The fear of death is innate.

For me, such an inspirational post surreptitious!!

Your comments dovetail nicely with thoughts that passed between my ears a few hours before reading your comments and thoughts that passed between my ears a few hours after reading your comments.

I settled on sharing the following thought(s).

First some context:

1. Both the OT and NT are peppered with ancient Egypt events … culture … religion. For example, the exodus myth and the desert fathers story(s).

2. Some Biblical scholars believe the OT Genesis story was written by a woman … likely an Egyptian woman.

3. Some people believe the NT Lazarus story … as in death and resurrection … is an echo of Egyptian mystery school teaching, rituals, dogma. The essence of the message being … one must voluntarily submit to death … figuratively as in ritual or literally … not sure.

The human collective consciousness has all the pieces of the puzzle … but more cogitation within the collective consciousness is required … more pieces of the puzzle fall into place … before the “picture” becomes clear. I say “fall” because human(s) are not the creator … designer of the puzzle … we are simply actors on the stage.

Yet it’s becoming increasingly clear the author(s) of the puzzle want us to know/understand it. Fortunately, not all of the pieces of the puzzle need to be in place before we can ‘see’ the message. Like the children’s connect the dots puzzle … at some point … sometimes long before all dots are connected the child knows the answer.

The pieces that have yet to ‘fall’ in place deal with death. When humans have spent a very tiny fraction of the time and effort they spent on how to live a good life … on how to prepare for a good death … how to not only not fear death … embrace it as simply a single step along a very long journey.

surreptitious … you are obviously in the vanguard of this movement … I hope you will take your responsibility seriously … ergo … help build a critical mass of humanity achieve what you have already achieved.

Its not innate to infants until they know it exists, ergo it is not innate.

Really!!

An infant born under water will struggle to get to the surface and keep his head above water … the infant prefers to survive … ergo … is afraid of death.

That is very kind of you tom. Unfortunately I do not think it is my responsibility to help others overcome their fear of death
That is something that only they can do. Also my circumstances makes it very easy to do so. But others are not so fortunate

Is that really a fear of death or simply because the child has not been born with gills? It’s an automatic response.

I personally intuit that we are NOT born with a fear of death. It is a learned process.
Is it also possible that it depends on how some of our brains are hardwired and on our own personal physical and emotional makeup?

Is the survival instinct, the will to live, equal to and the same as the fear of death?
I doubt it but that’s just me.

True, and good point, but that’s not a conscious fear of death, its the same as plankton want to survive, without there being any consciousness there to want that. I suppose that’s being picky, I was just thinking about a monkey giving birth on a nature documentary, it looked around and was bewildered by the event. Same with death when children suddenly realize it exists - and then get scared about it. fear of harm/damage is innate, but its not a ‘fear’ it is mechanistic - in the nature of the organic machine.

surreptitious … I applaud your modesty. =D>

The image of a pebble thrown into a pond comes to mind. The pebble quickly disappears below the surface of the water … yet … the ripples created by the impact extend … amplify … the geography and duration … timing … of the pebble’s impact with the water.

You are a living testimony … of an individual who has successfully overcome the fear of death … voluntarily or not is irrelevant.

All that you do … all that you don’t do … all that you say … all that you don’t say … is invaluable to those individuals privileged to see your actions … hear your words … read your words … share your thoughts telepathically and so on.

A and A

Your comments are at least partially true if not completely true … so much of human behavior is mechanical:

1. Fruit of ingrained habits … routines.

2. Fruit of a stubborn clinging to a particular religious dogma/doctrine.

3. Fruit of a stubborn clinging to a particular philosophical concept/theory.

4. Fruit of a stubborn clinging to a particular cultural custom/tradition.

5. Belief that one is trapped … with few if any choices.

6. Insert here

An enormous … immeasurable … amount of time and effort has been spent on communicating how to live a good life … a successful life and so on. How much time and effort has been spent on communicating how to die a good death … a successful death. Religions have failed miserably in their collective efforts to communicate a proper preparation for death.

There are two main categories relating to the fear of death, i.e.

1. The conscious fear of the threat of death
2. The unconscious or subliminal primal fear pulsating within depths of the mind.

1. The conscious fear of the threat of death
As programmed, all humans would fear the threat of death consciously [logically], but for all humans such a conscious fear of death is also inhibited and suppressed most of the time so that humans can function consciously.
Any one who has a constant [abnormal] fear of death at the conscious level would relatively be considered psychologically and mentally sick, which is Thanatophobia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_anxiety_(psychology
Those who has such a sickness should seek psychiatric help.

2. The unconscious or subliminal primal fear pulsating within depths of the mind.
It is no doubt the threat of death generate fears but as in 1 above this fact of life is inhibited and suppressed at the conscious level but not at the subconscious level.

It is also a known fact what is activated at the subconscious [subliminal] level will manifest itself [most of the time] [more compelling] in various forms without the experiencer understanding/knowing its root causes.

This subliminal fear of death in combination with self-consciousness generate a suppressed form of cognitive dissonance and existential crisis brewing at the basement of the mind. This terrible dissonance is often manifest as angst, anxieties, worries, mental pains, lost, helplessness, despairs, psychological tremblings. pangs, etc. at the conscious level. Such terrible feelings are like an itch where one cannot find the exact spot to scratch.
However the majority has naturally veered [driven] toward a psychological balm, i.e. religions to soothe this terrible angst. Believe [god, etc.] and viola the pangs of angst suddenly disappear.

