Agreed and life affirmation is already based on sound science imo.
Matter survived and continues to do so against antimatter annihilation and imo, it follows that life will continue to survive against antilife! The Universe will produce life because that is what it did and that is what it does!

:up:

I would never presume to speak for the universe :roll:. We went for presuming for other humans to presuming for all of space/time/matter and everything.

One can't take the mechanisms of evolution (survival fit/reproduction) as the universe "saying" anything. It is a contingent form of how matter formed and a mechanism whereby some of that matter (biological matter), has developed. It isn't a moral statement from the universe. Category errors and misguided understanding of sentience, contingency, and implication thereof.

As a representative of the Universe, I have a voice within it. I choose to speak in support of the Universes demonstrated preference to create life. I am even content with referring to such as pure happenstance but the survival instinct being so strong in all species is further evidence towards a universe of purpose than one without purpose. Philosophical wordplay is no substitute for what actually happened and continues to happen. The existence of life happened and its human manifestations are compelled to ask questions, therefore its purpose is established, despite any attempts at sophistic wordplay.

The moderators of this site insist that I be nicer to antinatalists. I don't want to be nicer to them but I am threatened with getting banned if I don't and I have already had what I considered to be a very reasonable thread removed regarding the issue of falling foul of discussion site guidelines or the ruminations of individual moderators/administrators so, as I don't wish to be accused of throwing my own toys out of my pram. I will try to comply with their request, but it's not easy.

I would not comment on the purpose of the cosmos, but I am glad that we don't have to presume what it should not have despite it deserving and benefitting from it.

The universe doesn’t benefit or not benefit anything. Lucky for you the dicey ethical practice for assuming for others doesn’t apply to that category of thing.

Of course it does not. That's quite lucky because we don't have to worry about the ethical deficiencies that following a non-beneficent framework creates. I am glad others could assume (or presume) the right things for me when I wasn't in a position to take them myself. Have a nice day!

Yep no “one” would have to worry about that.

Except for existing beings who wish to be consistent and who would understand the value of a benefit. Life is also about celebration, not just worry. Alternatively, they could always understand that if preventing potential harms is good even though it helps nobody, it is also better to create positives.

Except for existing beings who wish to be consistent and who would understand the value of a benefit. — DA671

Benefit with non-benefit (negative) on someone else’s behalf..you know the position.

The existence of which is not a sufficient justification for preventing all good that could be bestowed on behalf of innumerable innocent sentient beings. I know the position indeed—including why it isn't right.

It’s never just or right to presume such significant conditions and harms for another. Only when ameliorating greater with lesser harms and you can’t get consent which this is not a case of.

It's never acceptable to presume that not providing unfathomably valuable experiences and a lifetime's worth of positively meaningful conditions is right just because there is a risk. You deserve to be happy even if I am sad. Of course, genuine happiness often comes from cooperation.

Unless your prevention is not causing a greater good to not exist and the individual has willingly chosen to be in a particular state of affairs (which procreation is not a case of), it is not ethical to cease the provision of all happiness. Also, non-existent beings cannot ask to exist. If creation can be an imposition, it can also be seen as a gift.

Of course, genuine happiness often comes from cooperation — DA671

(a lot of negatives placed upon someone else).

it is not ethical to cease the provision of all happiness. — DA671

Why is that a moral obligation to start if nothing was there who needed it in the first place and there are many negative collaterals attached to this decision? You would be maybe more accurate if you were only giving a pure good with no contingencies.

If creation can be an imposition, it can also be seen as a gift. — DA671

Gifts don’t entail such significant harms and conditions usually. One can call anything a gift and that would be gaslighting to some extent.

Projections and deliberate Ignorance don't negate the reality of the good and the joy of meaningful bonds (that cannot exist without cooperation). But it's true that there is a lot of greed. However, such people don't realise the impact of their actions and the sort of world they are creating (and could instead have helped form).

If there is no moral obligation to create benefits unless there is a need, then there is also no requirement to never create someone unless doing so causes an actual being to be satisfied and there are no additional positives. Your view might have been more tenable if the negatives were all that existed. Fortunately, this is not the case.

Impositions don't entail indescribable value. But one could call anything an imposition if they are primarily concerned with their own negative perspective, which would be a sort of gaslighting as well. For what it's worth, I don't think that life is always a gift. Suffering should be taken extremely seriously and there should be a peaceful way out.

Well, you're helping my argument, not hurting it. We are humans after all. So, yes, we use rationalization like animals use instinct. Courage consists of going against our tendency towards hopelessness. We use rationalization, of course. But there are enzymes and chemicals in our body at our disposal. — L'éléphant

Not really no, there is not courage to living when its the default. If anything courage is killing yourself when evolution and society say to keep going.

