I think you are making the same incorrect assumptions about me that everyone else is, not to mention showing me that you haven't read my posts.

If one has followed the inquiry thus far and is seeing the true context of death as simplyan ending, which it is, which you wish to postpone for as long as you can since you lack a backbone,

then one puts a reasonable question, if i know there is biological death always lurking around the corner and all your BS is gonna leave you with nothing but sh## in your hands, then why doesn't the human end (psychological death) its weasel-ly-ness. Right.

To end it now! Because that's what biological death will do/does. You won't have a chance to negotiate/weasel out of, as much as want to. So the question then becomes, what is it to die. For example, to all your fears, to your prejudices, to your nonsense. — skyblack

That's what I'm saying. The only reason people IMO live is survival instinct because to me death just makes more logical sense. Never having to do good things, or worry about bad things, it all ends. So why put it off?

I feel like everything used to justify the will to keep going is more just our survival instinct trying to rationalize things.

That's what I'm saying. The only reason people IMO live is survival instinct because to me death just makes more logical sense. Never having to do good things, or worry about bad things, it all ends. So why put it off?

I feel like everything used to justify the will to keep going is more just our survival instinct trying to rationalize things. — Darkneos

No. That's not what you were/are saying.

You seem to be concerned about "checking out", which is about biological death.

That's not what i have been looking into.

I have read your posts. As far as I can see death is a form of peace, a bit like sleep. It may be that each of us comes from a different, unique angle, making it difficult. I guess that it is that I do enjoy life providing it is not too painful constantly, with constant knockdowns. However, it doesn't seem that you come from that point of view and it your own position may be more along the lines of Camus's one, but I am not entirely sure of this. How do you find the thinking of the existentialist writers? Do you feel an affinity with them?

Death does afford a peace, in a sense, even if you can't feel it. — Darkneos

If you can't feel it, it isn't peace. It does not afford peace in ANY sense.

You can rest knowing the pain will pass and you won't have to do anything anymore. — Darkneos

No. You don't know anything. You don't get to rest. You don't get ANYTHING. Your last memory will be pain, and that will be the last thing you know. There will be no sigh, no relief, no calmness, no anything. Whatever you have in your last moments will be the last thing you experience.

I think you are giving death less than it is. — Darkneos

No, you are giving death MORE than it is. You think there is something. Some feeling, some assurence etc. There. Is. Nothing. There is not even the realization that there is nothing. There's no you staring into a black void. There's no, "Finally, I'm at rest." You're gone, period.

Why deal with one's pain when they can just quit? You're still missing the point here trying to find something "Wrong" and that's the mistake you make as much as anyone else does. — Darkneos

Because I'm not a coward. Lots of things in life will try to tear you down and end you. All the cells inside of you fight every day to keep viruses and bacteria at bay. They fight to do their jobs, and live. You spit on that. All the people who spent time and effort raising you to continue life. You spit on that. The fact that you have the gift of sentience when so much matter in the universe will never have it. Its absolutely a waste to throw that away when you should fight for it.

Nothing in life IMO is worth working for when one doesn't have to live. — Darkneos

Well no duh. When you're dead, you don't have to do anything. Because you don't exist anymore. You can't even laugh at society. You're just a corpse to be eaten by worms.

You still aren't getting it. — Darkneos

No, I get it FAR better than you. My sister collects and cuts up bodies for a living btw. She's done organ donations, autopsies, etc. I'm very keen to know what death is. She's seen plenty of suicides. They aren't special. She's described decomposition in detail. How your last meal sometimes rots inside, swells your stomache, and has to be purged before cutting into the rotting flesh.

Death is not beautiful, peaceful, or relief. If you want real beauty, peace, and relief, you only find that in life. You will never find that in death. So get out of your morose state, stop feeling sorry about yourself and the world, and start working to actually get beauty, peace, and relief in your life. Looking at death for your such things is cowardly, lazy, and incredibly ignorant.

So why put it off? — Darkneos

Inertia.

Besides, why rush the inevitable? Nothing lasts (i.e. entropy, anicca). The "chore" of respirating & metabolizing will end soon. Death is the only god that ever comes whether or not you cry out for her. Until then, savor sleep's daily respite; if, however, you're an insomniac, well Darkneos, you have my sympathies ... :sad:

Consider Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl.

So,

if one dies while still living, maybe they will finally know what it is to be Alive. Perhaps they will be in a better position of having a "view" on the age old question, "if there is such a thing as immortality?".

Course you can't weasel your way to it. Therefore weasels usually give up.