The Eastern religions [Buddhism, Jainism, some Hindu religions, etc.] on the other hand take its bull by the horns and face the issue directly at the rational psychological level to deal with it by tuning the relevant neural circuit to strengthen the necessary modulators to deal with the angst.

Thus the “Fear of Death” [inhibited as a subliminal angst] is THE Primary Motivator of Religions and other human activities.

With the advent of religions to deal with the terrible dilemma, they are exploited and abused by others for various purposes [political [control of the masses], social, economics, romance, love, money, etc.] but these are secondary motivators not the primary motivator.

Interesting post … very interesting if I understand you correctly and your assertions are true.

Your comments ring true … seem logical … feel intuitively true.

The various ‘balms’ … religions … cultural traditions/customs … mythology and so on served a noble purpose. Nonetheless, they remain a ‘band-aid’ solution.

Perhaps humanity is approaching a new threshold in consciousness … bring the subliminal primal fear resident in the subconscious into the light of day … consciousness. This idea dovetails nicely with one of surreptitious’s comments … paraphrasing … each individual must confront his/her own fear of death … ergo … his/her own demons.

Would the ‘100 monkey effect’ facilitate … expedite the process? For example, if those who managed to cross this bridge talked about it … wrote about it and so on … it may become contagious.

Okay, what then is your current “situation”?

How close to actual death are you now? How much actual death have you experienced in your life? Do you have any religious beliefs that allow you to imagine that, yes, immortality and salvation are in your future?

How much do you have to lose if were to die tomorrow? People that you love, people that love you, experiences that you cherish, a life that is bursting at the seams with much that fulfills and satisfies you?

Also, how much pain is there in your life now that death will take away?

In other words, to what extent are you talking about death here generally, “philosophically”? Or of the actual existential death in which you – and “I”? – decompose and return to dust.

Just to add that a-priori information is not the same as observational info. When you realize as a child that you are going to die and get scared, that is not the same as instinctual survival information already built into your brain. If you never told a child they will die and they never experienced seeing it or learned of it, they would not be afraid of it - naturally.

K: first things first, the child struggling to keep his head above water is not afraid of death.
they have no sense of death… the struggle to survive is the innate aspect, not the fear of death…
the two have nothing to do with each other…every single creature born on earth struggles
to survive as that is innate in every single creature on earth

as a former swim teacher of 20 years, I can state that that infants only have three innate
fears, of snakes, of the dark and of falling… that’s it…that is the list of children’s innate fears…
every thing else is learned…

Kropotkin

Give an example. The fear of death is a relative denial of a corresponding time left to live. Let’s say a 75 years old man knowing he has say, 5 years left, tjinks in terms of relative time, hoping that 5 years will spmejow sliw down, as it approaches time zero, counting down, making it last longer then it actually is, by stretching this horizon of space-time toward infinity.
This is a denial of sorts and what happens is exactly opposite but then the quantitative infinity is qualified as a quality of space time in the form of eternity, with no difference between them at the time of its occurance.

What changes most likely has been described in OBE’s-as a change of perspective from an internal to an outside source of perception:
Such RX to allay the fear are very common, but are they merely psychosomatic constructions or, are they something much more?

Good point!

Can we accurately circumscribe the boundaries between a-priori information and observational information?

I think we are often trying to do that [and mostly failing lol], then the difficulty is most simple at root, that consciousness is subjective and info more objective. It gets pushed into our consciousness e.g. with instincts, but when the brain does that its like two systems trying to do the same thing, only in the exchange the physical a-priori info is necessarily changed. - why our instincts are as much a mystery as anything external.

Amorphos … once again you bring our e-exchange to a very interesting place.
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The notion of monogamy comes to mind. Both genders of the human species are hard wired … a priori … to engage sexually with any member of the opposite sex … or at least almost any member … absolutely necessary for the sole purpose of propagation of the species.

This a priori information comes into conflict with the man made construct of monogamy and morality … the result being a real shit storm … since time immemorial.

How many other instances of conflict are a result of the same phenomenon?

Whatever issues you can raise can be easily verified by empirical evidence if one were to reflect deeply and widely.

It is not easy for most to face the question of mortality on the conscious level. It is only possible by some hard work in re-wiring the relevant inhibitors to be stronger.

But what is critical is for the majority to understand how much their resultant acts are linked to the root causes of the cognitive dissonance and existential dilemma.
For example, theists need not give up theism [better if they can] but they need to understand why they must believe in an illusory god is because they are driven subliminally by that inherent cognitive dissonance pulsating at the basement of their mind. Thus they have no choice at present but to believe in a God as a balm to soothe the terrible existential angst.

If they understand such a psychological mechanics, they are likely to pause rather than act spontaneously into defensive mode [even kill non-believers] every time they mis-perceived any criticism against theism as a critical threat.

Critical point is humanity must find fool proof alternative spiritual methods to deal with that inherent unavoidable psychological and terrible pulse from the basement of the minds of the majority to replace religions [band aids] which will be net negative to the well being of human in the near future.

I have noticed, that in some, the fear of life and living, actually pawns the fear of death.

Both are learned processes.

I would lose absolutely nothing if I were to die tomorrow