SH1617

Memento Mori

http://shamaninthecity.com.au/tag/stages-of-life/

The phrase MEMENTO MORI means a reminder of mortality in Latin. Death is said to be
an aide-mmoire (aid to the memory) to all human persons that life has its ultimate limitation. Our
existence on earth is not forever. We live and we die. That is the truth.
Man and Death
Human attitudes toward death, as well as our behavior in the face of death, have changed in the
last quarter of the century: death and dying stopped being an unmentionable question and became the
topic of numerous discussions. Now death is being interpreted in various aspects (medical,
psychological, legal or sociological) by thanatologists who treat this fact in a scientific manner and
propose rational attitudes on death.
Whereas nuclear arms imply the possibility of total destruction of life, while contemporary
medicine creates an opportunity to prolong life. On the other hand, terrorism courts death, while some
people demand the right to so-called death with dignity and promote mercy-killing or suicide. There
is then a rising interest in death.
One can ask, however, if it is possible to explain death in a scientific way. May one demand
his or her right to die in the same way as human beings demand their right to live?
What is death: is it a phenomenon of life, its natural end? What is the ultimate sense of death
in the total existence of man? If Thanatologists do not answer these questions clearly, can philosophy
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give proper answers? Certainly, it should search for them. From the philosophical point of view, we
should recognize first that we can experience death. We ought to know the cognitive value of our
conceptions and judgments about death and its relation to with the whole of human existence.
Only human beings experience death as an ultimate and shocking event. In the world of nature
we deal only with the phenomenon of passing, which is something natural for animate creatures other
than human beings. Why does man experience death as something unnatural; what does he see in it?
One cannot totally experience its essence for when he dies he experiences it personally but cannot
transmit the content of his experience to the others after his death. He falls absolutely silent; the dead
tell us nothing about death and about the life that follows.
We can experience death only in others' dying and only until they actually die. So it is given to
us as an ultimate personal event in the life of another human being, never as an event of mine. This is
the principal limitation of the possibility of our experience of death. We know that it must happen, but
it is always far away from us. Thus, it is given to us in a one-sided manner; exclusively on that side of
life. Death itself designates the limits of the possibility of its experience.
This should be considered in philosophy. All the conceptions of death and of its connection
with the whole of our existence are based on one-sided incomplete experience, which is had in the life
time before death, never after it. Our understanding of death is given to us exclusively on the basis of
the self-understanding of a living-man, who is inevitably approaching death as the ultimate event of
his life. Thus, we come to an understanding of death by analyzing our actual existence in the light of
the one-side experience of death and dying by the others.
What can we say of death itself? We are absolutely sure that it will come into our lives: each
of us certainly will die. What can it be then: the law of life and destination of our existence; the entrance
into a new life, or a total destruction of our being?
Death comes into our lives without any rules, inconsiderately and irrationally, as a thief, a dark
power that we cannot control or understand. Let us try to analyze these various ways:
1. The death of an old man or woman as a quiet end and passing away of life
2. A sudden death of a man dying in his prime as a tragic breaking of life
3. Death as a result of an incurable disease taken as a liberation by the neighborhood of the
dying man and sometimes also by himself
4. A death that breaks the bond of love as an inexpiable enemy of life
5. Death experienced consciously in the unity with God as passing to a new life
The analysis of the above-mentioned manners in which death comes into someone's life allows
us to make the following statements.
1. In each case death annihilates the visual presence of man among the living; it takes him away from
the community of life. This negative element of death is aggressively evident to us because we have
to remove the corpse as soon as possible. Therefore we experience death as a dark, damaging force,
inimical to life.

