That's not what evolution is nor how it works. There are no strong or weak genes, there is only what works at the time. — Darkneos
Yes we do have choices but that doesn't equate to freedom. Reread it. — Darkneos
That's a feelings based argument. Evolution relies on natural selection, which does decide if your genes are strong enough to keep for the next iteration. We have altered our environment in a way that has disrupted our 'natural' selection. — Edy
But if not for choices we would not be free? One would imagine that the number of choices available to a person is directly equivalent to their degree of freedom. Slaves have no choice of their own as it is alway decided for them by their master. Meanwhile the truly free answer to no one. How can you exile choice from the state of being free? It makes no sense. Even if we are free to choice from a limited set of choices this is still more free than only being able to choice from a more limited set. Ultimate freedom being to choose from an unlimited set of choices. I don’t see how the dead’s choices or freedom is unlimited. I can’t possibly see how having absolutely no influence or control over anything is more free than the potential to have control (ie be aware/ alive). What can you do as a dead Person except be dead?
I understand what you’re saying in that being dead means you have no challenges to overcome, no stress, no worries or suffering. But you also don’t have love or happiness or any pleasure. So it’s a question of either being totally numb and void of all sensation (dead) or living and yes maybe suffering at times but ultimately having the chance/ opportunity or “freedom” of maximising pleasure and minimising suffering. One would imagine worldly pleasure is better than nothingness/ emptiness — Benj96
A trademark trait of depression is honing in on the negative, interpreting things negatively, tunnel visioning on what is negative and being impervious to outside opinions. Such as a person feeling like they are a burden on their family and friends regardless of what they say, or feeling like a failure regardless of what other people think. Your worldview is bleak and dark, because it's being seen by someone who has a bleak and dark view, not because the world is actually as bad as you think it is. Logic is manipulated by emotion and psychology much more than the other way around. I think it's very human of you to notice that in others but not in yourself because that's pretty much your entire explanation for why people disagree with you.
I'm not sure what your motivation here is, you want people to realise suicide is the only sane choice? You want people to realise they only oppose suicide due to their death anxiety or because taking it seriously would challenge their life's meaning? — Judaka
You may as well ask for a justification to eat ice cream, or any other pleasant thing. If you don’t like ice cream, then it makes sense to ask “Why should I eat this? What do I get out of it?” But if you do like ice cream, you just want to eat it, and you may be willing to go through some hardships to get it, but you don’t need any further justification for eating it: it’s an end in itself. — Pfhorrest
Enjoying something is the state of wishing to be doing it. It is illogical to simultaneously enjoy something and not wish to do it. Conversely it is perfectly logical to wish for something and to act to realise that thing. Competing desires weigh in on whether the ultimate decision taken is logical -- eating ice cream when you are obese is illogical if you wish to lose weight -- but those aside, logic dictates that that which you will to be done is that which you act to realise. — Kenosha Kid
It's like saying I enjoy dancing. However I do not dance. — Darkneos
Ends in and of themselves don't exist IMO. There is always some justification for doing something even as simple as eating a sweet. — Darkneos
Incorrect. Liking something is not a wish to KEEP doing it, only that doing it elicits a certain feeling in you. It's like saying I enjoy dancing. However I do not dance. MY enjoyment of a task is not a reason to do it. — Darkneos
Think about desiring to do drugs or rob banks. Or bite your fingernails.Ultimately the only reason for doing anything is that you desire it to be done — Kenosha Kid
Desiring to do something (and knowing one enjoys it) is not a sufficient reason to do it, nor to want to do it. — baker
Competing desires weigh in on whether the ultimate decision taken is logical -- eating ice cream when you are obese is illogical if you wish to lose weight -- but those aside, logic dictates that that which you will to be done is that which you act to realise. — Kenosha Kid
They can't see how that does not follow. — Darkneos
Me liking something therefor I should do it is not a statement that logically follows. — Darkneos
I like ice cream, however logic doesn’t say I should eat it. All it says is that I like ice cream. — Darkneos
o see through the "reasons" as nothing more that rationalization of the survival drive, that there is no good reason to live. Yet the drive is very strong and few overcome it. — Darkneos
I've already argued something similar to this, the question is how is that drive overcome? Is it overcome through distress, depression and negative emotion or is it overcome by, being very honest and logical? Hopefully, we could at least agree that the former can be true, suicides can be impulsive or they can be planned out but people who choose to kill themselves are generally not both calm and happy. — Judaka
Death today or death in fifty years, there is no difference — Judaka
Any good reason anybody has for anything they can only have because they're alive. Any ambition, any relationship, any activity, any reason for doing any of these things is also a reason to live. If someone is excitedly planning out their day, or next year, or looking forward to things they'll get to do and your mission is to tell them that they're insane for not wanting to kill themselves, because, why? All I've heard from you is explaining people away with death anxiety and saying they're reasons are not good. What is your actual argument about why people should choose death over life? — Judaka
Competing desires weigh in on whether the ultimate decision taken is logical -- eating ice cream when you are obese is illogical if you wish to lose weight -- but those aside, logic dictates that that which you will to be done is that which you act to realise. — Kenosha Kid
Something that is enjoyable is thus an end in itself: it's its own reason to do it. And if one finds life per se enjoyable, that makes life an end in itself. — Pfhorrest
So eating an icecream simply because eating an icecream brings forth happiness is not a good reason? I dont get that. — DoppyTheElv