If you think it's great to be an orphan who has no memory about his or her biological parents, I have to disagree. Do you really think that is better? — ssu

Actually yes since it's less painful

As I have said many times, to me, the fundamental is a question of purpose. A universe devoid of life has no purpose that I can conceive of. Such pointlessness is far worse than any concept of undeserved harms human morality or human moralists can come up with. I vote for many more years of harms and suffering for humans, including those who some choose to label 'newborn innocents,' alongside the many many joys and wonders of life which also occur very regularly. I very much prefer this state, compared to the alternative of a lifeless, pointless universe. All good people will also, of course, continue to do exactly what you have suggested many times. We will continue to help alleviate and remove all forms of unjust and unnecessary suffering and even obtain far more control over the inevitability of death.

I would also ask this. Why is the survival instinct so strong in all species if purposeless nonexistence is the superior natural state? Something seems to me to be much better than nothing! — universeness

Why indeed but that's not really an argument to continue living.

Also "unjust", "unnecessary"? That's casting an awful lot of assumptions onto existence.

Then when get to the flaw of purpose, since a universe with life is just as purposeless as one without it. There is no ultimately point to existence, it simply persists.

But you're in the wrong here. I universe without life sounds amazing. I would like to "live" in it, ironic I know, to bask in the absolute silence of it all. For however long I last, and then know with my death extinction of all life would at last occur.

Yes I can. Science has very strong empirical evidence for The law of Conservation of Energy, which states that “Energy cannot be created or destroyed.” In other words, the total amount of energy in the universe never changes, it can only change from one form to another. It is actually quite unlikely that after you die, some of your disassembled subatomic particles will never be involved in any new combination events until the end of the universe. YOU will be recycled. — universeness

No, that's just a claim. There is nothing to say the world wouldn't end if I died. You make too many assumptions.

Some motives you can't choose. Like, do you like certain types of food? Do you like orgasm? Do you dislike being hungry? Do you dislike being cold? All of these are ordinary motives that drive our lives and they are wired in our bodies or minds and thus are part of us. And they drive us toward pleasant feelings that make life worthwhile and away from unpleasant feelings that make life miserable. Getting killed is unpleasant and the survival drive drives you away from that. — litewave

Yes, no, no, no. Getting killed being unpleasant is debatable and pleasant feelings don't make life worthwhile just tolerable. NEXT. Also it sounds horrifying to think that all these drives out of your control keep you here when you don't want to be.

You have no information regarding the legacy I will leave so you have no idea as to how long I will be remembered. Modern techniques store more and more information about our individual lives so future people will get to know a lot more about the lives of past people if they wish to. Future transhumanism has the potential to offer humans vastly improved robustness, ability and longevity. This will offer many new options. If you stick around you may witness its infancy. If you don't then there are many newborns to replace you. The global population has been increasing since we came out of the wilds. — universeness

This is, quite frankly, a delusion way of thinking to put it bluntly. If you think transhumanism is gonna do any of that you're quite wrong. Transhumanism is nothing but a pipe dream. Not to mention you're proving Ernest Becker's point about having death anxiety and being motivated by it. Transhumanism is literally death anxiety.

Only one small path leads out, but its trailhead can only be seen by casting one's gaze above shoulder height, and none have yet looked that high up. They've heard of this Path of Hope, but never having seen it, they scoff and shrug, looking at the ground, firmly denying it. — Hanover

Hope is little more than delusion that promises what it can't deliver.

Pain, as of the moment, taking into account our biology, is absolutely critical for survival - consider it a necessary evil if you will. Our nociceptive systems have evolved to be hypersensitive - pain is many times more intense than is warranted for the severity of the injury i.e. it breaks the cardinal rule of proportio divina and is disproportionate, ugly, hideous, grotesque. Pain makes complete sense to me!

This thread sucks.

Yes, but it exists to gather all the anti-life stuff in one place, so that it can be easily ignored. Until Baden merged them all into this thread, there were at least two or three such active discussions. We've had enough. Containment seems like the best option.

We've had enough. — Jamal

Life sucks, eh? :snicker:

Just playing class clown and riffing on the title of the thread.

Yes, I knew that. At the same time, I also wanted to explain its existence.

:up:

Food for thought (re anti-life)

1. We're all programmed to die (senex) in a manner of speaking

What if, just what if, bio (life itself) is also programmed to, well, die (off)/go exitinct?

That's not food for thought, that is a regression to Aristotlean teleology instead of taking into account what we know now about evolution.

That's not food for thought, that is a regression to Aristotlean teleology instead of taking into account what we know now about evolution. — Benkei

Fallacy of composition?

It is an interesting line of inquiry though, oui? Bios may have a shelf-life i.e. it has an expiry date but we're not talking of mere kiloyears here; think geological timescales. Most ELEs (extinction level events) have been external ones but it's possible that there could be internal gene-based extinction codes that could be turned on after some millions/billions of years. Random thought.

From what I know, we are programmed to reproduce. However, as rational sentient beings, people can find satisfaction in something apart from that. It might be inherent in the nature of limited beings to eventually stop existing. But that also means that such beings can exist, live for a while, and also have unspeakably positive experiences that would be good as long as one is around (which, if physicalism is true, might be the only situation in which value can be there).

No it isn't. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of how evolution works to suggest we're programmed for a purpose.