's how I picture death will be. Remembering nothing.

after many many years of similar dread I came to this conclusion: I have been 'dead' for the past 13 billions years give or take, but then I have been incredibily lucky and won the 'consciousness lottery', that is, for a brief amount of time, just a flickering spark, I know what reality is, I experience what the Universe is, and carbon life on a still beautiful planet (hopefully we'll steer in the right direction), this to me outweights most of the fear... think how incredibly rare is conscious life, and you got super lucky to be aware of it, and yes the ride will end, but what a ride compared to a lump of carbon floating in the endless void forever. We are lucky.

> I'm afraid I might change my mind.

There's no reason to be afraid of your future self. He/she will do and decide what's good and right, with all the knowledge you earned up till know, plus anything to come. Why limit to your current self? ;-)

I am not afraid of death but afraid of painful death. I just want to go away

That's easily my biggest fear right there. Death, while inevitable, is a bitch. But a painful death, that's just cruel beyond words. I've had a couple of touch-and-go medical moments, and there have been instances where I wished for a quick and painless way to off myself. Not to use, but just as an option in case things got to that point.

I’m sorry you feel that way. Death is inevitable. It is natural. It is universal. Birth, Death, and ideally reproduction in between- that’s the essence of life. You have to look beyond yourself as an individual. Humanity was here before you were born, but you were part of it in your ancestors’s genes. Humanity will continue after your death, and you will be part of it in the genes you pass down to your children, and the ripples of your actions in life.

Death is a change, but it hold no more horror than pre-birth. Be at peace. Embrace your time. Live your life with purpose, love, humility and hope. Our ephemerality makes every moment meaningful, enjoy it.

This seems like telling a depressed person "I'm sorry you're depressed when there's so much to be happy or content with." And then proceeding to list all the things you are happy or content with. And then concluding with "Don't be depressed."

I dealt with severe death anxiety for awhile. Reading posts like the one above didn't fix it, but they did give me things to think about, consider, and research. Over time, those types of insight did come to help. I don't think anyone posting here is expecting to receive therapy in the replies.

hmm I didn't mean to come off that way. Obviously I'm not gonna change someone's opinion about something this significant in a single online comment. I'm just genuinely sad that they have that fear. I'm glad that I don't, and tried to present an alternative perspective on a complex issue.

Oh I get it, I didn’t think your motivations were wrong, just that your message wasn’t going to deliver the way you probably thought it would.

The reason I responded was to let you know that so that you could decide if you wanted to adjust your approach or not with more complete information in the future.

I disagree, but CGP Grey says it better in The Fable of the Dragon Tyrant:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZYNADOHhVY

I don't think these are conflicting ideas. We should absolutely do what we can to fight against the aging process, which is horrible in so many ways.

But defeating aging will never mean that we've defeated death. Accidents, murder, disease, and disasters would still happen. And the 2nd law of thermodynamics would still reign supreme eventually, even over effectively "immortal" humans.

So it's important to understand and accept death, even if we continue to work towards a world where nobody has to die of old age.

Immortality would be horrible.

Our brains aren't big enough to hold an eternity of memories, so you would forget who you were to make room for what you'll become. What's the point of immortality without continuity? That's a living death.

And forget about actually cheating death. Imagine if somehow you survived long enough to witness the heat death of the universe. Stuck on some Dyson sphere around a white dwarf for billions of years as the entire universe fades to black and all the things you used to do become impossible because there isn't enough energy to do them. And in the end you still get sucked into a black hole like everyone else, wondering if you are the last living thing in the universe.

Nah I'll just die when the sun still shines.

> Our brains aren't big enough to hold an eternity of memories, so you would forget who you were to make room for what you'll become.

This is already the case anyway.

I still want to live even if I don't remember everything and who I am have changed over time

There's a huge leap from "let's do what we can to defeat aging" to "I don't want to live to see the heat death of the universe".

