Theory of Cremation

My next topic of ramblings thoughts might seem morbid to some, but I assure you it is anything but, by the time I conclude them. However, I must start at a point of deep sorrow, as this is where my initial thoughts began.

It was at the funeral service of a family member of a very close friend of mine, that my mind naturally began to run through events of this person's life and the impact they have had on my own. Thankfully, I have not attended many funeral services before, I believe the last one, was after the passing of my great-grandmother, and that was when I was still young. Attending a funeral as an adult however, my thoughts then of course began to bring into question of my own mortality. Not that I am planning on leaving this world any time soon, but the fact that I now have friends whom their parents are reaching old age, really hit home.

As the casket was slowly lowered into the Earth, I couldn't help but think to myself, "When I die, that is not where I want my final resting place to be, buried beneath the cold, hard dirt. That is not where the human spirit, or soul, can finally find it's freedom. I want it released, returned, back into the cosmos". And what better way to free the spirit from the body than with a roaring fire!

From a religious stand point, cremation seems to have many negative connotations associated with it, maybe because it has many ties with pagan traditions. This got me thinking; between the two alternatives, why is one practised more than the other?

For me, cremation conjures up imagery of great pyres. Maybe it is encoded genetically into me, but there is something that feels oddly satisfying with such a structure. I can see how my ancestors would have seen a great pillar of fire and smoke, reaching up to the heavens, to deliver the soul of the deceased to the gods.

In the three popular religions, cremation is very much discouraged (Christianity and Judaism) or even forbidden altogether (Islam).

In Christianity, the entire belief system is founded on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the belief that in order to be resurrected, the body must still be intact. Of course, if God was all powerful, the lack of a physical body should not be enough to prevent a resurrection. I understand the symbolism of the body being returned to the Earth from where it was originally taken, but why stop there? That is like still believing the Earth is at the centre of the Universe. Surely it is the Universe where the body should be returned to.

Like Christianity, Judaism also believes the body to be an important part in the resurrection and although cremation is not banned, recent events involving the Nazi concentration camps during World War II, can make cremation a very unsettling thought for the people of the Jewish faith.

In Islam, it is believed that the body is sacred and that "breaking a dead's bones is like breaking it as if he is alive", so the idea of cremating a Muslim is no different to harming or killing a Muslim, "And whoever kills a believer intentionally, his recompense is Hell to abide therein, and that Wrath and the Curse of Allah are upon him, and a great punishment is prepared for him".

On the other side of the argument, both Hinduism and Buddhism practice cremation. Like the Christian idea of returning the body to the Earth, Hinduism believes in returning the body to the Universe, and that the body is made up of the five elements (air, water, fire, earth and space) and that cremation releases these elements back into the Universe to be used again.

I am not a religious person, but this common theme of a death and rebirth cycle has its foundations in science. The Universe is in a constant state of destruction and creation and all we have to do is look at the stars to understand our place in it, for it is in the destructive power of stars that our own origins begin. All of the known naturally occurring elements in the Universe, the elements that make life on Earth possible, are a result of when a star dies, in what is known as a "supernova".

The life-cycle of a star begins in a giant gas cloud nebula, also know as a stellar nursery, where the gaseous clumps within the nebula begin to form around a centre of gravity, eventually forming a protostar. The ability of the new born star to create all of these elements, depends on the size of the star, as it begins to grow and expand.

A nebula is mostly made up of hydrogen and helium, and it is a combination of these two elements that the stars begin their life, hydrogen being the most simplest element in the Universe, and helium being the second. And it is from the nuclear fusion in stars of these most basic of elements, that all the remaining elements are created.

A star will spend most of its life burning through its supply of hydrogen, and in the process of nuclear fusion, creating helium, but it's not until near the end of its life that the other elements are created, and can only be created in the very large stars such as a red giant, as the star begins to exhaust its hydrogen supply and begins to rapidly expand and increase in temperature. Eventually all the hydrogen at the star's core is used up and it will begin to collapse in on itself, leaving behind a hydrogen and helium shell.

As the core continues to collapse and the temperature increases, now the helium nuclei begin to undergo nuclear fusion, creating carbon and oxygen molecules. This in turn leads to the exhaustion of the helium and the beginning of carbon nuclear fusion, creating four new elements; magnesium, neon, sodium and aluminium, while leaving a shell of carbon. This process is repeated again and again, creating more and more elements, as the star continues to collapse, all the while getting hotter and hotter.

The final stage is when there is nothing left but an iron core at the star's centre, with the shell layers of all the elements covering it. When the star reaches this stage of its life-cycle, and there is no more energy being released to counter-act the force of the star's own gravity, the star implodes in a supernova.

