Overcoming fear of death

[@KaneB]

My conversation on Zen with Unknown Knowns Philosophy: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fHzQequlq8mZsLs Classification and kinds: An antirealist view: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l6Onk6WDZ5ymatU The problem of the many: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l6i6oIeBd7aHbpo

[@jamesoneill7263]

Do you offer one on one online tutorials for philosophy undergrads? Paid of course.

[@KaneB]

@@jamesoneill7263 Sure. Send me an email (in my channel description) and we can set something up.

[@JonnyD000]

You're the first person to describe having the same kind of fear of death as me. I have little panic attacks at least twice a month thinking about my eventual non-existence. Unfortunately I don't think the argument in this video is going to cure me but I'm glad you shared it.

[@Liliquan]

Twice a month? Sounds nice. It’s every night for me. The deep dark quite of night is too similar to me.

[@BurnigLegionsBlade]

My health has been quite shit for the last few years so I get to think about my death multiple times a day, it really changes you

[@eldensorrows]

Some days I suddenly awaken from my sleep thinking that I'm gonna die one day and not exist anymore. Then I walk aimlessly in the home without being able think any other thing until I calm down. This lasts approximately 10 seconds or so. Is this a panic attack?

[@guilhermedomingues6360]

i used to feel that way but think about this way what was it like for you in 1900. You cant say anything about that eventual experience because you werent conscious similarly you presumebly willl not have consciousness when you die so it is gonna be exactly like in 1900 wich is the same to say you wont experience anything. Hope this helps at least for me this framework removed my fear of death almost completely.

[@unknownknownsphilosophy7888]

Happy I could help. I love your videos and it's a great feeling that I had any positive impact on your life. You've had tremendous impact on my life given the wonderfully presented educational resources here on your channel, sharing your musical tastes with me and being my internet buddy. Thanks Dawg.

[@TSBoncompte]

this is wholesome af.

[@zachvanslyke4341]

Thanks for sharing this. I’ve personally had more than one mystical experience, both psychedelic induced and completely sober. The best way I can describe it in words is to steal from Alan Watts “to blow out.” It was as if the world evaporated and yet came into a sense of complete infinity simultaneously. There was no self and no other either; all was one yet absolutely nothing. It wasn’t really adding anything to anything, more like it was a dropping away of some kind. Needless to say I’ll never forget it and it’s indeed made death seem more natural and ok… most of the time. 🙏

[@ieronim272]

Death is nothing, growing old is the real terror

[@low3242]

Non-dual experiences are also scary. What's so comforting to be a part of this Ouroboros non-duality which is red in its tooth and claw? This implies the cheek and the slap are same, the neck of a zebra in the jaws of a lion is the same and so on and so on. Just imagine the raw slaughter of billions of years, just non-duality eating itself. This would be a nightmare from which we can't escape.

[@paimon1250]

By Murphy's law, that's exactly why we should believe it ahahhaa

[@low3242]

@@paimon1250 lol

[@joshmason8431]

You are a clever person and reading your comment mitigated my loneliness, if only for a brief moment.

[@MsJavaWolf]

This makes sense but the experience itself is different. It's not a conscious identification with either the neck of a zebra or the jaws of a lion, that would be more like a logical unification of dualistic concepts, it feels more like being an undifferentiated substance.

[@pythia6666]

As a person who struggles with death and existential anxiety, i really liked your point of view on the subject. My fear of death though is mostly based on the process of dying. One thing that helped me is listening to stories of people with near death experiences and how at that moment they were close to death, they were on a euphoric like state and not afraid at all.

[@nandoxus]

Happy to hear you overcame a major fear. I've dealt with the same issue. I used to be extremely afraid of death mainly because I was Muslim and afraid of Hell. Especially in my late teenage years. I used to get panic attacks from thinking about death. I think I lost that fear firstly by leaving religion, and then through shrinking my ego and learning to care less. Eventually I found my self deep in full blown nihilism. I embraced the absurdity and the lack of answers. I made peace with meaninglessness and therefore I accepted the void and I'm not afraid of it anymore. Nothing can hurt me there.

[@jacklessa9729]

I adore how you are open to hear new ideas and arguments and talk about them publicly. Many philosophers are so afraid to be wrong they only will talk about new ideas and arguments before years of study to avoid be wrong and funnily they are wrong LOL(Derek Parfit was not like that, he used to send ideas and arguments to other philosophers to know what they think and they used to do the same with him, Peter Singer said they read each others work way before publication and this help them a lot to see problems they couldn't see before.) I'm not afraid of death, I'm horrified about having a bad life. I had psicodelic experiences and heard buddhist talk and they were not helpful to me at all: 1 - When I was using psicodelic something quit "Buddhist" was happening to me, I was very altruistic person, in the sense I started to help everyone(I was believing we are all one) . The problem?! I started to be very abused. People look at me as someone who they could gain for free and take it for free. When this started to happen I realized that hurt, I realise that was at list one separation between us, that was at list one think that made me be me, I feel my feelings and they feel theirs feelings. I'm something that feel separate from them. (Even in psicodelic experience I did not know who I was, but I still felt the feeling. This actually change my view on Alzheimer's and I don't think is that bad if you have someone to treat you nice if you have Alzheimer's. I believe even if someone loses all his memories this person will still be the one who will feel what the body are sensoring, the difference is that this person will lose the power to choose and change what to feel. I do not believe is possible not to suffer like many Buddhist that come here say that is, so I'm terrified about a bad life and I do all I can to scape suffering that I believe can Actually work.

[@jacklessa9729]

"I rather have a false believe about this and live happily in ignorance than know the truth and comeback to been consumed with terror every night. " Come to experience machine side, Anakin Skywalker

[@KaneB]

I've always said that I'd enter the experience machine in a heartbeat.

