I would like to develop a previous point: Life cannot be both worth living and acceptable in ending. One of these premeses has to be false, either life is not worth living (and therefore there is no reason not to end it) or death is inherently bad (and therefore should be feared). This presents an interesting dilemma as neither outcome is particularly desirable in my opinion: either fear death or kill yourself. — JacobPhilosophy

This is a rather simplified view of life and death. Life has a complex structure of value and potential that is both positive and negative, but it is also limited - that’s not a contradiction. It is the way that you structure and then collapse this potential information that results in a reduction to ‘either fear death or kill yourself’. Every action we take is a result of collapsing this potential information in relation to interacting, ever-changing and limited events, but I think we need to always remember that the potential information itself is irreducible. There is much more to life as a potentiality than whether or not to evade death.

The end of life is arbitrary? Seems pretty cut and dry to me, you read the book and it ends when your done reading, you live the life and it ends when you die.
Life may have an arbitrary quality to it in the sense that you dont know when you're going to die or how, but that isnt the same as what the examples of hockey and a book illustrate about the failed logic of the premiss that something cannot both be worthwhile and acceptable in ending.
The point is not how or when it ends but only that it ends. It is worthwhile, and is acceptable in ending. Its both, and there is still no good reason to think life is an exception. Its something you do that is worthwhile, and is acceptable in ending. Just like the book, you may not want it to end but it must, and often that it ends is part of what makes it worthwhile.
In that this relates to anti-natalism, it is the same petulant, juvenile kind of perspective, focusing on not experiencing “bad” things instead of appreciating the beauty that can result from them. Adversity is the mechanism for growth and maturity, and is worthwhile for that reason.

Life cannot be both worth living and acceptable in ending. One of these premeses has to be false, either life is not worth living (and therefore there is no reason not to end it) or death is inherently bad (and therefore should be feared). This presents an interesting dilemma as neither outcome is particularly desirable in my opinion: either fear death or kill yourself. — JacobPhilosophy

Speaking for myself, and hopefully shedding some light on what you presume to be a conundrum, life is worth living for it's a prerequisite for pleasure - the dead can't be pleased. Too hedonistic? Look at the reasons for suicide - mostly has to do with pain and subsequent depression (sorrow). The problem for the living comes to a sharp focus because life invariably involves pain - for the lucky it may be minor and for the hapless the pain may become insufferable. So, we must navigate through life, seeking out pleasure and where we find it drink to our fill and at the same time avoid painful life-negating experiences. In short, life is worth only as much as the pleasure we get in experiencing it.

As for death, its fearsome reputation is explicable in terms of the positive impression we have of life - life is good and so death, the end of life, has to be sad, bad and scary. I believe the fear of death diminishes proportionally to the amount of pain experienced in living (suicide). However, if one is to recognize the fact of its inevitability, we can begin to draw some amount of comfort from it and begin to accept our appointment with the grim reaper, an appointment that we can possibly postpone but never cancel.

Life is still good but our death is as certain as Socrates' own demise. Isn't it logical then that we should appreciate life and accept death. The bottomline is that death is acceptable, not because there's anything wrong with the value of life but because it's inescapable. There doesn't seem to be a contradiction.

I think someone once used the analogy that just because I'm enjoying a meal, doesn't mean I have to be sad when I am finished. However, if I went to an event and enjoyed it, only to have had my memory of the past week wiped, I would argue that there was no purpose in going to said event. If I knew that this memory wipe was approaching, I wouldn't bother doing anything that week, as I wouldn't recall it.
Ps I can't figure out how to quite effectively

From my research, most philosophers, most notably Socrates, conclude that death is not inherently bad, but also that life is worth living; These two premises are contradictory in my opinion. If something (life) is worth keeping, then surely the removal of said thing is inherently negative, no? — JacobPhilosophy

You make some good points. Let's recall that Socrates was an old man with a fixed self-image. Dying the way he did was one of the most interesting things he could do with the time he had left. It was a deed he could add to his words, a nice period. Imagine him sneaking off. He had a legacy to think of. Isn't it beautiful that a rational old man could walk calmly into the mystery/abyss/void?

