Questions tagged [death]

Usually a physical death: permanent state after the end of life, where all vital functions stop. Sometimes in a different context, e.g. spiritual death

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Why do atheist euthanasia proponents consider nothingness preferable to suffering? [closed]

I have heard some atheists support euthanasia, on the grounds that death is preferable to agony. But I don't understand this; if there is no afterlife, death isn't a relief. It's true nothingness, the ...
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What are some criticisms of Epicurus' "death is nothing to us"?

Epicurus famously asserted that death should not be feared, with roughly the following argument: When we die, we no longer exist; Since we no longer exist, we can feel neither pain nor pleasure. ...
commando's user avatar
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Is willful ignorance about one's own mortality escapism?

I don't mean if someone is dying of cancer and they refuse treatment or something -- I'm saying if a healthy person who is unhappy obsessing over his own inevitable death one day chooses to ignore ...
sangstar's user avatar
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The "point" to an Atheists existence [closed]

I've recently become Atheist (I am 45). I've slowly transitioned from my childhood's strong Christian upbringing; through Agnostic; to the point where my rational brain has now extrapolated the ...
Rodney Nim's user avatar
21 votes
20 answers
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What is the motivation of all individuals to stay alive?

What keeps an individual alive? If we make the following assumptions: There is nothing after death, only black. No heaven, no hell, no rebirth. So we don't take anything with us after death and ...
0x30's user avatar
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Does the focus on "humane" killing of animals distract from the real moral problem of killing?

"Humane" in respect to killing animals means to minimize the animal's pain as they die. But this seems to completely sidestep the moral issue with killing, which has nothing to do with the ...
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Is there an ethical basis for killing less intelligent animals (as food) but not killing animals of higher intelligence?

I'd like to know whether morally there would be a difference between killing/hunting animals of higher intellect (apart from humans) and animals generally regarded of lower intellect. If there is no ...
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Do animals know that they are going to die?

This is maybe the wrong website for this type of question, but I'll try it anyway. I've somehow experienced this patterns mostly in cats (not scientifically proven, but pretty common also talking to ...
Shoe's user avatar
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What is the main message Kierkegaard is trying to deliver in his suicidal quote?

In his journal Kierkegaard wrote: I have just now come from a party where I was its life and soul; witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me, but I went away — yes, the dash ...
HaneenSu's user avatar
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What is lost upon death?

If something at the moment of death contains the same matter as that something when alive, what is lost? How does physicalism (physical monism) explain what that loss is?
8Mad0Manc8's user avatar
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Which philosophers have posited that our mortality gives meaning to our lives?

Cancer researcher, Doctor John Wynn gave an interesting talk this year. In it he argues, in short, that it is the fact of our mortality that gives our lives meaning. Which philosophers have discussed ...
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Which authors have discussed death in philosophy?

Could anyone point me to some authors who have discussed the ideas surrounding death in western Philosophy? (Not whether we know we exist but rather the concept of mortality and immortality).
Chris S's user avatar
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Is life the root cause of all suffering?

According to Buddhism, "There is suffering in this world; suffering has a cause; and the cause is desire." So, the desire to stay alive, forces us to work which causes suffering in the form ...
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7 answers
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How can I know that I am not immortal? [closed]

You think that you will die just because everyone dies. And you would like to know if you are immortal. How can you know if you are immortal or not?
Pratik Deoghare's user avatar
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How is knowing that I am going to die influencing my life?

Does the fact that I know I am going to die make me superior in a sense to all the other living creatures that have no understanding of this event? Is the fact that I know that one day I am going to ...
Cristian's user avatar
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What happens to consciousness after death?