This is over-dramatizing. For many people, life is obviously a valuable enough experience to be extended many times over.

I also like this related illustrative video about our attitudes to aging and longevity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoJsr4IwCm4

"it holds no more horror than pre-birth" is an excellent way to phrase how I think/feel about it. I wasn't able to be bothered by it then, and I won't be able to be bothered by it when it happens. I'm only able to be bothered by it now, so I mostly choose not to be bothered by it even now.

You weren’t bothered by it because you had no previous experience of life.

I think some (maybe many?) people aren’t afraid of “being dead” they’re afraid of all the things they know exist and are enjoyable.

Life is the greatest, and most tragic blessing. Once you know you can’t un-know.

You can unknow at the point you no longer posses the capacity to know. Which is why pre-birth and post-life are the same.

The mistake is in projecting the current emotions of attachment to the current capacity to experience all the things to a time where no such capacity exists. If you do that you will feel afraid of death in this way. If you see pre-birth as fundamentally exactly the same as post-life and aren't bothered by the pre-birth phase, then you have no problems.

It’s not fear of being dead once you’re dead, it’s fear of losing all of these joys in life while you’re alive and knowing that it’s all going away.

I’m only not bothered by pre-birth because I wasn’t alive to understand the wonderful existence I have now.

It’s like being at a great party but knowing that your ride home is coming soon. I’d rather stay at the party.

Bad metaphor. You're still alive after a party and could go to another. You're still projecting your aliveness onto the dead state. You choose how you feel about it based on how you frame it. If I frame it the way you do, then I feel the same way. If that ever happens, which on the odd occasion it does, I reframe it to my preferred frame and those feelings disappear.

> You're still alive after a party and could go to another.

Hmm. What I’ve said is basically that it’s the only party - but that’s to evoke a feeling not to be taken literally.

> You’re still projecting your aliveness onto the dead state

I’m not sure I follow. Can you elaborate? I’m speaking about specifically being alive and enjoying that, not fearing death in the act of being dead. I fear death as an alive person, not as a dead person.

When I say I fear death it’s not that I fear being dead. There won’t be anything. But as an alive person I know there’s lots of awesome stuff I’d like to be a part of. I would like to continue that experience. I don’t care what death holds.

To summarise "don't think about it".

Why do you fear it as an alive person? I get that you do, and I can make myself feel this way too if I indulge that same frame of reference. But why do you feel those emotions? Losing something hurts. But why do you feel bad about that loss? Most likely it's because you _can_ feel bad about it while you are alive. And, I certainly get that. It does make sense. But I see it as a fundamental error to feel this sense of loss about not being able to enjoy all the experiences of being alive because as a rule I take into account the fundamental state change that occurs after I'm dead. I look at that period only from the perspective of being dead, as that's how I'll be. If you look at being dead from the perspective of being alive, a frame in which you have emotions you can feel, then it feels bad, but this is some sort of strange faux-state that doesn't actually exist in reality as once you're dead you're dead, and while you're alive you're not dead. You're mixing aliveness and deadness together where I choose to cleanly separate them. I don't think about being dead from the perspective of being alive or having had been alive.

Don’t take this as an ill-intention comment but if you live with the perspective of a dead person why not just kill yourself?

Why would you care and why would it matter if you do? Like what’s the point of being alive with such an outlook?

I live with the perspective of an alive person while alive of course. Surely that isn't that tough to grasp?

Sure - sorry. I’m not really following your reasoning from some of your posts above on the topic.

One - that this needs to be is surprising. May be different world views and approaches contribute to this kind of feeling.

Two - you have expressed the sentiment beautifully. I may want to steal it later. Thank you sincerely.

Don't mean to offend, but I find it a remarkable collection of acceptable platitudes on the topic. Yes, death exists. No, it's not something to be in awe of, something to appreciate like a beautiful tree.

Time arrow points in the direction of less beauty existing.

sure, but how does moping about the inevitable heat death of the universe help?

