logical phallusy.

The funny thing about death.

Recently I’ve been reading through people’s experiences of death - that is people who have died, and then been resuscitated. It’s been strangely comforting. The accounts were mostly from people who died from drowning, or blood loss, etc. If I wasn’t so lazy, I’d go back and copy and paste for you (you can find a couple accounts on reddit, if you’re looking for them).

The funny thing is that all of them shared a common feeling when they realized their death was imminent: immense peace, a feeling of all encompassing warmth and resolution. I read someone’s account of his thoughts before his death, and he had thought to himself So this is death? I thought it would be so different… and then a deep feeling of acceptance that this was the end for him.

tl;dr our brains are wired for a pleasant experience of death. You can read a little more about the biological theories here.

Funny, no? The strangest part about this is wondering why we are wired this way. If we accept Darwinism as accounting for all our adaptations, we have to imagine that every successful adaptation has resulted in increased survival of that species. But an adaptation that only occurs at the moment of death? Well. You can’t explain that.