[@timk7073]

I have had the experience you describe while taking psilocybin mushrooms. My advice to people who are hesitant of trying this (and having a bad trip) is to be in a safe, comfortable environment, and only with trusted and very close friends/family. I am agnostic regarding God, but I do recall a very peaceful experience, and a "one-ness" with the universe and all living things. This experience was profound and changed my perspective on death, as well (no longer as terrified of non-existence as I once was).

[@BurnigLegionsBlade]

I'm honestly surprised how few philosophers concerned with consciousness, meaning, afterlife try psychedelics since they can be so insightful. I experienced what you're talking about as well on shrooms

[@depressivepumpkin7312]

I found Zen Buddhism reasoning and counscious deconstruction of Self very effective in overcoming the fear of death, I had a very similar experience this summer, no DMT was involved.

[@johnholmes9435]

My discovery of my philosophy took place during the summer between eighth and ninth grade (1971). I was visiting my grandmother at her house in a small town in Illinois. One afternoon as I was sitting out on her front porch swing thinking about the relationship between our subjective sense of reality and the objective world itself, an extraordinary idea came over me. I suddenly saw human consciousness as a purely natural structure, an accidental product of evolution. All of our thoughts consisted of references to things; we could not be conscious of anything at all without making such a reference to that thing. These references in turn were built out of concepts that had a definite structure. Here was the crux of my vision. The structures that the concepts possessed had no fundamental significance in the universe. They were simply artifacts of a certain natural process. The structures allowed us to make coherent references to the world, and they allowed us to interpret our sensory input and take actions that would successfully achieve ends we desired, but beyond these functions they were quite arbitrary. I did not forsake my belief in the objective world (indeed, the notion of an objective universe became central to my philosophy), but I saw the notion of a common objective reality as vacuous. Reality had retreated into the minds of individuals and was no longer a public superstructure. The objective universe, on the other hand, had become something ultimately transcendental and awesome. We could refer to it in a multitude of different ways, but we could never capture it with our minds, never engulf it within our souls. It was the primordial ultimate stuff of being. I felt a tremendous sense of mystery and awe just looking out at the rocks and trees in front of me. They somehow managed to exist out there, totally independent of my consciousness of them. It was so strange. Then I thought of myself. Even I was part of the transcendental universe, ultimately beyond definition. Any self-image that I might have had no longer had any ultimate significance. I could try to make sense of myself, but I could not capture myself in an image.

[@radscorpion8]

Well this probably doesn't fit into the category of zen/buddhist experiences, but I have had one auditory experience of communicating with what appeared to be a spiritual entity (I called them guides) external to myself when I was a teenager (I was into new age stuff a lot, and am still actively engaged in the Neville Goddard subreddit where people share their various experiences using his techniques). I can't replicate the experience, although the entity did tell me that it is extraordinarily difficult to communicate directly with me and that the circumstances were very fortunate for it to occur, but yes, I'm pretty sure it happened, especially as I documented the experience in my journal a few days later specifically so I wouldn't write it off as a dream or a hallucination. I had a deck of cards by my windowsill that I kept randomly shuffled just on the off chance one day I would actually communicate with them, and these guides told me each number before I flipped each card over. After 9-10 cards I stopped as the chance I was making it up was too small, and the voice was too real in my mind. I suppose, you can claim its all a hallucination. I felt perfectly lucid at the time. I continued to pursue a career in engineering, then physics before finally settling down as a programmer thanks in part due to my enjoyment of computational physics. But I still remember the experience and the advice these entities shared with me. I definitely think there is life after death, but I don't know what it is or what governs it. I just find it fascinating, and am continually searching for ways to recreate that event. I tried some psychedelics, but Ayahuasca in particular made me terrified as I thought I was going to die lol. I just ended up puking, and my vision started vibrating. But nothing else really happened. I like to think I heard my spirit guides, but there is really no confirming evidence like I had before, so I can't treat it with the same weight. I try to be rigorous and careful in my beliefs, though I hesitate to share them with anyone as I know the first reaction will be mockery, and on youtube it is likely no different. But in the spirit of assisting you I thought it might be helpful. I'm definitely not a theist and will never be a Christian. That religion and its God are too illogical to be real, and I think if God did exist he would probably be some combination of amused and embarrassed by the bible, if he cared at all.

[@theoutsiderhumanist8159]

I'm happy to hear that you've shed your fear of death. I've never understood all the talk about "nothing" that I hear from Buddhists but I'm excited to listen to your conversation with Unknown Knowns.

[@KaneB]

I don't understand it either. But why should I have to wait until I understand it in order to get the benefits of it? haha

[@dionysianapollomarx]

@Dharma Defender that kind of makes sense

[@WackyConundrum]

The reason why people feel "it's more real than everyday reality!" on psychedelics is because of the extreme stimulation of the sense cortex. People experience sensually to a much greater extent.

[@Hhhhhhhhhhy]

There are so many repeating themes among the experiences of those that have tried DMT. I will say that the experience of trying it myself has definitely greatly shifted my perspective on what is real and what is really important. It completely eliminated my fear of death, and helped me conquer a battle with addiction. There absolutely should be research done into how these types of experiences can benefit people!

[@KaneB]

That's great to hear that it benefitted you! I'm wary of doing psychedelics because I've struggled with panic attacks in the past and I'm concerned that I might have a bad trip.

[@Hhhhhhhhhhy]

@@KaneB That is understandable, but as you said in your video, DMT isn’t tripping. It’s venturing into another realm. Lol. But really, it isn’t for the faint of heart. It comes with a deep understanding or sense of purpose but there are two sides to the coin.

[@Hhhhhhhhhhy]

I didn’t mean to imply that you are faint of heart **open mouth insert foot**

[@KaneB]

@@Hhhhhhhhhhy I am faint of heart though. I'm a total coward. Haha.

[@Xcalator35]

@@KaneB Yep! I don't try psychedelics for exactly the same reason. Even a simple joint can bring me massive panic attacks.