This nuclear fusion process only creates the first 26 elements. The remainder, like gold, copper, uranium, are created in the supernova itself. And when the star goes supernova, and the star is ripped apart and all those elements are spread out amongst the newly formed nebula, the debris is used to form new stars, and planets, like that of Earth and our own solar system.

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” - Carl Sagan

So from a scientific view point, why not recreate this universal cycle of life and death with a cremation, releasing those very elements, forged in the heart of stars back into the Universe that first created them. Why leave this mortal realm with a whimper, when you can go out, like a supernova, with a bang, and return to the Universe to begin the cycle all over again.

"Our story is the story of the universe. Every piece of everyone, of everything you love and everything you hate, of the thing you hold most precious, was assembled by the forces of nature in the first few minutes of the life of the universe, transformed in the hearts of stars or created in their fiery deaths. And when you die, those pieces will be returned to the universe in the endless cycle of death and rebirth." - Brian Cox

Sunk Cost Fallacy

One time or another, we have all suffered from the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Whether it be a financial or even an emotional investment, such as relationship with another person, there are some things we just can't let go. Here, I will try to explain why.

But first, let's have a quick look at what got me thinking about this particular topic.

The character Jimmy McGill on the TV series "Better Call Saul" is far from an ordinary ambulance chasing lawyer, as we are first thought to believe. Throughout the series "Breaking Bad", in which he masterminds some of Walter White's more hair-brained schemes, he is almost seen as a pushover lawyer when he comes face-to-face with Walter's alter-ego, the infamous 'Heisenberg', doing anything to make a quick buck. This includes choosing to defend the criminals of New Mexico and networking with some very shady characters, such as Mike Ehrmantraut.

But what we learn while watching the prequel series, is that Saul Goodman, or Jimmy McGill as he is known, is an extremely intelligent and perceptive con man. In the first episode of season two, after declining the job offer at Davis & Main, Kim Wexler confronts him as to why his is acting, in her mind, out of character. After putting all that time and effort into finally being recognised for his work as an attorney, she can't understand why he is throwing this great opportunity away. Jimmy explains;

'The fallacy of sunk cost… It’s what gamblers do. They throw good money after bad thinking they can turn their luck around. It’s like, “I’ve already spent this much money or time… whatever. I got to keep going!” No, there’s no reward at the end of this game.'

It is at this point, the viewer can almost read this statement as a more over-arching theme to the man Jimmy McGill later becomes, Saul Goodman. With "Better Call Saul" being a prequel series, we already know from watching Breaking Bad how his game will end. All throughout the series so far, as the main protagonist, the viewer is backing Jimmy to do well, to get the good paying job at a respected law firm to prove to his brother Chuck that he is no longer that low life con man of his past life, and for his friendship with Kim to continue to grow and evolve into a long lasting relationship. But we know it won't. As much time and effort he puts into becoming a better person, we know, and maybe somehow Jimmy also knows, that in the end it will be all for nought. After all, why deny the person he is supposed to be?

This scene made me think a little more about the term 'Sunk Cost Fallacy' and even though it is used in a economic sense, whether is can be used to describe decisions that people make every day. Unsurprisingly, I uncovered a number of psychological studies aimed at trying to understand what makes us fall for the very idea of wasting our time and effort on lost causes.

From a basic economic viewpoint, a sunk cost is an unrecoverable cost from an already incurred investment. The definition at businessdictionary.com describes a sunk cost as;

"Money already spent and permanently lost. Sunk costs are past opportunity costs that are partially (as salvage, if any) or totally irretrievable and, therefore, should be considered irrelevant to future decision making. This term is from the oil industry where the decision to abandon or operate an oil well is made on the basis of its expected cash flows and not on how much money was spent in drilling it."

A paper published by Arkes & Ayton (1999) attempted to try and understand why humans continue to honour sunk costs, while other animals, such as rats, do not. They refer to this sunk cost effect as the "Concorde Fallacy", named after the Concorde aircraft, where the governments financing the Concorde project continued to do so even when they knew ultimately the project was doomed. They did so because they have already invested a great deal of money into the project.

So, in the animal kingdom, is there any evolutionary advantage to investing in sunk costs? An example would be where a male and female produce two offspring, where one offspring is older than the other. There is a dramatic decrease in resources and keep both offspring alive and the parents must make a choice; which one do they keep alive? The newborn offspring which would take more parental investment and resources, or the older offspring that they have already invested in? According to Trivers (1972), the parents will favour the older offspring. But is this evidence of the sunk cost fallacy in lower animals? Or do the parents choose the older offspring based solely on their assumptions that the older offspring will require less resources in order to bring it to adulthood?