More generally, let's assume that death is just non-existence. If life is good, then the movement from some positive value to a neutral zero is indeed a loss. (I agree with you.) Of course our judgment of whether a life is good (worth clinging to) depends on all kinds of things, but that's a different issue.

Its mainly the indifference to having lived that is a conundrum to me. If my parents weren't to have conceived me, then there would be no loss there. However, if I die, it is therefore a tragedy. As I will not have memory of having lived, not being born and dying are identical states to me. Therefore, it shouldn't matter when or how I die.

I think someone once used the analogy that just because I'm enjoying a meal, doesn't mean I have to be sad when I am finished. However, if I went to an event and enjoyed it, only to have had my memory of the past week wiped, I would argue that there was no purpose in going to said event. If I knew that this memory wipe was approaching, I wouldn't bother doing anything that week, as I wouldn't recall it.
Ps I can't figure out how to quite effectively — JacobPhilosophy

Good point but what's the purpose of memory? Is it to allow you to experience pleasure repeatedly with each recollection of a pleasurable experience? To my reckoning, memory if it is at all relevant in re death is just another way of expressing that universal, fervent desire to escape death - we seem to regard the continuity of our memories as an evidence of something that doesn't change as we live and the hope is that this unchanging soul continues on even after death. This deeply-rooted intuition is clearly evident in the scenario you described: you wouldn't want to experience pleasure if that pleasure isn't recorded for future reference for that entails no continuity, no self, no soul as it were.

While it seems that life isn't worth it if death is final, it does make sense to make the best of our time alive, no? That seems to be the general consensus among people in my opinion. You may not remember the enjoyable event but you're there and you have nothing better to do; might as well enjoy the event.

I believe there's someone with a memory illness like the one you described: this person's short-term memory is normal but his long-term memory is faulty. This person is then is in the exact situation you described but he seems to have come to terms with his condition which brings us back to the notion of acceptance as an appropriate response to what are inescapable truths.

Its mainly the indifference to having lived that is a conundrum to me. If my parents weren't to have conceived me, then there would be no loss there. However, if I die, it is therefore a tragedy. As I will not have memory of having lived, not being born and dying are identical states to me. Therefore, it shouldn't matter when or how I die. — JacobPhilosophy

I can relate. I connect this to the future-orientedness of human beings. We can imagine ourselves so far ahead in the future that all becomes absurd and unreal. Yet in general being future-oriented in a non-radical way is a sign of intelligence and prudence.

It's a good example of logic having a strange result. Because surely it matters right now to you, but you say it shouldn't. What backgrounded framework grounds that shouldn't? I relate to what you say, so I'm not immune to that framework. I'm just interested in whether we can take a certain distance from it, see it from the outside.

I've watched a documentary about the man with the seven second memory and, to no offense to the victim, I find that to be the worst torture imaginable. In my opinion, if it were me, that state is similar to death as he claimed to have been "conscious" for the first time in the years since his disease took over, but he claims this every seven seconds in an endless prison of his own nothingness. I personally would rather be dead, and have incredible respect for his acceptance of it.

I think someone once used the analogy that just because I'm enjoying a meal, doesn't mean I have to be sad when I am finished. However, if I went to an event and enjoyed it, only to have had my memory of the past week wiped, I would argue that there was no purpose in going to said event. If I knew that this memory wipe was approaching, I wouldn't bother doing anything that week, as I wouldn't recall it. — JacobPhilosophy

If I knew this memory wipe was approaching, I would enjoy the event and find a way to express that enjoyment in a lasting way: whether that’s in a diary, or sharing my experience with someone for whom my experience matters. Your life is not about its meaning for you, in the end. You’ll be dead, after all. I think that enjoyment, once shared, has the potential to come back around to us in some form or another through our relationships with others. But then I’m a glass-half-full kinda thinker.