[@Caligulahahah]

Love your content. Keep it up! Excellent as always

[@KaneB]

thanks!

[@myopicman]

Its really interesting that you and I have both come to the exact same cope for the inevitability of death. I remember when I was a child the fear of death would just cast over my life, I still get this today but has been massively reduced since hearing the mystical experiences of others as well as my general agnosticism towards metaphysics, the final thing that kinda hit this was when I did acid at university and had what was likely fairly close to one of these experiences, at the very least it altered my perception to the extent that I found the idea of my sober thoughts being at all mirroring reality (as much as I apologize for your empiricist ideas haha) In short, I bask in my incredulity, skepticism and reports of perceptual madness to calm my mind towards oblivion.

[@myopicman]

Towards the end it seems very clear that we both have had similarly apocalyptic fear towards death, great video.

[@justus4684]

That monk that burned himself and seemed to just chill is also weird

[@zachvanslyke4341]

It also helps to remember that 110 billion or so hominids have perished before us, seems silly to worry about it too too much… I know I’ve made mistakes in life but I’ve also tried my best to love and serve others on any given day, as I’m sure you and most of us have, and that’s really all any of us can do in this world of form. 🙏

[@umangmalik]

honestly the way you describe your fear of death sounds a lot like a symptom of depression

[@KaneB]

Yeah, people have said this to me before when I did the video on pessimism. It seems very unlikely to me. I mean, I'm definitely mentally fucked up -- I've struggled with panic attacks for over a decade and I'm introverted to an almost pathological degree -- but I don't think I'm fucked up in that particular way. I don't have enough of the other symptoms of depression.

[@umangmalik]

@@KaneB do you have a therapist? ik it's a personal question you don't have to answer

[@KaneB]

@@umangmalik No

[@remotefaith]

Further evidence that depression is a fraudulent diagnosis

[@umangmalik]

@@remotefaith actually i know it's not because i cured your mom's depression yesterday

[@SingedAndZoeGaming]

What about how we’ve come into existence once, and to us it felt instantaneous compared to the age of the universe, and the observation from others. Who’s to say we can’t come into existence again?

[@WackyConundrum]

I like your videos so much!

[@WackyConundrum]

We already know that expert meditators have very consistent experiences, sometimes described as "seeing the world for what it is". If so, then a) it gives credence to their words, and b) you could try it yourself. I would recommend a book to learn how to properly learn appropriate skills at each level of meditation adeptness: _ The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness_ by John Yates.

[@KaneB]

I dunno about trying it for myself, I'm really lazy. I can't be bothered to get into meditation. Especially since I appear to have already achieved a major benefit of it without even doing it, lol.

[@tomatomanXD]

@@KaneB nah give it a go, also check out weird studies pod they have some good resourcces for that stuff

[@nategibso]

I think experiences of no self are conceptually compatible with physicalism. You can think of the mind as a software that runs on brains, and conscious awareness weakly emerging from a part of this mind software. During normal perception, the contents of consciousness include things like a self model and a 3d external world space which is something like a game engine that your mind is computing (constrined by sense data). These contents are constructed by the mind. If you take DMT, those contents may dramatically change, like if you no longer have a self model that fears death. This would not give you access to another reality, but it may give you evidence about how the mind works.

[@Songriquole]

I know logical arguments can only go so far in making fears like these disappear, but personally the fear of death doesn't affect me precisely because it wouldn't make sense within my philosophical positions. Particularly, I don't think the concept of "death" or "nothingness" makes any sense. To be afraid of death you'd have to be afraid of a state, but by definition "being dead" isn't a state - actually "being dead" is a logical contradiction. I guess that's the main argument in the end, close to ancient philosophy, but put in a more logical way : Death is a contradiction, it's logically impossible. Dying is possible, but that's it. It wouldn't even make sense to say "there's nothing after that" because that would also be false, also a logical contradiction. Whenever we think of death, we're fooling ourselves I think, because we're missing what we think we're thinking about. In other words, it's logically impossible to think of death - whenever we think of death, we're imagining a fantasy-state. In fact, I think it reveals something a little odd about death, if we insist in using this contradictory and weird term : If death is non existence, a lack of experience, etc, that means that whatever you're not experiencing right now is "you being dead" in a way. Past you is dead, future you is dead, the "you that is currently doing something else in another room" is dead, because he doesn't exist. Whatever you're not currently conscious of and experience is "dead". Of course this is absurd, but to me it's a nice way to imagine, and to show, that whatever isn't me is dead - and if I'm dead, I can't be the one that's dead. Or in any case, death doesn't really exist, it's just a reified idea. I know it's some kooky reasoning to some extent, but I feel it helps "get" the contradiction of death. Life sucks anyway so I can't be worried about something that would stop the pain or boredom.

[@KaneB]

Can't we just rephrase it as something like: "one day, my conscious experience will cease"? That doesn't seem to be contradictory. But that fact was absolutely terrifying to me. That is, I disagree that fear of something necessarily requires being afraid of a state strictly speaking.

[@ktidg]

If that's enough to reduce/stop your fear of death, it sounds like you just needed a mental justification to allow yourself to choose to stop caring/focusing/fearing death.

[@Oskar1000]

Kane in an earlier vid. Life is not worth living but don't you worry guys, I'm not gonna off myself because I have a very strong fear of death. Kane now, I've gotten rid of my fear of death This feels ominous

[@KaneB]

I still don't want to die, but honestly, I'm no longer sure why that is. I do think that life is shit, that so far it hasn't been worth living, and that it's probably going to get worse.

[@samuelkristan5452]

Fear of death wasn't omnipresent for me, it was something I only felt when my mind wandered in that direction, but I recently had a realization/experience that significantly decreased that fear. I had a dream, in which I came to know for certain that I would reincarnate after death, and re-live the life of every single human that ever lived. All the lives riddled with disease, ended in war or tortured to death, I would have to endure with no way out. After waking up in fear of this fate, and catching my bearings, I realized that fortunately the fate that was revealed in the dream is almost certainly not true. After thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that death sucks, but every conceivable fate sounds even worse. I don't want to die anytime soon, but if I had to choose an ultimate fate, it would be oblivion.

