PhronesisDeath anxiety (thanatophobia, mortality salience) is an existential wrong attractor W_death in which awareness of mortality generates sustained displacement cost D(xi_death) that standard death-awareness defenses cannot resolve. We apply the Displacement Framework to formalize death anxiety, drawing on Becker's (1973) foundational claim that terror of mortality is the central human problem, and Terror Management Theory (Greenberg, Pyszczynski & Solomon, 1986) as the experimental framework.
The ground state S0_mortal is defined following Heidegger and Yalom as existential equanimity — the capacity to hold awareness of finitude without destabilizing daily functioning. W_death is maintained through TMT's dual-process defense architecture: proximal defenses (suppression, distraction) providing temporary relief, and distal defenses (symbolic immortality pursuit, worldview defense, self-esteem buffering) providing deeper but more costly containment.
Becker's heroism project is formalized as a W_death maintenance mechanism: meaning-making structured around transcendence of death generates ongoing D(xi_death) dependency rather than resolution. Nine formal propositions cover: S0_mortal as existential equanimity (P1), W_death dual-defense TMT architecture (P2), the mortality salience cascade (P3), the heroism project as W_death maintenance (P4), clinical presentations — panic, illness anxiety, OCD contamination, PTSD, existential depression (P5), the avoidance trap generating secondary Phi accumulation (P6), cumulative Phi_death across existential, somatic, relational, and meaning domains (P7), neurobiological substrate — amygdala hyperreactivity, PFC failure, HPA dysregulation (P8), and return paths via Yalom, Frankl, contemplative dying practice, and narrative life-review (P9).