# Is death bad for the person that dies?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [June 24, 2024, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275 "2024-06-24T15:45:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/1 "2024-06-24T15:45:38Z")
I got into a debate with someone elsewhere about Antinatalism and the badness/evil of all life in the universe ceasing to exist. I think it would be obviously bad because I think sentient life is objectively intrinsically valuable and death is bad for the being that dies even if they’re not technically around to experience it. As explained in detail in this [thread](https://np.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/10p27d7/death_is_not_bad_for_you_refuting_the_deprivation/) death is bad because of the deprivation and opportunity cost. To me saying “But a dead person can’t experience or want anything” is just restating what makes it so bad to begin with. I don’t think the badness of something is necessarily dependent on a conscious mind being aware of it or experiencing it in some way.
What are your opinions on the subject?
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### Author:  [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/2 "2024-06-24T15:54:20Z")
Besides any spiritual nature. One of the characters of life has been stated to reverse local entropy, which does show value in creating more complex structures in an ever decaying universe. And perhaps the ability to overcome the universal law of entropy before it takes over and nothing is ever possible. In that higher order forms of life seem to be a logical essential.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/3 "2024-06-24T16:04:26Z")
> [@Cmyers1980](#):
>
> I don’t think the badness of something is necessarily dependent on a conscious mind being aware of it or experiencing it in some way.
I disagree. I feel something has to exist in order to experience anything.
To argue otherwise makes the universe into a terrible place. It says that every being who was never born (which outnumber living beings by a near infinite amount) is somehow suffering somewhere by their non-existence.
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### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/4 "2024-06-24T16:05:45Z")
Death is (usually) bad for the person who dies, yes. It means an end to activity and things they could have kept doing. Unless you mean the suffering, in which case it all depends on your beliefs about any existence of any afterlife. Heaven = good, Hell = bad, and if you’re not around to feel anything then you don’t feel anything, but still, it means your life on Earth has ended. “Game Over” is usually a bad thing.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/5 "2024-06-24T16:06:03Z")
> [@Cmyers1980](#):
>
> As explained in detail in this [thread](https://np.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/10p27d7/death_is_not_bad_for_you_refuting_the_deprivation/) death is bad because of the deprivation and opportunity cost.
In a Universe of infinite space and resources that would be true. But it isn’t infinite.
I generally hew to one comic’s definition:
> Death is Nature’s way of recycling human beings.
Here in 2024 we don’t necessarily have the maximal number of living humans. Or even the (presumably much smaller) optimal number of living humans. So current deaths may be a waste in your sense. But what is it about current lives that would in your alternate world privilege them to continue indefinitely, but once the optimal/maximal limit is reached, would reintroduce death into the human condition?
And how to choose then? Cull the oldest, or grandfather them into eternal life and prevent all future new life?
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/6 "2024-06-24T16:10:53Z")
First, I don’t think that in general at a philosophical level life has any intrinsic benefit. Life simply seeks to mindlessly procreate itself as much as it can – that is fundamentally its only “purpose”.
In practical terms, here on earth most forms of life are very important because they form part of the essential ecosystem that sustains us and our fellow creatures. But we have that perspective only because we value our own lives and well-being and those of the fellow creatures we identify with, not because of any demonstrable objective reason.
As for individual death, I think the proper way to regard it is to consider where we came from. We basically came from nothing, with no prior awareness because there was no prior. And that’s the place to which we return.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/7 "2024-06-24T18:06:09Z")
> [@Cmyers1980](#):
>
> I don’t think the badness of something is necessarily dependent on a conscious mind being aware of it or experiencing it in some way.
Thought experiment: a universe in which there is only one person alive. They die. For whom is it bad that they died? In what way is badness tangibly manifest? Who cares that it’s bad? If the answer is nobody, then how is it actually bad?
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### Author:  [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/8 "2024-06-24T18:19:10Z")
> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> If the answer is nobody, then how is it actually bad?
To continue along that line: “good” and “bad” are meaningless terms except to sentient beings.
(I could have said “sapient” but it’s reasonable, or at least arguable, to extend the concepts of good and bad to non-self-aware life.)
