If there is a world after death, will mankind no longer be afraid of death?

On the Fear of Death —— From the Angle of Existential Anxiety

1. What is the fear of death? People's fear of death is a cultural phenomenon. As a black hole, death devours all the signifiers at the end of the signifier.

My first fear of death was always when I was lying in bed at night. I think of the earth in the dark background of the universe, a slowly rotating earth. Countless people have lived on this planet, they are all dead, and all of us who are alive now will eventually die. I'm just a brief spark on this planet. Compared with the life of the earth and even the life of the universe, the length of my life is just a blink of an eye. In particular, I am afraid to think that my death is a permanent thing. If I die, I will die forever, and there will be nothing left. It will exist forever, even longer than the life of the earth and the universe. This fear bothers me. I know there is no way to avoid death. This fear makes me desperate and makes me cry. Although this feeling will disappear once it reaches the day, I know it will revive in my heart one night in the future and torture me again. This fear of death, once experienced, will recur one night, although I have never been afraid of death before.

"once people understand what it means to' die by yourself', a sense of terror will come to mind: death devours everything like a black hole-my life, my world, my value ... death is nothing, it is nothing, or it is just a nothingness that has not been swallowed up and lost by itself."

To sum up, the fear of death has the following characteristics: 1, emotional: firstly, it is an emotional experience of fear, similar to psychological phobia attack, which is why the fourth part will recommend the solution of psychotherapy. 2. Reality: The fear of death is the fact that people will eventually perish as individuals. Based on Freud's analysis of anxiety, I boldly speculate that this realistic fear comes from the conflict between "self" and environment-similar to realistic anxiety, which will be discussed in detail in the second part of The Source of Fear of Death. 3. Recurrence: Once the fear of death appears, it may reappear. According to the analysis of the reasons in the following article, we know that the repetition of this fear is meaningful in a specific period of life. 4. Personality: The subject of this fear of death must be "I". No matter what the object of fear is at first, the final fear is the death of "me", not the death of others, although imagining the departure of relatives will produce similar fears. 5. Specific time: The fear of death seems to occur only before going to bed at night, and rarely occurs in normal life during the day. I think we should pay attention to this feature.

Therefore, we should define the fear of death here: the fear of death is a deep fear that is generated before going to bed at night and experienced by perceiving that "I" will die as an individual. Once it occurs, this feeling will recur.

Second, the source of fear of death, when people are alive, has nothing to do with death, and if people die, then any related worries are neither there nor unnecessary. -Epicurus, ancient Greek philosopher

After figuring out what is the fear of death, we will inevitably wonder why we have this fear. As Epicurus said, the living are immortal and the dead are not afraid, so this fear of death seems unnecessary. This kind of redundancy is like a child who is still in primary school and has never participated in the senior high school entrance examination, worrying that he will not find a partner in the future. Even if we are clearly aware that this fear of death is unnecessary during the day, we will still fall into the fear of death at night. Therefore, we need to analyze the nature of this fear in order to find a solution. We know that not everyone in life has such a fear of death, and we are only a few people who can understand this fear of death. How did it first sprout in our hearts? That is to say, as for its source, we can break it down into two questions: a, where did this fear come from, and b, why me?

How did this fear come about? Here I want to establish a connection between death and philosophical existence. Death means disappearance, which means that I disappear as an existence, that is, I don't exist. From the individual point of view, death, that is, "I", no longer exists. Here are two axioms about the death of human society.

Axiom 1: People will die (in other words-I will never exist). Axiom 2: Death can only be postponed and inevitable. Theorem 1 is derived from axiom 1 and axiom 2: In general, people who are afraid of death (excluding those who are bent on death or have firm religious beliefs) will prolong their lives through some methods.

Therefore, it is normal for people to be afraid of death, but it is abnormal to be afraid of death. A person's fear of death lies in his awareness of existing problems. The low level of awakening means that this person is busy every day and has no time to think about the value and significance of his existence; High-level awakening means constantly pursuing and reflecting on the value of life and attaching great importance to its significance. The degree of arousal can explain to some extent why fear of death is easy to occur before going to bed at night, but not during the day. Because during the day, our brains are thinking about the immediate problems (such as how much homework is left and what to eat for dinner), and after putting these short-lived things down at night, we are thinking about the fundamental problem of the meaning and value of our existence.

From the stage, because people think most about the meaning and value of "me" in the final stage of their second self-awareness and facing death, it is obvious that there are two types of people who are most likely to be afraid of death: first, people who have self-awareness but feel that they have achieved nothing in real life, such as most teenagers; The second kind is an old man who is dying and knows that time is running out. With the advent of adolescence, the former began to think about philosophical issues such as "Who am I", "Where am I from" and "Where am I going". On the one hand, I want to achieve something, but on the other hand, I can only be asked to concentrate on my studies on campus. On the one hand, I want to see the value of my existence, on the other hand, I can't see the value in the boring and repetitive daily life; On the one hand, I want to be independent from my parents' control, on the other hand, I can't do without the financial support provided by my parents; On the one hand, I look forward to the future, on the other hand, I don't know what my life will be like. These huge contradictions and uncertainties make teenagers' psychology very fragile, so the mental health problems of teenagers are also worthy of attention, which is beside the point. The latter has gone through a lifetime, experienced decades of ups and downs, and will reflect on his life value at the last minute.

Of course, the deeper you think about the existing problems, the more you fear death and cherish life. The problem is that the above two kinds of people are more afraid of death, which does not mean that we are talking about the fear of death. So the question now is, why does a person's fear of death turn into fear of death/non-existence?