For a light-hearted look at this topic, watch ‘50 First Dates’. It’s surprisingly thoughtful.

Well ya, the memory wipe is removing the experience and the experience is what makes the thing worthwhile. However, this scenario does nothing to make sense of your claim that something cannot be worthwhile and acceptable in ending. The mind wipe is just an ad hoc attempt to hold onto a point that still fails and Im sorry to say that it doesnt make much sense either. Once you introduce the mind wipe, then your original point can no longer be made since it refers to that experience (the end of it, of life). Even if you make another ad hoc adjustment to not include the end as part of the experience then you haven't said anything interesting at all, youd just be pointing out that if you only experience something negative and specifically do not experience what makes that negative thing worth going through then this negative thing isnt worthwhile. Thats not saying much at all, so Im afraid youve fallen quite short here.

↪Tim3003
I agree completely with what you are saying, but feeling as though the only reason to live is "why not?" seems unsatisfactory to me. — JacobPhilosophy

So find your reasons to live! I suspect that won't be done intellectually but through trying 'life' and seeing what appeals.. From my experience you cannot find reasons to live from an ivory tower, you have to get stuck in and let your reactions tell you what's worthwhile and what isn't. We 'philosophers' may think we're highly evolved but we are animals at heart with the same drives and needs as anyone else.

I personally tend to fear negative things :/ — JacobPhilosophy

Sure, but it doesn’t mean you have to. That’s all I’m saying

The secret of sophia is to keep a 50/50 proportion of objectivity and subjectivity in one's life, those terms understood philosophically

I've watched a documentary about the man with the seven second memory and, to no offense to the victim, I find that to be the worst torture imaginable. In my opinion, if it were me, that state is similar to death as he claimed to have been "conscious" for the first time in the years since his disease took over, but he claims this every seven seconds in an endless prison of his own nothingness. I personally would rather be dead, and have incredible respect for his acceptance of it. — JacobPhilosophy

Indeed, if one gives it some thought, to have a 7 second memory is identical to dying every 7 seconds. I wonder what death would mean to such a person? John Locke was of the opinion that a person's identity was defined by faers memories.

When I think about emotional topics I tend to focus on the more “scientific” approach first to help organize my thoughts. In the case of life and death, from a biological perspective, living organisms are creatures of order. Personally I believe the “greatest” law of the universe to be balance, and order is the result of one such balance. Order is the organization of particles and the maintenance of the resulting material. As such, living organisms also naturally have such a purpose. This is mainly achieved through reproduction as a replacement after death in order to keep the balance. In other words, having kids and living long is the biological purpose of living organisms. However, humans are more than the average animal. We no longer act mostly on instinct and are capable of decisions contradicting our natural purpose, such as suicide. Perhaps another example of balance is that in exchange for being able to make decisions, we also must fulfill an emotional purpose that directs our decisions in order to maintain the will to live. Not having the emotional purpose does not mean we have no purpose in life, but that we are simply unsatisfied with living without one. Most people will feel the need to have an emotional purpose, so not having one gives the illusion that life is meaningless, making death seem acceptable. As for whether life is worth living, worth is just a concept created by humans, maybe even as a result of the emotional purpose I just mentioned. I see life as something we can enjoy, since nothing is guaranteed after death, we might as well take advantage of the joy having an emotional purpose can give us.

If it's all the same, whether we live or die, why choose death. In such an instance, life and death are too similarly worthless to choose one over the other.

Is it just that it's more inconvenient to be aware of the absurdity of one's existence than to be unaware of the absurdity of one's nonexistence.

Honestly I revel in the absurd, so I'm not going to search for a solution in death.

I'm not so fatalist, though. I don't know if death is ultimately survivable, but judging from first-person accounts, it's revelatory, and I look forward to that, regardless of how short-lived it may be.

Chose to continue to live, because, you may not feel like living today, but tomorrow you may find reasons to live.

