A device exists that can tell you exactly how and approximately when you will die — with 95% accuracy. You can ask once. You'd know if you have decades ahead or months. You'd know if it's sudden or slow. You can't change the outcome, only know it. Do you look?
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Question

A device exists that can tell you exactly how and approximately when you will die — with 95% accuracy. You can ask once. You'd know if you have decades ahead or months. You'd know if it's sudden or slow. You can't change the outcome, only know it. Do you look?

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Accepted Answer

39% chose "Yes — I'd want to know and plan" and 61% chose "No — ignorance is how I want to live". This dilemma probes the relationship between knowledge and happiness. Psychologists have found that anticipatory anxiety — dread of an uncertain future — can be more damaging than even a terrible known outcome. But knowing a painful death is coming may rob you of years of peace. Philosophers like Epicurus argued death itself is nothing to fear; the knowledge of its timing, however, is another matter entirely.

Would you want to know how you'll die?

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