I've been watching Geniuses of Britain, a documentary series covering important scientists from the UK since the 1800's like Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Stephen Hawking, as well as more obscure people you may not have heard of. Anyways, they cover an evolutionary biologist William Hamilton, who spent a lot of time studying altruism in animals, particularly colonial insects. He invented Hamilton's Rule, which states that a costly action should be done by an organism to help its relative ifC < R * B
Where C is the cost, R is the relatedness between the two organisms, and B is the benefit to the recipient.
Anyways, he eventually died of malaria related complications. The documentary stated that he expressed before he died the hope that his body would lay out unburied in the amazon jungle floor where he would be interred by burying beetles. This never happened and he was instead buried in a plot in some ritzy overpriced graveyard in jolly old England.
I couldn't help but think this kind of sucks. Was he asking too much? Did they all agree that his idea wouldn't be proper? Did his relatives or collegues sneer at the idea, his idea of what he wanted to happen to his own body?
There is a somewhat similar theme in Sophocles play Antigone, where the sons of disgraced King Oedipus further disgraced themselves by fighting to the death on opposite sides of civil war. The brother on the losing side, Polyneices, is decreed be the new King Creon to not be buried and instead be carrion for scavenging animals, the worst thing that could possibly happen to a body. And in ancient Greece, this was a big, big deal. Antigone defies King Creon's orders and buries her brother with honor, with the penalty of death on her herself. OH MY GOD HE DISAGREED WITH YOUR VIEWPOINT, BETTER DESECRATE HIS CORPSE SO HE KNOWS WHO'S BOSS. Like the relatives of W.E. Hamilton, Creon knew what was best for his corpse, possibly sending his soul into torment for all eternity. You sure showed him.
Anyways, I hope you don't get too attached to any romantic ideals with your body either, cause the odds aren't in your favor they are gonna happen, no matter how good of a person you were when you were alive. I got my fingers crossed by the time they get around to my corpse cremation is going to be mandatory because there are better uses for land besides a treasure trove of decaying corpses in overpriced boxes.