[@alexanderlomashvili8501]

Imagine being afraid of death. Couldn't be me.

[@KaneB]

@@JustADudeGamer There are loads of things that I care about that I'm not afraid of losing. If anything, for me that's the normal mode of caring about things. I wouldn't be bothered if I lost the majority of my material possessions, for instance.

[@KaneB]

​@@JustADudeGamer If I were saddled with a kid, I'd be delighted at the thought of losing them. Lol. But we can modify the example slightly: there are people in my life that I love deeply, but as far as I can tell, I'm genuinely not afraid of losing them. I don't want to lose them, and I'd take steps to prevent that from happening, if it were in my power to do so. However, I know that sooner or later that won't be in my power. This doesn't bother me. I speak from experience here: I was very close to my mother, and when she died, I never experienced any grief. The suffering she was subjected to before her death (cancer) did bother me a lot, but not the death itself. This attitude isn't a result of thinking about ideas from Buddhism either. This is just how I've always been. >> I just hate the terminology of "fear of death" as if you're either anxious all the time about it or someone could put a gun to your head and you wouldn't feel the slightest worry. Fair enough. Bear in mind that I was anxious about it all the time, though. Indeed, "anxious" significantly understates how I felt about it!

[@KaneB]

@@JustADudeGamer Unfortunately, I still struggle with panic attacks. At this point, I don't expect those will ever go away entirely, even though I've developed tools for controlling them. Sorry to hear that you've been experiencing them. I agree that philosophical argument is unlikely to prevent them.

[@geraldharrison5787]

Surely it is a purely psychological matter how one overcomes a fear? The philosophical question is whether death is actually worth fearing - that is, is death a harm to the one who dies? And here the answer is, I think, a clear 'yes'. Everything our reason tells us implies death is a harm - and an immense one - to the one who dies. For example, our reason represents us to have prudential reason to avoid death under almost all circumstances. The only exception seems to be cases in which we are suffering terribly and irrevocably. That implies that death is extremely harmful to the one who suffers it, for it is only under circumstances in which one is being - or about to be - harmed immensely that it becomes the lesser harm. Furthermore, until or unless one is in such a situation, one has prudential reason to avoid death - forever, if one can. That is, it seems to make no difference how long one has been alive already. If you've been alive 10 years, 100 years, 100,000 years - it makes no difference to whether one has prudential reason to avoid death, if other things are held equal. This implies - I think - that death is a harm of infinite quantity. For our reason represents an infinite amount of life here (in which one is not suffering terribly and irrevocably) to be preferable to death. That would include, then, an infinite amount of life of mild discomfort. An infinite quantity of life of mild discomfort is - our reason is telling us - more in our interests than death. But the only thing worse than an infinite amount of mild discomfort is an infinite amount of less than mild discomfort. If that is correct, then our reason is telling us, in so many words, that death delivers a harm of infinite extent. Admittedly, I do not believe these representations would be accurate if death ended our existence. For then it is hard to see how death could harm us at all, much less infinitely. But that means our reason is telling us that death does not end our existence.

[@blankname5177]

I find you ability to act based on just rational argument really unique. I know I have lot of irrational fear but knowing that it is irrational doesn't make it go away.

[@KaneB]

This really surprised me too, actually. I never expected my fear of death to be so responsive to rational argument. After all, I know that horror films are fiction, but I still experience fear when watching them... and (embarrassingly) occasionally that fear remains even after they're finished. In this case though, there was a moment when the argument I outlined in the video "clicked", a moment when I decided to endorse it intellectually, and within seconds I felt my fear lift. Perhaps it turns out, contra Hume, that passion is the slave of reason.

[@blankname5177]

@@KaneB Lol. Idk you like horror films. Good taste mate.

[@Liliquan]

Damm, you’re wearing the I just murdered someone gloves whilst recording a video on not fearing death.

[@WackyConundrum]

The non-self experiences don't invalidate intersubjectivity. It's easy to explain through the two truths doctrine*: there is so "Self" ultimately, but conventionally there are persons who talks to reach other and verify reach other's accounts. *) from Nagarjuna.

[@zachheisen5022]

As you yourself pointed out I necessarily expect a physicalist explanation for the 'mystic' experiences, one having to do with shifts in brain chemistry and such which given a large enough sample size (the human race) could easily just manifest at some point, like shakespear from a million monkeys

[@WackyConundrum]

If you like constructivism, then you would enjoy reading _The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika_ translated and commented on by Jay L. Garfield. And some good commentary on Kant.

[@KaneB]

thanks for the recommendation

[@jeremymosa2678]

I don't get it. I'm personaly scared to live. I'm scared of the cold, the frustration, the hunger, in brief I'm anxious about all the physical and psychological pain of being alive. Dead people don't suffer, death should be way less scarier than life !

[@KaneB]

Yeah life sucks. I don't find it particularly scary, but it is kinda shitty.

[@oudgrieksgerecht7530]

I know exactly what it feels like to be consumed by the fear of death to where it kind of makes everything have a gloomy undertone. For some reason that fear was reduced for me without some calming thought. In the last few years my biggest fear shifted to losing my mind. In particular the fear of developing schizophrenia. I have no reason to believe i’d ever develop it and in that sense i’ve always been stable. But especially because of the thought that perceivable reality for us consists of abstractions. I can only imagine that perceivable reality for an individual, or whatever part in them that creates it for them to perceive, is very fragile or quick to lose it’s function as we know it. Just like how you said we could maybe stop perceiving in abstractions for a second. Hallucinations might be the other way in which it could malfunction. I wonder what you think of this?

