NPPF Commentary Line 209, P. 163

[Michael Joseph]

On Thu, 9 Oct 2003, Glenn  Scheper wrote:

> Part 1 of ...
> > Wha? Thermodynamics? I guess I missed that neat trick.
>
> Well, I forgot where during Internet grazing philosophy
> I learned, but no living man experiences his own death,

This is an idea original to Edmund Husserl, Glen. Every "presencing" of
the world consists inexorably of a past, present and future; since an
individual ("wakeful monad") cannot look back upon his or her death, death
lacks an element necessary to experience.  Lowell is clearly thinking of
of Husserl when he writes that death is not an experience because it
cannot be "lived through." Husserl did not believe in an afterlife or
immortality.

Similarly, though, he did believe that no individual experiences their own
birth, because birth could not be related "phenomenologically" to a prior
experience.

Thanks for your provocative post!


Michael