Life is good, we should try to get more of it by taking better care of ourselves, other people, and the fragile blue ball that carries us through space. Eventually the sun will explode and the blue ball will go away. Maybe we can take life far & fast enough to survive that! Heat death of the universe probably catches us eventually. Would it be better for a living things to be scared waiting for cosmic doom?

Sure you need some motivation to keep pushing forward. I think it's good to strive for more life. I think you can do that while simultaneously accepting that you cannot achieve infinite life.

Obviously it's not great to feel the fear of death constantly following you, wherever you go. But it's possible to not have that experience while also not (falsely) accepting death as inevitable. I know because I am neither constantly plagued by the fear of death, nor do I believe it's inevitable.

To say that death isn't inevitable isn't the same as saying it's particularly likely that any of us will evade it, but the chance is not literally zero, and by my own estimates, I say it's non-negligible.

It's pretty uncontroversial to say that life extension technology is possible. There are times in the past when people didn't live as long as they now do. Finding more effective cancer/Alzheimer's/heart disease treatments is life extension. It's within the realm of possibilities that life extension tech will advance enough to let us live for some centuries. Cryonics (freezing yourself after death) is also something that could possibly work. It's possible that in the future, we'll figure out ways to successfully thaw and revive people who undergo cryonics.

Neither of these are immortality, exactly. For that you would need some sort of mind-state backup system or "consciousness uploading." That tech might not be available for a long time, but life extension/cryonics could hold many people over until it's available. Many people believe that it's either impossible, or that it wouldn't "be you" when you were restored from a backup. I think that these positions are wrong, but regardless, anyone who takes such a position has to allow that there's some possibility that they're wrong, and in fact such tech is possible and would work as intended. The theories of personal identity argued in Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit are relevant here.

I think it's important that we don't accept death as inevitable, because if people don't hold out hope of conquering death, then it's less likely that we'll conquer it in time.

I never struggled with an intrusive fear of death, so I don't have detailed suggestions for how to overcome it. But facing up to the fact that you are probably going to die, and introspecting into what specifically makes you so afraid, then taking measures to address it — that sort of thing — will probably help.

Measures that might help, depending on the nature of one's fear:

- Starting a mindfulness meditation practice to learn to notice when you fear death, and learn to dismiss the fear

- Seeking psychotherapy with a similar goal

- Study philosophy. It's possible that your intrusive fear of death stems from contradictory beliefs you hold, and you just haven't noticed the contradiction.

- Registering for cryonics, so that you know that you have done something to fight back against death (this might well increase your fear of death, beware)

- Switch careers to work on life extension technology. When vikings raid your village, you will be afraid. But the nature of your fear will depend on whether you decide to cower in fear or take up arms and fight back. Maybe you prefer the fear felt by someone fighting back.

But remember that death is horrible, and it's right and proper to fear it, as long as the fear isn't too intrusive.

> I think it's important that we don't accept death as inevitable, because if people don't hold out hope of conquering death, then it's less likely that we'll conquer it in time.

I agree it's important and rational to push back against death even if it's impossible to conquer death.

I think you have to believe that Life is Good, and thus we should want More Life. Life extension tech is worth pursuing because additional healthy years give us more life. That's valuable even for relatively small gains.

In fact, I think the "conquer death" argument is counter productive! Nobody has ever successfully avoided death[0]. If you start your argument with "yeah, but what if we STOPPED dying" nobody will take this seriously. Because even if you're right, it's outside the realm of literally all human experience to date, which is a lot to sell someone on.

Better to just say "life is good, here's some tech that could produce more healthy life. Want some?" Because people definitely want some. Health and Wellness is like a $3B market[1]. Why make it more complicated than that?

[0] Maybe Jesus, but if you buy that one it implies a whole different world view.

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/global-health-wellness-market...

