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A Neuroscientist Prepares for Death - The Atlantic

#death | And because our brains are organized to predict the near future, it presupposes that there will, in fact, be a near future. In this way, our brains are hardwired to prevent us from imagining the totality of death. If I am allowed to speculate—and I hold that a dying person should be given such dispensation—I would contend that this basic cognitive limitation is not reserved for those of us who are preparing for imminent death, but rather is a widespread glitch that has profound implications for the cross-cultural practice of religious thought. Nearly every religion has the concept of an afterlife (or its cognitive cousin, reincarnation). Why are afterlife/reincarnation stories found all over the world? For the same reason we can’t truly imagine our own deaths: because our brains are built on the faulty premise that there will always be that next moment to predict. We cannot help but imagine that our own consciousness endures.

1 year ago | View Shared by tei

To Be a Field of Poppies, by Lisa Wells

#death #compost | The elegant science of turning cadavers into compost

2 years ago | View Shared by tei

Barbara Hammer’s Exit Interview | The New Yorker

#death #lgbt | I asked Hammer if she would sit for an “exit interview,” and she found the idea delightful. We spent two mornings together, in February. Because both the disease and the drugs that she is taking for pain are affecting her ability to use language, Hammer at times asked Burke to step in when she couldn’t find the words to describe images she could see clearly in her mind. The arrangement made it easier to talk about the events, ideas, and work to which Burke has been a witness, though earlier decades of Hammer’s life were harder for her to describe.

3 years ago | View Shared by tei

Catapult | The Small Beauty of Funeral Sex | s.e. smith

#death

4 years ago | View Shared by tei

The Art of Dying | The New Yorker

#death | Amazing article on dying and writing.

4 years ago | View Shared by tei

Sleep: Loss | Bill Hayes | Author, Essayist, Photographer

#death

9 years ago | View Shared by tei

Texas Monthly: Witnessing 278 Executions

#death | The emotional toll of witnessing 278 on a prison worker in Texas.

9 years ago | View Shared by tei

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