COMPREHENSION OF THE PHENOMENON OF DEATH AS EXISTENTIAL PERSONAL IDENTITY

Abstract

Modern philosophical anthropology reveals more and more complicated structure of a person’s inner world. While in the classic paradigm when reviewing the essence of a human the attention was paid  to the importance of the person’s essential features, that is to the existence of certain circumstances (social determinants, divine origin, etc…), contemporary science considers it as something that splits into many epihpenomas, stratifies in its own ambiguity, which brings it to losing meaningfulness of the personal existence, takes away its objective reality and comprehension of its own existence and its self-completeness.

In such circumstances, it is relevant to study the phenomena of human existence, which could update its life, «turn it face to face» with its life and itself. A human is the only creature, whose being is not determined by the fact of birth («to be a human» is not the same as «to belong to biological species»). It is transcendence that goes beyond the limits of the biological sphere and opens the existential dimension of the personality and forms the «humaneness in a human being».

The essence of a person acts like «indefinite-definite»: while he / she is alive nothing is known for sure about him/ her and when death comes, it’s impossible to change anything. Life consists of many events, phenomena of existence, «singularities», «temporal identities», which together form a single integrity. Each of the «here-and-now» phenomena of life can affect a personal «I» as a whole and change it.

In this sense, self-consciousness can be considered as the analogy of the fractal, as eye visualization of the idea of «chaotic» complexity, endless formation and incompleteness of many socio-cultural phenomena, that is, it is considered a stochastic system. The essence of the personality in the existential sense is constant transcendence, going out of the bounds of certainty, openness to the world, constant dialogue, etc. In this dialogue, the existence means both the beginning, or the «starting point», and a prospect, or an opportunity. Death is the end of any projects and opportunities.

«We do not know where and when death awaits us, so let’s live as if it were near...» It is the comprehension of the phenomenon of death, death here and now that can annually determine its own certainty, opens to the person its own self in the unity, integrity of the manifestations of the phenomena. Therefore, the comprehension of the phenomenon is death (unavoidable and possible here and now) comes into collision with «here and now essence», «a meeting dialogue» with one of the «temporary self-independence». This is the dialogue between what you are now and what you would like to be. An essential feature of an individual, an existential identity consists of a set of «temporary» identities, each of which can become primordial and final. A person as «I-fractal» unfolds possible projects, self-identification. So, in this sense, the attainment of one’s own mortality can become an existential birth, a transition to higher levels of being. Human as «I-fractal» is a stochastic, indefinite system until its completion, and hence the change of completed Self-independence can be over at any time.