I've been playing with this idea a bit. Fear of death is obviously the most primal thing that drives us away from danger and pain. But if this fear is given enough room it can become rather pathological thing in human psyche and lead to erratic behaviors. Most in the western world live in sort of a "one life trance" meaning people compulsively seek peak experiences and buy expensive stuff that they think is (or rather they're told to) required to fully experience life. And the thought of losing it all in death scares the hell out of them so they reject the thought and turn into "getting more life" with more hedonic pursuits, workaholism, drugs etc. to make the thought go away. Many world leaders are at an old age already and idea the inevitable death that is getting closer probably contributes to their pursuits of rejuvenations through any means possible like Putin and Xi discussing organ transplants and such.
As longevity enthusiasts we of course share this fear and look into remedies to extend our lives to maximum. But I feel that when it is fear-driven the means to longevity can become rather collectively destructive. I see a scenario of life extension becoming a zero sum game where someone's extended lifetime is taking something away from others. Then again robotics, transhumanism and such do seem to give the possiblity of taking the collective step to eventual immortality without "stealing from others".
Kappa-opioid network is the main driver of fear signaling in the brain. I notice by taking larger doses of Naltrexone that antagonizes all opioid receptors a marked reduce in all fears including that of death. This along with meditation has strangely given such strong effect that I feel really peaceful at night time and wouldn't even mind if I never wake up once I go to sleep. Not saying my life is depressing or something to have this sort of escapistic thought, but I feel like I have come into terms of death as more of a neutral thing than endless darkness or something which is an idea that easily comes into mind. Death = nothing, and when you think about nothing, you make it "something".
I've also had a couple of psychotic episodes that have collapsed my reality and thrown me into utopian and dystopian type of existances where time-space continuum seem to take new turns. It's quite hard to describe the experiences and I'm not going to babble about them more now, but those episodes have humbled me and my world view so that perhaps this life I am currently living is not the first or last one. This has lead me to lose the somewhat egoistic "one life ideology" and driven me to at least leave a net positive impact on the world around me by helping others.
Some heavy Ketamine users report with continous "visits" to the K-hole that mortal, human fears like that of death can start decreasing as they return to this reality. The NMDA-receptor network seems to be the key to attaching our consciousness to reality and it's mortal challenges. It seems repeated dissociative experiences can make the brain forget some of the initial primal programming that drives us. Quantum physics kinda indicate that subjective death doesn't necessarily even exist but I need to have closer look into it.
What are your thoughts of all this, is the fear of death more of an evolutionary drag that we should start slowly getting rid of as technologies and rejuvenation therapies slowly get more advanced and perhaps the longevity escape velocity is at some point reached? Does it require the society be utopian-like where the life threatening dangers are no longer present or is it something that we should start thinking about and implementing now?
