I analyzed the “Fear of the Dead, Fear of Death: is it Biological or Psychological?” by Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi in 2012 for the generation of the death fear (Beit-Hallahmi 328). From Beit-Hallahmi’s work, he states the fear comes from the “cognitive incongruity” and the brain detects the situation is conflicting to the expectation (Beit-Hallahmi 328). Then the brain would combine the past and present experience to produce a response of fear to the imagined situation (Beit-Hallahmi 328). He also mentions the fear of death would lead to the other effect and behavior, such as the fear of corpse. (Beit-Hallahmi 322). In this paper, first, I will use these scholars’ works to support my research. Second, to make the research more convincing, I explore …show more content…
Stephen Cave’s “The 4 stories we tell ourselves about death” to discover my topic. This speech is given by Stephen Cave who is a philosopher from university of Cambridge. The first reason why I choose this video as my research source is Cave uses some scientific experiments to illustrate the fear of death can lead people to have bias. Secondly, he introduces four immortality stories to show us the effect of bias of fear death. Third, he argues that the inexistence of death for human, the bias is people do not need to fear death. Cave states that the bias makes people to feel fear about death the bias of fear death will make us “systematically” get things wrong and lead us to “miscalculate, misjudge, distort reality” (Cave 4:00). Moreover Cave also argues that the fear of death is a kind of bias. I also found some similarities between Cave and Beit-Hallahmi’s work. Although many scholars have investigated the bias of fear death can mislead people to do some matters wrong or believe some false stories, nevertheless this paper argues the role of bias in fear death, to my mind, the bias not only can mislead people but also it can cause people to feel fear of death. From Eric Berne’s work “Games people play: The psychology of human relationships”, Eric states that because a person knows how he feel, where he is and when it is to aware person is alive (Eric 8).
The person knows after he dies the trees will still be there, but he will not be able to look at them again (Eric 8). Therefore that person wants to see trees as poignancy as possible (Eric 8). Why and how does he generate this kind of feeling? In Ian Burney’s “War on fear: Solly Zuckerman and civilian nerve in the Second World War.” Burney asks two questions about the fear of death “why was it ‘so fascinated by fear, why that emotion made to account for everything?”(Kuklick quoted in Burney 50). According to Hebb’s discrepancy theory, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi argues that the fear of death “stems” from “cognitive incongruity” in his “Fear of the Dead, Fear of Death: is it Biological or Psychological?” (Hebb quoted in Benjamin 328). Beit-Hallahmi also raps that the brain operates like a comparison device, it can match up past and present occurrences and then it reacts to discrepancies between expectation and perception (Hebb quoted in Benjamin 328). When scholars Beit-Hallahmi and Argyle claim that “The …show more content…
terror of death leads to the creation of powerful psychological and cultural mechanisms and the survival value of denial and evolutionary optimism is clear” (Beit-Hallahmi 331), scholar believes as foundation of human existence and development, spirit deserves offerings and worship (Davies quoted in Beit-Hallahmi 332). Beit-Hallahmi also argues the “pathogen hypothesis” is a belief that the corpse is danger than living people (Beit-Hallahmi 324). In Stephen Cave’s “The 4 stories we tell ourselves about death”, Cave identifies the bias is people make things systematically wrong. (Cave 3:20) Cave introduces a theory behind the bias is called “terror management theory”, and the idea of the theory is quite simple. “We develop our worldviews, that is, the stories we tell ourselves about the world and our place in it, in order to help us manage the terror of death.”(Cave 6:20) Cave also introduces four immortal stories and argues that people believe an “omnipotent god will resurrect them to live again”, which is conflict to the immortal stories. He raps that people are afraid of death so that people are biased to believe immortality stories (Cave 11:39). In “European journal of personality” that is written by Jong Jonathan, Bluemke Matthias and Halberstadt Jamin, they states that a series of experiments to show the relationship between death anxiety and supernatural belief (Jong, Bluemke and Halberstadt 495). The results illustrate that the SBS (Supernatural Belief Scale) shows high “reliability and convergent validity”, then it is related to death anxiety rely on people’s religious beliefs, the “non-religious” people are more “inclined towards religious belief the more they fear death.”