I don't think I am. The good is a source of pleasant experiences that don't exist when one doesn't exist. If one cares about having those goods, then they would choose them over a valueless state of affairs. Nothingness is not bad but it isn't good either. If the end can be preferred even though non-existent beings don't gain anything when they don't exist, then it can also be rational to avoid it even if there is no need after cessation. It could be great, but it can also be terrible. I suppose the perspective will vary from person-to-person. It comes down to what possesses more value for someone when they exist. As I have said before, I believe that it isn't inherently irrational for an individual to choose the exit door. I would merely add that if certain elements of being have greater value for someone than a state of affairs that is neither bad (because you don't have any needs) nor good (because there is no fulfilment), then it can be rational for them to try to retain/conserve them. May you find the happiness (in whatever form) that you deserve!

I agree that value and disvalue both reside only in existence. Some people seem afraid of the void as if it would bring about some terrible void, whereas others appear to seek it as if it would be peaceful. But I think that it can make sense to say that one wants peaceful cessation but, since it isn't possible, they have to choose the "lesser harm" of continuing a mostly bad existence rather than try to find a way out that could potentially be quite harmful.

Again making the mistake in thinking there is something wrong. — Darkneos

It’s not a mistake. If someone “longs for death,” that person has a problem. Unless we want to vacate the words of any meaning whatsoever.

You'd think it'd be easy and I do too. Trust me when I say I've googled painless ways to die — Darkneos

What’s so awful about pain? Why is some pain worse than death?

If one were to take a dive off a tall building they’d be dead.

Anyway— It’s really not that interesting. Feel free to have the last word.

Are there states worse than death ? So that death is to be sought ? My position is yes. — Pie

What’s so awful about pain? Why is some pain worse than death? — Xtrix

The questions make no sense. Death is the ending of life, not a state. If life is filled with pain one wants pain to end. If the discussion is depressing one wants to end the discussion. The OP wants to escape from this - the present, not to achieve the goal of death. This happens when the mind is filled with the past, and projecting the past into the future as the continuation of the self. This projection of self into the future of years of mediocrity and meaningless routine and general discomfort, followed by the death one fears, is what fills and poisons the present, and thus himself is the prison in which he is confined. The desire to escape creates the very thing one seeks to escape from.

The solution is to face the fear, which is to face the present self which is nothing but this circle of thought going nowhere but round in a miserable circle, and in seeing that whole, there is a new thought and so a new life. That dies, and there is this. If one is every day new, then the thought of death will have no meaning to be either feared or desired. One has to escape the prison of thought to find the terrible beauty of life , that life and death are not separate.

If one lives as though it is good to inhale, but bad to exhale, one will not be happy for long.

I wouldn't call the survival drive "me" it's just an obstacle that I can't surmount. — Darkneos

The survival drive is part of your motivational makeup. You have motives to live and you have motives to die, and it seems that at the moment the motives to live prevail :)

What’s so awful about pain? Why is some pain worse than death? — Xtrix

Most profound questions! You must be Einstein's descendant! Please comtinue, you must...for our sakes...you must.

Death is the ending of life, not a state. — unenlightened

I don't think it's such a bad metaphor. It's like the difference between a surgery without or without general anesthesia. Is it absurd to prefer the anesthesia ?

Anaesthesia can still feel somewhat pleasant. However, death is neither good nor bad for someone who doesn't exist. However, the process of cessation can be preferred/avoided depending upon an existing person's desires and what makes them happy. Ideally, it would be better, I think, for there to be a free and fair RTD that would help people not go through a life pervaded with negatives.

Because I'm not a coward. Lots of things in life will try to tear you down and end you. All the cells inside of you fight every day to keep viruses and bacteria at bay. They fight to do their jobs, and live. You spit on that. All the people who spent time and effort raising you to continue life. You spit on that. The fact that you have the gift of sentience when so much matter in the universe will never have it. Its absolutely a waste to throw that away when you should fight for it. — Philosophim

:up: :clap:

I think we basically agree. My point was just that we can consciously choose unconsciousness. A person can risk death to protect their child. A person can stand up against a tyrant, make a grand speech, knowing it'll lead to the guillotine. Duels were common once. In short, it's part of our calculations, and I suspect that death is often thought of as a deep sleep, as a sort of zero state, neither good nor bad.

Is it absurd to prefer the anesthesia ? — Pie

Of course not. It is not absurd to kill yourself either; I simply point out that in choosing oblivion over pain, one is trying to escape something, not achieve or gain something. That is where the notion of 'preferring' is misleadingly positive. Desire and fear are both projections to the future, but with opposite signs. They both equally take one away from one's real (present) life and create the prison of self from which one is seeking to escape.