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2. This negative element makes us treat death as an unnatural and odious phenomenon, even in the
case where someone dies quietly in the old age. It is difficult to understand death as a natural end of
life or liberation, because the visual existence of man is absolutely annihilated, so that we do not know
what happens to him.
3. Death as negative and inimical to life is hardly considered as a natural and normal law of human
personal life, even when it is assumed to be something natural for the human system. A human being
as a person is intrinsically directed toward life; he transcends the world of the values created by himself
and therefore experiences death especially as something unnatural and shocking for his desires and
creative actions.
4. Death comes into human life in an irrational way and is itself an irrational event as the end of life,
because it explains nothing and does not solve anything in a positive way. So it is difficult to consider
the phenomenon in question as a wise law of nature for human beings.
5. Death cannot be given any exact definition or conceptions: it is something basically negative and
absurd. Its "eidos," its own "What" is best expressed with the image of a skeleton with scythe. Anything
that could positively be said of death, e.g., that it introduces seriousness in human life or makes us
spiritually mature, can be derived from the fact that human beings discover some sense for the
experience of death in themselves as a religious act of sacrifice for some other higher values or as an
act of resignation.
In view of such experiences of death it is remarkable that human beings have been opposing
the idea of personal immortality to the phenomenon of death throughout the history of mankind. What
is the reason of this fact: is it only the fear of death, or, is it perhaps some experience of the immortality
of our own selves?
It should be remembered that the conception of soul itself and of its immortality is posterior to
the idea of personal immortality. The conception of an immortal soul is connected with the attempts
to find some rational arguments that have been being made since the birth of philosophy. The primary
source of the idea of immortality and the hope of lasting after death is the consciousness of the sense
and value of being a personal "I". Such an interpretation is made evident by the historically common
facts of burying human corpses and worshipping the dead ones. Since the very beginning of history
humans have experienced the fact of being a personal "I" as something high and precious, regarding
themselves as transcendent entities in the world of nature. Thus, they have been worshipping the bodies
of the dead and burying them with the hope of a future meeting and continuation of life, understanding
that the destination of a human being as a person is to be, rather than falling into oblivion as a nonentity.
All later ontological arguments for the immortality of man were derived from the abovementioned pre-understanding of the sense and value of being a person. It is remarkable, however, that
in all cultures known to us human beings connected their primary consciousness of the sense and value
of being a person with some religious experience, referring their own existence to the absolute "Thou"
of God. The religious understanding of human existence in the world always made them experience
death in their lives in terms of awaiting hopefully the new life that would be given to them by God (or
the gods).

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Human beings always tend to interpret the fact of their inevitable death and to give some sense
to it. Their freedom is expressed in taking various attitudes. However, we always do it in a manner
depending on our understanding of ourselves and of our existence in the world. It is only our
consciousness of the sense and value of life (whether it be spontaneous or philosophical) that allows
us to perceive immortality as our eternal significance and destination. Man knows that, as a person, he
deserves the eternal life.
Death and Its Concept
The concept of death is unlike most other concepts. Usually we have an object and the concept
of that object. For example, we have a horse and the concept of a horse. However, the concept of death
is absolutely without any object whatsoever. Thinking about the prospect of one's own death is a
constant meditation upon our own ignorance. There is no method for getting to know death better,
because death cannot be known at all.
One trouble with discussing this topic is the instinctive fear of death. We tend to avoid death
in our thoughts and actions. However, if we could forget our fears for a minute, we could see more
clearly how interesting the concept actually is from a more detached point of view.
Birth and death are the bookends of our lives. Living towards death in time gives one's life a
direction and framework within which to understand the changes that life brings. The world looks very
different to the young and the old. The young looks forward. The old looks back. What matters to us
changes as we get older. The prospect of death informs these changes. The young has an intellectual
understanding that death comes to us all, but their mortality has not become real to them. For the old,
mortality starts to sink in.
Take two (2) famous philosophical ideas about death: one from Plato and one from Spinoza.
According to Plato, a philosopher has a vital concern with death and constantly meditates upon it.
According to Spinoza, the wise person thinks of nothing so little as death. Perhaps the truth is
somewhere in the middle. Ignoring death leaves us with a false sense of life's permanence and perhaps
encourages us to lose ourselves in the minutiae of daily life. Obsessive rumination on death, on the
other hand, can lead us away from life. Honestly coming to terms with one's death involves reflection
on its significance in one's life, and thinking about the larger values that give life its meaning. In the
end, it is useful to think about death only to the point that it frees us to live fully immersed in the life
we have yet to live.

References:
Mason, J. (2015, January 31). Death and Its Concept. Retrieved from Philosophersmag.com:
http://www.philosophersmag.com/index.php/reflections/17-death-and-its-concept
Siemianowski, A. (n.d.). Man and Death: A Philosophical Study. Retrieved from Council for Research
in Values and Philosophy: http://www.crvp.org/book/Series04/IVA-1//ch10.htm
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