(Jong, Bluemke and Halberstadt 495). Based on some experiments about SBS, I can see that the religious belief acts moderately in the relationship between anxiety of death and supernatural belief (Jong, Bluemke and Halberstadt 495). Firstly, I feel that the bias could lead people to feel fear of death. In Eric Berne’s work, I find the reason of generation of fear death in unscientific way. Therefore I assume Berne’s description of aware of people alive exists a bias. For no one can know what things will happen after they die. Maybe people still have their own consciousness and their spirit and they could still do anything they want. It could be understood that the bias of death make people to feel fear. From Beit-Hallahmi’s work, he argues the “cognitive incongruity” and the brain detects the situation is conflicting to the expectation, then the fear comes out (Beit-Hallahmi 328). I believe it is a good explanation to illustrate the generation of fear death. Also I consider the “cognitive incongruity” is a kind of bias for the brain. He also mentions the effect of fear death to the dead bodies. Next he expresses “medical experts agree that dead bodies pose no risk of infection or disease unless the death has been caused by an unusually infections and dangerous disease, such as cholera, AIDS, or tuberculosis”. (Beit-Hallahmi 323) It seems that people feel fear of death so that they believe the corpse is dangerous. But it is not. I think the fear of death produces a bias to make people to feel fear of dead bodies. I also analyze the experiments about relationship between death anxiety and supernatural belief in “European journal of personality”. Results of SBS (Supernatural Belief Scale) experiments shows high “reliability and convergent validity”, then it is related to death anxiety rely on people’s religious beliefs, the “non-religious” people are more “inclined towards religious belief the more they fear death.”(Jong, Bluemke and Halberstadt 495). I hold an opinion that the fear death could be biased to have the religious belief. I will argue this point in next paragraph. Secondly, I assert the fear of death is a kind of bias and may produce some bias to influence people’s behavior.
In the Cave’s speech, according to ancient philosopher Epicurus’s theory “death is nothing to us, because when we are here, death is not, and when death is here, we are gone"(Cave 13:00). My response to this theory is that death is an inexistent thing to us, therefore I do not need to feel fear about death. Moreover I find an interesting experiment that is "One recent study took two groups of agnostics, that is people who are undecided in their religious beliefs. Now, one group was asked to think about being dead. The other group was asked to think about being lonely. They were then asked again about their religious beliefs. Those who had been asked to think about being dead were afterwards twice as likely to express faith in God and Jesus. Twice as likely. Even though the before they were all equally agnostic. But put the fear of death in them, and they run to Jesus."(Cave 5:20) I feel that there is a particular religious bias when people think about death as in the study about death, agnostics would sometimes have thoughts of religious people, such as Jesus, when they think of death. This shows there could be a potential bias of people being misled by religion. I discover the result of this experiment is same as the SBS experiments I mentioned above. In my view, the similarity between Beit-Hallahmi and Cave is both two scholars believes the fear death can lead
bias to world. From Cave’s speech, the experiment shows the fear of death could move twice people from agnostics to Jesus. In Beit-Hallahmi’s view, the fear of death towards to fear of corpse. This research has found that it is not necessary to fear death, so people should cherish and appreciate life, and actually live it. The research gives a suggestion for how people should live their life. They will be happier if they aren't always so worried about dying. I think this research is valuable for everyone. Especially patients in hospital should read this paper. The research can affect patients in a positive way to fight with the disease. When it comes to the limitations of my research, I could not go out and interview people and see their perspectives on fearing death, but scholars in the future should contribute to my research by doing interviews.
When people ponder death they wonder about the unknown with trepidation. As a young man, William Cullen Bryant wrote the "Thanatopsis." His thoughts progress from the fear of death to the acceptance of the event. People should not fear death because everyone dies and becomes a part of nature.
Is it possible to live without fear of death? If you can, does it change your life and who you are as a whole? Lindqvist believes so. Early in the book he proposes the idea that with fear of death life has a deeper meaning. That only with the fear of death do...
One of the most controversial topics of the century hinges on one simple question: What makes the world go round? Most will jump to say money. Some will argue in favor of their religion. Others will point out scientific facts. The truth is, none are correct. One emotion, one aspect of life shines above the others, extending its light on merely half of our beloved globe, leaving the other semi-circle to deal with pitch black: fear. To understand its impact, society’s definition of fear must be perceived. Fear is officially defined as an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something dangerous will harm him/her. However, with his classic novel, Alan Paton shows that it extends far beyond that. An old man by the name of Stephen Kumalo leaves the comfort of his tribe in Ndotsheni, and embarks on a
The mind is a very powerful tool when it is exploited to think about situations out of the ordinary. Describing in vivid detail the conditions of one after his, her, or its death associates the mind to a world that is filled with horrific elements of a dark nature.
