This book brings together the relevant interdisciplinary and method
elements needed to form a conceptual framework that is both pragmatic
and rigorous. By using the best and often the latest, work in
thanatology, psychology, neuroscience, sociology, physics, philosophy
and ethics, it develops a framework for understanding both what death
is - which requires a great deal of time spent developing definitions of
the various types of identity-in-the-moment and identity-over-time - and
the values involved in death. This pragmatic framework answers questions
about why death is a form of loss; why we experience the emotional
reactions, feelings and desires that we do; which of these reactions,
feelings and desires are justified and which are not; if we can survive
death and how; whether our deaths can harm us; and why and how we should
prepare for death. Thanks to the pragmatic framework employed, the
answers to the various questions are more likely to be accurate and
acceptable than those with less rigorous scholarly underpinnings or
which deal with utopian worlds.