Thoughts on Death

In bundle theory there is no core self. No homunculus. No ghost in the machine. Just a load of impulses and urges clamouring to overpower each other. It is often said that suicides do things like wash the glass clean of germs from which they wash down the overdose of pills. That they had made plans as if the suicidal act was only real to one thread of the person. That there are many more threads to the bundle and if each were stripped away, one by one, there would be no core self remaining. The self destructive urge is just one of many, rising to surface long enough for the person to act on it.
We see taking dogs, once their lives are full of pain, to their destruction through the needle of the vet, as kind and humane. However, in the UK, humans must live on to a natural death, however much pain they are in. In Switzerland Dignitas takes patients who wish to die. The thinking behind our attitude to animal and human euthanasia is flawed. It is considered acceptable to kill an animal because its consciousness is believed to be insufficient to foresee its own death. We say an animal can feel pain but it can't say to itself, 'I am feeling pain'. On the drive to the vet a dog can not think 'I will soon be no more'. And, to be fair, if a sniper hit me with the perfect shot now, killing me instantly without pain, there would be none of me there anymore to miss my life. This is the dog put down. Yet with a human it can not be the bullet from out of the blue. A Dignitas client must be in full control. They must prove that they are of sound mind and understand that they are to die. The complete opposite of what makes dog death humane.