Philosophy OF Death

[Nick Capozzoli]

This is like a mechanic saying to a good driver, and useless mechanic, in trying to belittle his ability to drive, "I've been a practising mechanic for twenty five years, and fixing cars. I'm not sure what actual experience you have had interacting with cars." Given that you've read a few philosophers you might also be a good driver, but using your medical experience to try and say, "I'm an expert on death" smacks of arrogance, and is beside the point. A philosophy of death no more requires a medical degree than a fish requires a bus pass.

OK, I think I understand what you are saying about "mechanics" versus "drivers," i.e. that the "driver" is the guy living his life (including the part where he crashes and dies), and the "mechanic" is a physician, who drivers sometimes consult to work on their "cars" (i.e. bodies). That's an interesting way to look at it.

I never claimed to be "an expert on death," whatever that is. I am merely, in your terms, a "saw-bones mechanic" who has tinkered with the cars of those "drivers" who have trusted me with the care of their vehicles, including those whose vehicles were beginning to crap out. If that's how you see it, I agree with your assessment. I guess that you consider a real "expert on death" to be a bona fide philosopher, like the ones you refer to. Would these "experts on death" be more like "automotive engineers" or even "physicists" rather than "greasy mechanics" like me? And I still don't understand why you do not accord folks like Kubler-Ross such expertise. It seems to me that you exclude Kubler-Ross simply because you don't like what she has to say about death and grieving. You obviously don't like what I've had to say on this thread, which is fine by me.

I never claimed to have the best answer to the question of how we should approach death. But as a physician I have had quite a lot of experience with folks who had to deal wit their own deaths, and that includes being present as their "mechanic" when they actually did die. You obviously don't think that this experience means very much. Fine. I'm not Seneca, Buddha, or even Kubler-Ross. I'm just a plodding saw-bones who thought that other LNF folk would be interested in what I had to say.

BTW, this is my last post on this thread.

[mal4mac]

OK, I think I understand what you are saying about "mechanics" versus "drivers," i.e. that the "driver" is the guy living his life (including the part where he crashes and dies), and the "mechanic" is a physician, who drivers sometimes consult to work on their "cars" (i.e. bodies). That's an interesting way to look at it.

Yes that's basically the comparison I was trying to make. Although I was also trying to make the point that Socrates and Seneca might then be viewed as world class racing drivers. I'm not sure viewing them as "automotive engineer" or "physicist" works, for me, as they would then just be a better class of mechanic. I'm looking at the car as being the body, and Socrates is certainly not about designing a better body. His procedure is to engage in dialectic, and to apply some coherent, well founded, beliefs to the human situation.

I guess that you consider a real "expert on death" to be a bona fide philosopher, like the ones you refer to.

As far as I can see, I might be entirely wrong of course.

And I still don't understand why you do not accord folks like Kubler-Ross such expertise. It seems to me that you exclude Kubler-Ross simply because you don't like what she has to say about death and grieving.

The "stages of grief" model clashes with the models that make sense to me. Read Socrates Apology (i.e., Plato's dialogue of that name) and you will see no evidence of Socrates going through any "stages of grief", unless you count the one stage of "acceptance" (!) The same goes for Seneca, Epicurus, and other philosophers I've encountered in my reading.

I think Kubler Ross might be pernicious, in that patients might be expected to go through grief, which might bring it on as a self fulfilling prophecy. One example of this yesterday - I was listening to "the ethics committee" on UK radio 4 and a doctor was about to tell a young patient that he was about to die, what she said was, "Now, what I'll tell you will make you cry..." This seems to be inviting emotional incontinence and mental suffering. Why should she assume he will cry? She might expect it, but why should she encourage it? This patient had been ill for a long time, why hadn't he encountered Socratic/Senecan therapy (maybe a strong version version of CBT/RET?). Then he might become immune to such grief.

Note, I wasn't trying to imply that you were, for sure, *just* a good mechanic. You may be both a good mechanic and a world class driver. I'm sure you're at least a reasonable driver. I do tend to "philosophize with a hammer" a bit too much, sorry if I came over as a bit rude. Why not stay in the thread and I'll try to be more polite?