[@paulaustinmurphy]

I've just written various things on Bernardo Kastrup, near-death experiences, Cosmic Consciousness, etc. As a consequence of all that, I'm utterly convinced that people concoct all these philosophical(?) theories primarily because of their intense and omnipresent fear of death - which you say that you've had. But that is a problematic position when it comes to philosophy because it is psychological in nature. After all, I can't read other people's minds and therefore I can't demonstrate that my conviction is correct. (That said, many people admit to their fear of death. However, not many people also admit that their philosophical theories are tied to - or a product of - their fear of death.) Also, if I believe that a belief in, say, the afterlife (as "seen" in near-death experiences) is motivated by a strong fear of death, then an opponent may say that my own philosophical theories are motivated by me NOT fearing death - or on something else outside the argument itself. So arguments and data need to be used against these philosophical (actually, religious) positions - which, as I see it, isn't at all hard. Still, if a very strong fear of death is really calling the shots, then arguments and data will almost inevitably fall on deaf ears and therefore fail.

[@johnholmes9435]

I believe that the terror of one's own prospective death does indeed come from our intuitive belief that we are a unified self, simple in both space and time. If the self is thought to be simple in time, this may explain why we have an especial concern for our own future happiness and freedom from pain; it is the same self that will experience that happiness or pain, just as it is the same self that minds both of two concurrent pains. The self at a given time can’t be divided into two parts each minding only its own pain, because the self has no parts. Similarly, the self in time cannot be divided into temporal parts, each minding only its own pain. If the self has no temporal parts, then it cannot cease to exist. But we can imagine all of our experience ceasing to exist, including experience of our own thoughts, feelings, memories, etc. On death, the self would be cast into an ultimate darkness, an eternity in absolute void. Naturally this is frightening. It is a vision of a subtle but stark form of hell. In my near death event a couple of years ago, I was not aware of my peril until after it was all over. But at that point, I became terrified by the fact that I almost lost my final opportunity to fulfill my life's purpose. Once that is accomplished, death becomes merely a constraint on how long I get to "stay up and play" before going to sleep for the last time.

[@Cookiekeks]

Isn't the much simpler argument that A) You want to have a pleasant life and B) Fear of death is totally unpleasant, and C) that the fear of death doesn't serve some kind of ultimate goal which eventually makes you more happy, and therefore, it's not good to fear death?

[@justus4684]

6:36 I think it is interesting to consider, that you would only think they are behaving crazy, if you perceive your behavior as sane But how do you know that you aren't crazy and they are sane? In fact you don't, since every reasoning process you come up with presupposes that you are sane

[@magnesiummike]

You're thinking of Rick Strassman! His work and other work are trying to destigmatize this field and these types of questions. I hope lots more interesting academic work will be done on this.

[@KaneB]

Yep that's the one. I read his book "DMT: The Spirit Molecule"

[@magnesiummike]

@@KaneB You might also enjoy David Nichols's work. Nichols was Strassman's chemist for the DMT study. He and Strassman disagree on a few things, but Nichols is equally impressed by the power of DMT to reduce death anxiety. It's interesting because Nichols strikes me as a much less spiritual person than Strassman.

[@KaneB]

@@magnesiummike Interesting, I will look into his work. Although I enjoyed Strassman's book, I did feel that some of his suggestions were rather outlandish at times -- that's not necessarily a criticism, as it's worthwhile to explore bold hypotheses, but it would be good to hear the views of somebody more "grounded"

[@magnesiummike]

@@KaneB Ah then I bet you'd like Nichols. Many good interviews with him on KZbin.

[@DeadEndFrog]

The begining of this video is so funny to me. This is why you are my favourit youtube philosopher! I don't find the argument convincing, but i also don't feel a need to argue against it. For me, death is prefrable to eternal life, as that just seems tiresome to live eternally. Given that life was forced upon me, the whole goal is to die in a great way.

[@TheBestJudje]

Thanks for the video! One objection occurs to me. If people were able to "come back" and talk about their experience, then they are not dead. If they had an experience of death, they wouldn't come back to tell about it. Thus, the experience they are talking about is not an experience of death, it is an experience of something else.

[@KaneB]

I don't think that mystical experiences are experiences of death. I don't expect I will have any experience at all when I die. I still believe that death will be the permanent cessation of my consciousness. What's changed is my attitude towards that.

[@tomatomanXD]

sounds like a good position, i feel wat ur saying and feel the same

[@GregoryLopez1]

Did you consider the Epicurean argument against fear of death previously, and if so how did it affect you?

[@KaneB]

Yeah, I heard that one a lot. It never moved me at all. If anything, it always struck me as more a description of what's uniquely terrifying about death, rather than a reason to be unafraid.

[@MrBoooooring]

I might be completely off here, but are you feeling okay Kane? Several things you said about your ever-present fear of death reminded me of the experience I had a few years back as I went through depression. Morbid ruminations, as they become debilitating, can be a symptom of it. I hope that's not where you're headed right now. Take care

[@KaneB]

I've struggled with fear of death since I was a kid. This video is about how I've gotten over this fear. So in this respect, I'd say I'm heading in a positive direction, if anything.

[@JohnSmith-yt8di]

As an atheist I think there is some pretty good evidence for the afterlife and the continuation of our personality after we die.

[@anonyme2878]

Elaborate

[@0x400Bogdan]

I doubt that you would argue that you can get rid of hunger or being cold with some unique experience in the past, or a clever argument. How is being afraid of death fundamentally different from these feelings? I would argue that one can’t become immune to the fear of death.

[@alexanderlomashvili8501]

14:07 is golden. This is an ironclad argument.

