Well it seems that our fear of death is now being called "terror management" by social psychologists. That sounds more like a department of Homeland Security to me. Previously referred to as "existentialist angst" or "death anxiety" by existentialists, this is our fear of non-existence after death. So, what is the cause of "death anxiety"?
Whether you call it existentialist angst, death anxiety or the amusing "terror management", our fear of death owes a lot to the fact that our consciousness simply cannot comprehend that it will someday cease to exist. In a recent article in Scientific America this experience is elaborated upon more fully. Social psychologists even found that people who were extinctivists, or believed that nothing survives death, still act as if something survives when asked about certain situations. For example, when students were given a scenario in which a man dies instantaneously in a car crash and were asked about his awareness following his death, many gave answers that indicated the man would "know" he was dead. Likewise, they indicated an assumption that emotions, thoughts or experiences of the five senses would continue to function after death even though they have previously stated they did not believe such things. Why?
It seems the mind is incapable of comprehending its own extinction. Social psychologists postulate this is because the mind has no experience of nonexistence on which to understand this phenomenon. Even when sleep we dream. And when we sleep, we awake. We come back from being asleep, unlike death which is permanent. But sleep is not the same as having no consciousness whatsoever. Social psychologists believe this lack of having experienced non-consciousness is the source of our fear.
I'm not sure what to think about this claim. We were not conscious before we were alive. I have never met anyone who had memories from pre-birth. So we do have that understanding of what non-consciousness was before birth. Yet we still have death anxiety.
On the other hand, when talking to people who have been in a coma or very near death with none of the "near death experiences" typical of temporal lobe stimulation, they seem to come back with a quiet acceptance of death as being an unfearful event. Why? Perhaps the scientists are right. Having experienced "non-consciousness" they can now grasp it and it is no longer fear provoking.
Recommended Reading:
Scientific American's, "Never Say Die: Why We Can't Imagine Death"
Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death
The Denial of Death
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