Another study by Weatherhead (1979) examined savannah sparrows and their defensive behaviour of their nests during their breeding season. With a short window for these birds to breed, Weatherhead studied those birds that arrived at the breeding grounds early compared to those that arrived late. Weatherhead theorised that either those birds that arrived early would defend their nests more vigorously than those that arrived later, as they had invested more time into their nests and eggs, or the birds that arrived late would defend their nests more vigorously, as the birds that arrived early would have enough time to create a new nest and lay more eggs if their first nest was attacked. What Weatherhead found was that the birds that arrived early in the breeding season, did in fact defend their nests more vigorously than those that arrived later, concluding evidence of past investment determined their behaviour.

Another experiment conducted by Lavery (1995) studied the breeding behaviour of convict cichlids, a species of fish native to Central America. Lavery compared the aggressiveness of cichlids, that had bred three time previously, to a predator, compared to fish that never bred before. The study found that the more experienced cichlids defended their brood more aggressively than those fish that had only bred for the first time. It can be concluded that this is evidence of sunk cost behaviour, as the fish which are on their fourth brood, have a much higher parental investment. But it can also be argued that the reason the less experienced fish protect their first brood less, is because they more opportunities in the future to breed again, while the more experienced fish are aware they have the potential to raise fewer broods in the future. Of course the more vigorously the fish defends their brood, the higher the risk for the fish to get injured, jeopardising the chance for the fish to continue breeding later on.

So now that we've looked at the potential of the sunk cost fallacy in less evolved animals, why do humans exhibit the same sunk cost fallacy behaviour? Arkes and Blumer (1985) suggested that this is because we don't want to be seen as wasteful. They questioned;

Assume that you have spent $100 on a ticket for a weekend ski trip to Michigan. Several weeks later you buy a $50 ticket for a weekend ski trip to Wisconsin. You think you will enjoy the Wisconsin ski trip more than the Michigan ski trip. As you are putting your just purchased Wisconsin ski trip ticket in your wallet you notice that the Michigan ski trip and the Wisconsin ski trip are for the same weekend? It's too late to sell either ticket, and you cannot return either one. You must use one ticket and not the other. Which ski trip will you go on? (p. 126) 

Over half the participants who were asked this question decided they would still go on the ski trip to Michigan, because they would feel like they were wasting more money if they chose the ski trip to Wisconsin instead, even though they would enjoy it less. But is this only because we don't want to appear wasteful or is there more to it? Is it maybe because we feel like we need to justify our decisions to ourselves?

Consider this experiment by Tversky and Kahneman (1981) where they asked participants this scenario;

Imagine that you have decided to see a play where admission is $10 per ticket. As you enter the theater you discover that you have lost a $10 bill. Would you still pay $10 for a ticket for the play?

Yes (88%) No (12%) 

Imagine that you have decided to see a play and paid the admission price of $10 per ticket. As you enter the theater you discover that you have lost the ticket. The seat was not marked and the ticket cannot be recovered. Would you pay $10 for another ticket? 

Yes (46%) No (54%)

It can be concluded that people, as way of justifying not purchasing a new ticket after loosing the first one, saw their decision as simply having already assigned a value to the ticket, so believed buying another ticket at $10 would value the new ticket at $20 and too expensive.

So ultimately, why do we hold onto sunk costs, not only from a financial viewpoint but a social one too? If there is one thing we humans invest a lot in, it's time. Time we put into making our lives the way we want them with the people we want in them. It is inevitable that throughout our lives, there will naturally be people that we are drawn to and people that drift away from us. But sometimes there are those relationships where even though the relationship does not benefit either person any more, we feel like we must keep it going, because after all, just think about all that time both of you invested into the relationship. If you were to cut ties now, think about all that time you would have wasted on them. But a sunk cost is exactly that, it's sunk, and it's not recoverable. Either way, there is no way of getting your invested time back, you are only incurring more accumulative expenditure on that person.

So why do we experience the sunk cost fallacy at all? What evolutionary benefit does it have? Let's look back at the cichlids and their breeding behaviour. For the fish here, experience is the key, it's the deciding factor of how much they believe in their prior investment. So for us humans, we might be able to apply a similar idea. We fall into the sunk cost fallacy because we want our investments to succeed, even if we know they ultimately will not. But with all that time we invest, we are getting something out of it; we are gaining experience. Experience we can draw upon in the future to make better decisions. But sometimes we need to be aware of falling into the trap that a sunk cost can have us committing to, and just like the less experienced fish that look toward the future, we must remind ourselves; there are plenty more fish in the sea.