I think death is inevitable in the way that in order for further life to continue, there must be death. The reason we love and experience things and go do stuff is because we know we have a limited time in this earth. We make way for the new just like the ones who came before us made way for us.

But then it doesn't sound like you think death is inevitable so much as that it's good.

It looks like you're making two different claims:

1. If you lived forever, there wouldn't be any reason to do anything.

2. Living forever isn't compatible with letting new people be born and live their lives.

To your first point: if you learned you were going to liber forever, would you stop spending time with your friends and family? Would you stop enjoying the time you spent together? I really don't see why you would. You might choose to put off some major life transitions, like having kids or starting a business, but would you put them off forever? If you really would put them off forever, are you sure that it's something you want to do, or do you just feel like you are supposed to do it? Is it a bad thing to let your twenties last 40 years, and only then settle down, because you know you have all the time in the world?

To your second point, I could go on about how there are a number of ways to make immortality compatible with new life, but sure, let's say that there isn't. Then the advent of immortality would be a radical change to the present order of the world. But would it be a bad change? The circle of life is beautiful, but the prospect of no one ever dying ever again is, I would say, good on the scale required to say that it might well be worth sacrificing the potential for new people to enter the world.

I think of it as needed for the species and not for the individual. My and your values currently living have been shaped by our parents and people who we have met. These people have been influenced by the fact that death is inevitable. Our human history has had the inevitability of death looming over it since we went from being non-life to life. I don't think we can judge this based on what I currently would want for myself. My views are shaped around the fact that I can die. And if I woke up tomorrow knowing that I cannot die, I would still have those deeply ingrained values in me.

I'm more worried about the effect on the human species. How would my great great grandchildren act in the world knowing nothing of death or the fear of during from old age? I'm not so sure it's 100% a positive thing and it has the potential to be a very negative thing. Worse than what we have right now.

This is all very fascinating and it's really interesting to speculate though. There's probably just as many arguments in opposition as there are in support.

yeah but you won't even be around for the part where you don't exist or be aware of it, it'll be someone elses problem

It doesn't seem like such a big deal to me.

That we feel this way is what powers life, right? It's not an accident. It serves a function.

> It's not an accident. It serves a function.

The problem is when that function becomes counterproductive by filling you with so much anxiety about death that your ability to live your life is impeded. This happens to a lot of people.

In some ways, us humans are too smart for our own good. We have the amazing ability to mentally time travel, and the ability to understand concepts like our own deaths. These higher level brain functions can clash with more fundamental drives, like the survival instinct. For many people, this conflict can become crippling.

It it wasn't for the fact that today/tomorrow is Easter, I don't think I would have responded like this to your comment.

Of course, everyone will have to make their own decision about whether this story is worthy of believing.

But, I feel I would be remiss if I did not point out that the whole point of Christianity, and especially Easter, is that Death is not the end. Christians believe that God who created the entire universe, took on human form. This man who was God in human flesh, Jesus, did all sorts of miracles. Finally, he was publicly executed by the Romans, and buried in a tomb. However, 3 days later, he rose from the dead!

That is what Christians all over the world are celebrating today! That death is not the end, that Jesus conquered death, and because he rose, if we trust in him, we will also triumph over death.

Death is no longer the feared end to everything, but rather just the doorway to enter into a an unimaginably more exciting and fulfilling life.

I don't think anyone captures that sentiment as well as CS Lewis in the final paragraphs of his book, The Last Battle:

"There was a real railway accident," said Aslan softly. "Your father and mother and all of you are—as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands—dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

OP’s post resonates with me because I know I would feel the exact same way without my faith. I know it’s unfashionable these days to believe that faith and reason can coexist, but I’ve fought that battle for years and can only say my faith grows deeper and my love of reason grows stronger every year. I completely believe that we are the only species that feels existential dread, and it’s because we are designed in a special way for purpose and relationship. I’m not religious because it makes me happy, but nothing else has given me the tools to survive all the horrors life throws at you, and I hope other people can find that solid foundation too.