Direct quote: Not everyone's death anxiety will rise to moderate or above existential anxiety. When children with self-identity anxiety understand what death means, the signifier of "death" becomes metaphor and metonymy of self-identity anxiety (for metaphor and metonymy, see my humble book on Lacan's thought). It implies self-identity anxiety in the most extreme symbolic form of "death/nothingness", and death as a signifier is bound to be meaningful or metonymic. When self-identity anxiety encounters death anxiety, it will expose and stimulate itself, and at the same time it will lose more reference to personality symptoms. On the other hand, in the face of identity anxiety, death anxiety will degenerate into existential anxiety. This paragraph can be summarized as: death anxiety+self-identity anxiety → existential anxiety. When negative emotions can't find an object, we must choose an either-or way between outward projection and inward projection (neither of these ways can really solve the problem because they can't point out the real direction). When emotions are projected inward through self-confirmation, human existence itself-smallness, fragility, loneliness and capriciousness towards nothingness-becomes impossible. In such a situation, death anxiety becomes anxiety about anxiety itself and self-existence. I am anxious as myself-not as a certain identity, quality or winner of success or failure. There is no external reason for this anxiety, and there is no reliable object in the face of dark death. What worries "anxiety" is self-self, which is not illuminated by the meaning symbol system and value symbol system of daily life-a process itself facing the highest uncertainty (the limit of which is death). At this time, "existence-non-existence" shows its duality and eternity. On the other hand, our anxious situation can be said to be death or existence. Such people are both eager to escape and afraid of losing their struggling self. This is a kind of "lonely and hopeless existence" and "impermanent and dying existence", which is dialectical unity of opposites.

This paragraph is summarized as: negative emotional internal projection+death anxiety → existential anxiety → fear of death is a combination: death anxiety+self-identity anxiety+negative emotional internal projection → existential anxiety = fear of death. Whether it is inappropriate to equate philosophical existential anxiety with fear of death is not considered for the time being. But there is a very core point on it. Although seemingly afraid of death, in fact, I am deeply afraid that my existence is worthless, and I am afraid of the feeling of fear of death.

Why do I have this fear? The above analysis actually explains why some people have this fear and some people don't. To sum up, you are a person with a high degree of self-awareness and self-identity anxiety, and your dissatisfaction with your recent life leads to negative emotions projected internally. These points interact with each other, resulting in the fear of death. In particular, don't treat this fear of death as a symptom, it's just an understandable negative psychological phenomenon, that's all.

Third, the solution For people, the real problem to be solved is not the fear of death, but the fear of death, or it can be said that this is a fear of fear and anxiety.

At present, I can think of solutions: first, to find religious beliefs, we can consider local Buddhism and Taoism;

Second, to establish a correct outlook on death and life, the above analysis can have a certain basis; Many philosophers and wise men at home and abroad have pointed out that what people need most is not happiness, but peace of mind and body without pain. Although they don't instigate people to die, they all teach people to look at death with a more intelligent eye. Death itself means that emotional reactions tend to be minimized, and it seems to be the only chance to completely release all pain, anxiety and sadness. But "death anxiety" often maximizes emotional response, and it is this anxiety rather than death that produces the greatest sense of insecurity.

Third, solve the anxiety of self-identity, find out who I am, and develop the continuity, maturity and sense of integration of self-concept. Zhihu has many articles about finding interests in life. We should also remember that although there is a lot of helplessness in life, we often do things we don't want to do, but we can take time out to do what we want to do every day, which makes us who we are.

Psychotherapy methods: such as systematic desensitization therapy, exposure therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, etc.

5. The method provided by the original answer: 1. This question is thought too early, and most people should start thinking about it in middle age. So you need to divert your attention, do what you should do while you are alive, and start thinking at the age of forty. 2. Deliberately leave some unfinished things every night, then think about these things, and then plan what tasks to have tomorrow. Keep yourself busy. Sometimes, anxiety is the opposite and nemesis of depression. It won't do much harm to use it properly. Talking to yourself can relieve this depression. 4. By recalling the past (not a simple memory), analyze your past achievements, analyze your own personality (your true side), and give yourself a reason to "die without regret". 5. Tell yourself: there is a 50% chance that consciousness will last forever! Because no one can prove it. ) or someone can discover this secret and promote it in the future. Hope tomorrow! 6. Tell yourself that science will be more and more developed in the future, and mankind will eventually conquer death. I read a newspaper report a month ago, probably an article predicting the trend of science and technology in the next 50 years, which mentioned this exciting news: in 2050, human beings will invent artificial brain technology, and human beings will bid farewell to death unless you want to die. But there are still many problems, for example, everyone is controlled by ideas. In view of the above, you need to say to yourself: it is more important to live than to live for a long time, eat, drink and be merry! 8. If these things can't be realized in your later years, go to religion to comfort your soul. 9. For severe symptoms, medicine is a shortcut to solve the problem. 10. Think backwards and experience this fear, because the body has adaptability. 1 1. Recently, I suddenly remembered Masama Morita's theory. This fear of death may also be a kind of nervous anxiety, and Morita therapy can be tried.

Finally, a word for you: what people need to get rid of is not death. Man may be the only creature who knows clearly that he is going to die and tries to escape death. Except those who believe in certain religions, people don't believe that their efforts to survive will eventually win. For many people, what they really fear is not death itself, but "anxiety about death."