This quote somehow reminded me of the quantum and big world immortality rationalizations... nobody seem to even observe a need for chain of approximate logic that leads to immortality but not to the e.g. immunity to concussions, they aren't even rationalizing it very well. Perhaps, like Ivan Ilyich they expect to feel mortal, but don't, and like an anosognosia sufferer, confabulate explanations. (That being said, belief in multiverse does bring some comfort if you care that someone else does something that you don't do because of death; but then it robs of that comfort because someone does everything anyway)
What are we supposed to feel emotions about, if not the actual consequences of reality. If bad things are happening, we should feel bad about them.
Most people are confused regarding how their impending death is bad (for them). Impending death is cause for sadness, just as is aging: both involve a loss of futurity.
But people are terrified of death because they imagine death is a loss of life. On this point, Epicurus provides the correct perspective; dwelling on it is worthwhile:
Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.
As simple as it is, most people--like Ivan--don't grasp it. (For the resulting human cowardice, I blame religion--including its latter-day transhumanist version.)
Which seems to me to miss the point: no matter how your life went your death will be sad, especially since most around you will be focused more on how your death affects them than on how it affects you.
Both you and these reviewers have it wrong. The extreme sadness of Ivan's death was neither someone's fault nor simply inevitable. Tolstoy is indicting the social conventions that prevent people from preparing for death, helping others when they're dying, and living life genuinely. His main target is the social lie (which you tend to excuse rather than indict because you think they're inevitable).
Two point of direct relevance to this blog:
1. Ivan couldn't face death because of terror rather than sadness; everyone around him "lied" by denying that he was dying when in his presence. This trivialized his death, just as cryonics will trivialize yours.
In principle a fully rational agent doesn't need emotions. All it needs are preferences on achievable future world states. Feeling "bad" about things it can't change would be pointless.
Humans, of course, don't have unbounded rationality. Emotions work both as heuristics for fast decision making and as reinforcement signals for operant conditioning: You spent all the time before the exam playing videogames instead of studying, then you fail the exam and feel sad. In the future you will spend more time studying.
Humans can also detect emotions in other humans and use them to learn vicariously: John was a smoker. Now he has lung cancer and is dying at the age of 50 and he is very sad. You don't want to be sad like John so you won't smoke.
Emotions aren't necessarily bad, you don't have to turn yourself into a "Straw Vulcan" in order to be rational, but you should always keep in mind what emotions are for and try not to be overwhelmed by them.
But Brian, such an approach essentially divorces emotional response from experienced events. A person who can approach his death, however painful and unwanted, with stoicism or even happiness can approach any other unwanted event with exactly the same emotion, including the pain and suffering of those they care about.
What are we supposed to feel emotions about, if not the actual consequences of reality. If bad things are happening, we should feel bad about them.
Robin's right. Tolstoy isn't making Ivan's death a punishment for the shallowness of his life. Ivan's an everyman. Tolstoy makes him self-centered and status conscious because an "everyman" would be both of those things. Not to mention the fact that pretty much everything seems petty and empty in the face of impending annihilation.
If I were teaching "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" I'd pair it with the short story "I Want to Live!" by Thom Jones -- a comparably unflinching stare into the abyss of approaching death, this time through the eyes of an American everywoman (warning: it'll shiver your timbers).
"Which seems to me to miss the point: no matter how your life went your death will be sad, especially since most around you will be focused more on how your death affects them than on how it affects you."Not sure this is the best conclusion to draw. We know we're going to die. It's in our power to choose how to react to that information. If we choose sadness, it's because somehow we expect things to be otherwise; the reality is somehow not sufficient or correct. But like I said we know we're going to die, so any expectation that things will be otherwise is a delusion.
Someone who recognizes that and accepts that can approach death without being sad, because they aren't focused so intently on the fiction that they are, or should be, immortal.
