No one can actually imagine their own death.
But then why are people grieved by the prospect of their own death? The answer is that they are only imagining their work forgotten, their traces on this world wiped out, their wealth dispersed, their ability to affect change taken away, the world proceeding in complete indifference, and so on. Essentially, a person can only imagine himself as a ghost; but not dead. It is the prospect of becoming a “ghost” (of becoming irrelevant, completely powerless) that really scares people, not the prospect of a death they cannot even conceive.
The connection to nihilism
I have said in earlier articles (1, 2, 3) that I see no evidence of nihilism anywhere, and that as far as I know it is sheer fiction. Real-life examples of nihilism are simply lacking. But then what about the people who have committed suicide? Did they not have death as a strong temporary goal? During those last moments just before they killed themselves, were they not without values? Did they not exist, in those brief moments, in a state of nihilism? Perhaps nihilism is not to be encountered frequently but, as suicides prove, it is by no means impossible?
This argument falls quickly if one cites the impossibility of aiming for one’s own death. As I have said above, it is impossible to even imagine, much less desire, one’s own death.
Secondly, deciding that life is not worth living, and therefore that one should commit suicide, is just another form of valuation, a preference. A person who has preferences is not a nihilist.
Thirdly, if someone has decided that nothing matters and that everything is meaningless, it follows that suicide does not matter and that suicide is meaningless — more generally, if it is true that nothing really matters, then the fact that nothing really matters does not matter either — so I cannot see why the nihilist would choose death over life, or life over death. As with every decision the nihilist makes, the same dilemma arises: Why this and not that? Why that and not the other? Why suicide and not life? Why life and not suicide? Since every decision is equally consistent with the nihilist viewpoint, it follows that no decisions can be made, since there is no basis on which to choose this over that, or that over the other. Every action must then be viewed as pure coincidence, or the result of instinct. In the first case, that of coincidence, we are then talking of events, not actions. Regarding the second case, that of instinct, I already gave my analysis. Therefore both answers must be rejected.
The argument from suicide, then, can be effectively countered. It really is impossible to want to die!
I leave you with a phone pic of entry 786, p. 282, from The Meaning of Life:
