Fear of death - A rational fear?
Q: Is the fear of death a rational fear?
I think most people can agree that there are rational and irrational fears in life. An example of an irrational fear might be that of spiders or mice or snakes that we know are harmless. An example of a rational fear might be that of walking in a dark alley at night.
The latter fear is rational because we fear that something bad will happen. We don't know how walking in that dark alley will turn out, and fear the possible negative consequences (like pain, death and robbery). But a fear of spiders is primal. We don't fear anything happening to us, we just have a biological aversion from them called arachnophobia.
I'm not bringing up the fear of dying, only that of your consciousness ceasing to exist. You can't really be afraid of something you won't be around anymore to experience. Is the fear of death just something our brains produce for no rational reason, like the fear of spiders? It's tempting to say that it isn't. We fear not being anymore, because we like our own minds and don't want to lose them. But, since there would no longer be an 'I' to experience the loss, does that make any sense? Would our fears of death be eliminated if we were to fully consciously realize that it doesn't?