Assuming that your parents die separately, you being there will make it easier for the other parent still alive. The same goes for their relatives and friends attending the funeral. There's some comfort in seeing that the person was loved.

They are dead but the other people who attend aren't

Solidarity with the living is the whole point of the funeral.

Well, you could argue that's most of the point.

Remember, though, there are funerals where only one person attends. And publicly acknowledging one's loss - even if it only consists of going to a building with strangers and posting an obituary - can be one of the most important steps in processing grief for some people.

+1

You're showing the other grieving people that you care about them

It's certainly a large part of it. There was a recent Cantonese movie that featured this as one of the themes, it's well worth a watch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Dance_(2024_film)

I went to a friends mothers funeral to support him and to pay my respects. However, his brother who had a fractious relationship with his siblings did not. I can't tell you how many relatives viewed his absence negatively.

That's a shame, I'd like to think I would not judge someone for their decisions on something like that, having not walked any miles in their shoes.

If you're looking for personal value out of attending funerals, there's good evidence for psychological benefits to doing so. Grieving is hard. Humans are evolved to process negative emotions through complex rituals. Funerals are one of the most important rituals because death is extraordinarily traumatic and universal to all humans.

Funerals aren't about saying goodbye to corpses. They're collective, complex rituals that aid the grieving process.

Fix your points of regret while this is still possible. If you do so, you will find that very likely, you will want to go once successful.

I believe we got to a point where it's them who have the responsibility to do the fixing.

It's not about you.

Neither of my parents had a funeral. They both said they didn't want people coming in and looking at their dead body.

It's not about looking at the body (in my area at least, funerals usually don't even display the body), it's about grieving and mourning. Or supporting other people who are going through grief and mourning, even if you don't feel it very strongly yourself. My mom died of cancer about a month after lockdown started in 2020 so we couldn't have any kind of service, but we had a "celebration of life" a year later. I'm glad that we did.

Well, they both said they didn't want any of that, so we didn't do it.

Can you really not think of the situation beyond your personal immediate material experience?

Socially, i.e. about other people?

A yes, but it's odd to me that other people want me to be at a funeral with them.

If we have a great relationship, I can lend you money, share my house, get you a date, do some errands for you, take you to a party, listen to your thoughts and give you feedback. All valuable things I can do for you regardless of my funeral attendance. But just standing at a funeral? I don't see how is that valuable. Maybe for the chat, but we can have the chat anywhere else, like staring at the stars in a park, a superior setting.

And if we don't have a good relationship, well, then it doesn't matter what you want.

Do you have a social disorder of some kind? I feel that to most humans this is just immediately obvious and socially natural

Maybe I do.

Is it most? I don't know.

And do most do it because their emotions and values give them this urge, or is it that they want to fit their social circle or comply with their cultural norms? I dont know

Could you perhaps imagine a reason why a person asking you to come with them to a funeral might feel it is valuable to them that you come?

Maybe they want to remember the deceased with you in a setting that is about remembering the deceased?

Is that less valuable than wanting to go to a party together?

Oh, no if someone asks me to come I undertsand that it's important for them. So, I'd go to support my friend, but I'd keep feeling like I'm wasting my time. Just as if a friend asked my be go to their Mormon baptism.

Why would you feel like you’re wasting your time if you care about the person and it’s important to them?

If being around corpses is your main objection, know that you don't have to have corpses in the room to have a memorial service.