Tag: death

从很小的时候我就非常害怕死亡。小学的时候就经常因为想到死亡的事在夜里跑到父母的房间里去寻求安慰。大概初中以来开始关于这个话题想得更多，有时就在上课时望着窗外，心里想着自己死后的久远的时间。有时在深夜独自睡不着，为将会失去所有的过去心悸到发抖。我想在这里写下关于死亡的一切思考。

死亡的恐惧

虽然不太符合我的人设，但我还是打算从感性的角度而不是理性的角度开始说起，毕竟这是我开始考虑这个问题的开端。

我对死亡的恐惧，第一层是害怕自己思维的停止。我非常喜欢思考，把自己的记忆和逻辑仔细重复的梳理，有沉浸于回忆里的感动也有思辨的快感。所以我非常害怕总有一天我将必须停止这些思考。我无法想象有一天‘我’的本质不复存在，我曾见到听到闻到触摸到的东西将不再有证据，我将世界联系起来的逻辑归于混沌。曾经杂志上看到王晋康的科幻小说《决战美杜莎》，抛除他设想的实现方法，我觉得我甚至可以接受这样一种形式的永生：我可以不再拥有物理形体，不再有对外界的感知和影响的能力，只保留着我自己的记忆和思考。我可能不愿意保持这个状态数亿年，但是我想我会很高兴这样至少延长数百年，只靠翻找自己的回忆和思考就足够支持我很漫长的时光。

第二层是害怕失去和我有关系的人。如果我死了，我将不能看到我的家人，我的爱人，将来会怎样的生活；我将不能看到我的学校，我的家乡，将来会不会发展的更好；我将不能看到世界上互相争斗的人，能不能有一天回归和平。我不想停止这些观察，以及和前一层一样，我不想有一天停止对这些事物的总结和比较，看看他们和我的逻辑是不是一样？相对来讲，我不是很在意这些人在我死后会不会想起我，或是我给他们留下了什么。

最后一层，我想是死亡会阻止我成为，或是观察到，作为‘人’的最终意义-对宇宙的理解。我想要知道，宇宙的规律是不是能够被理解的？有没有理论将解释宏观到微观的一切关系？宇宙的起源是什么，又将如何终结？时间到底是什么？我想要理解世界，我想要‘人’理解这个世界，但是死亡的存在将阻止这一切。甚至都不只是我个体的死亡-以目前人类这个样子，最大的可能是远远在地球不适宜生存以前，人类和文明就已经结束了。我也将无法得知，到底有没有某种有思维的存在，能够理解这个宇宙了。

死亡是什么

死亡是什么，从古至今应该有许多理论讨论过，我直到近年才相对系统的了解到SEP-death。但是在这以前我已经有过很多的想法，对我来说简单的定义便是‘活着的意义’的相反词。但是如同活着的意义的难以定义一样，我至今也没有一种确信的，符合所有我的观察和逻辑的-同时还能够稍微的感情上接受的-一种定义。

我最‘悲观’的一种定义，是人的活着和死亡和其他生物，甚至任何其他物质一样，是‘机械的’或者说很纯粹的唯物的。当然我愿意相信由于量子力学的相关结论，宇宙并不是确定性的，但是我这里是想形容为，人的出现，生存，死亡，都是由最基本的粒子和物理规律产生的一种现象而已。这些粒子结合，相互作用，又由某种熵增/因果律/时间的单向性不可避免的重新组合。它们的某种组合和作用关系让我认为我有了能称为思维的某种体验，而它们的另一种作用关系，让我不再维持生命活动，不再有某种电信号让我思考，但也仅此而已了。我自己，人类，生命，星球，任何有规律或是无规律的物质组成，都在本质上没有任何区别，只是这个宇宙产生的定律中的一种随机波动而已。我认为这种定义很有可能最接近‘真实’，但也从此否定了人活着的意义。人只是随机的产生，由某种定律驱使着自以为按照自己的意志生存，也由同样的定律消失。我从‘合理性’的感情角度，并不能完全接受这样的定义。

而最“乐观”的一种定义则是另一种“唯心”的极端。我想它可以形容为一种终极的强人择原理：如果这个宇宙恰好到能让人类出现并观察它，也许我作为观察者的宇宙也恰好到让我能够持续观察它。也许我歪曲一位知乎答主的一种观点（他本意是说对死亡的恐惧一定程度上是一种社会意识建构的产物，而不是一种自然的真理）毕竟，我们只是看到其他人死亡，看到其他人的恐惧，而因此推断自己会死，从而恐惧而已。没有证据证明我一定会死！倘若把这种观点包装成一种信仰，至少比世界上目前流行的信仰可信度说不定还更高一些。但同理，与我对大多信仰的态度一样，我很难对一种不可证伪的结论进行无条件的相信，从而我认为这一种定义也有缺陷。

