Can We Be Injured By Death?

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth than your Philosophy” - Ambrose Coghill (The Colonel)

(This is an original post, meaning the context has been formed as a result of my own ideas and thoughts, accumulated into this journal post. I recommend before reading this post, you take a brief look at Philosophy As A Therapy for the discussion on Epicurus. However, this is not necessary)

In the 1968 BBC’s adaptation of M.R. James’s horror novel, Oh, Whistle And I’ll Come To You, My Lad, there is a scene where the protagonist of the story, Professor Parkins, asks the same question. His answer is a response to the Colonel's question of whether or not he believes in ghosts:

“There’s no broad consensus about what a ghost is… A survival of the human personality, hmm?... It has the grammatical appearance of a real question, does it really mean anything, either? We say, for the sake of argument, that the human personality survives death. But, would we say to the same way we might say, for example, that someone survived a train crash? But would we, you see? We might say (they) survived the train crash, but was very badly injured by it. Now would you say that (they) survived death, and was very badly injured by it? We wouldn’t want to say that, would we? No, no… Death, in a sense, is not like other physical catastrophes. One doesn’t talk about anyone being very badly hurt by death, except probably the relatives of the deceased, but never the victim himself… (rather) he had been injured fatally by death”

Professor Parkins makes a powerful point that not only highlights the confusion of the definition of death, but surfaces the clarity of the term’s lingual usage. Parkins describes death as being unlike “other physical catastrophes”, but later mentions one can be injured fatally by it. He discusses death as an preternatural accident, but further states one may assign this mysterious inevitability the power to injure; but only in a fatal way. But, it should be noted that Parkins does not speak this as his own personal beliefs, rather he’s exploring what others may respond.

Parkins seems to conclude that we do not say death injured a person, but rather the incident which caused them the injury did. However, his later use of ‘fatal death’ assigns death with the same attributes as the train crash itself. But can the two be compared, or rightly confused?

In order to explore Parkins’ point further, we must look at the definitions of death and the

way death can affect the human body.

The Definition of Death:

According to the English Dictionary, the most common definition for the term ‘death’ is the “action of being killed”, and “the end of a person’s life”. In a more figurative sense, death can apply to state of metaphysical being, further extending into the belief of an unknowable realm or afterlife. Death is a term with so many varied meanings; before asking ourselves what is the impact of death to both the living and the deceased, we must define in which way we are referring to it. Some definitions can be seen as medical; for example, the action of becoming dead can be the failure of the heart pumping blood around the body. Three relatable types are:

• The state of death / being dead:

In a sentence: The king is dead.

• The action of becoming dead (not dying):

In a sentence: You might catch your death.

• Death as a character:

In a sentence: Death has come to take me away.

The state of being dead is one of the most mysterious, central aspects at the heart of religion and of human culture. Nobody really knows what happens to the human soul after we die, and the motionless bodies we leave behind disappear back into the earth. This is a topic which we all universally discuss under a wise Socratic viewpoint, and is something we have no experience of. In a definitive term, death as a state is the absence of the human soul, and the inanimate body that is left behind. When we refer to someone as being dead, we are reflecting on a previous human’s mind and presence which no longer exists in the physical realm.

The action of being dead differs slightly. Death still remains a noun, but rather than a label, it refers to an action. According quite literally to the definition in this sense, death equals to ‘the action of dying’. For example, a person’s pulse fading after a heart attack is death. The confusion here is already obvious, death and dying are assumed to mean the same thing. Death on its own, however, seems implausible as an action. The definition of action is “a process with an aim”. Death isn’t really a process, whereas dying is. The ‘aim’ of dying, if there was to be one, would be death. Death therefore is an end result, and not an action within itself. Death does not continue to persist; it is an end to persistence and existence. For example, take the process of arrow-making. The skilled designers and manufacturers combine with the correct resources in order to produce an arrow. However, once the arrow is made, the process for that specific arrow stops as the end result has been produced. This could be an analogy for dying, with death being the arrow. However, seeing as death cannot be used and broken as a physical object can be, this is merely a loose comparison to clarify the point. Death is unlike anything else.

Note here the different means of death in a sentence without “he” or “she” applied before the predicate.

Sentence with a third person pronoun:

• She may meet her death.

Sentence without:

• She may meet death.

The absence of the pronoun in the sentence generates an entirely different definition of death, in a way personifying it.

Death as a personified character is a non-medical, more abstract definition than the ones previously explored. We will be more than familiar with the concept of the Grim Reaper - the most iconic depiction of death with his black cloak and bloodcurdling scythe, harvesting souls like crops in fields. However, throughout history there have been various adaptations of Death’s character (note the capital letter here), all variable from culture to culture. The Greek God Chronus is believed to be the origin of our reaper, he wields a scythe, and even his hourglass bares symbolism to the time of harvest. This is not to be confused with the Titan Cronus, a mythological figure imprisoned in Tartarus after being overthrown by Zeus. Although, he too is often pictured holding a scythe, the weapon he used to castrate his father, Uranus, and the celebration Kronia is held to honour Cronos at the time of harvest. Thus, the immediate connection of the two figures is almost unavoidable.

