X-Message-Number: 22217
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 14:12:44 +0200
Subject: Re: Denial of Life
From: David Stodolsky <>

> Message #22214
> From: "mike99" <>
> Subject: Denial of Life
> Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 15:59:16 -0600
>
> I think the problem with our debate on Cryonet over the psychological
> theories of Ernest Becker, the nature of religion, and the reality 
> death, is
> that the participants are arguing from different premises. The 
> Beckerians
> seem to be oblivious to the sociobiological foundation of living 
> beings,
> including homo sapiens. I have no doubt that Becker was a compelling 
> writer.
> Like Freud, however, he seems to be writing from the perspective of 
> one who
> assumes that psychology is determined primarily by the influences of 
> society
> and family upon an otherwise independent ego. Biology gets lost.
>
> Such a perspective seems quite naive in view of the more compelling
> arguments of evolutionary psychology that we are primarily evolved, 
> genetic
> robots controlled by a combination of selfish genes and social 
> information
> mechanisms (or memes) with, at best, a rational mind of relatively 
> minor
> influence for most individuals.

I have to point out here that evolutionary psychology has become 
something of fad, and many of the claims have no backing, in terms of 
evidence. The term 'meme' is not used by professional psychologists. 
However, Becker's theory does assume that social learning is a crucial 
and determines how the fear of death will be buffered.


> We can be fairly certain, though, that most people lack a constant,
> pessimistic, terrorized fear of death because such a state of being 
> would be
> contrary to the survival program of the genes.

There is no support for this that I am aware of.

Most people lack a constant fear of death, because no culture could 
function if its people were sitting in corners shivering with terror 
while contemplating their eventual demise, so every successful culture 
must provide a worldview that buffers this fear.


> Becker seems to be saying
> that we must accept our mortality, embrace it, and move on. No 
> cryonicist
> wants to do that!

Becker's theory is descriptive, not prescriptive. It tells us how death 
anxiety shapes culture and human behavior. Many different responses 
(cultures) have been developed to buffer death anxiety. He said that 
anyone who wants to understand human behavior must accept mortality 
avoidance as an implicit motive, that is, theorists must accept it, not 
'users'. In fact, he would say that it is only in cases of cultural 
breakdown that the user accepts mortality. It has been shown in the lab 
that there is a reflexive withdrawal from mortality salient stimuli, so 
the user can never accept death face-to-face, so to speak. "Death, like 
the Sun, does not tolerate the direct gaze" (from memory), George 
Santayana, Spanish Philosopher/Writer, 1863-1952.


dss

David S. Stodolsky    SpamTo: 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22217