Question: how can you combine the models of Kubler Ross and Bonanno in a medical practice? They seem very different at first sight.

[Paulclem]

The more enlightened ones might be using techniques like "Cognitive Behavioural Therapy" or "Rational Emotive Therapy" that actually have some basis in science. But where do these techniques come from? The originator of these techniques, Albert Ellis, based them on a reading of the Ancient Stoics, especially Epictetus, but also Seneca and Marcus Aurelius

Inspiration comes from somewhere, but the ancients did not practice cognitive behavioural therapy. I find this a very tenuous link.

I presume this is the bit you paraphrasing.

Epictetus wrote in The Enchiridion, "Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them." The modern psychotherapist most influential to the development of RET was Alfred Adler (who developed Individual Psychology). Adler, a neo-Freudian, stated, "I am convinced that a person's behavior springs from his ideas."

http://nacbt.org/historyofcbt.htm

I'm not sure that would be the Buddha's attitude, he didn't respect those "expert" Brahmins much.

No, but doctors are not the top of a caste system which discriminates against other castes in their favour. The analogy is invalid, and I think the Buddha would respect those engaged in healing. Like Nick, I think your saw bones reference unfair. You'll be needing one when you are older, so lets hope you get a healer type.

He's seen lots of people die. So what? I've seen lots of cars, but can't make them go if they break.

Invalid. He didn't say he could heal dying people, and his story illustrated that the docs were not there to do that when the person is dying.

I guess he can hand out drugs, which is no small thing, but, beyond that, I see no evidence that average common sense isn't just as useful as his "expert knowledge".

You really have no idea what you're talking about, and I'm not surprised he's decided not to bother discussing it. My wife's experience - and Nick's - have given them an insight into the process, stages, problems, relief, grief, acceptance etc etc that people go through. Anyone with common sense will recognise that as useful in helping others, and also a good insight into their own death if they get the chance to reflect on it when their time comes. As Nick, and my wife, said every person is different, and the range of experience of who have died will be very useful. Like I said before, I'm surprised by your attitude.

[mal4mac]

Inspiration comes from somewhere, but the ancients did not practice cognitive behavioural therapy. I find this a very tenuous link.

I presume this is the bit you paraphrasing.

Epictetus wrote in The Enchiridion, "Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them." The modern psychotherapist most influential to the development of RET was Alfred Adler (who developed Individual Psychology). Adler, a neo-Freudian, stated, "I am convinced that a person's behavior springs from his ideas."

I didn't say the ancients practiced CBT/RET. As this is a philosophy forum please limit your use of rhetoric

I wasn't paraphrasing a text, my summary came from memory.

Actually that quote from the Enchiridion looks, to me, like pure RET/CBT so I don't see how you can see the link as tenuous. I've read all of Epictetus and a lot about RET/CBT. I'll need a lot of convincing that the link is tenuous. Would you unpack why you think the link is tenuous?

I'm not sure that would be the Buddha's attitude, he didn't respect those "expert" Brahmins much.

No, but doctors are not the top of a caste system which discriminates against other castes in their favour. The analogy is invalid, and I think the Buddha would respect those engaged in healing. Like Nick, I think your saw bones reference unfair. You'll be needing one when you are older, so lets hope you get a healer type.

Are you sure? My doctor is of Hindu origin, maybe I'll ask him, then again, maybe not . But my point is well made, I think, a doctor could be a strict Hindu Brahmin, so wouldn't the Buddha argue strongly against him on fundamental philosophical matters, I don't think he would hold back just because he might get a bit of pain relief somewhere down the line.

My wife's experience - and Nick's - have given them an insight into the process, stages, problems, relief, grief, acceptance etc etc that people go through. Anyone with common sense will recognise that as useful in helping others, and also a good insight into their own death if they get the chance to reflect on it when their time comes. As Nick, and my wife, said every person is different, and the range of experience of who have died will be very useful. Like I said before, I'm surprised by your attitude.