Is it possible that our innate sense of self, our egocentric outlook on the world, could be wrong? After all, our brains are never REALLY connected; so we cannot know for sure that our consciousness ...
Philip's user avatar
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Is death impossible because it is impossible to be conscious of being unconscious? [closed]

I looked at a site called The Truth Contest which is a compliation of what "The ultimate truth" is. One of the ideas explored is immortality. Here is an excerpt: You are immortal; it is impossible ...
HazHazzard's user avatar
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What can make death not a bad thing? [closed]

Other than survival, personal or otherwise, what would make death harmless? People talk about living happy and meaningful lives and not wasting the time they have, but is that all that can be said ...
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Reasons to fear death

Epicurus said that fearing nonexistence is not only stupid, it even gets in the way of enjoying life. I agree with Epicurus and I am trying to stop fearing death by thinking about it logically. I now ...
Raymond's user avatar
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Does the concept of existence entail the concept of death?

Does the concept of existence entail the concept of death? I am asking this because many philosophers have tried to prove the existence of god (Descartes through the Meditations) by saying that he ...
Elizabeth's user avatar
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Death: A finite ending?

From the viewpoint of an atheist, when you die, you cease to exist. Your brain has grown old, and can no longer sustain the trillions of electrical signals that constituted who you once were. ...
St Vincent's user avatar
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Questions about nothingness, existentialism, death

I have been feeling really oppressed recently and have been thinking constantly about my own death and what misery the death of a loved one would bring to me as I am stranger to that feeling. I don’t ...
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Is dying in a simulation ever sufficient for death, and if not does that make death inconceivable?

Is dying in a simulation -- any simulation at all -- ever physically sufficient to die at that instant outside it? I mean a simulation like in the film the Matrix, or in a dream, one that kills your ...
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5 votes
1 answer
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How to think about exploiting the body of a dead slave

In a museum in Cuba, the skeleton of a slave is on display. He is named, and he died near the end of Cuban slavery, about 1880. He died in his twenties. I stood looking into the display case. Of ...
emrys57's user avatar
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3 answers
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Can nominalists believe in their own death?

Can nominalists believe in their own death? You often hear people talk about death as nothing-ness, which suggests a universal nothing. And nominalists say that universals do not exist. Just trying ...
luke's user avatar
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1 answer
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Was Socrates of the belief that knowledge was attainable after death?

I've begun reading The Phaedo, wherein Socrates argues against the case of suicide. He begins by assuming that since we as men are possessions of the gods, they would be angered were one of their ...
Dario's user avatar
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Source for (Stoic?) quote on death/(im)mortality

In Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now, there is the following fragment of a question that the author was asked: I read about a stoic philosopher in ancient Greece who, when he was told that ...
user13303's user avatar
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Is there any school of thought or ideology that explicitly advocate suicide?

I was curious if there's any ideology that does not criticize suicide or even advocate it?
Amir reza Riahi's user avatar
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2 answers
10k views

Movies on philosophy similar to "Waking Life"? [closed]

The movie "Waking Life" is a philosophical masterpiece: a quasi non-narrative psychedelic dreamscape exploring the very nature of both existence and non-existence in unpredecented depth. In ...
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Does all matter exist forever?

I was reading about non-duality (spirituality / philosophy) that discusses the idea that everything in reality is one, since any matter can become any other matter, (a tree can become a chair and a ...
Cloud's user avatar
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Is it rationally possible to believe in a sensationless soul after death?

Epicurus's thoughts on death were: -Death is the cessation of sensation -Good and evil only make sense in terms of sensation Therefore: Death is neither good nor evil My (sort of related) question ...
Tobias Ethercroft's user avatar
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How can an attitude toward death be 'appropriate', but unwelcome?

Source: The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life's Biggest Questions (1 edn, 2017). pp. 137 Bottom - 138 Top.   In addition to asking what attitudes toward death are appropriate, we might ask ...
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3 answers
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Sleep and Death [closed]

If sleeping without dreaming (as I usually do) is somewhat akin to being dead (at least as far as our experience in a dreamless sleep is concerned), why are we, then, so very feared of death, but do ...
Nick Cave's user avatar
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3 answers
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Is it right to judge if the life of one person is worth more than ten others?

