[Buddha-l] Being unable to imagine dying [confused]

[lemmett at talk21.com]

>> Freud did think that we can't imagine our own deaths because we have to smuggle in ourselves as observers that imagine it. I'm not sure I think that is much more than an observation though - not an argument. Merleau-Ponty says something similar that "neither my birth nor my death can appear to me as my experiences..." in the Phenomenology of Perception and Derrida says something similar in Aporias. More interesting still is that Goethe agreed and may have concluded he was immortal.

>Great, those quotes, I bet you can find just as much quotes for the 
opposite. 
I don't know that anyone disagrees, I would like to know though.
>Do you even understand what they mean? The authors in question may just be wrong or they may mean something different, or, as in the case of Merleau-Ponty, the translation may be shaky. 
I'm fairly sure yes. I can introduce the idea that translations are wrong in most of what I read, I'm not sure it's helpful. The Freud one is more ambiguous than Merleau-Ponty but it still seems clear and Zygmunt Bauman e.g. uses both when discussing his own view that death in inconceivable.
>If you want certainty you better start doing some thinking of your own.

I do think about this but don't know that doing so is any good. I think of arguments but they are never going to be better than those of the above. Thank you for the reply.