Chronus, on the other hand, is a personification of Time - ‘Father Time’, in Pre-Socratic philosophy. However, he adapted the same scythe in illustrations as the Titan God’s during the Renaissance period. There are further similarities between the two figures; Chronus eats his children, whereas Cronus eats the Olympian Gods. These great, cannibalistic deities already strike the notion of terror, the same terror our familiar Grim Reaper strikes today. The hourglass implies that the human’s ‘time has come’, stemming from the reaper’s origins of Father Time.

However, the image of our hooded foe grew to popularity during the Black Death epidemic in the 14th century. The skeletal appearance may have risen from the piles of corpses flooding the streets. Equipped with a scythe similar to later versions of Father Time, this soul-reaping skeleton coming to whisk one away to the afterlife is a terrifying image indeed.

But why was time, and eventually death, personified in the first place? The human instinctive ability to anthropomorphize objects, notions and nature originates from the earliest of civilizations. In his book, Animism: Respecting the Living World, Graham Harvey explores this in detail. The term animism describes the way in which cultures understand and engage with the ‘larger than human’ world around, such as rocks, trees and animals. This was merely the beginning of the human mind projecting their likeness onto the non-human, from physical to metaphysical. In his book, Harvey studies the work of David Hume, who discussed animism without actually using the term itself. Hume felt that human personification of natural objects was ignorant when applied to the real world, despite being beautiful when used for poetical means.

“There is Universal tendency amongst mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object these qualities with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious. We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds…” - David Hume

Just as humans have personified Death, they have also personified God. Atheists usually remark on the traditional belief on an all-loving, unseeable father with a long white beard, a similar image projected onto Father Time in Ancient Greece. Death has human attributes too; a skeleton wielding a man-made weapon, an animated skeleton like that of the plague victims. Personifying Death does amplify the fear it unleashes, and this image adds to the negative emotion which death seems to accumulate. But are these great deities behind time, nature, love, death and countless metaphysical notions real? That is one of the greatest debates.

The Impact of Death:

This brings us further to the question of the topic: can we be injured by death? The identity of this subject can be divided into two different categories:

• Physical - Bodily pain inflicted by death

• Emotional - Mental pain inflicted by death

Now let’s explore the three definitions of death we have discussed in relation to these categories:

1. State of death and physical pain:

Example: The king is dead. The king does not feel any physical pain in the real world (as opposed to whatever afterlife there may be), for his soul can no longer perceive sense experience when his body is not alive. This does not apply, however, to someone who dies suddenly or in their sleep.

2. State of death and emotional pain:

The king, as with physical pain, does not feel any emotional pain in the real world. His family, however, and the citizens of the land he governs may feel emotional pain if he was a well-loved ruler. If not, they may not feel any emotional pain at all.

1. The action of becoming dead and physical pain:

Example: a man dying from a heart attack. The man will feel physical pain when he is under the process of dying, but when he has reached the outcome of that process - death, he no longer feels pain in the real world, or none that we know of, or can know of, in what proceeds him in the afterlife (if there is one at all).

2. The action of becoming dead and emotional pain:

Once again, the man may feel emotional pain when dying, especially if he is leaving his

friends and family. There’s a chance he may not; some become glorified, with an eagerness to leave their body. However, when he has finally reached the state of death itself, as with the point above, the man may no longer feel anything. Pain will be caused to others around the man, however.

1. Death as a character and physical pain:

Death is believed to collect souls when the person’s time has come. Only a corrupt reaper would harvest souls when the person’s time has not yet ended. Therefore, Death in this context does not cause any physical pain, rather he is one of the results of the pain caused by dying.

2. Death as a character and emotional pain:

The arrival of Death himself may cause one to react with terror and great emotional upset. His frightening appearance (when personified) can be an unpleasant one. Thus, Death can cause emotional pain.

In summary:

• The state of death: Physical - no, emotional - yes

• The action of dying with death as an outcome: Physical - no, emotional - yes

• Death as a character: Physical - no, emotional - yes.

As we can see from the summary above, death in all contexts only give us and those around us emotional pain. However, this is primarily based on the fact that this physical pain does not continue into the possibility of an afterlife.

Epicurus (341-270 BC) would agree with the above statement. In a previous post (I strongly recommend you read post 1 and post 2), I discussed therapeutic Epicurean philosophy, whose motto could be simply described as “don’t worry”. Their beliefs were simple, as they felt philosophy should be easily accessible to all. Epicurus believed that all good and bad exists in our sense experience. The atoms of our soul enable us to have sense perception, and when we die, they scatter and we no longer hold this power. Thus, our soul experiences nothing after death - neither good nor bad. So worrying about death is pointless for we won’t even be alive, or this is just another barrier against ultimate freedom from pain.

The Epicurean goal was to be free of pain altogether, a state they called ataraxia: the cure for distress. In order to attain this, one must follow a remedy created by Epicurus to relieve us of unnecessary pain.

