After reading the blog Death, in the Oscars by Kelsey Amos, I started to really this about the ideas of memory versus physicality in regards to how we deal with death in today's 'Western' society.
http://kelseysneardeathexperiences.blogspot.ca/
Remembering the dead in our memories and paying them tribute in that fashion, by passing on their memory, may seem natural. It is has been practices by many cultures for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years.
(However common this action may be it should be noted that there are cultures that do not follow this practice. For example, the Wari tribe in the Amazon (who I am doing my case study on) do not to the best of their ability talk or think about their dead friends and relatives. In fact, they no longer practice this but up until the early 19th century the Wari would eat their dead to keep from preserving any physical remnant of an individual. Each identity of an individual, along with their memory, would instead be absorbed into the person eating them. In this way the memory of the individual was transformed from who they were as a human usually to an animal reincarnation. The Wari reject the idea of holding on to memories of the dead as they find it causes them long lasting grief.)
It is my personal belief that when the memories of a person are passed down in some story-esque format (orally, written in books, acted/ reenacted on film, carved into stone etc.) that individual though they may not be alive, still exist. It is when the last memory of a person is lost that they no longer exist. Therefore, death would not entail that you cease to exist in the memory of mankind. In this manner I argue that a person could achieve immortality. Celebrities of times gone by, though they are dead, exist today in our textbooks, on the internet, in movies dedicated to their memory and in several other formats.
Humans have an innate fascination with immortality, as they do with fame. These two things, however, are not mutually exclusive for you must achieve a certain status of fame to be remembered forever. The deeper you etch yourself into human memory, the longer it will take for that memory to fade. The theory of survival of the fittest can be applied to my own theory of mortality (Apologies for butchering Darwin's theory but I like to be dramatic). Your immortal fitness would depend on the amount of people you have effected (in a good or bad way that does not matter as long as they remember you and feel the need to share that memory). If you have affected a large number of people in this manner you fitness is greater that someone who has affected less people than you have. This is important as the more people who are willing to spread your story (or a part of it) ensure a greater chance of you existing for a longer period of time. Thus if enough fitness is acquired one can exist forever in the memory of human beings. Due to this theory I believe most human who strive for fame, though fancy toys and copious amounts of money are nice, do it to be remembered. Then there are those we remember who were never appreciated in their time, who I think I will put under a miscellaneous category as they were neither in it for the money or the fame.
The character that I have based my theory on is Homer's Achilles (yes I am aware that both these characters may perhaps be fictional but as a metaphor Achilles works best). The Iliad is an entire epic dedicated to the story of one man and his path to immortality. Achilles was given a choice between happiness and immortality. If he choose not to go to Troy he would marry and have children and live a happy life but his memory would die a few generations down the line. Achilles choose the second option where he fight at Troy and his memory will last forever in the minds of men. No one ever said immortality comes without sacrifices; Achilles made his choice and sacrificed his happiness for something that was much more appealing to him. If there is any truth behind this character any shade of reality he accomplished his goal. His memory has been fixed into human memory having lasted hundreds of years.
Here is a YouTube clip of Achilles in the movie Troy (2004)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZctCxAmzDs
My conclusion is that telling stories is the best way to keep someone you cherish alive longer because from the moment they die they exist only in memory. Thus it is easy to grasp why the spreading of memory is such a commonly used method to cope with death.
That is all, I feel like Ive been writing... well rambling for an eternity. I'm not even sure if this blog makes coherent sense to anyone other than myself. In fact, I'm not even sure that I fully agree with my argument but it is what it is. Enjoy!
http://kelseysneardeathexperiences.blogspot.ca/
Remembering the dead in our memories and paying them tribute in that fashion, by passing on their memory, may seem natural. It is has been practices by many cultures for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years.
(However common this action may be it should be noted that there are cultures that do not follow this practice. For example, the Wari tribe in the Amazon (who I am doing my case study on) do not to the best of their ability talk or think about their dead friends and relatives. In fact, they no longer practice this but up until the early 19th century the Wari would eat their dead to keep from preserving any physical remnant of an individual. Each identity of an individual, along with their memory, would instead be absorbed into the person eating them. In this way the memory of the individual was transformed from who they were as a human usually to an animal reincarnation. The Wari reject the idea of holding on to memories of the dead as they find it causes them long lasting grief.)
It is my personal belief that when the memories of a person are passed down in some story-esque format (orally, written in books, acted/ reenacted on film, carved into stone etc.) that individual though they may not be alive, still exist. It is when the last memory of a person is lost that they no longer exist. Therefore, death would not entail that you cease to exist in the memory of mankind. In this manner I argue that a person could achieve immortality. Celebrities of times gone by, though they are dead, exist today in our textbooks, on the internet, in movies dedicated to their memory and in several other formats.
Humans have an innate fascination with immortality, as they do with fame. These two things, however, are not mutually exclusive for you must achieve a certain status of fame to be remembered forever. The deeper you etch yourself into human memory, the longer it will take for that memory to fade. The theory of survival of the fittest can be applied to my own theory of mortality (Apologies for butchering Darwin's theory but I like to be dramatic). Your immortal fitness would depend on the amount of people you have effected (in a good or bad way that does not matter as long as they remember you and feel the need to share that memory). If you have affected a large number of people in this manner you fitness is greater that someone who has affected less people than you have. This is important as the more people who are willing to spread your story (or a part of it) ensure a greater chance of you existing for a longer period of time. Thus if enough fitness is acquired one can exist forever in the memory of human beings. Due to this theory I believe most human who strive for fame, though fancy toys and copious amounts of money are nice, do it to be remembered. Then there are those we remember who were never appreciated in their time, who I think I will put under a miscellaneous category as they were neither in it for the money or the fame.
The character that I have based my theory on is Homer's Achilles (yes I am aware that both these characters may perhaps be fictional but as a metaphor Achilles works best). The Iliad is an entire epic dedicated to the story of one man and his path to immortality. Achilles was given a choice between happiness and immortality. If he choose not to go to Troy he would marry and have children and live a happy life but his memory would die a few generations down the line. Achilles choose the second option where he fight at Troy and his memory will last forever in the minds of men. No one ever said immortality comes without sacrifices; Achilles made his choice and sacrificed his happiness for something that was much more appealing to him. If there is any truth behind this character any shade of reality he accomplished his goal. His memory has been fixed into human memory having lasted hundreds of years.
Here is a YouTube clip of Achilles in the movie Troy (2004)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZctCxAmzDs
My conclusion is that telling stories is the best way to keep someone you cherish alive longer because from the moment they die they exist only in memory. Thus it is easy to grasp why the spreading of memory is such a commonly used method to cope with death.
That is all, I feel like Ive been writing... well rambling for an eternity. I'm not even sure if this blog makes coherent sense to anyone other than myself. In fact, I'm not even sure that I fully agree with my argument but it is what it is. Enjoy!
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