Eps 1487: The meaning of Life Vs The meaning of Death
— The too lazy to register an account podcast
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Host
Allan Gregory
Podcast Content
Existential psychologists such as Rollo May believe that people should accept the inevitability of their own death and the death of their loved ones; otherwise, they cannot fully accept or find the true meaning of life. But there is also an opposite point of view, according to which life, death or mortality are not at all devoid of meaning, but are a prerequisite for a meaningful life, so that an immortal life will necessarily be meaningless. Indeed, some philosophers even argue that death is the most important feature of a meaningful life; immortality would inevitably deprive our lives of meaning and undermine our happiness.
If life proves to be meaningless, then even death, even if it is evolutionarily valuable, is meaningless. From the point of view of life, from the point of view of the process of being, there is no birth and death. Death does not depend only on life ; on the contrary, life - more precisely, the process of evolution - produced death for its own purposes, and the first complex appeared about 700 million years ago organism. For example, death can be interpreted narrowly as the end of the life function of an organism, so that there is no death without biological life.
If you do not understand death, you will never know life and you will not be able to control life, because life and death are like inhalation and exhalation. If you breathe a little more consciously, you will notice that with each inhalation comes life, with each exhalation death comes. If you are aware, you will see that life and death are happening all the time. Only if you are ignorant and unconscious does death seem to come to you a day later.
As long as the experience feels so real, you can't believe it's going to end up like this. Fear will disappear once you understand that the only thing you can get from life is the growth that comes from living it.
We all recognize that despite our best intentions, life doesn't always go according to plan, or that sometimes we can mess things up. We seem to spend more time planning for death than thinking about what life will be like after death. On the contrary, ordinary life, which lasts no more than 90 years, seems ephemeral, and for many, ordinary life seems completely worthless and meaningless. Human life for me has always strived beyond; it only makes sense if it is a prelude and anticipation of a richer and longer existence.
Some think that the possibility of technological immortality makes human life meaningless, others believe that life can only achieve its full meaning if death is conquered. Many also think that death is the antithesis of meaning, the biggest obstacle to a meaningful life.
The arguments that make such a call are centered on the soul, arguing that the meaning of life comes primarily from the presence of an immortal spiritual substance that comes into contact with the body during life and which will forever survive its death, the body is immortal. Now let's move on to the main arguments for thinking that having a soul will reduce the meaning of life, so if you want life with maximum meaning, you should prefer a purely physical world, or at least one where people are mortal. If there is neither God nor soul, then, with a moderate supernatural, everyone's life could have meaning or even be significant, but no life could show the most desirable meaning.
Whatever one's point of view on the relationship between death and meaning, they are one. The relationship is one-sided, since death cannot occur without life, but life can exist without death.
Life itself is your career, and your interaction with life is your most meaningful relationship. A beautiful life is a beautiful life to be lived with the awareness that when we must live without borders and without borders between our heart and all of humanity. If, as I argue in my contribution to the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to Life and Death, the point is to achieve what we live for and determine what we live for by freely choosing what we should achieve in life , then both mortals and immortals can make sense of life by setting and achieving their life goals.
Meaning is the contribution of death to the success, survival, adaptation and development of life. It is not surprising that the meaninglessness of life engulfs Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilich, or that death occupies a prominent place in world literature on the meaning of life. In some special cases—such as self-sacrifice for a noble cause—death may even be necessary for the full realization of meaningful individual life. Although many studies and theoretical models have shown that life meaning can reduce death anxiety, and self-esteem serves as a major buffer against death anxiety, the tripartite relationship between death anxiety, life meaning, and self-esteem requires further study.
To more effectively explore the psychological mechanisms underlying the fear of death in the elderly, external causes and the process of internalization are included in this study. People can also increase their self-esteem by improving their sense of meaning and purpose in life, which is another defense mechanism against fear of death according to TMT .