Let us take a hypothetical situation where you are on a train that is approaching a fork. You are the only person who has the power to control the direction the train takes. If you leave the train ...
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"I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care"

From Wikipedia's page on Epicurus: He also believed (contra Aristotle) that death was not to be feared. When a man dies, he does not feel the pain of death because he no longer is and he therefore ...
coleopterist's user avatar
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1 answer
388 views

Does Valberg's "personal horizon" entail life after death?

The personal horizon is, Valberg contends, the subject matter whose center each of us occupies, and which for each of us ceases with death. This ceasing to be presents itself solipsistically not ...
christo183's user avatar
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4 votes
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Books/resources on non-existence

I believe that after we die there is nothing. The same that was before being born. So while I won’t care about not existing when it happens, the thought of it does bother me now, as I like being and ...
user137369's user avatar
3 votes
3 answers
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What is the philosophical significance of the First Law of Thermodynamics?

The Law states that “no energy can be destroyed or created, for it is constant; it can only be transformed from one form to another”. Do you think this alignes with many of the teachings of Buddhism, ...
Вања Ђурић's user avatar
3 votes
5 answers
2k views

How can death be a release from pain?

Has anyone discussed this particular problem, which may be a subset of Epicurean problems: can death be a good, for putting a stop to pain, even if dead people don't exist? This seems problematic, ...
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3 votes
6 answers
1k views

How close are we to conquering death?

The background for this question is basically I am struggling with the problem of coping with grief of loss of loved ones, past or imminent. (See Death) However, I have been aware of the concept of ...
Sniper Clown's user avatar
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2 answers
193 views

Do we have to know certain things in order to die authentically happily?

Do we have to know certain things in order to die authentically happily? I am especially interested in things we don't need to know know in order to live happily, but nevertheless we do to die happily....
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3 votes
1 answer
1k views

Death and Epictetus

In the Enchiridion, Epictetus seems suggest that goodness and badness are not “in” the world. They are “in” our reactions. For example he says that, “Death, for instance, is not terrible, else it ...
mathamasacre's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
518 views

Does it even make sense to say pleasure has an innate value

I know that Nietzsche claims that some moral systems place too much value on pleasure, and that it isn't innately valuable like they claim. I keep being struck by the idea that it having innate value ...
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2 answers
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What is the point of Heidegger's authenticity

I understand that the analysis of authenticity is part of his attempt to find the meaning of Being. But I'm not quite getting what it means to be authentic in today's somewhat nihilistic world. Is ...
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4 answers
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Are there any refutations to the Generic subjective continuity theory?

The Generic subjective continuity theory is a horrifying one, considering it would entail that we shall experience every concious experience including the worst of tortures ie, burning alive, etc. Are ...
Rayyan khan's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
577 views

A question on Bataille's belief

George Bataille, the French philosopher, believed that death is a means of connecting us, the so-called "discontinuous" creatures, to the "continuity" of being. We desire this, at the same time of ...
developer's user avatar
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2 answers
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Theories of rationality/emotions which make Epicurus' death argument work?

I've read restatements of Epicurus' famous argument which attempt to prove that the fear of death is irrational (I don't know if Epicurus himself ever used a word like this. From what I've read, he ...
viuser's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
645 views

How does the physicalism discuss the line between life and death?

In this day and age with modern medicine, the line between life and death are blurred, as the brain dead may act as if it's alive, and the alive, due to being comatose may be reposed as if dead. What ...
Jesse Cohoon's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
61 views

Can we suffer without suffering harm?

It seems that suffering is the more general term, if only because any harm that someone undergoes is suffered by them. Is there anything that we suffer that is not a harm? I didn't win the sprint, and ...
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3 votes
0 answers
41 views

Kant and "the causes of living"

Once upon a time, I was thinking about the argument for the justification of mass civilian killing that is read off a sense of collective responsibility in "evil nations," and wondered: If ...
Kristian Berry's user avatar