Presiding over your own funeral. Cool or Creepy?

[Sorus]

I'm currently reading a book about funerary customs around the world (From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty). It's fascinating, though the guy reading over my shoulder in the laundromat didn't seem to agree - he spent the next hour giving me weird looks.

[Linna Heartbooger]

I'm currently reading a book about funerary customs around the world (From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty). It's fascinating, though the guy reading over my shoulder in the laundromat didn't seem to agree - he spent the next hour giving me weird looks.

That -SO- would happen!
(Did I ever mention that sometimes I take great glee in scandalizing and/or "weirding-out" people? If not, I'm sure that comes as a surprise to everyone here.)

Okay, I would say this mirrors something I did, Sorus, but it's more like it's the complementary flip of how things went down...

One day, I came home from work ...years ago back when my husband was studying to be a pastor, and..
on the couch, I found a book he was reading about doing funerals.
I proceeded to pick it up, open it at a random place, get intrigued, and keep reading.
..though I found myself getting a bit depressed after awhile.
Later he got home and I told him about me reading his coursework material, and he's just like, "Yeah... you really DO read most anything someone leaves lying around.."

I remember the most memorable thing I learned from that book, too.
It was about how with AIDS funerals, it became somewhat common for people to record, you know, a video before they die... where they say a few words to everyone who attends.
It was like, "oh yeah... when someone has a sort-of-known timeline like that... I can see why that would happen."

[Sorus]

(Did I ever mention that sometimes I take great glee in scandalizing and/or "weirding-out" people? If not, I'm sure that comes as a surprise to everyone here.)

That is a bit of a surprise. I like it. I guess you could say that I am the same way, though it isn't something I put any effort into. It just tends to occur naturally. If you're gonna read over my shoulder, there's a limit to how much you can judge my choice of reading material.

Caitlin Doughty is pretty awesome though. I like her writing style. Her first book begins with an anecdote about being flashed by a creep right in front of her apartment, and a couple of sentences later, I realized we were neighbors. I don't think we ever met, but we certainly could have been flashed by the same creep. It's a very small and very strange world sometimes.

Back when I worked at Borders, I had a coworker who was studying mortuary science, and he'd read his textbooks at the table at lunch, to the horror of most of the other people who were trying to enjoy their lunches. I was always the weirdo who would actually read whatever it was he was trying to show us, and at one point he suggested that I enroll in a course. Apparently it paid better than what we were doing, but I was making decent money there and climbing the ranks pretty quickly. If I'd known the company would be bankrupt two years later and I'd end up where I am now, I might have taken the idea more seriously. Life is weird.

[Avatar]

It sure is.

--A

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

How the dead danced with the living in medieval society

A German painting of the Danse Macabre from the 18th century. Nine women of different social rank from empress to fool dance with the dead. The entire economy of salvation is depicted, from the Fall, through the crucifixion, to Heaven and Hell. Twelve more traditional Dance Macabre figures, from pope and emperor down to fool, surround the central image. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons.)


Dance of Death (Danse Macabre) murals typically depicted decaying corpses dancing amid representative figures of late medieval society, ranked highest to lowest: A pope, an emperor, a bishop, a king, a cardinal, a knight and down to a beggar, all ambling diffidently toward their mortal end while the corpses frolic with lithe movements and gestures.

In the Halloween season, American culture briefly participates in an ancient tradition of making the world of the dead visible to the living: Children dress as skeletons, teens go to horror movies and adults play the part of ghosts in haunted houses.

But what if the dead played a more active, more participatory role in our daily lives?

It might appear to be a strange question, but as a scholar of late medieval literature and art, I have found compelling evidence from our past that shows how the dead were well-integrated into people's sense of community.

[…]

When modern viewers see images like the Dance of Death, they might associate them with certain well-known but frequently misunderstood cataclysms of the European Middle Ages, like the terrible plague that swept through England and came to be known as Black Death.

My research on these images, however, reveals a more subtle and nuanced attitude toward death, beginning with the evident beauty of the murals themselves, which endow the theme with color and vitality.

The image of group dance powerfully evokes the grace and fluidity of a community's cohesion, symbolized by the linking of hands and bodies in a chain that crosses the barrier between life and death. Dance was a powerful metaphor in medieval culture. The Dance of Death may be responding to medieval folk practices, when people came at night to dance in churchyards, and perhaps to the "dancing mania" recorded in the late 14th century, when people danced furiously until they fell to the ground. But images of dance also provoked a viewer to participate in a "virtual" experience of a community. It depicted a society collectively facing up to human mortality.

[…]

In the modern era entire industries have emerged to whisk the dead from view and alter them to look more like the living. Once buried or cremated, the dead play a much smaller role in our social lives.

Could bringing the dead back into a central role in the community offer a healthier perspective on death for contemporary Western cultures?

That process might begin with acknowledging the dead as an ongoing part of our image of community, which is built on the work of the dead who have come before us.

[Avatar]

There are other cultures that do similar things, digging up ancestors during certain festivals and displaying them etc.

--A

[Sorus]

That was covered in some detail in the book I just read. Don't think I'd advocate going quite that far, but -

Could bringing the dead back into a central role in the community offer a healthier perspective on death for contemporary Western cultures?

Yes, absolutely.

And in related news, Happy Dia de los Muertos.

[Avatar]

Well, we do tend to have an unhealthy view of death.

--A

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

And in related news, Happy Dia de los Muertos.

[Sorus]

Well, we do tend to have an unhealthy view of death.

--A

In Mexico they do this festival the right way, with no disguises. Bright candy skulls, family picnics on the graves, a plate set for each individual guest, a candle for the soul. Everyone goes away happy, including the dead. We've rejected that easy flow between dimensions: we want the dead unmentionable, we refuse to name them, we refuse to feed them. Our dead as a result are thinner, grayer, harder to hear, and hungrier.