There are infinite reasons to give for living, evaluating them by whether or not they're compelling or objective is a choice. If someone gives a reason for living and you say their reason is not objectively true and therefore invalid, you have missed how your argument lacks any objective validity. You are just like the others, you have opinions and reasons for doing/thinking things which are not going to be agreed upon by everyone, they're subjective and whether or not they're compelling, valid or rational to you or anyone else doesn't help fundamentally change the subjective nature of opinions.

It is asinine to reject reasons for living based on their subjective nature, there are no reasons for any action that aren't subjective and I would describe it as a complete misunderstanding on the subjective/objective dichotomy.

Personally, I look forward to death. To be rid of this physical being will be a blessing. However to quote Woody Allen “If I wasn’t such a chicken I kill myself”.And on the other hand, when I 1st took acid, I realized there was a reason for me to be. I didn’t understand that reason, but it was there.

In my opinion a reason to live is "uniqueness", "rarity" and the "static moment of living."

You have this life that no one else will ever have. You have an experience, a set of insights, thought patterns, behaviour, a quality to your personality that no one else can ever replicate because they will never be you. You occupy this finite space with your body, a space that - though ever changing in relativity to all other spaces as you move around in the world, can never be occupied by another in its entirety, can never be claimed or possessed by another. It is you. Your DNA, your systems of function, your biology and organisation of matter will never again be in this exact configuration that makes a "you".

Being alive is a stasis in a sense. Like the solidification of self in a sea of non-living. Homeostasis keeps you organised and fit to live. The amount of information and organised systematic exchange and interaction it takes to keep you from dying, to keep you from falling apart into a soup of trillions of disorganised molecules is unfathomable.

Life in this sense is a Rock and death is a fluid. Statistically for the duration of the universe you are going to spend a long long time, a lot more, as a fluid of matter and energy aimlessly being passed around possibly unaware and devoid of conscious sense at all that you were once a "you"...but for this blink in time, this brief lifespan moment in everything, you are a rock that is in dynamic equilibrium maintaining its object and the phenomena associated to that object.

So for the sake of diversity of being, this is the moment where you can do all the things living things do. And when you are dead you will do all the things dead things do. Both are states of being and existence in the universe it's just that this current one is seemingly the only in which you can discuss that fact.

Personally, I can’t wait. To be rid of this physical being. To be energy. Are we still trapped by time?

Personally, I can’t wait. To be rid of this physical being. To be energy. Are we still trapped by time? — Becky

A sunny day, a sunset, beautiful landscape, novel experiences (seeing a new place, trying a new thing), seeing old friends, sharing life experiences with others, aesthetic or sublime states from art and nature, music, humor, laughing, flow states, creative endeavors (projects, writing, designing, music and art creation), engaging discussions, engaging dramas, tragedies, comedies, and stories, new understanding of something, seeing something in a different way, relationships, friendships, accomplishment, physical pleasures such as moderate drinking, exercise high, moderate eating of good food. This is more-or-less what you will see when people say why we should live.

So it all starts from being born in the first place. Whether the parent knows it or not, they are making a political and philosophical decision when having a new person. They believe life is good enough to make a decision for someone else to be born into. They like their way of life, and want to perpetuate that to others. Now, this doesn't include unintended pregnancies and birth (though it may because abortion is available but other ethical ideas might make this murky for certain people). However, most people see birth as something that is good. However, is it?

My main question is: Is a world not even close to a utopia worth being born into?

A utopia is achievable. No, not in this universe, true. It is conceivable but not achievable. This is a world where we must cope, accept what is not ideal, change expectations, adapt, overcome, survive, maintain, and find entertainment. It's a world where we are constantly lacking, and not totally satisfied for long.

