Numinous Nonsense

This series of posts, on death, was inspired by several years of contemplating the nature of death. Death is something that I consider daily, and not just as a philosophical concept, but as a continued experience and integral part of life. This series is an attempt to share the knowledge that I’ve gleaned from death, which has been a profound and omni-present teacher.

Two Ways of Defining Death

From my perspective there are two main ways that one can understand death. The common understanding of death is that death is “the end of the life of a biological organism.” Anything that is considered biologically alive, all the way down to the smallest bacterium, are considered dead when they break down and stop functioning in their normal way. That one is pretty straightforward and well understood.

Another more broad understanding of death (which includes the previous definition), is that death is simply the ending of things. This definition has more to do with patterns of change, in which things that come together in a particular constellation (i.e. are born), stick around in that constellation for some time (i.e. are alive), and then finally change or morph (i.e. dies). Take for instance each of these examples:

1. Thoughts – Everyday we experience countless thoughts, each of which has either a visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, or sensory dimension. If we pay attention, we’ll see that a thought arises in our mind, it lasts for a very brief duration, and then diminishes or passes away. This passing away is a kind of death. The same is true for all of our sensory experiences.
2. Relationships – As we move through our lives we are constantly coming into relationship with other people (and other beings and things). These relationships often change, and oftentimes we end relationships. The ending of relationships are another kind of death.
3. Patterns in the Material World – Weather patterns, ecological systems, and indeed the greater cosmos are patterns of material or material conditions coming together for a certain period of time, and then eventually breaking down or changing. When a storm subsides, a sun goes super-nova, or a rainbow disappears these are all examples of death. The 2nd law of thermodynamics is a direct observation of death on the material plane (in closed systems).

In each moment, using this broader definition, things are dieing outside and inside of us. The time varies from microseconds to millions of years, but this kind of dissolution is always occurring. Another word for death, seeing it in this broader context, is simply change. When things change, especially when something comes to an end, we are witnessing death. Biological death is just one example of change, and I will try and persuade readers, in the next few posts, that having a broader understanding—and more importantly experience—of death brings about tremendous benefits both personally and spiritually.

I will also examine some of the current thinking on death with regards to Trans-humanism and radical life extension, and how our thinking on death must change in response to these new ways of seeing the future, but that the broader understanding of death will never change so long as we live. Indeed I will go so far as to argue that life and death cannot be divorced from one another, as they are but two sides of the same coin.

Read part 2, Death as Teacher and part 3, The Transhumanists Take on Death.