Yes, I think Steve White in that livestream was making a similar point (more briefly). I can certainly see this as a sense of premature death; in that you can imagine someone living to a reasonable old age and feeling like they’ve achieved all they wanted and are ready to die (e.g. I think Einstein ended up like this); so someone in the opposite condition (in the middle of important work and not wanting to die at all, as well as maybe dying significantly younger than their cohort) would be said to have died prematurely or ‘too soon’.
(And many people die in an in between state, still doing stuff and not wanting to die, but fairly elderly and not particularly in the middle of important projects. So not clearly premature or not. Which merely shows that the concept, like many, is somewhat vague.)
That livestream also showed me there are many different philosophical angles on death. Really my post was just about the statistical puzzle, rather than the wider issue of premature death, which I’ve never given much thought to before!
Yes, I think Steve White in that livestream was making a similar point (more briefly). I can certainly see this as a sense of premature death; in that you can imagine someone living to a reasonable old age and feeling like they’ve achieved all they wanted and are ready to die (e.g. I think Einstein ended up like this); so someone in the opposite condition (in the middle of important work and not wanting to die at all, as well as maybe dying significantly younger than their cohort) would be said to have died prematurely or ‘too soon’.
(And many people die in an in between state, still doing stuff and not wanting to die, but fairly elderly and not particularly in the middle of important projects. So not clearly premature or not. Which merely shows that the concept, like many, is somewhat vague.)
That livestream also showed me there are many different philosophical angles on death. Really my post was just about the statistical puzzle, rather than the wider issue of premature death, which I’ve never given much thought to before!