[@KaneB]

that's good to know lol

[@itisakubrow6361]

I guess its an interesting argument but its hard to tell what its actually an argument for. If I'm following correctly it seems like you're saying that some people have experiences which you view to be perfectly consistent with your worldview and metaphysics and because your beliefs wouldn't really change very much were you to have those experiences, your beliefs if taken completely to heart (with perhaps some added pragmatism) would result in you no longer fearing death. So because of that, "why should [you] wait for one of those experiences to occur in order to give up [your] fear of death?" Personally I'm just not sure why fear of death or not fear of death would be the better response to that. I guess its a bit like those arguments about being, on the grand scale, rather irrelevant but I've just never understood why this kind of argument should change any kind of attitude that anyone would have. Like if the idea is that these convictions about who we are and what exist are totally arbitrary so we should just have whatever attitudes are best for us then I'm just not sure why that would motivate anyone to have any one set of convictions over any other. It seems a bit like learning that other people are doing something which you will never or likely won't have the opportunity to do which makes them quite and then deciding to feel happy because why should you wait for that experience just to have happiness? Well, this makes experience in it of itself kind of irrelevant to coming to that conclusion of being happy because all of a sudden people can simply will themselves to be happy just by knowing that happiness exists. Where at the argument seems to rely on a mystical experience being something which changes someone's attitude towards death, it also relies on that experience being a bit irrelevant to changing someone's attitude because you can just lose a fear of death by knowing that some people do that have that experience. What used to be "why should [you] wait for one of those experiences to occur in order to give up [your] fear of death?" simply becomes "why should be afraid of death?" and while I'm not sure why someone should be afraid of death I wouldn't expect them to ever will it to just not be the case. Maybe I'm wrong though and I really hope that this doesn't change your mind like you mentioned at the beginning. I also find it interesting that you've wanted to believe in an afterlife but just couldn't because I find mortality rather comfortable and the idea of there being an afterlife completely terrifying to the point that, even though I've always been an atheist and rather disdainful for anything supernatural, I do kind of fear the thought of living forever in heaven. I certainly wouldn't want to die tomorrow but I really hope that I die (permanently) some day.

[@KaneB]

>> Personally I'm just not sure why fear of death or not fear of death would be the better response to that Well, fear of death totally sucks. That's why no fear of death is a better response, lol. >> It seems a bit like learning that other people are doing something which you will never or likely won't have the opportunity to do which makes them quite and then deciding to feel happy because why should you wait for that experience just to have happiness? Interesting point. I'm not sure what the relevant difference is. Perhaps part of it is that the loss of death anxiety is prompted by the non-self experience, but it is not tied to the experience in the way that pleasure is tied to particular experiences. I'm happy when I'm having sex, but once I stop having sex, I might become miserable again. The non-self experiences seem to lead to a lasting reduction of death anxiety. >> What used to be "why should [you] wait for one of those experiences to occur in order to give up [your] fear of death?" simply becomes "why should be afraid of death?" I disagree. It matters that some people have the mystical experience, so the mystical experience is not irrelevant in this way at least. I don't see this as in principle different to trusting other kinds of testimony. >> this doesn't change your mind like you mentioned at the beginning. So obviously, I don't have a particularly good response to your comments, but this hasn't changed my attitude at all. I still endorse the argument I gave in the video.

[@QuiVeutUneMerguez]

I really like this video.

[@real_pattern]

is that the sort of glove that stimulates your skin to prevent tremors? or the kind of glove that exists to stimulate thoughts and ideas about those gloves, infecting conscious states as a sneaky, viral glove-qualia?

[@ferdia748]

why you wearing gloves inside

[@KaneB]

My hands are always painfully cold. Sometimes my fingers go blue. I'm pretty sure I have some kind of circulation problem. I've spoken to doctors about it and they all say I'm fine though.

[@0x400Bogdan]

@@KaneB Sounds like asthma.

[@BurnigLegionsBlade]

Since our perspectives are virtually identical on afterlife and ethics and we seem to have a similar psychological constitution(I don't care at all about animals, my empathy is limited to the things that benefit my wellbeing), I would be curious if a drug induced experience would cure you completely of your fear of death ( I tried psylocibe and I had one of those return to monke moments and it just strengthened my preexisting belief that reality is just a matter of subjective experience and that's all that matters and if you managed to get yourself into a state of mind where you're serene, who cares if it's not true with a capital T)

[@anzov1n]

Thanks for sharing. I won't attempt to refute this argument but honestly it is a bit disappointing (as someone who is still terrified of eternal non-existence). It kind of boils down to popular reports of some psychological state of very much living brains (we don't need to patholagize it with terms like "hallucination") which involve the subject of non-existence. To me the interesting part of the argument isn't about anticipating your future experience matching these reports but whether having a vivid experience has anything at all to do with non-existence. Why not ask recovering coma patients how profound unconsciousness felt? That at least has some resemblance to death.

[@KaneB]

I don't anticipate that my future experience will match these reports. Indeed, I don't anticipate that I will have any future experience once I die. Perhaps I didn't make this clear in the video, but my beliefs haven't changed at all. I still believe that when I die, I will cease to exist; and I still see no compelling reason to believe that I will come into existence again at any point in the future. If people reporting mystical experiences were claiming to have access to some sort of afterlife or anything like that, they would be invoking a metaphysical framework that I have independent reason to reject, so I would not be inclined to trust their reports. >> Why not ask recovering coma patients how profound unconsciousness felt? Yeah, that's a good idea. As far as I can tell, their reports do not pose any serious challenges to any of my beliefs.

[@anzov1n]

@@KaneB Do i understand the argument? To me it seems to go something like: After a certain set of experiences a diverse sample of human beings consistently report no longer being afraid of death. I am a human being. It is therefore expected that i will also no longer fear death if i were to have a similar experience. Since I can reasonably expect to not fear death i will go ahead and not fear death now. Is this a fair outline? I don't intend to push back, i just want to make sure I'm not missing something obvious.

[@KaneB]

@@anzov1n Yeah, pretty much. Importantly, I think there are good reasons to trust these experiences, rather than explain them away as mere hallucinations or whatever.