If we distill it down to a basic principle, we can see that involves a basic lacking principle. The philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer called this principle "Will". Whatever you call it, the principle is the same. It manifests in survival, maintenance, and seeking entertainment. That is where all desires spring from. There is also the day-to-day absurdities of repetition. The world turns, over and over. We eat, crap, sleep, repeat. The absurdity of maintaining and entertaining. There are the whole myriad of uncountable contingent harms of circumstance. These are harms that happen on a daily basis: frustrations, physical harm, humiliation, shame, annoyances, conflict with other people, social pressures, disappointments, uncomfortable environments, etc. etc.

In an non-utopian world, so-called therapies include things like "radical acceptance", "positive psychology", "no pain, no gain" mentality, changing expectations, comparing your own situation to worse situations, and a whole lot more. The main point with these therapies is that it is your fault that you perceive any negative thing. It never wants you to think that the perhaps the world itself is inherently of a negative position, and that of all the possible worlds, this one is on the lower mediocre one at best (if that can even be qualified). If we were to see the structural flaws, we would have more despair, less enthusiasm for birth, and a general turning away from this world. The powers-that-be would not want this.

Perhaps with this conclusion of a lower mediocre world, we can take the view of Philosophical Pessimism. That is to say, the world isn't that great (despite romantic odes of fervor and praise trying to convince otherwise), and that we should not put more people into it. We can form pessimist communities where we can all recognize this reality for what it is, and not try to pollannaize it, overlook it, ignore it, etc. We can look at it dead on and give the appropriate assessment of it. These communities can bring people together in this understanding.

God! You guys are so wordy! Does that make you better? Or more knowledgeable? You think I’m a pessimist because I can’t wait to die? I dispute that Assumption. Anybody that knows me personally state I am one of the happiest people they have ever met.

God! You guys are so wordy! Does that make you better? Or more knowledgeable? You think I’m a pessimist because I can’t wait to die? I dispute that Assumption. Anybody that knows me personally state I am one of the happiest people they have ever met. — Becky

You can be a happy-go-lucky pessimist. Pessimism is not depression or a mood state. Rather, Philosophical Pessimism, is generally a negative assessment about the structures of existence and human nature. Mainly, it is asking: "Is there an inherent and necessary suffering to being born"?

I was not assuming anything about you, just providing a response to your question.

“Suffering to be born” Again disagree with that statement. We are chemical beings Your statement that we are suffering to be born makes it religious. Math and physics are true religion is a fairytale

“Suffering to be born” Again disagree with that statement. We are chemical beings Your statement that we are suffering to be born makes it religious. Math and physics are true religion is a fairytale — Becky

First off, do you know how to use the quoting function? You can click and drag over the words and then let go. You will see a "quote" button. Click that, and you have quoted someone's post.

Anyways, you are making a category error. The fact that math, physics, and chemistry describes the physical processes that make our experiential states, that is a non-sequitor as to the human experiences life itself qua human experience.

Yes, you are correct I did not know about the coding parameters. But do I care,;NO. And I disagree with your assumption that physics,chemistry are a non-sequitur. Physics, and chemistry are the base of our existence. If you don’t understand that you understand nothing

Yes, you are correct I did not know about the coding parameters. But do I care,;NO. — Becky

I don't care either, but if you don't quote, it potentially means your post is overlooked as quoting will allow the other person to see that someone has responded to them. There will be a small notification that appears when someone is quoted. You may not care if someone sees your response, and again, doesn't matter to me what functions you use or not, just trying to be helpful.

Physics, and chemistry are the base of our existence. If you don’t understand that you understand nothing — Becky

This is an interesting philosophical claim. Physics and chemistry are sciences that explain observations. That is not the "thing-itself". Rather it is an epistemological methodology for explanation. What the nature of existence is, is a metaphysical claim, that is not the realm of science itself. What you mean to say, I think, is that you take a physicalist metaphysical position of the world. However, a physicalist metaphysical position entails no assessment or evaluation for how humans can respond to the world. That is why it is one reason why it is a category error. You have not provided the steps to justify why a physicalist position entails anything regarding how humans experience the world.