What is Fear?

"What is Fear?" may be the strangest question of all - it is something so personal, so immediately felt, it feels like it is not amenable to generalization. We feel it lacks a kernel, it lacks substance. It might be evanescent, hover in the air for all we know. However, we have an inkling - a very strong one - of at least one general fear: that all human beings share the fear of death. It seems to be part of the human condition.

Fear of dying, would animals also share this sentiment? Undoubtedly they are trying to evade death, they are actively seeking measures to increase their longevity. That is a boring phrase - what do we mean? An agent will take advantage of its environment to secure a position where it can continue to experience, take action and maximize its personal utility function. This phrase, borrowed from the artificial intelligence literature, is even more boring - even if it's quite precise it will not help us in penetrating fear. That is because fear is personal, understanding the origins of fear is not enough to satisfy the spirit.

Let's take an example: a scene where pigs are being slaughtered. Let's pick one particular pig among the whole mess. It sees its comrades - like in the animal farm - being slaughtered and then it inevitably releases fear hormones. It must be expecting the same kind of treatment that befell on its comrades and desperately trying to evade that sort of ending. Wait a second. We should not mix in another emotion - that of desperation - when we are analyzing fear. That is not allowed in this case. What do we have then in our hands? Only space and time.

This particular pig's existence is in space and time. The pig sees other pigs being slaughtered and that is its personal sense of space. When it is expecting the same to happen to itself, there is an expectation, that is, a personal sense of time. The pig's whole existence becomes fear, the personal sense of space and time partakes in the impersonal. Acknowledging reality becomes fear.

Coming back to the modern day human fears, we will see some sort of semblance among the confusion. Fear of failure will assert itself as a loss of time. Failing to achieve something implies being evaluated negatively by other people. Other people signify the sense of space attached to this particular feeling.