The bases of death anxiety... which affect you the most?

[Blue3]

According to one psychological theory, these are the bases of death anxiety...

1. Which affect you the most?

2. And which do you think are most common for people in general?

From this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_anxiety_(psychology)#Meaning_management_theory

[Blue3]

A lot of these are synonymous.

How so? They seem rather distinct to me.

[Blue3]

A lot of these are synonymous.

How so? They seem rather distinct to me.

"Of course I fear finality and annihilation- they would mean a disruption of my life flow and never seeing my loved ones again!"

Like, obviously.

Um, no. That's selecting multiple options. You can be one of those and none of the others, and vice versa.

[Blue3]

None bothers me that much, tbh. I might be a really weird guy, or maybe it just hasn't hit me yet because I'm young and careless about the future, but the prospect of dying really doesn't seem like that big a deal to me. I'd rather not die if I could, but if I do, well, either it won't hurt me because I won't be feeling anything at all, or I will access a higher level of consciousness of some nature (and if this consciousness entails some form of suffering, then I must believe that this suffering will be temporary and ultimately make me a better person). There is an infinity of things I find much scarier.

Well, neuroscientists say the brain doesn't truly develop to understand mortality until around the age of 26.

[Blue3]

For me...

-failure of life work completion (particularly if I'm a father of young children when it happens)

-annihilation/finality... it possibly being "The End"



I might also add

-not really me leaving loved ones... more like "the pain my death would cause for loved ones"

-not knowing how things turn out in the future

-death being involuntary and forced upon us

[Blue3]

For me...

-failure of life work completion (particularly if I'm a father of young children when it happens)

-annihilation/finality... it possibly being "The End"



I might also add

-not really me leaving loved ones... more like "the pain my death would cause for loved ones"

-not knowing how things turn out in the future

-death being involuntary and forced upon us

I guess to further summarize this, it would be...

1, I want to simply live (and since I don't know for sure as a scientific fact that there's an afterlife, I want to live as long as I can)

2. I want to know how the future turns out, for both the world and my loved ones

3. I want to at least have enough time to feel fulfilled, like my life's work is complete

[Blue3]

My views on this have changed a lot over the years.  Anyway, I voted pain and loneliness, prematurity and violence and failure to complete life aims.  Annihilation and finality don't really bother me, since I have no unhappy memories of the time before I existed, which was quite a while.  . The judgment and retribution issues don't bother me since I have not believed in life after death since my teens.  I never used to think about pain and loneliness before, but when I consider how one of my brothers died a few years ago and how my mom died a few months ago, these became quite real for me.  

By the way, pertinent to one of the discussions above: my understanding of neuroscience on the issue being talked about is that the neurons in the cerebral cortex don't become fully myelinated till about the age of 25.  That means that the thinking part of the brain in general--not just the parts related to morality, which are quite widely distributed--are not fully "online" until then.  The consequence is that people younger than 25 tend to make decisions on the basis of instinct, emotional reactions, associative connections and so on than they do on the basis of reflective thinking.  But we are talking about generalised capacity here only.  I know plenty of people older than 25 who don't primarily make decisions on the basis of reflection either--as well as some very sharp, even brilliant, even genius, young people.

I do have to say that, while I thought I understood death very well before, for some reason I understood it even more deeply than I thought possible in my late 20's.

[Blue3]

Any new thoughts, with all the recent events with the pandemic affecting anyone differently with their attitude towards death?

[Blue3]

Does the idea that the Earth will one day be destroyed, that the universe itself will someday end, influence anyone else's death anxiety? To know that no legacy will last forever, that eventually there will be a last generation.

[Blue3]

For me...

-failure of life work completion (particularly if I'm a father of young children when it happens)

-annihilation/finality... it possibly being "The End"



I might also add

-not really me leaving loved ones... more like "the pain my death would cause for loved ones"

-not knowing how things turn out in the future

-death being involuntary and forced upon us

This is a good list.

Yeah, one of the biggest shocks when trying to accept the idea of my future death is letting go of the idea that me, or anyone, will ever know how the rest of history turns out..