[Avatar]

Well, it's cause we don't like to think about it. It's not the dead per se I think, but the intimations of mortality that make people uncomfortable.

--A

[Linna Heartbooger]

Well, it's cause we don't like to think about it. It's not the dead per se I think, but the intimations of mortality that make people uncomfortable.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking is a major reason for this.
Otoh, I was raised to think with a VERY materialistic worldview, as I infer you have, Av. (or try to have)

Anyway, the "harder to hear" bit really struck a chord with me.
As did that last line about community being "built on the work of the dead who have come before us."
My dad loved the saying, "We stand on the shoulders of giants."
I've since chosen heroes different from his, but he's still right; most of my heroes are among the dead.

And the accomplishments of people who've lived apparently-dull lives and died and are scarcely remembered by anyone... are not to be sniffed at either. We don't know how much strength they've woven into the human community.

And as far as being able to "hear the dead," I have a strong conviction that it's not the beginning of a life that you should "read" to receive instruction for how to live yours - it's the end of a life.
I remember an anecdote about a dying man saying to his friend "I wish I'd realized that hair doesn't matter!"
It had been a bone of contention with his son that the son wore his hair long.

Well, these were things that I wanted to say... but I skipped a few things. I went to a friend's funeral last week. (His death was really unexpected.) Wanted to talk about it here... and then I didn't! So I am kinda like everyone else in this generation. (Hah!)

Anyway, now that my mind's been in this place for a bit, I think I have an answer to Atomic's original Q:
An AI like me at my funeral?
I don't care how good a simulacrum, no WAY!
My friends and family will be longing for my presence, not that.
A video made while living, maybe. Though it would likely make things weepy, it would be an animated snapshot of -ME-. (Also, I'm pretty sure I'd say "I love you" a lot in it.)

[Sorus]

I am sorry for your loss.

Anyway, now that my mind's been in this place for a bit, I think I have an answer to Atomic's original Q:
An AI like me at my funeral?
I don't care how good a simulacrum, no WAY!
My friends and family will be longing for my presence, not that.
A video made while living, maybe. Though it would likely make things weepy, it would be an animated snapshot of -ME-. (Also, I'm pretty sure I'd say "I love you" a lot in it.)

I'm still on the fence about this whole thing. I wouldn't want it for myself. But imagine - stepping way into scifi territory here - being able to ask questions - have that conversation you were never able to have - maybe you never worked up the nerve to ask, maybe you were afraid, maybe you thought you had more time.

On the one hand, it's probably a Really Bad Idea. There are some skeletons that should probably stay in the closet, and wow, that's a bad analogy here, but there it is.

On the other hand, most of my family's history is lost because people were afraid to talk about anything that might be even slightly controversial, and that's a shame too.

[Avatar]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking is a major reason for this.
Otoh, I was raised to think with a VERY materialistic worldview, as I infer you have, Av. (or try to have)

Dunno, depends what you mean by "materialistic."

On the other hand, most of my family's history is lost because people were afraid to talk about anything that might be even slightly controversial, and that's a shame too.

Y'know, sometimes I think about stuff like that, (the same being true of my family (lost history that is, not fear of controversy)) and regret it, but at others I realise it really doesn't matter...we'll all be dead and forgotten soon enough, and while that stuff was relevant to the people who lived through it, it really isn't a few generations later.

A couple years ago I was given a whole bunch of ancient family photo's from a distant relative...no idea who the vast majority of the people in them are. And it doesn't matter at all, because it's not like I will pass that on or anything anyway.

We're born, we live, we die, we get forgotten, none of it really matters at all.

--A

[Sorus]

Y'know, sometimes I think about stuff like that, (the same being true of my family (lost history that is, not fear of controversy)) and regret it, but at others I realise it really doesn't matter...we'll all be dead and forgotten soon enough, and while that stuff was relevant to the people who lived through it, it really isn't a few generations later.

It probably doesn't really matter. None of the stuff I want to know about would change my life in any way at this point, but I'm still curious. I'd like to know more about a relative who died when I was young. We were close, and I think she probably had some truly fascinating (and probably very dark) stories to tell. On the other side of my family, I'd like to know the full truth about some things that were revealed in my grandparents' will that contradicted everything I was told when I was growing up. It wouldn't change anything, but I'd still like to know.

[Avatar]

Well, I did mean in a more general sense than that of personal curiosity.

--A

[Skyweir]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking is a major reason for this.
Otoh, I was raised to think with a VERY materialistic worldview, as I infer you have, Av. (or try to have)

Dunno, depends what you mean by "materialistic."

On the other hand, most of my family's history is lost because people were afraid to talk about anything that might be even slightly controversial, and that's a shame too.

Y'know, sometimes I think about stuff like that, (the same being true of my family (lost history that is, not fear of controversy)) and regret it, but at others I realise it really doesn't matter...we'll all be dead and forgotten soon enough, and while that stuff was relevant to the people who lived through it, it really isn't a few generations later.

A couple years ago I was given a whole bunch of ancient family photo's from a distant relative...no idea who the vast majority of the people in them are. And it doesn't matter at all, because it's not like I will pass that on or anything anyway.

We're born, we live, we die, we get forgotten, none of it really matters at all.

--A

Yep I kinda think the same

As for my funeral I want people to laugh, share jokes,

but as I won't be there - I really do have a care factor of zero

[Avatar]

Good on ya.

--A

[Skyweir]

[aTOMiC]

This subject came up again this weekend. My wife and daughter are not ok with the idea.
I am still very much interested in it but I dont want to be a bother at my own funeral so I must relent...for now.