Solving Death vs. Solving Death
The Discovery of Ignorance - Ch. 14
In the past, the smartest minds tried to solve the meaning of death. Today, the smartest minds try to solve death itself.
Before the Scientific Revolution, death was a cornerstone of every major ideology and religion. ‘What happens when I die’ was a crucial question on everyone’s mind. There was no scientific understanding of death beyond the basics - if you get too sick, too old or too impaled-by-a-spear, you die.
With no method of solving death, the next best thing was finding its meaning. We have heaven-and-hell, reincarnation, the vague ‘afterlife’ and other, less popular ideas. These myths gave people comfort and gave people a direction to live life in.
At a time when child mortality was unbelievably high, anything could kill you and we knew nothing at all about biology, death was always around the corner. Today, if a person laughs too hard they jokingly say “I’m dead!” but back in the day that probably carried some merit.
Modern Religions Avoid Death
We’ve become so shielded from death today that most new ideologies don’t discuss death at all. Where does a feminist go when she dies? What about a communist? The only exception is Nationalism, and even then death is far from the cornerstone of the ideology today.
It’s no wonder there’s a massive denial of death today. It’s still inevitable but instead of finding meaning in it, we deny it or assume “science” will fix it. It’s not considered a noble pursuit to give death meaning today.
Jesus gave death meaning. The Buddha gave death meaning. Mohammed gave death meaning. Seneca gave death meaning. Voltaire gave death meaning.
A meaningful death is a compass. It directs your life. Figure out how you want to die and work backwards to decide how you’ll live. Will you go to heaven? What stories will people tell about you at your funeral?
The problem isn’t explicitly that modern ideologies don’t have myths surrounding death. The problem is that without these myths, death is rarely spoken about or thought of. Even me, I think of how I want my life to go and I never think all the way to my death. The farthest in the future I’ll think of is retirement (which I say I want to do early). And that’s not uncommon. We avoid thinking about death even subconsciously.
Why does nobody today give death meaning? Is it because it’s unscientific?
We’ve moved so far away from religion that we have no answer to death. We have no answer to the only part of life that is entirely inevitable to all 8 billion people alive today and the billions who came before.
We’re quickly replacing spirituality with ‘science’, even though science today can’t yet answer every important question. Will science explain death in a beautiful, perfect way some day? Yes. Can it explain death today? No.
So should we pay philosophers more? Scientists less? Have status awards for modern philosophers? Maybe. But in terms of what you can do today…
Pick up an old book. By somebody really smart. Repeat a couple times. Get back to me.
Question of The Day
What do you think happens when you die?
Your Friend,
Noah “BigNerd” Sochaczevski