We all have experience of dying, why is Nick's more pertinent than anyone else's? In fact, he praises the ancient philosophers and diminishes his own claim to expertise, quote, "I'm not Seneca, Buddha... I'm just a plodding saw-bones." Why then would you then think his experience is as much worth listening to as Socrates or the Buddha? If you ask you wife to fix the roof and she says "I'm not Fred the roofer, I'm just a plodding nurse" who would you get to fix the roof? Fred the Roofer, surely, it's just common sense!

Given the choice, would you talk to the acknowledged expert on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, or the bloke next door, to try and gain more insight into dying?

Every person is different, but they aren't different in all ways. We all have two eyes a nose.

When it comes to the best approach to dying, for me, and perhaps many people, I see it as being some combination of the approach taken by Socrates, Seneca, and other ancients.

I'm surprised you're buying in to the "stages, problems, relief, grief" model. Read the Maha-parinibbana Sutta: Last Days of the Buddha and you don't see him going through these stages (it's rather ridiculous to consider that he would!)

I don't want to know how ordinary people die, I want to know how experts on dying have died. These experts, like the Buddha, Seneca, Socrates are very rare. Nick and your wife have probably never encountered anyone like them. You do mention your wife encountering a "very calm" woman, so it may be she is someone who has taken the ideas of the philosophers on board, somehow. But as your wife doesn't have time to investigate the woman's philosophy/background/ upbringing we will never know, so I'm afraid your wife's account is not that much use to me. As a passing anecdote it's quite nice, it's good to know there are people calm in the face of death. But does your wife provide a systematic account of dealing with dying that can match that of the Buddha or Socrates?

[russellb]

There is the wisdom of how to die which really is a way of talking about how to live, whether one is talking about the ancients or contemporary CBT. Of death itself, we may witness it in others but in a way no one can be an expert, if we follow wittgenstein and say that "death is not an event in life"

[mal4mac]

There is the wisdom of how to die which really is a way of talking about how to live, whether one is talking about the ancients or contemporary CBT. Of death itself, we may witness it in others but in a way no one can be an expert, if we follow wittgenstein and say that "death is not an event in life"

But there is a dying process that occurs in life, and there needs to be a philosophy of the dying process that occurs within life.

There's also an anticipation of death that occurs in life. We need a philosophy of death that can deal with our, perhaps scary, anticipation of the "nothing" that comes after us.

Does Wittgenstein say anything more about death? It's a good quote, but it's "borrowed" from Epicurus, who goes on to suggest that the nothing that comes after us cannot bother us because we will not be there to experience it, and other useful things for coping with death.

Also it's not possible to say, conclusively, that "death is not an event in life", is it? There *might* be life after death. Being convinced that the mind(soul) is an aspect/epiphenomenon of the brain I don't think there is, so don't live my life in any real hope that there is, but I might be wrong.

[russellb]

i think what i wanted to say is that no one can talk experientially about death and so in this sense no one is expert. What wittgenstein said may be modified to explicitly include the possibility of immortal being by saying, "...life in this world." And we who live in this world, in a very real sense cannot talk 'knowingly' about death.

Perhaps this is a big problem in terms of wisdom that allows us to live our lives in the context of death. "Where death is i am not, where i am death is not," so goes the ancient dictum. This is not established by experience. Are we to say that death is the cessation of being, 'life after death' is therefore illogical, and counsel consolation on this basis. Christians may have a very real vision of hell. I won't say this is irrational and even if it were,

[russellb]

can we we say that it would be correctable in all cases? this would be to assume that all people can live their lives according to some standard of rationality

[mal4mac]

i think what i wanted to say is that no one can talk experientially about death and so in this sense no one is expert... "Where death is i am not, where i am death is not," so goes the ancient dictum. This is not established by experience.

What about Alzheimer's disease? That involves a slow extinction of the experience of memory, amongst other things. Does the Alzheimer patient, whose identity has been wiped out, suddenly regain it in Christian hell through some kind of spiritual reconstruction of the pre-Alzheimer brain? Maybe. But I can't believe it.

