That was a lot, forcing me to cherry-pick. 8^) I disagree with the *fairly*
quickly part. The time scales being traversed are huge, as you point out. When
you make the argument that death happens fairly abruptly you bias that comment
towards a few scales, namely the ones related to consciousness, identity, self
and the foci of human awareness. But when compared to the time scales of
cellular processes or chemical reactions versus life spans of (eg) elephants,
or even generational evolution, those time scales are not considered. In this
larger context death Doesn't Really Happen abruptly at all. It can be an
extremely long process.
To go back to the thin veneer between the living and the dead theme of Samhain, it seems to me that
most of us *begin* our death around age 40 or so. I'm sure the peak of "the hill" is
different for everyone, shows sensitivity to demographics/lifestyle/resources, and changes with
technology and things like global climate, population, etc. But the key point, which you refer to
as well, seems to be a native sense of senescence ... a kind of programmed death, like apoptosis at
the cellular layer and loss of mitochondria, or reduction in hormone production, etc. at the
organism layer. The vampires (like Thiel) seem to believe this is avoidable with trickery ... the
classic cautionary tales apply. Even when I finally crash my bike into an oncoming truck at 70
mph, my death will be nothing like instantaneous. Even if it's too quick for my "mind"
wouldn't imply it's too quick for ... like every other process in the universe. 8^) In fact, one
of my favorite arguments against atheists is to claim the afterlife is that (within epsilon) period
from when you see the oncoming truck and the last few ion channels in the various and distributed
(all over the grill) parts of your brain shut down. Like Lorentz expansion of space or contraction
of time, perhaps that period seems, subjectively, to stretch to eternity?
So, clearly, I don't think death is at all abrupt ... mostly because I don't
believe there is such a thing as a temporally extended self. You are merely
*similar* to yourself 10 minutes ago.
"History doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes, and so do I" (apologies
to S. Clemens)!
When you first brought up death, I immediately went to the very narrow
definition you reference... that of the (apparent) permanent dissolution
of personal consciousness, of mind, etc. Having watched *that* proceed
over a space of roughly 10 years, or most acutely 2-3 years, in
Alzheimer's sufferers, and having enjoyed the earlier phases of mental
senescence (fading of proper nouns going first, or most notably), even
THIS definition of "death" can be fairly long and slow from the
timescale/perspective of the mind/consciousness experiencing it.
Your "over the hill" reference is another example, I believe, of
relative point of view. Most people I know over about 25 seem to notice
*how* they are over the hill. The extreme elasticity of the body and
mind of children (through puberty and into young adulthood?) is the
first to go (from an adult perspective) it would seem. By middle age
(sometime in our 40s?) we start to notice that our bodies (and sometimes
wits) really don't have all the pizazz they once did, but if we are
lucky, we have developed a lot of skills and knowledge and habits that
not only make up for that loss, but in fact make our net effectivity
higher for most things than when we were young: "work smarter, not
harder", etc. By the onset of old age (I feel I am just teetering on
that threshold at 60), we are lucky if we've established enough momentum
intellectually, economically and maybe even physically (e.g. good
habits) to begin to really "coast". Each of these shifts is an
inflection point in this long, slow curve of "death" that is reputed to
begin at "birth"...
I'm curious about your reference to "the temporally extended self". If
it isn't *real* it certainly is a very strong illusion that my
*instantaneous self* often indulges in. Flow states, peak awareness,
enlightenment, etc. all DO seem to point or trend toward "being in the
instant"... but nevertheless, there is also a persistent illusion of a
continuous fluid self that IS temporally extended. In fact, by the
some measure, it would seem that is the very definition of Objectness
which I believe Selfness inherits from. Perhaps Brian Cantwell Smith
has had something to say about all of this? It has been decades since I
read him... maybe I can find my copy of "Origin of Objects"? Or maybe
it is just a faulty memory of an illusory temporally extended self?
Interesting thread as always,
- Steve
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