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/9 "2024-06-24T18:19:35Z")
Life is simply an emergent property of electrochemical reactions. It has no intrinsic meaning, or else why would billions of years have separated the beginnings on life on earth and the rise of multi-celled organisms that took an additional half billion years to get to pretentious us?
The ability to philosophically address death has been extant for perhaps 0.001% of the earth’s existence. Let’s not make too much of ourselves. We don’t matter to the universe, or to the galaxy, or the solar system, or the earth, for that matter. We’re just matter who can move around matter and so put on airs.
Or, [as once said](https://genius.com/National-lampoon-deteriorata-annotated):
> You are a fluke
> Of the universe.
> You have no right to be here.
> And whether you can hear it or not
> The universe is laughing behind your back.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/10 "2024-06-24T18:25:22Z")
The last person’s dog will mourn, and then the last person’s cat will chow down.
On a more serious note, I have asked religionists in the past how they reconcile a loving god with the violent death of children, and I have been told more than once that their god takes the souls of innocent children before the bad stuff happens.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/11 "2024-06-24T19:00:46Z")
We certainly think and act as though death is bad for the people that die. We consider it a tragedy when a lot of people die in a natural disaster or, worse, at the hands of other human beings—and not _just_ because of the effect of their deaths on those who are left behind.
Considered rationally, how bad (if at all) death is for the person who dies depends on
1. How painful or scary the process of dying is
2. What, if anything, happens to the person after they die
3. What that person’s life would have been like if it had been allowed to continue
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### Author:  [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/12 "2024-06-24T19:17:11Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> I have asked religionists in the past how they reconcile a loving god with the violent death of children, and I have been told more than once that their god takes the souls of innocent children before the bad stuff happens.
Man is the animal that rationalizes.
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### Author:  [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/13 "2024-06-24T20:53:14Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> I disagree. I feel something has to exist in order to experience anything.
>
> To argue otherwise makes the universe into a terrible place. It says that every being who was never born (which outnumber living beings by a near infinite amount) is somehow suffering somewhere by their non-existence.
I agree. I tend to be pretty existentialist. Our lives have whatever meaning we create for it in an absurd and random universe. None of that depends (for me) on endless subsequent generations. I shrug at the thought that someday there are no humans left, and I hope only that nobody suffers (much) in the process.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/14 "2024-06-24T21:01:03Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> The last person’s dog will mourn, and then the last person’s cat will chow down.
> On a more serious note, I have asked religionists in the past how they reconcile a loving god with the violent death of children, and I have been told more than once that their god takes the souls of innocent children before the bad stuff happens.
That’s one I’ve never heard before.
What happens to a child that is greatly mistreated but survives the experience? Does God take their soul while the bad stuff is happening and then put it back into the child afterwards?
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/15 "2024-06-24T21:31:36Z")
Any omnipotent and omniscient god could do that with one hand tied behind its/his/her/their back, assuming it/he/she/they have hands and backs.
Once you assume god, all answers become irrefutable.
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### Author:  [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/16 "2024-06-24T21:49:21Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> I generally hew to one comic’s definition:
>
> > Death is Nature’s way of recycling human beings.
Counterpoint from another comic:
> The key is to not think of death as an end, but more as a very effective way of cutting down on your expenses.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/17 "2024-06-24T22:02:44Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> What happens to a child that is greatly mistreated but survives the experience? Does God take their soul while the bad stuff is happening and then put it back into the child afterwards?
You get one question. Anything after that is Satan using the Bible for evil purposes.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2024, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/18 "2024-06-24T22:08:34Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> their god takes the souls of innocent children before the bad stuff happens
That has the disturbing implication that it’s ok to torture a child with a terminal illness, say by horrific medical experimentation, because there’s nothing “there” anymore.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2024, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/19 "2024-06-25T00:05:09Z")
_For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong._
H. L. Mencken
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2024, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-death-bad-for-the-person-that-dies/1003275/20 "2024-06-25T00:51:14Z")
With the recent exception of the learned @Exapno_Mapcase’ last post I think we’ve strayed far from the OP’s questions about large “L” Life as a collective phenomenon of Nature versus the small “l” life / lives of individual critters be they bacteria, humans, or anything between or even beyond.
I can’t wax philosophical on my phone so I won’t follow up my corrective with a suitable response. At least not for a couple / few hours.
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