就如我对大多数话题的看法一样，我还是总喜欢一种折中的态度。也许死亡是两者之间的一种状态：我既存在于这个世界的物理规则之中，又有我独立的观察，思考，行动的能力；我的观察赋予了这个宇宙意义，但也会和无数宇宙一样最终归于湮灭。但我所留下的存在的痕迹，思考的方式，也许会通过人，或是其他的什么，留给与我的宇宙重叠的下一个宇宙，这便是我想留下这些文字的意义吧。

死亡之后

在我会终将死亡的可能性里，难免要考虑死之后的事情。既然不论如何解释，死亡之后都不再能对这个世界产生影响，说起来我是很少以一种“安排后事”的角度来想死亡之后的事情的。我没有一点想要捐献给谁或是继承给谁财产之类的想法-不是“想要不给”而是“没想过给”的感觉。我最在意的大概还是这个世界会怎样想起我，怎样留下我思考的方式吧。

I have been extremely afraid of death since I was very little. As a boy I would cry at night and run to my parents’ room at the fear of death. In middle school I started thinking more deeply about the issue and would stare at the sky thinking about what happens to the universe after I die. I would often wake at night, heart pounding and body shaking when thinking about losing everything I have experienced. What is death? I would like to start with sharing on this topic.

My fear of death

I would like to start with emotional perspective for my perception of death.

The first layer is the fear of stopping thinking. I think the nature of human is observing, thinking, and practice, and I particularly enjoy the thinking. I would often reflect on my memory, thinking about what I have seen and replaying them, and connecting the things and theories behind them. I am afraid death would stop me from doing that. I sometimes feel if I had the choice, I would give up anything in this material world in exchange for a chance to continue to exist in a ‘spiritual’ form that is able to preserve my memory and think about it, even not permanently but only for a few hundred years I would not be bored. Even better if I could continue to observe this world. However death will make this impossible, thus my first layer of fear comes from this feeling of helplessness.

The second layer comes from my care for the people I care about. I am deeply interested in seeing how people continue to live: how my friends and family will live their lives; what my hometown and country will become; whether the world will be in peace and people’s work get what they deserve. I would love to see whether there is a logic way to explain how people live, or maybe a simple word is just history. I don’t care about (materially) what I leave to them just as I am nothing in history, but I get depressed at the idea that I won’t be able to observe history.

The final layer for my fear of death is it stops me from fulfilling the meaning of humans, or even confirming the meaning of humans. Is our understanding of the universe correct? What is the origin and what will be the end of the universe? Is there a rule of the universe and is it even understandable? What is time? It is my desire to observe and understand this, I want “human”- likely not even in current form- to understand it, but my death, as well as death for all humans, will stop this and leave the universe to a state of chaos. It’s my desire of ‘order’, it’s my desire of simplicity, it’s my desire of minimizing the entropy.

What is death?

About the definition of death there has been extensive discussions from philosophers. I only recently learned about Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and think it has a very systematic summary. But I have had a lot of theories before I read about it. I simply define death as the opposite to living. However, as the meaning of life is hard to define, this is not well defined either, and I have been struggling to find a theory that is logical, and supported by observation of the world, as well as can be accepted by my mind.

My own most pessimistic definition of death, (or of life of human), is that the process is no difference from other living or even non living things. The process is purely mechanical and material. It doesn’t mean it has to be deterministic due to all sources of randomness such as from quantum mechanics. It just means that humans are still purely dominated by the rules of physics, where particles just interact with each other following the most basic laws of the universe. By chance they form into molecules of life and form my body, as well as the electric signals making me think that I am able to think. And one day, still simply following the laws of physics, these particles may disassemble, may stop producing the electric signals, and I no longer ‘think’ of anything. Sand, human, suns, everything in this universe that are in order or in chaos, they’re all the same, generated from random fluctuations of the evolution of these most basic particles. I would suppose this is most likely the truth of life and death, but is hard to accept it from my heart as it denies all meanings of life.

The most optimistic theory I have on the other hand, is what I call the ultimate (generalized) anthropic principle. If the universe we live in is like this just because we as observers could observe it, why not generalize that to just myself: if there are chances I don’t die, then the universe I live in must not let me die as I will be the only observer of my own universe. Actually, nobody has ever seen themselves die. There is no actual proof that I myself must die in the end. This theory might even be more convincing than the popular religions. However, similar to all thee religions, this theory as a non falsifiable one, does not prove itself right.