We don't experience tomorrow, but we all believe the sun is going to rise tomorrow. So we can have beliefs we are totally convinced about without having "in your face" experience.

Given what we know about the close ties between mind & brain & identity then my belief in extinction of mind & identity at brain death is strong, so I hold that belief.

In any case, it's stupid to worry about all the bad things that people have suggested might happen after death. It's like someone worrying about walking to work tomorrow, thinking they might be hit by a car, mauled by a big dog, or struck by lightening.

[Paulclem]

I didn't say the ancients practiced CBT/RET. As this is a philosophy forum please limit your use of rhetoric

I wasn't paraphrasing a text, my summary came from memory.

Actually that quote from the Enchiridion looks, to me, like pure RET/CBT so I don't see how you can see the link as tenuous. I've read all of Epictetus and a lot about RET/CBT. I'll need a lot of convincing that the link is tenuous. Would you unpack why you think the link is tenuous?



Are you sure? My doctor is of Hindu origin, maybe I'll ask him, then again, maybe not . But my point is well made, I think, a doctor could be a strict Hindu Brahmin, so wouldn't the Buddha argue strongly against him on fundamental philosophical matters, I don't think he would hold back just because he might get a bit of pain relief somewhere down the line.



We all have experience of dying, why is Nick's more pertinent than anyone else's? In fact, he praises the ancient philosophers and diminishes his own claim to expertise, quote, "I'm not Seneca, Buddha... I'm just a plodding saw-bones." Why then would you then think his experience is as much worth listening to as Socrates or the Buddha? If you ask you wife to fix the roof and she says "I'm not Fred the roofer, I'm just a plodding nurse" who would you get to fix the roof? Fred the Roofer, surely, it's just common sense!

Given the choice, would you talk to the acknowledged expert on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, or the bloke next door, to try and gain more insight into dying?

Every person is different, but they aren't different in all ways. We all have two eyes a nose.

When it comes to the best approach to dying, for me, and perhaps many people, I see it as being some combination of the approach taken by Socrates, Seneca, and other ancients.

I'm surprised you're buying in to the "stages, problems, relief, grief" model. Read the Maha-parinibbana Sutta: Last Days of the Buddha and you don't see him going through these stages (it's rather ridiculous to consider that he would!)

I don't want to know how ordinary people die, I want to know how experts on dying have died. These experts, like the Buddha, Seneca, Socrates are very rare. Nick and your wife have probably never encountered anyone like them. You do mention your wife encountering a "very calm" woman, so it may be she is someone who has taken the ideas of the philosophers on board, somehow. But as your wife doesn't have time to investigate the woman's philosophy/background/ upbringing we will never know, so I'm afraid your wife's account is not that much use to me. As a passing anecdote it's quite nice, it's good to know there are people calm in the face of death. But does your wife provide a systematic account of dealing with dying that can match that of the Buddha or Socrates?

Would you unpack why you think the link is tenuous?

You haven't convinced me that it isn't. I don't claim to know much of either, but there's only your say so.

Are you sure? My doctor is of Hindu origin, maybe I'll ask him, then again, maybe not . But my point is well made, I think, a doctor could be a strict Hindu Brahmin, so wouldn't the Buddha argue strongly against him on fundamental philosophical matters, I don't think he would hold back just because he might get a bit of pain relief somewhere down the line.

Absolutely positive. A doctor could be a strict Hindu Brahmin, but could just as well not be. There were healers in the past, but the Buddha's issues with Brahmins were based upon their attitude and adherence to the caste system - not healing. The fact of him being or not being a doctor is neither here nor there. From the practical medical side - what's there for The Buddha to argue with?

We all have experience of dying, why is Nick's more pertinent than anyone else's? In fact, he praises the ancient philosophers and diminishes his own claim to expertise, quote, "I'm not Seneca, Buddha... I'm just a plodding saw-bones." Why then would you then think his experience is as much worth listening to as Socrates or the Buddha? If you ask you wife to fix the roof and she says "I'm not Fred the roofer, I'm just a plodding nurse" who would you get to fix the roof? Fred the Roofer, surely, it's just common sense!

