why is death painful?

From: Wei Dai <weidai.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 7 Jun 1999 01:59:22 -0700

Should one make decisions based on objective or subjective consequences of
his actions? By objective, I mean one should consider how one's actions
affect the external world, and by subjective I mean one should only
consider one's future subjective experiences. This is very much related to
the quantum suicide debate, since the QS advocates argue (as I understand
it) that a decrease in one's measure (which is definitely a feature of the
objective universe) should be ignored as a part of decision making since
it is not directly subjectively detectable.

Evolution must have had two "choices" when it programmed our brains to
make decisions as they relate to death. It could have made death or
circumstances leading to death painful and made us avoid actions that lead
to the subjective experience of pain, or it could have made us consider
the effect of each of our potential actions on our measure and avoid
actions that lead to a decrease in measure. Apparently it chose the
former, presumably because it's easier for evolution to accomplish. But
because of this our genes are now in trouble because we have found ways to
kill ourselves painlessly.

So what does this mean for us? Since subjective decision making is a
legacy of our evolutionary past, and can be shown to be less general than
objective decision making, it should no longer be used. Therefore, QS
advocates will have to come up with a new justification for ignoring one's
measure. I don't think there is one. That doesn't mean one should care
about one's measure, just that there is no reason why one shouldn't.
Received on Mon Jun 07 1999 - 02:02:54 PDT