That's the kind of expression that elicits the question "why not?" in a normal person. It calls for an explanation of what un-enjoyable thing will happen to whom to warrant avoiding doing this thing you enjoy. Someone enjoying (or suffering from) something is the usual prima facie reason to do (or not do) anything; those kinds of experiences are the feeling that doing (or not doing) something is imperative, the thing you should do (or not do). All reasons to do (or not do) anything are grounded in such feelings. — Pfhorrest
This sort of irrational behaviour is quite likely why you're coming up with nothing for a reason to live. Ultimately the only reason for doing anything is that you desire it to be done: anything else is a contradiction, a failure to reason. It seems to me like you reject this out of hand and are left in want of an alternative reason. But there isn't one. To act is to impact one's world. To act rationally is to impact one's world with a desired result in mind. Any other way of behaving is illogical. — Kenosha Kid
Happiness only counts as a reason when you have to stay alive in which case it makes sense to fill that time and make it enjoyable since you have to be here. If you don't it's a moot argument. — Darkneos
Pleasure becomes irrelevant and you avoid all future discomfort, agony or pain. There is simply not a reason to live, to be born even — Darkneos
By any metric for choosing life, death is better by all counts. — Darkneos
You don't know that. Perhaps they are calm and happy but see the futility of life. I'd like to think that happiness clouds our judgment and makes life appear better than it really is. — Darkneos
There is a difference though, death today means never having to wait 50 years or dealing with that much life. — Darkneos
No they don't because the desire itself is not logical. — Darkneos
the only reason people avoid infinite regress is that they eventually stop at an arbitrary point — Darkneos
I can say the same thing to them about painkillers when they aren't sick. — Darkneos
People seem to have this myopic notion that enjoying something is a reason to do it when it's not. All enjoyment means is what it says, that you like the activity, not that you should do it. — Darkneos
Again, emotion. All I can say about eating ice cream is that I like it, but that doesn't mean I do it. — Darkneos
This has already been covered in the above discussion, e.g.
Competing desires weigh in on whether the ultimate decision taken is logical -- eating ice cream when you are obese is illogical if you wish to lose weight -- but those aside, logic dictates that that which you will to be done is that which you act to realise.
— Kenosha Kid — Kenosha Kid
One also has to desire the _right_ thing. The thing that is morally, ethically right.
It's at this point that the whole idea of the will to pleasure breaks down. — baker
So eating an icecream simply because eating an icecream brings forth happiness is not a good reason? I dont get that. — DoppyTheElv
In one sense, it all comes down to emotions, one way or another, depending on how one defines "emotion". I already mentioned Matthew Ratcliffe earlier. He talks about "existential feelings" and he offers a broader understanding of emotions than we're used to from mainstream psychology. So that's one source to look into to get an alternative perspective on the matter.It's more like they took the appeal to emotion fallacy to it, which is what most of these reasons for living are, fallacies. — Darkneos
This isn't merely about competing desires. It's about being sure that one is doing the right thing, the ethical, moral thing. — baker
However, the question "What is your reason for living?" is misleading, insofar as living is the default, and as such, there's no specific personal reason for it. — baker
This isn't merely about competing desires. It's about being sure that one is doing the right thing, the ethical, moral thing. It's about believing, for example, "Yes, it is morally right to eat ice cream". — baker
Could throw in 100s if I wanted, polls, experts, characterising suicide the same way but you've got "perhaps" on your side, guess that's even. If someone is calm and happy and wants to die then they're a massive minority who nobody even talks about, I'd have to hear them out to understand where they're coming from but I don't really care, people can kill themselves if they want just don't tell me that it's the only sane choice or that people are just talking negatively about suicide only due to "death anxiety" or whatever. — Judaka
However, the question "What is your reason for living?" is misleading, insofar as living is the default, and as such, there's no specific personal reason for it — baker
It's perfectly logical to do what you like. It would be nonsensical to say: "I like eating ice cream but I don't because life is a chore." And that's all I'm getting from you. You can have reasons to pursue certain feelings you know. — DoppyTheElv
The reason not to just take pain killers all the time is the negative (unenjoyable) consequences of doing so. If those weren’t there then it would be a good thing to do. — Pfhorrest
What do you think would constitute a reason to do something? (Even if no such reason exists; what would you imagine if you imagined that such a thing did exist?) What does “should” even mean to you? — Pfhorrest
Again it isn't but I'm tired of repeating myself. There is no reason for me to eat ice cream even if I like it, me liking it is not a reason to do it. Why is that so hard to grasp? There is no reason to pursue a feeling either by the same logic. — Darkneos
So you deny that there can be a reason to do anything and then go on to say that life needs a reason to continue which by implication means that death is the only option. This seems fallacious at worst and requiring justification at best. Or did I misunderstand? If so, sorry.Nothing, because there is no reason to really do anything. However in doing nothing by extension of this you eventually reach a point where it doesn't matter anymore (death). Life needs a reason, death doesn't. Life only goes if you upkeep it, death will come one way or the other without your help. — Darkneos
I think there is a stigma against suicide and that any attempt to portray it as positive by any means is looked down upon or underreported if at all. Think about it, it's your life. Who says you can't "quit" so to speak? We dislike talking about death overall and as I mentioned are obsessed with living to the point that we keep people on life support when they are unable to function as a human being. We even made up afterlives to feel better about it, at least I think so. But that's another can of worms. — Darkneos
But that is not a reason to stop. You said if you like something then do it so therefor someone should take painkillers despite the "negatives" because they like it. — Darkneos
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.