Nick's advice is worth listening to because of his external experience of death, and the moral and medical support he can give. The term saw bones is carefully chosen to disregard the moral and possibly spiritual support a doctor might give. I think his own references to saw bones is merely his humility. and it is not valid to co-opt it into your argument. Roofers and mechanics are neither good analogies because of the moral and spiritual aspects to a person. I would listen to The Buddha because he developed methods with which to deal with death. I would listen to Nick because of his experience and all the medical support he could give. I wouldn't be rushing out to read Seneca.

I'm surprised you're buying in to the "stages, problems, relief, grief" model. Read the Maha-parinibbana Sutta: Last Days of the Buddha and you don't see him going through these stages (it's rather ridiculous to consider that he would!)

I would defer to someone who has more experience than I. If they say it is useful, or describes aspects of the process, then I would respect that. That doesn't mean I would discount other advice or my own developing experience.

I don't want to know how ordinary people die, I want to know how experts on dying have died. These experts, like the Buddha, Seneca, Socrates are very rare. Nick and your wife have probably never encountered anyone like them. You do mention your wife encountering a "very calm" woman, so it may be she is someone who has taken the ideas of the philosophers on board, somehow. But as your wife doesn't have time to investigate the woman's philosophy/background/ upbringing we will never know, so I'm afraid your wife's account is not that much use to me. As a passing anecdote it's quite nice, it's good to know there are people calm in the face of death. But does your wife provide a systematic account of dealing with dying that can match that of the Buddha or Socrates

I think her comment that she was a calm person before the death process began indicates something important - namely that any preparation has to be done before. You're right to aim for the best death possible, but things don't always turn out like that. I'm sure there are many elderly people who would do things better if they were not debilitated by their various conditions. Insight into the possibilities, and some kind of awareness that we may not be having a clean, clear death is important.

Something I've not mentioned before is that Karma is likely - from the Buddhist's perspective - to develop the person's death conditions. I know you are sceptical of this, but one thing I was reading recently is that karma develops a person - angry - angrier - calm and calming - calm person, perhaps leading to a calmer death and the conditions that foster that.

[Ecurb]

I know nothing about Kubler-Ross, except what I read here (and what I just looked up on Wiki). However (since this is a literary board), Ivan Ilyitch seems to have gone through some of the stages described (in this thread) as being associated with Kubler-Ross, and probably did so before Kubler -Ross was born. Perhaps, however, arguments based on fictional characters are spurious.

[russellb]

What about Alzheimer's disease? That involves a slow extinction of the experience of memory, amongst other things. Does the Alzheimer patient, whose identity has been wiped out, suddenly regain it in Christian hell through some kind of spiritual reconstruction of the pre-Alzheimer brain? Maybe. But I can't believe it.

We don't experience tomorrow, but we all believe the sun is going to rise tomorrow. So we can have beliefs we are totally convinced about without having "in your face" experience.

Given what we know about the close ties between mind & brain & identity then my belief in extinction of mind & identity at brain death is strong, so I hold that belief.

In any case, it's stupid to worry about all the bad things that people have suggested might happen after death. It's like someone worrying about walking to work tomorrow, thinking they might be hit by a car, mauled by a big dog, or struck by lightening.

we believe the sun will rise because of past experience, which is the basis of many of our beliefs....it seems pretty obvious we can't talk about death from experience. It may be silly to worry over death but we are not machines who can simply be programmed not to (i don't think cbt is that good) There is loads of compelling evidence to say that our mental life is bound up with our bodies (and i say 'bound up' not 'identical with') But you have said yourself you are uncertain about 'life after death' and maybe you've hit on something with 'spiritual reconstruction'...

[mal4mac]

we believe the sun will rise because of past experience, which is the basis of many of our beliefs....it seems pretty obvious we can't talk about death from experience.