“Get used to believing that death is nothing to us” - Epicurus

However, once again, religious beliefs of the afterlife respectively affirm that the soul continues to experience during the state of death. Hence, they have created rules to ensure they achieve a standard of living which will enable their souls to go to Heaven, as opposed to suffering eternally in the fires of Hell. To these believers, death is most certainly not nothing to them, and if they were to go to Hell, then death would be inflicting physical pain in another realm.

Epicurus’s view and my own claim that death can only cause emotional pain are in trouble when regarding religion. Epicurus himself responded that he believes the Gods may only be projections of images from our mind, but he did not disbelieve in them, he simply felt that they existed separately to the cosmos. If there is an afterlife, the Gods are in a permanent state of ataraxia so cannot feel anger according to their interpretation. Fearing the judgment of a God who is omnibenevolent seems a little unusual. My personal response to support my own claim is that even if there is a God, seeing as we cannot truly experience the afterlife nor contact this God (except for visions, miracles and other evidence), we do not truly know what the exact and best rules for worshipping God and living a good life are. We can only make our best guess, and through our reason assume that ‘good’ actions are those which are charitable and related to ‘good’ feelings (not to be confused with pleasure). Hence, we have deducted that this is the correct standard of living, so we can pass over to Heaven instead of Hell.

If we live according to these rules, we shouldn’t have to fear suffering in Hell. Religious people, depending on their own, individual variation of these rules, believe that they are doing the right thing in the will of God. So, unless they are failing in their duty to their God, they needn’t worry about Hell. Those who are failing, however, will surely be redeemed by their all-forgiving creator. But who is right? Some religions disallow their followers to drink coffee, whereas theists who do not follow a set path drink coffee every day and are still good people.

Thus, we do not know what the correct rules to live a good life are, and will continue to forever disagree. All we can hope is our own personal view of good and bad is the right one. Therefore, death in the afterlife cannot cause us physical pain. This isn’t stated as a fact, but seeing as we honestly cannot know what awaits us after death, and with no experience of this, we can’t justifiably make this claim. It is more factual to say we cannot feel any pain in death.

Also, if we did feel pain in the afterlife, we do not know what form of pain this may be. Seeing as Hell and Purgatory are supernatural realms invisible to the human eye, there could be another type of pain we encounter there, and this pain may not be equal to the pain we feel on Earth. Once again, we will never know the truth during our planetary life.

Here are the stages of this deduction regarding that physical pain may occur in the afterlife:

1. All religions and believers in the afterlife have different views

2. These believers follow different concepts of ‘good’ to achieve the best result in the afterlife

3. Therefore, there is no universal agreement on what these rules are

4. We can obtain no experience of what the afterlife is like

5. So, we cannot claim to know the true rules to achieve a good life after death, or provide evidence for pain in the afterlife as we have no experience of it

6. Therefore, we cannot factually state death can cause us physical pain

7. So, it is better to say there is no physical pain in the afterlife - that we know of

This counteracts the religious argument to my claim that death cannot physically injure us.

Also note: Ghosts, from popular belief, do not feel physical pain but eternal sadness. However, as the afterlife response claims, we cannot know what type of pain this is, or if it is even real.

However, I do believe that Epicurus stating “death is nothing to us” in part, is wrong. I haven’t had the chance to read into Epicurus as deeply as I would like to, but so far I haven’t come across his exact definition of death which he is discussing. Death is a term which can be used too loosely and needs clarification. In response to Epicurus, I feel the fear of death is part of the human survival instinct. Although we may not have emotional feelings about our own, we may have them regarding another person’s death, such as a relative or partner. Grief is an emotion exclusive to humans (although it has been noticed in animals, but to a different extent). Living without this fear would be extremely difficult to a huge majority of mankind.

So, Can Death Injure Us?

“He is a fool who says that he fears death not because it will be painful when present but because it is painful when it is still to come. For that while present causes no distress causes unnecessary pain when merely anticipated” - Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus

My answer is yes, but only emotionally. Dying is the result of injury, but the moment a person’s body is no longer able to think or feel, and the soul no longer animates it, they have become dead and can no longer be physically injured by dying, for they are now dead. As the character of Professor Parkins said, “Would you say that (the person who survived the train crash) survived death, and was very badly injured by it?... No. One doesn’t talk about anyone being very badly hurt by death”.

Death can affect us emotionally, however, in any definition we choose to apply to it. Whether it be those around us grieving at the loss of life, or the terrors of the Grim Reaper arriving at our door, death is fully capable of causing many levels of emotional pain. The emotional pain of death is a burden we naturally carry throughout our lives, and the reason why we seek food, shelter and warmth. Keeping ourselves alive and well is the central goal of life, and those who become ill slowly fear the shadow of death creeping over them. Only when pain is met, it is come to be realized, and if not by the fated, then by those who love and cherish them. Again, in the words of Professor Parkins, “One doesn’t talk about anyone being very badly hurt by death, except probably the relatives of the deceased, but never the victim himself”.