[@joelturnbull4038]

I wonder whether anyone who has such an experience then faces an increased fear of death, and whether that would then function as a counter-example to your argument?

[@KaneB]

Yes, it would. If it turns out that a significant minority of people who have such experiences end up with an increased fear of death, where this can't be attributed to other factors such as brain damage after the incident, for instance, my argument will no longer convince me.

[@naturalisted1714]

Your original fear of an unending "non-experience", or "eternal oblivion", is a fallacy that was debunked by philosopher Tom Clark in his essay "Death, Nothingness and Subjectivity". Sam Harris did a podcast episode about it (The Paradox Of Death). I implore you to read Clark's essay. You'll be able to find it with a basic Internet search.

[@KaneB]

Yeah, I've read that article before. It didn't move me at all, unfortunately. It seemed like playing with words to me. Okay, so phrases like "eternal oblivion" and "permanent nonexistence" are perhaps somewhat misleading insofar as they treat death as a positive state that will occur to me. It remains the case that one day, I will cease to exist, and that's what terrified me.

[@naturalisted1714]

@@KaneB Cool. Do you feel like you understood what he was talking about (Generic Subjective Continuity)? I've made several videos on it - in a few I try to convey it visually. In my playlists, you'll find a playlist called "Generic Subjective Continuity explained 2". Those three videos should work to make you understand GSC. And I'd also suggest listening to Sam Harris's podcast episode on it.

[@user_user1337]

If I'd be true, it be amazing. Since there are none things worse than death, then there would not be any anxiety at all in your body. Maybe there are things worse than death...

[@Xcalator35]

I won't comment on your argument (sorry about that). I used to have a massive fear of death but came to the conclusion that it is an irrational an illogical fear. You have fear of something (expressed in sentences of the form 'a fears x') but in case of death, and if you don't believe in the after life, it simply doesn't make sense to fear nothing. It seems to me that the fear of death stems from the fact we tend to 'project' ourselves and our experiences to the situation of being dead and then we have this terrible sense of an ethernal void. But of course that's a major fallacy or, if you prefer, a cognitive illusion. By definition you cannot imagine death if death is to be understood as the complete lack of consciousness. Well...I don't know if this mess can help you but believe me it helped me a huge deal. On another note (and slightly off topic) I am an atheist but recently something made me think about it... Here's the story: I read that some scientists confirmed (in just one situation - because they cannot replicate the experiment for ethical reasons) that the hippocampus is strongly activated even some seconds after the heart stops. This seems to confirm some anecdotal reports from people who had near-death experiences decribing experiencing their whole lives being recapitulated. Now, the thing that is baffling me is the following: assuming this to be true, how on earth did evolution select this? It doesn't seem to make any sense from an evolutionary point of view, it seems more of a 'designed' kind of thing! Why and how would nature select an 'existential meaningfull recapitulation of our lives' at the moment of death? Well, have to admitt I'm a bit puzzeled by this. What are your thoughts on this (I know your expertise on philosophy of biology...) Sorry for my (very) bad english, I'm not a native and I'm typing as I think!

[@KaneB]

Unfortunately, that kind of argument never gave me any comfort. One day I will cease to exist. There's nothing irrational or illogical about that claim. But *that* is exactly what I feared. >> What are your thoughts on this I don't know anything about this, so I'd have to look into these studies. But bear in mind that even if there isn't a selective explanation for some biological phenomenon, there are plenty of other ways of fitting it into standard evolutionary theory. Consider: heart attacks may cause cerebral hypoxia, and cerebral hypoxia may provoke hallucinations. These hallucinations might be reported as near-death experiences. There is no selective explanation for why heart attacks lead to cerebral hypoxia, but this doesn't present any challenge to evolutionary theory. Everything here is just a result of the body failing to pump oxygen properly.

[@KaneB]

@@thotslayer9914 Yes, I am an empiricist. Not sure what that has to do with my comment.

[@KaneB]

@@thotslayer9914 I probably do in some sense of the term "naturalism". I'm not really sure what you're referring to here though. I think that everything I said in response to Xcalator35 could be accepted by both empiricists and naturalists.

[@Xcalator35]

@@KaneB Thanks for the rsponse Kane! My point was not that evolution theory is in trouble by the phenomenon (I know that not everything that happens in biology is the result of selective pressures). Rather, I was trying to establish a certain parallel with the 'fine-tuned universe' argument (assuming for tthe sake of the argument, that there is not a multiverse resulting from inflation). The fine tuned argument does't claim that physics is wrong but that there is a sheer coincidence the universe has the parameters values it has. Similarly, the fact (lets suppose) that there is a' 'existential meaningful' event precisely at the moment of death is a great coincidence (although we cannot quantify this probabilistically as in the case of the fine-tuned universe). Best

[@ck.hut10]

Why are you wearing gloves indoors?

[@brandtgill2601]

Idk bruh I've done psychedelics and I have a reduced fear of death but that's just cuz I think there is nothing after death.

[@brandtgill2601]

I fear being wrong and there being an afterlife, hell, or reincarnation.

[@brandtgill2601]

Though less fearful of reincarnation. Because im a negetive utilitarian and that is very similar to Buddhism. So I guess if I just actually like what I preach and go vegan I'd be on the right track. Though only like 5 people have ever reached enlightenment so probably should still be afraid

[@brandtgill2601]

I've seen entities while tripping. A huge chrome owl with emerald gem 💎 eyes (green). In an infinite void of white. Staring at me in a none judgmental way. As though just observing me in its domain. But im still an agnostic atheist. Mainländer is interesting tho

[@justus4684]

I like that red thing you are wearing

[@KaneB]

thanks dawg

[@dreamer1870]

The idea of "no self" appears problematic to me, if those experiences are veridical I would rather describe them as experiences of a cosmic unitary self, who does the experiencing (or is constituted by the bundle of their experience), not as experiences of a nonexistent self, of a nobody.

