How to deal with death like Socrates

Plato’s Socrates refused to escape execution of the death sentence when he would still have had the opportunity. He knew full well that he would gain nothing by escaping into exile. He would be exiled everywhere forever and a traitor to his own principles. Plato explained this with unconditional obedience, loyalty, and duty to the state. That is, no matter how unjust the judgment is, violating it will violate the contract between the state and the individual. It is as if one is betraying one’s parents.

Beyond the totalitarian or extremely autocratic conception, this is very difficult to understand, but let us not forget that the ancient Greeks believed in their gods. Each Greek city-state had its own gods, who demanded unconditional loyalty from citizens in exchange for protection. In Athens, the citizens were inseparable from the state. Obedience to the state meant obedience to the gods. These gods did not forgive anyone for betrayal, treason. And who that was found guilty of this transgression, his further suffering will be guaranteed in Hades.

To understand Socrates’ morality, it is necessary to understand that morality means something different to a philosopher than to an average intelligence. Every person in this world strives to avoid pain and to chase pleasure. The philosopher is no exception. For the philosopher, however, pleasure means something different than for the average person, for whom it is exhausted in a mere hedonistic calculation. For philosopher the real pleasure can be intellectual, moral, and spiritual. The philosopher has a different conception about pain either.

What is meant by this?

What the average person experiences as a pleasure can be a torment for the philosopher if he does not find meaning in it. The philosopher seeks the meaning and virtue of all. And the real pleasure for philosopher is attaining the highest possible wisdom.

Nor is the philosopher necessarily an enemy of physical pleasure, and he does not despise sensuality, but if it is not associated with a higher intellect only the selfish gratification of the senses, it results in bleak stagnation for the higher intelligence. And stagnation is pain, thus sensuality can hurt mentally and emotionally.

And this kind of suffering is much more intense than physical pain and sensual pleasure. In this sense abandoning sensuality is not a sacrifice, but rather liberation from emotional, spiritual, and mental suffering.

Although neither Plato nor Socrates considered pleasure as opposite or antidote of pain, since both effect the same part of the brain. One extinguishes other, nothing else. However, it is the philosopher’s duty to detach himself from physical pain and sensual pleasure, because all of these only disrupt the purity of the mind.

That is, the basic truth is that we should not suffer more than absolutely necessary. Okay, how can we achieve it? So that we ought to not insist on anything we don’t actually own. And we cannot actually own anything that we’ll lose at one time, including our body, name, consciousness, status, and so on. It is an illusion that we have anything in life, because life is nothing compared to eternity. If you only own something for a second, do you really own it at all? Compared to eternity, it doesn’t matter if it’s a second or a hundred years.

Then why should we live at all?

Because we still have something in life that we can call our own. This is the dignity. And we can find this dignity in self improvement, or life goal. Plato’s Socrates drew a clear line between the suicide and dying with dignity. Suicide is an escape from life and the suffering that comes with life, for which only the purpose of life provides a solution. While dying in dignity is the necessary end of life after it fulfills its purpose. God frees everyone with death, but to unreasonably urge it is as if the slave before his deliverance annoys his master with escape.

Socrates took the hemlock to his mouth in the knowledge that his time was up and he had completed his mission. So he has fulfilled his duty to be set free by God, and that filled him with incredible serenity and calmness. This is completely different from the Christian conception, which considers all kinds of suicide taboo and makes no distinction between cowards and tragic heroes.

But following the logic that only the soul can incarnate, the mind, and the consciousness not, The final judgement in Christian sense loses its meaning, since only those who are aware of their deeds can be judged. This is similar to how people with Alzheimer’s disease lose consciousness even in this life, but they cannot be told that they do not have a soul. The nerve cells that hold our consciousness die like all other tissues in the body, but the soul is different. It does not exist materialicaly, but explains everything that related with meaning of life.

Because we lose our consciousness with our body, so our soul develops a new consciousness in every new body, and therefore we do not remember our previous lives. Therefore every knowledge that was collected in our lives requires recollection in every single new life. At least this was the concept of Plato’s Socrates.

The other possibility is that there is no life after death and an endless dreamless sleep awaits all mortals. This option was mentioned in Plato’s Apology by Socrates before the trial. But what’s wrong with that? If someone remembers his best sleep, that’s obviously the most calming experience. No one knows what will happen after death, but if there is nothing, there is no need to be afraid of it either.

We spend immeasurably more time in non-existence than in existence, meaning it can be said that everyone only returns to where they belong. In fact, non-being is more our natural state, and this is understood only by those who have attained the highest degree of wisdom.

Maybe we are all living in delusion about death, though delusion is a natural consequence of what the instinct for life generates. But the instigt just like our body belongs to this world, to this life, which we’ll leave behind with our lives, and bodies. In fact nothing can be taken away from us that we would not have received. Because there is no pain, no grief, no suffering, no bitterness in non-existence, so non-existence is better than existence, or at least not the death is the worst that can happen to us in life according to Plato’s Socrates.

The true philosopher avoids both physical pain and sensual pleasure, because both disrupt the purity of mind, thus both are counterproductive. The true philosopher, even in this life, prepares for what awaits him after death, whatever it may be, by separating his soul from his body as much as possible.

Plato’s Socrates does not consider the pain and pleasure the opposite of each other, because both affect our physical and biological selves, as north and south, east and west are not opposite of each other only at the level of two dimension. The difference lies between soul and body, and not between body and body. The depth of this can only be understood by a philosopher. An average person cannot and does not want to detach himself from his body and this is not to be expected from him by any means. Our body, on the other hand, belongs more to this world than to our soul, just as the chain belongs more to the prison than to the prisoner. When the prisoner is released, he leaves the chain in the prison wall as the dying man leaves his body on the ground. Whereas the average intelligence tends to fall in love with his chain, manifesting his slavery and suffering.

For philosopher, artist, scholar the only pleasure of life is the only purpose of life at the same time, which can’t be else than loving wisdom. Creating, learning, inventing, exploring as much as possible in life, which make the suffering related with life irrelevant.

According Plato’s Socrates the God does not let bad people harm good ones, and the only harm that people can cause is depriving knowledge of their fellow human beings. Everyone who lives came from non-existence, and will return to non-existence. Then what is the meaning of life? Perhaps the self-improvement with acquiring knowledge that strengthens our soul, and perhaps helping each other to attain this noble goal. Who knows? But everything is better than living with no goal, because that life is not worth living. Stagnation is the greatest enemy of man. I can describe the state of infantilism as the eternal intellectual winter. I say eternal because so many lives are stuck in this state tragically forever. The intellectual spring is enlightenment, and the intellectual autumn is the state of wisdom.

Thanks for reading me!