And the most central thing to human flourishing, and indeed the flourishing of any organism, is life itself. As long as you are alive, you have a chance to improve your condition and help others. You can move freely in the world, and learn, and potentially find happiness. But as soon as you are dead, your voice is silenced forever, and any chance of growth or improvement is permanently terminated.
It seems useful to at least explore beyond the simplistic life=good, death=bad paradigm which is so common to the human experience.
First, any claims any of us may make about death are based on exactly no information from that realm, should such a realm exist.
Certainly everyone is entitled to their own preferred theory about death, and it’s not my intention to argue with any of the theories, given that I too have no idea what death is.
Further, I would agree that maybe it’s unkind to even mention that we have no idea what we’re talking about when it comes to death, given the strong human need to have some kind of answer.
Personally, while I’m a very lucky person who has enjoyed 70 years of life, it’s not clear to me that I would even wish to go on being Phil Tanny indefinitely.
One of the things that can happen as one ages is that you see patterns in the human experience that repeat over and over and over. When we’re young these patterns can be fascinating, because they’re new. When you get old sometimes these patterns seem more like a TV show that was really good the first couple of times you watched it, but after 70 viewings the show can become more than a bit tiresome. One of my aunts turns 100 today. I can’t imagine how tired of the show she must be....
It seems useful to at least explore beyond the simplistic life=good, death=bad paradigm which is so common to the human experience.
First, any claims any of us may make about death are based on exactly no information from that realm, should such a realm exist.
Certainly everyone is entitled to their own preferred theory about death, and it’s not my intention to argue with any of the theories, given that I too have no idea what death is.
Further, I would agree that maybe it’s unkind to even mention that we have no idea what we’re talking about when it comes to death, given the strong human need to have some kind of answer.
Personally, while I’m a very lucky person who has enjoyed 70 years of life, it’s not clear to me that I would even wish to go on being Phil Tanny indefinitely.
One of the things that can happen as one ages is that you see patterns in the human experience that repeat over and over and over. When we’re young these patterns can be fascinating, because they’re new. When you get old sometimes these patterns seem more like a TV show that was really good the first couple of times you watched it, but after 70 viewings the show can become more than a bit tiresome. One of my aunts turns 100 today. I can’t imagine how tired of the show she must be....