[@darcyone6291]

Thanks, Kane for the video! I have a question about something you mentioned in the video other than the main topic, so I hope it's not annoying! You say that under some conditions it's okay to trust the testimony of others..okay what are these conditions? For example, let's put this in the context of conspiracy theories..what reasons can we give for someone who believes, for example, that scientists faked the evidences of the evolutionary theory in order to throw religion away in a way that, even if these reasons are not convincing for them, at least they don't seem to be just some kind of faith?

[@KaneB]

I'm afraid I don't have any theory of when to trust testimony... it's not a topic I've thought that much about, actually. But unless we're prepared to embrace a fairly radical form of skepticism, it looks like we're going to have to trust testimony sometimes. Pretty much all our scientific knowledge is based on the testimony of others, for example (how many scientific experiments have you performed yourself?) Some rules of thumb: -- What exactly is the person reporting? If they're reporting things that they have experienced themselves, their testimony is more trustworthy. With second- or third-hand reports, there is more room for error. The conspiracy theorist who claims that scientists have faked evidence of evolutionary theory probably isn't reporting their own experiences. -- Does the testimony fit with my background knowledge? If somebody claims that they burnt the toast this morning, I'll be inclined to trust that. I know that burning toast is something that regularly happens. Lots of other people have reported it, and it's something I've done myself. On the other hand, if somebody claims to have communicated with the spirits of the dead, I would need to revise a host of my beliefs in order to accept that at face value. Given my background beliefs, it's more plausible that they're just lying. Even if I did trust that they experienced something strange, I would favour an alternative interpretation. -- How reliable in general is the person making the report? There are some people I trust more than others, of course. I know that my brother can be a bit of a drama queen, so I tend to assume that his stories are embellished.

[@TheSurpremeLogician]

I have an unrelated question. Why do you wear gloves?

[@KaneB]

My hands are painfully cold all the time. I've spoken to doctors about it and they can't find anything wrong with me.

[@timothypulliam2177]

I personally cannot wait for nothingness. Free of fear and pain and the constant chatter

[@TheRealisticNihilist]

I don't really understand the argument. Is the idea supposed to be that it's likely that you'll lose the fear of death in the future and so that likelihood causes you to lose it sooner? Because the Oracle analogy presupposes that the (presumably truthful) Oracle's testimony makes it likely that you'll lose the fear. But you don't have anything like that in your case. You've told me before that you don't care about animal suffering (assuming they suffer. They may not idk). But who knows? It's possible for you to care about them. And you might even regret not caring before. Might as well just start caring now (I obviously prefer this. I want everyone to be vegan). My point is that it only makes sense to lose the fear if you think it's likely. Like if someone told me I was 99% likely to be tortured. It wouldn't give her comfort to be told that there's some possible evidence that I could encounter that would make it highly unlikely. That said, this seems like a bootstrapping problem. You're cognition or whatever might simply *be* the experience of you losing your fear of death. How could it not be? You're just saying it's not occuring like it occurs in people who meditate or take psychadelics or whatever. However, if it comes back, I'd say what you do have evidence for is that taking psychadelics or meditating can alleviate the fear. Seems more justified than whatever you're on about disregarding the bootstrapping problem I pointed outa second ago.

[@KaneB]

I don't think it's likely that I will have a mystical experience. Nor do I think it's unlikely; I have no idea what the probability of that happening is. I don't know why this would be a problem, though. Regardless of whether or not I will ever have one of these experiences, I can still reflect on other people's reports, and I can still consider how I might respond if I were to have one. I think it's likely that if I were to have a mystical experience, I would lose the fear of death. But then as a result of this line of reasoning, my fear of death disappears now.

[@KaneB]

You mention that taking psychedelics or meditating "seems more justified". But why would losing fear of death in those cases be more justified? It's only going to be justified if we choose to trust or endorse the resulting experiences in some sense. We could dismiss the experience as "just a hallucination" or whatever, it which case it presumably wouldn't change our emotional attitudes (or at least any change in attitude would seem purely casual rather than based on reasons). But if we're prepared to trust such experiences, why is it required that I undergo the experience myself? I don't require that for any other kind of testimony that I trust.

[@unknownknownsphilosophy7888]

@@KaneB It's not more justified. I've meditated 20K hours and there are all sorts of other ways to come to this stuff. No limits actually to how you can overcome these biases.

[@justus4684]

Wooooo😃

[@domwren]

I can't help wondering if it's cold where you live. You're always wearing a few layers and today my attention was often distracted by your gloves.

[@KaneB]

I live in the UK. I usually feel cold even when the temperature is fairly warm.

[@johnholmes9435]

I am comfortable with scientific naturalism as a basic premise for understanding meaning and value in human experience. I am part of the universe. That is my place in it. A small part of the universe is human beings. An even smaller part of the universe is human beings in my country. A still smaller part is people in my community, and then my family, and then just me. I, in turn, am a particular collection of subatomic particles, possessing a pattern of organization that is able to sustain itself over time , somewhat like the sustained form of the flame of a candle. One's purpose can be either defined by something in one's brain (as in my case), or can be given to you by one of the above-mentioned subsets of the entire human population. People care about us, not the universe. The only way that the universe could in principle care about us is if the universe were itself a person. I find that having people care about me is satisfying all by itself. The universe works better as a source of wonder and awe than as a resource to address my social needs or to give me purpose. I have other people for that. By purpose I mean the thing that is most essential to achieve for my life to be of value to me. I very nearly died about two years ago. I had only a 3% chance of surviving the surgery. I almost missed my last chance to live the rest of my life fully grounded in my philosophy. But I lived. My path is now clear.

[@justus4684]

15:26 Tenha 😬

[@johnholmes9435]

Ironically, my mystical experience when I was 13 made me become an atheist almost instantly.

[@anonyme2878]

Look up veridical NDEs.