This quote somehow reminded me of the quantum and big world immortality rationalizations... nobody seem to even observe a need for chain of approximate logic that leads to immortality but not to the e.g. immunity to concussions, they aren't even rationalizing it very well. Perhaps, like Ivan Ilyich they expect to feel mortal, but don't, and like an anosognosia sufferer, confabulate explanations. (That being said, belief in multiverse does bring some comfort if you care that someone else does something that you don't do because of death; but then it robs of that comfort because someone does everything anyway)
What are we supposed to feel emotions about, if not the actual consequences of reality. If bad things are happening, we should feel bad about them.
Most people are confused regarding how their impending death is bad (for them). Impending death is cause for sadness, just as is aging: both involve a loss of futurity.
But people are terrified of death because they imagine death is a loss of life. On this point, Epicurus provides the correct perspective; dwelling on it is worthwhile:
Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.
As simple as it is, most people--like Ivan--don't grasp it. (For the resulting human cowardice, I blame religion--including its latter-day transhumanist version.)
Which seems to me to miss the point: no matter how your life went your death will be sad, especially since most around you will be focused more on how your death affects them than on how it affects you.
Both you and these reviewers have it wrong. The extreme sadness of Ivan's death was neither someone's fault nor simply inevitable. Tolstoy is indicting the social conventions that prevent people from preparing for death, helping others when they're dying, and living life genuinely. His main target is the social lie (which you tend to excuse rather than indict because you think they're inevitable).
Two point of direct relevance to this blog:
1. Ivan couldn't face death because of terror rather than sadness; everyone around him "lied" by denying that he was dying when in his presence. This trivialized his death, just as cryonics will trivialize yours.
2. Medical treatment in no way connoted caring.
>>>no matter how your life went your death will be sad
And this is where the stash of drugs that you carefully maintained for exactly this situation comes quite handy.
In principle a fully rational agent doesn't need emotions. All it needs are preferences on achievable future world states. Feeling "bad" about things it can't change would be pointless.
Humans, of course, don't have unbounded rationality. Emotions work both as heuristics for fast decision making and as reinforcement signals for operant conditioning: You spent all the time before the exam playing videogames instead of studying, then you fail the exam and feel sad. In the future you will spend more time studying.
Humans can also detect emotions in other humans and use them to learn vicariously: John was a smoker. Now he has lung cancer and is dying at the age of 50 and he is very sad. You don't want to be sad like John so you won't smoke.
Emotions aren't necessarily bad, you don't have to turn yourself into a "Straw Vulcan" in order to be rational, but you should always keep in mind what emotions are for and try not to be overwhelmed by them.
But Brian, such an approach essentially divorces emotional response from experienced events. A person who can approach his death, however painful and unwanted, with stoicism or even happiness can approach any other unwanted event with exactly the same emotion, including the pain and suffering of those they care about.
What are we supposed to feel emotions about, if not the actual consequences of reality. If bad things are happening, we should feel bad about them.
Robin's right. Tolstoy isn't making Ivan's death a punishment for the shallowness of his life. Ivan's an everyman. Tolstoy makes him self-centered and status conscious because an "everyman" would be both of those things. Not to mention the fact that pretty much everything seems petty and empty in the face of impending annihilation.
If I were teaching "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" I'd pair it with the short story "I Want to Live!" by Thom Jones -- a comparably unflinching stare into the abyss of approaching death, this time through the eyes of an American everywoman (warning: it'll shiver your timbers).
"Which seems to me to miss the point: no matter how your life went your death will be sad, especially since most around you will be focused more on how your death affects them than on how it affects you."Not sure this is the best conclusion to draw. We know we're going to die. It's in our power to choose how to react to that information. If we choose sadness, it's because somehow we expect things to be otherwise; the reality is somehow not sufficient or correct. But like I said we know we're going to die, so any expectation that things will be otherwise is a delusion.
Someone who recognizes that and accepts that can approach death without being sad, because they aren't focused so intently on the fiction that they are, or should be, immortal.
A very happy Saturday morning to you too, Mr. Hanson. -_-