36 replies to this topic

[Iniyila]

no i don't want to know it, many of us are living for doing some things and we hope we have the chance to complete those jobs before the time for saying goodbye comes. so maybe knowing that time will kill all those hopes and people will stop doing things they have in their minds and they will become depressed. there are many people trying to find out what gonna happen in future or how much they will live but no one has answered this question yet and i think these type questions will be unanswerable forever. i think if people know when they will die they will not try to reach their goals any more because they will think their time is not enough.

also some peoples are thinking knowing the goodbye time (i really hate the word "Death" so i usually say goodbye time instead) is nice because they can plan their works according to that timing and they can do all necessary things in the time. they think knowing when they will go is better than not knowing because if they know they only have 3 days left they will do many things like seeing some persons who hate them and seeking forgiveness from those who hurt. but i think we can do these things all the time by thinking of that maybe my time ends just tomorrow, so if we work in our daily life just based on thinking about no tomorrow then knowing the goodbye time is not very important because we have done all the things we want in end of every day and we will not regret for things that we have or haven't done when we had enough time.

by the way i think may things we do in our daily life will increase or decrease our life time, so i don't think anyone will be able to say when you will go at all because no one can say what you will do tomorrow. maybe knowing the future will stop some crimes to happen like when a person knows if he kill somebody he will be arrested in specific date and time and he will be in jail or be killed (depending on country) then he will not do that so knowing future is not bad always but i think if we all know what happens in future then life will loose it fun. i mean if you know what happens if you do something then it is not fun to do that thing anymore, we are enjoying surprises in our life so knowing future will kill all of those surprises. i prefer to not know what happens in future and just do my best to live my life (remember the song ).

you can know if you gonna die soon or not very easily too just go to a doctor and if your physical health is in a very bad mood he can tell you but anyway time to go depends on what GOD wants.

[Illustrious]

I personally would hate to find out when I would be dead. Death is a common fate for everyone but if I knew when I was going to die, I feel like I am probably going to begin to think life is pointless. I may be wrong. I might start to live every day like it is my last. If I knew when I was going to die, I would probably have more life crisises.

[jori]

I would probably rather not. I mean, if you can find out when you are going to be dead, that knowledge will just consume and you'll just be dreading for that day when the death arrives. I think living the life not knowing the time of your death is for the best... In some ways, ignorance is bless.
But that's only my thought. =]

[k_nitin_r]

Jori,

I last give this thread a thought last September, and I thought of it as a Final Destination kind of thing. After watching a couple of re-runs of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, out of sheer boredom, I think of the issue differently. If you know how, when, and where you were going to die, you would be totally freaked out about having to do it and the thought of having to do it will start to get creepy. If you do continue doing whatever it is that is going to kill you and you internalize it as something you have just got to do, when the actual moment does come to you, however, would you remember that is it the day on your calendar when you would have to not do something, and would you ignore something really compelling that would get you to do it anyway?

Firemen, soldiers, air force pilots, sailors in the navy, and just about anybody else in civil defense and the military know that they run against death whenever they face their battles. They have a feeling of a possibility of how they are going to die, but they have no idea when, and so they valiantly face their fears and continue to do what they have got to do. If there is anything else that they could do, would they take it up or would they just keep doing whatever it is that they do and one day meet their end?

Most people think that they will die of old age and the far far distant future and if they do meet their death before they grow old, they've lived through life without having a nagging thought in the back of their heads about their death and what they could do to prevent it.

[Okara KAmi]

Heck yes I'd like to know when I die.
The reason is that I assume I won't go into some depressed state if I do find out. Say I am going to die next week -- I'm going to presume that I have enough sense to spend that time wisely, instead of brooding over it. Now if finding out my deadline does not throw me off of my path, then knowing when I die will always be a good thing. Now I know how I should alter my plans to adhere to the fact that I will be in the ground soon. I would cancel my trip to Japan, spend much more time with those that I love, and invest more resources into what I leave behind, rather than what I use currently. If a father found out that he was about to die, the first thing he would think about was how his family was going to sustain itself after his passing.

With that mentality, knowing when you die means that you don't get caught off guard, and you're able to leave behind more to those that you care about.

I guess that's a super optimistic and benevolent way of looking at it. It is not in my personality to think about something that I can not help, and brood over it. If I am going to die, by definition, I can not change that. As such, if people function under my first assumption, and the finding out of their deadline does not ruin their lives, then we could be looking at much more intelligently planned lives.

On the other hand, this could bring about a negative effect also. When someone knows that they are going to die tomorrow no matter what, then they might do stupid things today. The basis of law is prevention -- you impose heavy punishments for crimes so that people who commit these crimes won't do it again, and people who look on the punishment will not do the crime. But this breaks down when the punishment becomes invalid, because the criminal dies the next day. In that sense, people might take advantage of the lack of punishment and harm other people.

Of course, this is an extreme example, but it should be considered.
---
At the same time, let us look at the definition of the future.
At T + some X, such and such happens, where T is the current moment in time.
To predict that such and such happened is not a "would be" future, it is THE future.
If it is THE future, that means it already accounts for the fact that you looked INTO the future.

What does that mean?
Well for one, it means that one can not 'change' the future ever. Why? Because the future they saw already took into account the fact that they looked into the future. Thus, them changing their actions does not really 'change' anything, because that future that they saw is still THE future. Now with that in mind, it's entirely possible that if I know I'm going to die tomorrow, I might do something stupid now, and my stupidity NOW causes my death tomorrow.

[Ananya]

No I really don't want to know when I will die as we are all well acquainted with this universal fact that man is mortal. So I will have to die one day.This life has been gifted to us to enjoy and explore life to its fullest and not to worry about all the time when I am supposed to die.Moreover whatever has to happen will happen no one can change that.Pondering over this that when I will be dead will snatch every single moment from me whenever I will think myself as dead

[midnightvamp]

This answer may be a bit bogus... but the only time I would want to know when I'm going to die, is if the answer was "never".

Otherwise, I'd just keep thinking about when it's going to happen and not really enjoy my life. I'd rather not know than be worried about things I can't control.