Some thoughts on death

Introduction The common human fear of death is irrational. It is perfectly understandable to fear the process of dying; it can be, and often is, long, humiliating, unpleasant and painful; although it doesn't need to be. To the individual who dies, death is the loosing of consciousness. Sleep is also the loosing of consciousness, but it is temporary. Why should we fear the one and not the other? We were, in a sense, dead before we were born; what reason do we have to fear re-entering that state? Is the delusion of religion largely the cause of the fear of death?   My intention My father suffered several strokes before he went into a nursing home. The man who went into the nursing home was not the same man that I knew as my father; he was mentally crippled. I have no intention of going into a nursing home. If I am unable to look after myself and contribute to the community in which I live I would rather end my life than be a burden on other people and loose my self respect.   The old person's friend Pneumonia has been called the old person's friend because it can provide a relatively quick end to a long and tedious dying. But surely a truly quick and humane death would be preferable. An unwillingness to die is a different matter; it is perfectly reasonable that a person who loves life, or has a strong reason to want to live (such as having children to raise or an important project to complete) will be unwilling to die; but an unwillingness to die is very different from a fear of death. On the other hand, I wonder how many elderly people would be quite happy to die? I suspect that to many death would be a welcome end to a tedious, long, slow decline in health, independence and self-respect. In our culture to end your own life is often considered 'not the right thing to do'. Why should that be so? If your life has become a burden to you – and to others – why should you not be able to end it? "The only part of the conduct of any one, for which [a citizen] is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."      John Stuart Mill, in On Liberty   Home Top Index Is it the sheepish nature of people – the tendency to not do anything that others rarely, if ever, do – that makes us all 'live until we die'? We choose what we do in life, we should be able, if we wish, to choose the manner and timing of our deaths. Instead, most of us just go on living, with our health declining and, quite probably, our mental acuity decreasing, when we might make a conscious decision to end our life when it suited us. The people who are left behind may suffer from a death, obviously. The loss of a spouse, a sibling, mother, father, son or daughter can be devastating; that is another story. On this page I am thinking about one's own death, and the unnecessary and baseless fear of that death. I wonder whether the fear of death is mostly confined to the people of those cultures that were based on Judaism, Christianity and Islam; the religions that brought the world the sick and intentionally terrifying concept of eternal torture in Hell? Do Hindus and Buddhists fear death? I don't know. (I do know that for Balinese Hindus, funerals are an occasion for celebration.) At this point I probably should say that I do not fear death. This must be at least partly due to the fact that I am thoroughly convinced that the God of the Bible does not exist and that the theory that we all have an immortal soul is quite incredible (in the true sense of the word) and has been all but disproven by modern science. The Bible, with what it claims to tell us about the Christian God, has to be about the most unconvincing, irrational, and inconsistent collection of fantasies and folk tales known to Man (with the possible exception of the Koran). For those who have managed to avoid or escape the religion delusion, there is nothing to fear in death.   This section added 2023/11/05 A person is not harmed in dying In order to understand the ethics of dying we need to look at the very basis of ethics. Who is disadvantaged by a death? What is the balance between good and harm in a death? What suffering is involved? In the case of the death of a person the friends and relations will suffer grief, in some cases the grief greatly affects the remainder of their lives. We might expect the death of a non-human animal to have less impact on other animals, but there are certainly cases where animals do seem to 'morn' for a killed companion, perhaps especially in those cases where they mate for life. But I hold that the entity that dies – whether foetus, child, adult human or animal – does not suffer from death, although he/she may suffer in the process of dying. Death is oblivion, the end of consciousness and awareness; just like going to sleep, but death is a sleep from which one will not wake. There is no suffering in the loss of one's future; although there could well be suffering in a person's contemplation of the losing of his future, supposing that he knows of it in advance.   This section added 2019/06/24 Why might one want to die?   I've written more on this question in my page on Suicide as a Rational Decision. I love the world and my family. In some ways I have been very disappointed in most of my fellow humans. Climate change, and the associated problems of ocean acidification, ocean warming and sea level rise are damaging the world already, they will only get far worse in coming years. The air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels kills millions of people world-wide each year. And there are many other insults to our shared environment. At the time of writing I am 73; I will not live to see the worst of the damage, but my children and grandchildren (everyone's children and grandchildren) will have to live on a greatly damaged planet.   Why do so few demand action on climate change?   