Talk:Doctrine 2/@comment-3071102-20100918045728

Among the most famous of Epicurus' statements, it is quite insightful but remains alien to the thinking of most people. The accepted understanding valid -- when I am alive, death is not present, and when death is present, I am not there. Therefore, death is nothing. We know that the goal of the statement was to alleviate the fear of the afterlife, but it is also true that the statement is deficient in addressing the immiment propect of death. There is another, perhaps even more remarkable insight that can be gleaned from this statement -- and that is that each person lives eternally -- since the universe only lasts as long as the person does. Objectively, we know that is not the case, but subjectively, that is entirely true. E.M. Cioran said it differently: "By dying, one becomes the despot of the world." Wes Costello