> I completely believe that we are the only species that feels existential dread, and it’s because we are designed in a special way for purpose and relationship

The alternative explanation is that there's a conflict between our high level of cognitive ability, giving us the power to imagine our own deaths and non-existence, coming into conflict with the baser survival instinct. Design is not a pre-requisite for the feeling of existential dread.

> nothing else has given me the tools to survive all the horrors life throws at you

I'm glad that religion has given you those tools you need, but religion also doesn't have a monopoly on them.

There are lots of stories about immortality, life after death, or rebirth, and there isn't any particularly compelling reason to believe this one over any of the others.

I believe Christianity because I think this universe is broken and all the pain and suffering it includes cannot be good. I reject materialism because it requires a belief in matter for matter’s sake with no other first cause.

Other people of course can come to different conclusions.

You can see as both as a way to bring solace to people so death doesn't looks so meaningless and as a way to justify suffering in this life because the next is so much better.

Two sides of the same coin, compassion and tyranny inextricably linked.

Unless you're not religious and then there is only either despair or acceptance -and this life is the only one we should cherish and fight for.

Thanks for laying this out here like this.

You sound young.

You will change your thoughts as you age.

Some time in my 40s I accepted death. I don't want it to be miserable but I am not afraid anymore of being dead. I think at some point you just notice that your body has seen its best days and life energy starts to diminish. My mom is in her 90s and she often says that she wants this to be over. She still has fun but feels that it's enough.

I agree about growing weary about life is a noticeable trend, among the older relatives I know. Still, human beings are remarkably different. Some are driven by a single overwhelming emotion, like curiosity. To these, I can relate.

Observing different people in my vicinity, I can't help but wonder: why are they so different? Some are energetic, others are not, some are athletic, others are not. Some age faster, others age slower. I can't help but notice that there is some large heritable factor to it, and it waits to be discovered and studied in its fullness.

That’s nice though. I really hope to feel that way when I reach that age (and I hope to reach the age to start feeling tired of life in the first place).

31 years old here, and felt the same way that @koboll has felt for the past 10+ years. I don't know how old I have to get for that view to change, but if I could take an immortality pill I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I have a fair amount of acquaintances who came to realize it is possible to do something about aging, not just sit and wait. Some of these fear death, many not, for those it's just a principled position they assume. Maybe it's a generational thing.

Yes, youth is temporary, but given how much a person can happen to achieve during their youth, why shouldn't these achievements be related to research on aging and modulation of its aspects? I can't fathom how most webapps or adclick networks could be more important things to spend your youth on, than this noble project.

If our generation won't succeed, then our children, or their children's children will. At the very worst, we will leave a good foundation behind us. At the very best, we will be there in sound mind and body to meet them as equals.

31 is still quite young. The more people you see in a box, the less weird and terrifying the prospect becomes.

You want to be immortal just to assuage your fear of dying? That seems like a bit of an overreaction.

Seems perfectly logical to me? I’d do it too. Getting tired of living and finding a way around immortality is a problem for future me.

If I can’t, then I’ll eventually go crazy and the effect is more or less the same.

Well this is why I say it seems like a bit of an overreaction.

I think you're trading in your fear of dying for a far bigger problem.

Not really. I’d be immortal if I could.

I would consider it as well, but not because I'm afraid of dying.

Rather because I think I would enjoy being able to learn about more things.

Wanting to be immortal specifically to escape death seems odd to me.

Part of my fear of death is missing out on the future. Well I get to visit other planets? Will I get to see the resolution to quantum mechanics / relativity? Will I get to see extraterrestrial life? Will I get to see humanity spread among the stars?

I desperately want to see those things. And I'm extremely scared of missing out just because of how frail human bodies are.

I agree to a point, but immortality seems like the wrong solution. Being stuck in a life you _can't_ escape has the potential to be far worse than death.