Most people view death as an evil force set out against all of humanity. In fact, in our present culture, the personification of death, the grim reaper, is one ...
Fear of the unknown, and fear of what is to come in our lives, has generations of people wondering what will our lives be like tomorrow or the next day. Death is always there and we cannot escape it. Death is a scary thing. Our own mortality or the mortality of our loved ones scares us to the point that we sometimes cannot control how we are dealing with such a thing as the thought of death. Why do we fear such a thing as death? We don’t know what happens after we don’t how it feels. The fear of death is different for most but it is most certain to come and we cannot hide from it. For death is just around the corner and maybe it’s will come tomorrow or the next day! We fear not death, but the unknown that comes from death, that is the
The Dangers of Fear Irish Playwright, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.” Inhumanity is mankind’s worst attribute. Every so often, ordinary humans are driven to the point where they have no choice but to think of themselves. One of the most famous examples used today is the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night demonstrates how fear is a debilitating force that causes people to lose sight of who they once were.
Terror management theory (TMT) asserts that human beings have natural tendency for self-preservation if there is threat to one’s well–being (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997). It notes that we are the cultural animals that pose self-awareness on the concept of past and future, as well as the understanding that one day we will die. We concern about our life and death but aware that it is unexpected by everything. The worse matter is that we become aware of our vulnerability and helplessness when facing death-related thoughts and ultimate demise (Pyszczynski & Greenberg, 1992). The inevitable death awareness or mortality salience provides a ground for experiencing the existential terror, which is the overwhelming concern of people’s mortality and existence. In order to avoid the continued existence of threats, people need faith in a relatively affirmative and plausive cultural worldview and meaning of life (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1995). Cultural worldview is a perceptual construction in the society which explaining the origins of life and the existence of afterlife. We have to invest a set of cultural worldviews by ourselves that are able to provide meaning, stability and order to our lives and to offer the promise of death transcendence (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2004). On the other hand, we hold a belief that one is living up to the standards of value prescribed by that worldview and social norm shared by a group of people. This belief is derived by self-esteem of individual. We maintain the perception and confident that we are fulfilling the cultural prescriptions for value in the society and are thus eligible for some form of personal immortality (Landau & Greenberg, 2006). We Together with the assump...
nsciousness after death, or maybe a combination of both, which creates this fear. The fear felt is undoubtedly universal. However, the ways in which it is dealt with are varied and diverse. The concept of human mortality and how it is dealt with is dependent upon one’s society or culture. It is the society, which has the greatest impact on an individual’s beliefs.
In the words of Bertrand Russell, “Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom” (Russell). Fear causes many problems in our lives. Fear influences many of a person’s actions and decisions. However, people usually regret the decisions or actions they made out of fear. Also, these actions and decisions can cause problems for those people in their future. Fear is a harmful emotion, for it clouds people’s judgement, disables them from taking action, and causes them to make decisions that they will regret later.
Intro : Introduce the concept of death, and how the concept of death is shown to be something to be feared
We assemble in a cesspool of death waiting on our ultimate judgment. Everyone has their own belief or idea about the hypothesis for the hereafter, yet no one knows the legitimacy of these theories. This is why the majority of people are petrified about dying because the horror of the unknown is frightening to everyone. Yet, with this in mind numerous authors precede to inscribe works of literature about the death of man throughout history. Although these two writings share a common theme their representation and other symbolic references show their differences throughout their writings.
Death it is something we all must face at one point in our lives or another. It is either a death of a loved one, friend or co-worker. Sometimes it’s the devastation from a natural disaster. No matter what makes us face the idea of death it is how we handle this realization that truly matters. When Gilgamesh is faced with the horrendous loss of his dear friend and comrade Enkidu he begins to fear death. In Gilgamesh’s youth he is proud without fear of death, it is not until he watches his friend die that his own mortality becomes a fear.
because it helped Morrie cope with death and dying. This was because Morrie accepted many different religions into his life and combined them. So yes, religion will differ a person’s view on death and dying but only because people become single minded in their thinking.
I was very excited to take Death and Dying as a college level course. Firstly, because I have always had a huge interest in death, but it coincides with a fear surrounding it. I love the opportunity to write this paper because I can delve into my own experiences and beliefs around death and dying and perhaps really establish a clear personal perspective and how I can relate to others in a professional setting.