Agreed.

Fair enough. The right amount/kind of desire can be fun though. Dopamine, immersion in the game.

What’s so awful about pain? Why is some pain worse than death?
— Xtrix

The questions make no sense. — unenlightened

:roll:

It makes perfect sense. Why does one prefer death to pain?

Sometimes the pain is excruciating — that’s obvious. That’s also not what I’m talking about.

The rest of your post is Buddhist cliche.

What does this mean and what is it contributing?

The rest of your post is Buddhist cliche. — Xtrix

Yeah, sure. I'm not a Buddhist, but you know best.

This projection of self into the future of years of mediocrity and meaningless routine and general discomfort, followed by the death one fears, is what fills and poisons the present, — unenlightened

To get up in the morning, wash and then wait for some unforeseen variety of dread or depression. I would give the whole universe and all of Shakespeare for a grain of ataraxy.

My faculty for disappointment surpasses understanding. It is what lets me comprehend Buddha, but also what keeps me from following him.

I am enraptured by Hindu philosophy, whose essential endeavor is to surmount the self; and everything I do, everything I think is only myself and the selfs humiliations.

In the fact of being born there is such an absence of necessity that when you think about it a little more than usual, you are left—ignorant how to react—with a foolish grin

The same feeling of not belonging, of futility, wherever I go: I pretend interest in what matters nothing to me, I bestir myself mechanically or out of charity, without ever being caught up, without ever being somewhere. What attracts me is elsewhere, and I don't know where that elsewhere is.

Three in the morning. I realize this second, then this one, then the next: I draw up the balance sheet for each minute. And why all this? Because I was born. It is a special type of sleeplessness that produces the indictment of birth.
— E.m Cioran- The a Trouble with Being Born

The Hindus seek to elevate the self (which is said to be one instead of being partitioned, which is just maya) towards the ultimate reality. It's not about utter negation.

There's a sort of comfort in the routine. I like waking up, brushing my teeth (not that they are in a great condition!), listening to the birds, and thinking about my work for the day.

Ataraxia can be quite subjective (in terms of its origin). Wealth definitely helps and so does having genuine relationships instead of the numerous transactional ones we see these days.

The absence of necessity can be a source of rapturous gratitude for the precious reality.

Some things are interesting and some aren't. I think that the more one can limit unnecessary desires and see contentment as a worthwhile goal, the better things could be. Plenty of aspects of existence, such as aesthetic value and love, don't seem futile to many people.

When there is an indescribable serenity on the face that went through seemingly insurmountable odds when spending time with someone they care about, it serves to awaken one's will towards affirming the good.

None of this detracts from the necessity of reducing gratuitous harms, however. I hope that my fellow optimists can have a nuanced perspective and be more open-minded when it comes to ideas such as a liberal right to a dignified exit and transhumanism.

May you have a beautiful day!

I'm not a Buddhist, — unenlightened

I didn’t say you were. But you know best.

"In a life or death crisis, simply settle it by choosing immediate death. There is nothing complicated about it. Just brace yourself and proceed. . . . One who chooses to go on living having railed in one's mission will be despised as a coward and a bungler. ... In order to be a perfect samurai, it is necessary to prepare oneself for death morning and evening, day in and day out."
:flower:
- Yukio Mishima on "The way of Samurai"

Anti-life is completely futile as the universe has clearly demonstrated that if life can happen, it will happen, somewhere at some point, again and again and again. Death just means you disassemble back into the spare subatomic parts you were made from. You dissipate back into the universal mix, all of what you were will be used again in new variations and new combinations. Nothing to be afraid of. The little life variation you were is gone forever but you will not be forgotten if you leave a respectable legacy and future transhumanism may offer many more options.
Looking at the examples available from natural selection and the evolutionary process, I think anyone anti-life should beware. The Darwinian rules don't seem to have many moral imperatives that humans would consider 'fair' or 'just.' If you invoke the Darwinian rules then that is what you personally might get.
The best hope for anyone antilife is the fact that those who love life care enough to try to convince them to think differently. We are their only hope against becoming spare parts for new life forms or any new animate or inanimate combination/structure way before they needed to due to their own confused choices.
The only value I see in them is they offer me a level of personal reflection and confirm for me how bad things can get on a personal level. I can say to myself 'well, at least you are not choosing to live life as some kind of daily, hour-to-hour curse.'
I assume anti-lifers struggle when nice things happen to them and to others around them as feeling good must be painful for them.

Finally! :up: