Angel Dust In The Wind- A Phenomenological Analysis of Death

The specter of death forever lurks in the shadows of the human psyche despite the fact that we seldom allow ourselves to be fully conscious of its presence. This is because, for us, death is usually conceived of as little more than an intellectual abstraction. What then would it actually look like to fully contemplate the ending of our existence free from such abstraction? To answer this question, we must turn to the phenomenological method used by existentialist philosophers. This is a method of analyzing our experiences by describing them accurately, sensitively, and perceptively, which is aimed at understanding “what it means to be alive or to exist as a human being in the world.” (Koestenbaum, 139) In other words, “the phenomenological technique prefers the more immediate and direct analysis of experience to account for life’s situations.” In order to describe an experience by this method, we have to bracket, or remove, as much as possible that we project onto the experience itself. In a sense, this allows us to reflect on what is normally pre-reflective. The descriptions we give when contemplating our own death exemplifies how we are accustomed to using projection to dilute the essence of our experience. By using the phenomenological method to analyze our conceptions death, we can get a clearer picture of what the prospect of death actually means and/or feels like to us as human beings.

From a phenomenological standpoint, there are two different meanings of the word “death.” There is the death of other people and our own death. The death of others—as seen from the perspective of our own subjectivity—is an occurrence that takes place within the world; we are still there to observe the world when another person dies. The death of the other is seen as just one possible event that can occur in this world of ours. Baring witness to this type of death is rarely accompanied by any overwhelming feelings of terror or dread. If it is someone close to us who dies, for example, we may think of making funeral plans, how we will cope with the loss, etc. The important thing to recognize is that, if examined closely, the death of the other “involves the elimination of an object within the world, and not of the observing ego or subject.” (141) In contrast, when subjected to the same kind of analysis, the conception of our own death means the total disintegration and annihilation of our subjectivity, or observing ego. Thus, the death of the other means the world still goes on and my own death means that the whole universe goes down with me.

When examining conceptions of our own death, we often confuse this with the dramatically different death of the other. This linguistic and semantic confusion serves the valuable psychological function of protecting us from the dangerous amount of terror and anxiety that naturally comes from confronting a phenomenologically accurate recognition of the meaning of our own death. In effect, “we hopefully maintain that the death of another is the only kind of death there is. In fact, we think of the death of myself as nothing worse than the death of another.” (145) For example, when contemplating my own death, this type of confusion may lead me to take comfort in the “fact” that, although I will perish, life will still go on without me. Although I know in a conceptual sense that it is “true” that life will continue without me, to entertain a picture of the world spinning after I am gone is adding something unnecessary to the concept of my own death. It is really implying that, in some sense, I will still be around to look down on this spinning world that keeps on trucking in my absence. From a phenomenological standpoint, this is considered no more than meaningless projection. This is but one common way that people confuse their own death with the death of others, and this confusion is no more than an escape from the reality of our fate. Again, when we die, so does the universe.

Just as some people often confuse the death of themselves with the death of others, many experience the reverse confusion of seeing the death of others as the death of themselves. A parent losing a child is perhaps the most powerful example of how this loss of the other can be experienced, phenomenologically, as the death of one’s self. “Since the death of myself is the disintegration of my world, the death of loved ones—who make up the world of mine—has many of the disintegrative features of the death of myself.” (144) This helps to explain how some people completely “fall apart” when the most important people in their lives pass away. Unfortunately, since we humans are a notoriously neurotic lot, this same “falling apart” in response to the death of a loved one also frequently occurs when the loss one experiences merely represents a symbolic death (i.e., the person lost is simply no longer present in one’s life).

Having worked in a psychiatric hospital, it never ceased to amaze me how many patients were admitted to my unit subsequent to attempting suicide after the breakup of a serious romantic relationship. Psychology provides us with many possible explanations for how such people can completely lose their shit when relationships end. For example, if a guy’s mother abandoned him at the age of three after running away with the Crystal Meth cooker down the street, he will likely experience a reopening of that wound in his adult romantic relationships; particularly when a lover breaks up with, or abandons him. Without even knowing the origin of this man’s dependency on his love interests, however, most psychologists would assume outright that somewhere along the line he has come to identify himself as worthless, and as a defense against such feelings, has sought a sense of self-worth through passionately (neurotically) identifying with his romantic partners. Although there is no doubt some truth to these explanations, a phenomenological analysis reveals a clearer picture of what this man is actually experiencing in response to the lost object; it shows us that the experience of being left by someone who has comprised an enormous chunk of one’s life-world (identification) is much akin to the disintegration we feel when confronted by our own death. Thus, it can be said the anxiety surrounding an accurate conception of our own death is the primary cause underlying the pain incurred by the loss of another.

Now that we realize how much of human suffering stems from a fear of self-annihilation, we can begin to see how important it is that we confront this specter of death in order to live life in the fullest way possible. When we adequately confront our own death there is no more room for self-delusion; “the immediacy of death leads to honesty with oneself.” (157) Ancient Stoic philosophers recommended that we detach ourselves to a healthy degree from others—“to avoid excessive projection onto them or ego-involvement—so their death can be accepted with equanimity.” (144) Speaking to this point, the Greek philosopher Epictetus went so far as to suggest that a father whisper into his beloved child’s ear upon leaving in the morning the sweet nothing “you may be dead tomorrow.” This illustrates how excessive attachments to that which we do not have total control (e.g., other people) can lead to despair and thus should be avoided.

A former professor and mentor of mine was diagnosed with prostate cancer about five years ago and was told that, with treatment, he would be lucky to live another ten years or so. Upon learning this upsetting news, he quickly reevaluated the priorities in his life and began making significant changes in accordance with this new shift in his perspective. Had it not been for the diagnosis, many of the important changes he subsequently made may never have been accomplished, or they would have at least been put off for some time in the indeterminate future. My professor was experiencing what Nietzsche called a “transvaluation of values;” in a sense, he saw things more clearly. One of the things he did in order to keep this change of values fresh in his mind was religiously play the song “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas every day just as he rolled out of bed in the morning. He wanted every single day of his existence to start with a reminder that someday soon he would cease to exist. Most people would say that such a practice is morbid, or at least quite depressing, but for him the experience was extremely uplifting. In fact, the act of confronting and accepting our own deaths is perhaps the most “therapeutic” endeavor we can engage in as human beings.

Confronting our own mortality is uplifting because it puts things into the proper perspective. It helps us to realize on an almost visceral level that we have but one life to live. If done effectively, procrastination loses its appeal and a determined, courageous spirit takes over. I remember reading once of a Buddhist monk in training who was instructed to care for dying people on a daily basis in order to fully get in touch with the reality of the impermanence of all things. Most of us may agree that this is a fine thing for a masochistic religious person to do, but would see no use in engaging in such a practice ourselves. We tend to view this type of action as depressing and therefore consider it something to be avoided.

Indeed, many of us can “get by” just fine in life without resorting to seemingly extreme practices like that of the Buddhist monk who surrounded himself with the specter of death. Furthermore, when discussing the topic of death and its impact on human existence, most of us vehemently proclaim that we are under no illusions about the fact that we and everyone else we love will someday die. Because we believe ourselves to fully accept death as a part of reality, we see no reason to dwell on such a morose topic. However, I do not think I have ever encountered a person (other than a psychotic) who is so much in denial of reality that they do not accept, on a conceptual level, the fact that human beings are mortal creatures. But seeming comfortable with the intellectual knowledge of this fact is not the same as being in touch with and really tasting the full flavor of death. Sometimes life forces us to taste this experience, but we can always choose to school ourselves by snacking on it a little more. Hell, give it a try. Becoming intimate with your own death might just save your life.

References

Koestenbaum, P. (1964). The Vitality of Death. Journal of Exisistentialism, 5, 139-166.

~Wolf

What do you call it when 152 out of 153 passengers die in a plane crash? A miracle!

The Gospels may have taken some liberties in describing the “miraculous” powers of Jesus.

Over the weekend, yours truly happened to leave a frighteningly prophetic comment on the website Totally-Useless in response to a post alleging the existence of miracles. The post highlighted the recent story of a baby who got a pencil stuck in its throat mere millimeters from the carotid artery. Subsequently, this was deemed a miracle because the child suffered no serious injury. In my comment, I wondered why the alleged miracle-maker didn’t prevent the pencil from getting jammed in the kid’s throat in the first place and at one point I made the following remark:

“All this talk reminds of people who, for example, point to the sole survivor of a plane crash as proof positive of the existence of miracles, while at the same time they ignore the other 300 people who weren’t so fortunate. What was wrong with them? Were they not miracle-worthy?”

At the time, I hesitated to posit this scenario since I couldn’t recall any major plane crash in which there was just a single survivor. After all, usually everyone dies in a plane crash, unless it’s a crash on a runway or some such thing and there are several survivors and fatalities alike. So even though my statement made its point, I wasn’t sure how realistic it was. That was until this morning when I read that a Yemenia Airbus had gone down near the islands of Comoros in the Indian Ocean. You may have guessed where I’m going with this. That’s right, rescue crews pulled a single fourteen year-old survivor from the water. As expected, the media has been using the word “miracle” ad nauseum to describe this improbable outcome, but the truth is, calling this a miracle is downright sick. Here’s a sampling of headlines about this disaster:

Miracle at Sea: One Person Rescued from Deadly Jet Crash (ABC News)

“Miracle child” rescued after plane crashes into Indian Ocean (Associated Press)

Miracle: Child found alive after Indian Ocean plane crash (CBS News)

Imagine the lack of cognitive dissonance required to believe this garbage. And yet, in the coming days we will hear all kinds of crazy pontificating in the media about the heartwarming tale of a plane crash that sent 152 people to their untimely deaths while one person somehow defied the odds and lived. That's a death rate of 99.3%. I love a happy ending, don’t you?

If the people who toss around the word “miracle” so readily stopped to think about the implications of what they’re saying, we might be on our way to ridding ourselves of this useless term. To be sure, the concept of a miracle falls completely apart upon even superficial analysis.

As far as I can tell, “miracle” is used in two senses. First, there’s the Humean sense. In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume wrote, “A miracle may be accurately defined as a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent.” (Chapter X) Philosophically, this definition is far from perfect, but it will suffice for our purposes at the moment. There has never in the history of humanity been a documented, proven instance of a law of nature being suspended or altered in any way. (Sorry Christians, the magic tricks of your snake-oil salesman messiah don’t count. See above.) While credulous, weak-minded individuals are all too happy to attribute this fourteen year-old’s survival to divine intervention, rationalists know better. Although the details are unclear, reasonable people logically assume that for starters, there was probably something about the position of the girl’s seat inside the plane that insulated her against the undoubtedly violent impact, making her less vulnerable than her fellow passengers. Also, perhaps she happened to situate her body in a way that was somehow favorable to survival under the circumstances. Furthermore, it is almost certain that she had a relatively easy way out of the fuselage so she could escape before it sank. While these are just guesses, they are totally plausible. And as investigators gather more information, we will have a more accurate picture of what happened to the plane and how this girl was able to live through it.

Even if we were unable to develop a satisfactory explanation for an unlikely outcome such as this, this does not mean that the causes are divine. Indeed, which is more likely given a mysterious and improbable event: A supernatural divinity intervened in human affairs for some reason? Or there is a perfectly natural reason, but one which we have yet to ascertain? If you chose the former, stop reading this immediately and get yourself sterilized.

The second sense in which people use the word “miracle” is to describe not a suspension of natural law, but an event that while physically possible, is so unlikely and improbable that they nonetheless regard it as evidence of the intervening of a deity or “some invisible agent.” But notice how “miracle” is used only to describe improbable outcomes that are regarded as favorable. No one says that a miracle has occurred when some unlucky son of a bitch gets struck by lightning, not even people who believe in miracles. Why not? It was extremely improbable, wasn’t it?

You see, in ascribing such improbable positive outcomes to the handiwork of a deity, believers in miracles must ignore the lightning strikes, car wrecks, bear attacks, autoerotic asphyxiations gone wrong, and other freak incidents in which people are said to have been “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Although miracles are always invoked as evidence of some benign deity or force, one can just as easily point to all kinds of improbable and crazy and horrible shit to advance the opposite case for a god who’s a total asshole.

Also notice that “miracles” almost always arise out of calamity. The plane crash. The man who survives a lightning strike. The woman who’s diagnosed with cancer and is given a 5% chance of beating it and does. A child who gets a pencil lodged in its throat millimeters from a major artery and recovers just fine. If these are indeed actual examples of miracles directed by a benign force, then why doesn’t the benign force just prevent the calamities from happening in the first place? That would seem a lot more benign to me. Why go through all that trouble? Does the deity want to show off? I hope that someday some miracle-believing mental invalid will be able to explain all of this to me because clearly I just don’t get it.

Until that day comes, I will define “miracle” as I always have: a word gullible people use to describe a highly improbable outcome which they happen to like.

- Max

Who is a Rebel?

The rebel, Camus once wrote, is a person who says “no.” Indeed, the rebel’s “no” is a unique kind of rejection directed at forces much more powerful than himself. Governments, gods, and traditions are the most common targets of the no. In saying no to these forces the rebel stands in direct opposition not only to the specific thing he rejects, but also to all those who accept that which he refuses. What ensues is a contest between the rebel and the Heideggerian They.

Whether the opposition to the rebel from the They is strong or weak depends on how fervently the latter believes in what the rebel is rejecting. When the rebel says no, he says no to something important to the They: custom. Accepting a government as legitimate, believing a god exists, and thinking that a tradition is proper, are each examples of the They’s customs. The They is convinced of the rightness of its customs. Government, god, tradition, morals, etiquette, etc. are deeply embedded in society and as such shape the individuals who comprise it—the They. Hence, in rebelling against a custom of the They, the rebel rebels against the whole of society.

This is not the rebel’s aim, but the result is unavoidable. In rejecting some facet of society he finds unfavorable or detestable, he invites upon him the opposition of an indignant They in full force. By saying no to a dearly-held custom or conviction of the They, the rebel has distinguished himself as possessing peculiar morals. The They possesses a particular set of values, and as such, it thinks its values are optimal. As far as the They is concerned, when the rebel rejects some or all of the They’s values, the rebel in essence avers that he possesses suboptimal values. That the rebel is perceived as having inferior morals would be of no consequence were he alien to the society; for in that case he would simply be a novelty instead of a threat. But the rebel is always domestic, always local. He originates in the They and eventually breaks ranks. To be sure, the They is always shocked at the rebel because he was once of Them. His rebellion is evidence of a social breakdown and demonstrates that the They’s monopoly on thought and behavior is far from total, which frightens the They. For if the rebel—once a part of the They—can break loose, who cannot?

The They is inherently reactionary. It matters not what social or political customs and traditions it practices. When it comes to opposing the rebel, liberal societies are no more immune from reactionary tendencies than actual reactionary societies. The zealousness of the They’s opposition is the same in both. Only the methods for opposing the rebel are different. In opposing the rebel, The They “deals with” him. “Dealing with” is performed by the They on a daily basis—officially through the government and unofficially through public ridicule. Like the murderer, thief, and drunk driver, the They “deals with” the rebel.

Where the rebel has not crossed some legal boundary, the opposition of the They is constrained. Especially in liberal societies, the They is frustrated by the law-abiding rebel. Legally the rebel is allowed latitude when it comes to his rejectionist words and actions. He is free to say no and explain all the reasons why he says it, and he may even try to encourage those of the They to do the same. Liberal societies, therefore, furnish room for rebellion. As such, the They of the liberal society is frustrated. It wishes to silence the rebel and have that be the end of the matter, but the They cannot because that would be a violation of its own customs. At the same time, the They feels it cannot ignore the rebel because he threatens it. The They of the liberal society faces a conundrum: if the They silences the rebel in order to neutralize the threat, it will be rebelling against its own liberal customs, hence demonstrating that its values are not fixed, but mutable; thus the rebel would be vindicated in his attempt to topple merely mutable customs. On the other hand, if the They allows the rebel to proceed in his ways unfettered, he may become increasingly dangerous to the They and the status quo. What then, is the They of the liberal society to do?

-Max

Rabbit Hole Intellect

We’re in a rabbit hole, man. I’m not sure if it leads anywhere.

This is an unsettling thought for any human being, yet most of us have had this notion cross our minds at some point. It usually follows personal inquiries regarding life’s “meaning,” whether there is “life after death,” or the question as to whether there is something more to life than we now presently perceive. The title of this post is an excellent verbalization of what someone once called, “the existential creepies”—the idea that one hasn’t the slightest clue as to what his life means, if anything at all.

Regardless of what we think about life and its significance or lack thereof, we are all in this rabbit hole. It is a seemingly endless network of tunnels leading everywhere but nowhere. We are frustrated by the sheer infinite number of routes and their lengths and implications because the more we investigate, the bigger our universe becomes, and the smaller we get. Smaller and smaller and smaller, until we are nothing but amoeba dust in an inexpressibly gigantic cosmic Petri dish.

Such a realization would be traumatizing to a goodly number of people, which is why they turn to divinities to help not only explain why they exist, but where they are going after they cease to be as organisms. Notice the need by many an assurance of immortality, of an afterlife. They are not content with their time on Earth. Indeed, life can be addicting; it is the most powerful narcotic ever known. Rare is the person willing to give up his life without the most vigorous and valiant of fights, yet he has no idea just what it is he is fighting for.


Wolfgang and I (Max) do not turn to divinities and grand narratives for insight into this matter. We believe that there is no insight to be had in this regard. It would seem that most individuals blindly accept the beliefs and dogmas handed to them by their parents, who accepted the exact same beliefs and dogmas handed to them by their parents, and so on. As people are gradually inculcated with doctrines, it is only natural for them to accept these as the best explanation for the way things are, since they really know no other approach—at least not to the degree that they are acquainted with the belief system insisted on them from childhood.

In a way, we are paying a price for rejecting the traditional and prevalent beliefs of our society. We are in the minority when it comes to the God question. The best we can do is say that we humans are the result of a countless series of events which came after the Big Bang, a theory which we feel is plausible but not for certain. Of course, we have no explanation for what came before that, and so we are not going to pretend to have one.

No one can really know how the universe came about for sure. Many claim to know for certain that it was God, or Allah, or Brahman, or whatever, that created the universe, but none of this can be demonstrated scientifically, since these explanations cannot even be tested. If God in fact created everything, where did God come from? Who created God? He had to be created somehow. Our Sunday school teachers never seemed to be able to answer this question to our satisfaction. They’d say, “God was always there.” But this will not do. God had to have some kind of beginning. Yet no argument is given for this “fact,” which is very easy to accept when one does not think for oneself, and when one lives in a society where over ninety percent of the population holds this basic belief. Of course, there are variations on the theme, but none of the theistic faiths offer sufficient logical explanation which demonstrates even the remote possibility that God exists. There are some, such as Aquinas and Anselm in the Catholic faith, who have advanced theories attempting to prove the existence of God. Aquinas drew on Aristotle’s notion of the “first mover,” which he understood to be God, but for some reason he was not compelled to theorize about whom moved the first mover, in which case, it wouldn’t be the first mover.

It is not our intention to give an exposé on the philosophical questions surrounding metaphysics, but rather to show some of our basic concerns about something which a substantial number of people believe that we do not. We are skeptics, but are certainly willing to at least entertain certain ideas which may be improvable and even disreputable. In fact, we often go to great lengths to investigate extremely implausible ideas, but do so mainly for the sake of the experience itself. We feel that our perspectives of the world are broadened by exposing ourselves to phenomena outside our conceptions of reality ‘as if’ they were true. This method of investigation not only enriches the quality of experience, but also helps maintain intellectual honesty. Thus, at the end of the day, we still admit that we truly know very little, if anything at all.

~Max and Wolf

Ketamine Logic

For God’s sake man, don’t pre-program!

If you ever find yourself floating in a sensory deprivation tank with a head so full of ketamine that the distance of your perceiving mind from your physical body seems light years apart, it would be wise to heed the advice of the late physician and philosopher, John Lilly. This eccentric, yet vastly intelligent explorer of altered mind states was keenly aware of the cognitive problems that arise from the natural human desire to adhere to an "explanatory principle." He saw this problem as becoming especially salient when navigating realms beyond 'normal' human consciousness.

Adherence to an explanatory principle, as he put it, is akin to having certain beliefs or faith in the objective reality of some idea. The placebo effect demonstrates this power of the mind to turn something believed to be true by the subject into a more objective truth (i.e. physical changes). This power of belief and its concomitant power of suggestion (belief inducer) can be immensely useful, but can also serve as roadblocks to any serious investigation of altered states through creating self-imposed limitations on how far into the abyss of mind one can go. Lilly saw the direct individual experience of these non-ordinary states of consciousness as the most useful tool for exploring potential metaphysical phenomena and advised future navigators of these realms (referred to as psychonauts in the psychedelic community) to take care in minimizing "pre-programmed" ideas or expectations when embarking on such a journey.

In "Programming the Human Bio Computer," Lilly specifically proposed using a “formalistic” paradigm when investigating altered mind-states, an approach “which assumes that the bio-computer itself generates all of the phenomena experienced” (p. 75). In other words, nothing is assumed to exist in reality independent of one’s own mind. He concludes that the formalistic view is simply the safest assumption to hold when pursuing the limits of our current knowledge; maintaining this view serves to safeguard one against the limitations of more restrictive assumptions of reality. An exploration of altered states while adhering to this construct is therefore seen as the best way to yield the most authentic knowledge in this area.

A deeper appreciation for consciousness exploration is in particularly high demand in our time. Recent advances in quantum physics are increasingly revealing that the nature of the smallest particles of matter behave in ways that are counter-intuitive to the traditional scientific, materialistic perspective of reality. Some in this field even suggest that there is evidence supporting the possibility of an infinite number of universes existing independent of our own. The idea that altered states of consciousness may be capable of performing hitherto unknown metaphysical feats does not seem so far-fetched in comparison.

The common experiences of psychedelic users (e.g. being visited by alien entities, traveling to other planes of existence, etc) may not all be the result of hallucinations and may instead reflect genuine encounters of alternate realities. Even if this is believed highly improbable, an exploration of this outstanding possibility would be no less useful. Just as Lilly proposed questioning our assumptions about consensus reality however, he also cautioned against becoming convinced of the reality of what one experiences in an altered state. His framework for investigating the depths of human consciousness is thus seen as the best model to assist with the new field of "inner science."

In order to get the ball rolling, I propose federal funding to assist with opening public sensory deprivation centers across the nation. In these centers, the full range of psychedelic compounds will be on the menu to assist users with exploring the boundaries of "alternity." Ideally, funding for consciousness exploration should parallel that currently spent on NASA. If the aforementioned proposals are accepted, I expect the field will grow exponentially. Children across the land would soon begin dreaming of becoming a psychonaut when they grow up.

"In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind, there are no limits."

RIP John Lilly