The article explores the evolving understanding of mortality, both on a personal and collective level. It suggests that as children grow, they begin to grasp their own inevitable death, which parallels humanity’s recent acknowledgment of its own mortality. This journey leads to what Jonathan Schell termed the 'second death', the realization that human existence is not eternal and that, unlike the comforting notion of eternity, humanity has a bounded existence. The article posits that our understanding of mortality has shifted due to the accumulation of evidence indicating that life on Earth, and humanity itself, may not endure indefinitely.
As we grow up, the understanding of death comes in stages, culminating in acknowledgment of one's unavoidable yet unpredictable mortality.
Humanity's self-knowledge has evolved to recognize its own mortality, acknowledging that our species may disappear from the cosmos.
The anti-war campaigner Jonathan Schell called this realisation the 'second death', confronting us with an understanding of humankind's ultimate fate.
For millennia, people found comfort in the idea of eternity, believing that beyond our lives, nothing dies, yet this perspective has changed.
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