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Forums - General Discussion - What do you want to happen to your body after you die?

the_dengle on 20 November 2013

Preferably, launched into the sun.



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mysticwolf on 20 November 2013
Jay520 said:
mysticwolf said:
Jay520 said:

What makes a tree more important than a coffin? They're all a bunch of atoms, just with different arrangements. There's no true significance either way. If the atoms form trees, then that's fine. If they form a coffin, then that's fine too. There isn't much of a difference. Why is a tree more valuable than a coffin?

Also, why would the energy of your body be of better use on the ocean floor rather than in a box six feet under? What's the difference between being home to underwater organisms versus being home to underground organisms? Are you trying to say that lifeforms in the ocean are better than lifeforms in the dirt? That's racist.

Let's analyze your perspective for a moment here. What I'm getting from this is that everything is just atoms and nothing matters. Let's see how practical that is. Why don't I just go perform some huge terrorist act, and let's say I killed 10,000 people. There's nothing wrong with that, they are just atoms so it doesn't matter if their tissues are living or dead. While it's true that a dead human and an alive human are both simply an arrangement of atoms, that doesn't tell me if what I did was the moral thing to do. You can't honestly tell me that you care about nothing. You can't sincerely tell me that there are not good and bad things in this world. 

The point you are missing is the value of life. The tree is more valueable than the coffin because the tree is alive. Unless you see no value to life in and of itself, you should have a problem with the idea of me killing you and your family. 

As for my desire to decompose in the ocean, that is simply my preference. My body would be easier to access to larger scavengers and would decompose more quickly in the water. It doesn't really matter in the long run I suppose, but then again, neither does anything else according to you. 


Wow wow..I never said morality doesn't exist. In fact, I didn't even make any claims about right and wrong. This isn't really about morality. This is about selfishness, which seemed to be the main point of your post. Remember you said this:

"We take resources from the earth all our lives (as do all other organisms), but then when we die we want to keep even our body and lock it up from the world that so graciously gave life to us? We humans are selfish even in death."

You're saying that being buried is selfish since it blocks off resources. But as I've just shown you - which you just agreed with - it's not selfish because you don't hold any resouces. Everything eventually gets back to the Earth one way or another (via soil or the ocean, or in a hundred years or in one day, it doesn't matter).

As for the coffin versus the tree, I guess that has some connections with morality, but I was mainly talking about the value of these objects. You say a tree is more valuable than a coffin because the tree is alive and the coffin isn't, but I question this stance. Man-made objects can be incredibly valuable to many people. They may not be inherently important on their own, but they can be symbols for deeper meanings. For example, people assign great significance to any object that allows for the artistic expression of emotions, or that behave as symbols for deeper, spiritual connections, or that allows for breakthrows in human advancement, etc. Sure, these objects may not be alive, but they are important nonentheless. 

So no, I don't see why a tree is more valuable than a coffin just becaues it's alive. The only way you could take this stance is if you asserted that all man-made objects are less valuable than living organisms, which I doubt is a stance you want to take.You wouldn't say some random tree is more valuable than the Sistine Chapel, would you? Do you believe all art is less valuable than a patch of grass?

I'm taking more of a philosophical approach to this. The reason for what we do is almost, if not as important as what we do. I think coffins are selfish because we make them for one function: for a dead body. We don't make them to serve as homes for tiny creatures thousands of years from now. 

I'm also not trying to say that any living thing is more important  than a manmade or nonliving thing. I would take more of a utilitarian approach to the situation. If the benefit of killing an organism outweighs the detriment, then the killing of the organism is justified. 

We need to ask ourselves in which situation is the tree best used, as a tree or as a coffin? In order to figure this out we ask ourselves, what is the function of a tree? That is to say, what makes trees special; what do they do better than any other type of plant? Trees create oxygen, provide food, and hold together the soil with their roots. But these are things that other plants can do just as well, if not better. What makes trees unique, I think, is their unsupassed ability to create habitat for animals. One tree alone is an entire ecosystem. A tree can support a very diverse amount of life, from microorganisms to insects to birds to mammals. And when you add many trees, it becomes a very different environment than that of an isolated tree; it becomes a forest. Forests have unsurpassed ability to sustain a wide range of life both plant and animal: Rainforests easily have the highest rates of biodiversity, significantly more than any other type of ecosystem. And I assure you that biodiversity is in fact a good thing. Sadly, rainforests are being cut down at alarming rates.

So now that we have uncovered the function of a tree, let us uncover the function of a coffin. Coffins do in fact provide a home for insects and microorganisms (after the wood stain and its various chemicals has eroded away into the soil). However, fallen trees provide a much more suitable home for decomposers, seeing as how decomposers have been making their homes in fallen trees for a few hundred million years. Therefore, the function of a coffin is not to provide a home for decomposers. Coffins provide a home for the dead and decomposing. What it is that coffins do best is preserving and protecting human bodies. 

Now that we know the function of the tree and the coffin, we can answer the big question: In which case is the wood best used? Which use of the resources is more important? Then we can figure out whether the use of coffins is moral or not. 

Keep in mind this is a situational thing; I'm not saying that we should never cut down trees. I'm saying in order for the cutting down of trees to be justified, the pros have to outweigh the cons. 



 Been away for a bit, but sneaking back in.

Gaming on: PS4, PC, 3DS. Got a Switch! Mainly to play Smash

Kasz216 on 23 November 2013

Whatever option costs my family the least amount of money.

I don't really care.

I'd say, let the state bury my body/cremate it, whatever they do...

and just have a funeral with a picture at someones house with some awesome food.