But if death means brain death isn't partial brain death at least a partial experience of death? I think this observation is useful for countering the Christian myth of survival after death. Would a loving God provide a never ending after life to an Alzheimer patient? Also, isn't sleep a bit like death? We lose conscious awareness, so we have some idea of what that is like, or at least conscious awareness of coming back from it! Also some people have come back from clinical death, so we have their experiences to draw on.

It may be silly to worry over death but we are not machines who can simply be programmed not to (i don't think cbt is that good)

I agree it's not a simple programming task, but you can habituate people to have less fear of death. That's partly what basic training for troops is about, getting them habituated to running onto the battlefield through reducing their fear of death. Again, the UK doesn't do a very good job of this. Maybe the techniques of Ancient Sparta should be looked at.

Have you looked at the evidence for CBT? I think it's been badly implemented in the UK, but the evidence for its usefulness, in many cases, is fairly sound. (It's nowhere near as effective as Newtonian mechanics is for calculating the path of rocket ships of course! But, still, it seems to have helped a lot of people.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognit..._effectiveness

There is loads of compelling evidence to say that our mental life is bound up with our bodies (and i say 'bound up' not 'identical with') But you have said yourself you are uncertain about 'life after death' and maybe you've hit on something with 'spiritual reconstruction'...

I'm a skeptic, I think, so I'm uncertain about everything. But, really, I think 'spiritual reconstruction' is a daft idea, like the idea of the tooth fairy. An amusing fancy maybe, but no more. I agree with your 'bound up' not 'identical with', but I think it is a tight, inseparable binding.

[russellb]

But if death means brain death isn't partial brain death at least a partial experience of death? I think this observation is useful for countering the Christian myth of survival after death. Would a loving God provide a never ending after life to an Alzheimer patient? Also, isn't sleep a bit like death? We lose conscious awareness, so we have some idea of what that is like, or at least conscious awareness of coming back from it! Also some people have come back from clinical death, so we have their experiences to draw on.

going to sleep may be the perfect analogy with death, assuming death to be the cessation of being, cos it is not an event in consciousness. if this is the case no one could ever experientially talk of death. Near death experience, i would grant you, is experience to draw on, although as a sceptic i guess you might emphasize the word 'near' and say that any reported experience assumes life (before death). And you can believe in 'life after death' and dismiss 'near death experience' and what it seems to tell us


I agree it's not a simple programming task, but you can habituate people to have less fear of death. That's partly what basic training for troops is about, getting them habituated to running onto the battlefield through reducing their fear of death. Again, the UK doesn't do a very good job of this. Maybe the techniques of Ancient Sparta should be looked at.

Have you looked at the evidence for CBT? I think it's been badly implemented in the UK, but the evidence for its usefulness, in many cases, is fairly sound. (It's nowhere near as effective as Newtonian mechanics is for calculating the path of rocket ships of course! But, still, it seems to have helped a lot of people.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognit..._effectiveness

I should say i have been part of the evidence as to the assessment of the efficacy of cbt and i was in the therapy group with a therapist who lost the plot a bit at one point and said she doubted her competence to practice the therapy. Maybe i should have told her it was a **** therapy or for me anyway. These things don't and can't work for everyone. I have also undergone cognitive analytic therapy (CAT) and that didn't provide any kind of good result either.

I'm a skeptic, I think, so I'm uncertain about everything. But, really, I think 'spiritual reconstruction' is a daft idea, like the idea of the tooth fairy. An amusing fancy maybe, but no more. I agree with your 'bound up' not 'identical with', but I think it is a tight, inseparable binding.

I don't think the idea that we are 'reconstructed' is so daft. I would hope that God (in fact we don't need to believe in god necessarily to believe in 'life after death') would be benevolent enough to reconstruct someone not in an advanced condition of dementia and place them in a fiery furnace as you were speaking of above. This may however be an anxiety for some that the 'rationalist' approaches of cognitive therapies cannot ally.

[russellb]

sorry don't know how to use net and have accidentally stuck things i ve said in with quoting what you wrote