Home Top Index Ever since I participated in the walk for solar thermal power in 2012 I've had the following question in the signature of my emails: "When climate change is destroying the world as we know it, why is only about one person in a thousand making a serious effort to do anything about it?" I don't know the answer to that question. Yet many of my fellow humans are complicit in the destruction of the Earth that I love, and the great majority of the remainder are too apathetic to bother making an effort to stop the damage, or too selfish to want to try. As a single example, shortly before I wrote this section there was an election in Australia in which climate change was the greatest single issue, yet when it came to the day the majority of voters put their own selfish short-term interests before the health of the planet and voted for the party that most refuses to take environmental matters seriously. Science has discovered how the Universe works, yet many people, including many in high positions of power ignore science and embrace superstition. Ignorance of science is widespread. A significant number (not enough) of people are willing to do unpaid work for the improvement of their community, but those same people are often unwilling to lift a finger for the future of the planet as a whole. Another example of selfishness and the unwillingness to act for the greater good is the fact that only 3% of Australians donate blood. The process is no more than a minor inconvenience and takes about an hour, the blood (or plasma or platelets) may well save someone's life, yet only one person in 33 does it (many people for one reason or another can't donate blood, but the great majority can). I have seen similar selfishness in my own community when many people opposed the construction of a local wind farm. The wind farm would be good for the community, the region, the state, the nation and the planet, yet many opposed it for selfish reasons such as they "didn't want to have to see nearby wind turbines" or occasionally hear them. A great problem with humanity is that the people who rise to positions of power, such as Vladimir Putin, Xe Jinping, Donal Trump, Australian PM Scott Morrison and the very wealthy, such as Rupert Murdoch, Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart are unethical and thoroughly despicable people. And then there is Andrew Hastie, the federal parliamentary representative for Canning, the electorate in which I live. I have called him "A one man encapsulation of all that's wrong with politics in Australia". He is just one of the Australian politicians who is failing to fulfil their responsibilities (but he is among the worst); we need to replace people like him with community independents. But the Australian voters don't seem to be aware of his dishonesty, or they don't care that he is dishonest and unethical, or those who are aware are not concerned enough to do anything about removing him from office. How can one respect such beings? Living among them is becoming an increasingly unattractive prospect. One of the world's greatest problems is that there are too many people. They are overloading all the world's environmental resources. My death would reduce that load on the planet by one.   This section edited 2024/08/16 at 78 years of age What personal reasons do I have to seriously consider ending my life? Apart from the reasons mentioned elsewhere on this page I have personal reasons, relating to health and physical and mental condition, for feeling I've reached my use-by date.   Home Top Index What could be considered long-standing health problems include: Lower spinal injuries going back 50 years; The common eye problems that have meant needing glasses for the last 35 years; High blood pressure (controlled by medication); Thyroid hormone imbalance (controlled by medication); Rib and back pain from a car accident in 2017 (there were eight broken ribs and a couple of cracked vertebrae).   Recommended reading... A Good Life to the End: Taking control of our inevitable journey through ageing and death, by Ken Hillman The Peaceful Pill Handbook, published by Exit International provides advice relating to choosing the time and way of one's own death   February 2024 My eyesight and hearing are continuing to deteriorate, even in the last months. Some of my more recent health problems include: Declining physical health Skin problems - itchiness, possible fungal infections (no definite diagnoses from doctors); Degenerate discs and arthritis in cervical spine; I'm becoming less strong - loosing muscle mass; My eyesight and hearing are getting worse; My ears are periodically clogging with wax Declining mental faculties Worsening memory; Easily confused; Often can’t think of needed names, words, etcetera; Slower reflexes; Declining balance Incontinence; urinary and faecal Pain Ribs, back, big toe joints (some of this could be some form of arthritis or gout); From about early 2023 increasing neck pain especially when turning my head due to the degenerate discs and arthritis in cervical spine mentioned above; It is painful to rest the back of my head against anything for any length of time, I can't comfortably lean my head back in an armchair or read in bed for any length of time. Starting in August 2024 I have been suffering from terrible leg cramps at night. A few of the above problems may be temporary, but new problems show up periodically. My physical and mental health are declining due to the gradual deterioration of ageing. I've recorded my wishes regarding the end of my life elsewhere on these pages. Why not end my life? There is always unfinished business - how much of what we want to do is ever finished? Just some of the things that I have not finished: local weed control, plantings, replacing corrupt, despicable politicians like Andrew Hastie with progressive, honest, climate-aware representatives like the community independents. Weeds and weeding out bad politicians will always be continuing jobs. Why do we feel we should treat animals more humanely than our fellow humans? We humans sometimes treat animals cruelly and criminally. I've written about this in a page on animal rights. But the majority recognise animals should not be allowed to die long and painful deaths, they should be euthanised if they cannot be cured. A significant part of the work of veterinarians is providing animals with painless deaths. Allowing and animal to die slowly and in pain is considered a crime. Yet a great many people want to deny a humane death to their fellow humans!

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