Giles asked:

============

'When you are dead, you are dead!' This is a question on the spirit. I would be very grateful for a
response.

"When you are dead, you are dead" I would agree with that. But as ever, its a bit more complicated.

Just what does it mean to die? is it the separation of the spirit from the body? if so youare not dead.
youare the spirit. It is the body that is dead. youhave just swapped an earthly existence for a spiritual
one.

Perhaps then, one day your spirit gets ill and fails to work properly so God decides to wipe out your
spirit and move you into another one. are you dead then? No, it seems that swapping spirits is
logically equivalent to swapping one body for another or swapping a body for a spirit. So this is not a
question about the spirit.

What then is the question about?

"When your dead your dead". Its a question about my subjectivity. What is it for there no longer to be
Me in the world? How is it possible for meto die. (I will own up now, This question boarders on the
impenetrable for me, it is hard even to make sense of this issue) There is one immediate problem that
gets me here, namely that even though there will be a time when I will no longer be around, when
exactly will this time be?

Lying on my deathbed, I can await death coming, even up to the very second of my death , but when
it gets here, when I die I am gone, I never experience death, it is not something that belongs to me,
death is not mine. So when does My death happen how does it come about that I don't experience
my death? Does it make sense to say that I die Before I die? AAHH.

Epicurus writes "Where death is not I am, where death is I am not", I agree with this too but Epicurus
wanted to show us that we should not fear death. For me it has the opposite effect; it shows me how
utterly mysterious death is, death is always over the horizon of my understanding.Always beyond
understanding.

Just what is going on with My death? What does it mean for me to die? Heidegger though it meant
the end of the world my death is the end of all my projects all my possibilities all my relations with
others. Levinas on the other hand thought that death was the opening up of the world, an enigma that
provides a way out of solipsism, a way to be connected with other people. My death shows me that
there is something other than my subjectivity.

That's all okay because we need to know that stuff, but death itself, is something that cannot be
understood, even if it points us to the understanding other things.

What does it mean for meto die? I don't know but I know a lotrests on the answer.

Brian Tee