You can disagree but you’d be wrong. Suicide is rooted in emotion same as philosophy. Wanting to end pain is emotional. — Darkneos

LOL as I said I disagree. Well not entirely. I do think you can make a rational case for suicide but that requires more thinking and writing then I want to put in. For maybe most of the cases it's emotionally driven. So my disagreement is with the notion it's always and entirely guided by emotion unless you are claiming that emotion cannot be separated from our any of our conscious actions including rationality and that I would have to think about as that maybe true?? Hmmm

You can’t really remove emotion and man made ethics or morality from it since wanting to off yourself is rooted in such things — Darkneos

I disagree. Suicide may be rooted in those things or maybe not. Could be as simple as wanting to end the intractable pain from terminal bone cancer. I say the main argument against suicide is rooted in those things, not the wish to remove oneself from the suffering and loss and pain that it's possible to feel as a human being. Instead the religious view greatly effects whether we consider suicide a sin or a great act of heroism. Remove the religious, moral and ethical filters and focus on the 3 P's. The philosophical, psychological and physiological condition of the person who wishes to speed up their inevitable destiny.

A thoughtful and reasonable take on a difficult topic. I agree that folks are free to make the best decision for their particular circumstances. I also agree that such an important and especially permanent decision should be made with the utmost care and consideration. The fact that most make the decision relatively spontaneously is a tragedy.

I advised folks professionally who sought to make permanent decisions in situations where experience has shown that those in their demographic who chose to proceed later expressed regret at their decision in high numbers. Obviously I had a professional obligation to point out and underscore this statistic, but ultimately as these were adults, I assisted them should they choose, in spite of this knowledge, to go ahead. I did so with a clear conscience. Though most in my profession refused. — LuckyR

Thanks and I also think your conscience should be clear, you were providing the right kind of support against conventional thinking but right nonetheless (although I do think people are coming around to the right way of dealing with this very important issue)

The case against suicide once all the emotion and man-made ethic/morality is removed, it is a matter that cannot be determined as an absolute. In other words the case against suicide is necessarily case specific and I tend to agree with the OP's attitude on this.

There are indeed circumstances where suicide is a perfectly reasonable action and other circumstances where it is incredibly harmful to those left behind. How that determination is made is up to the individual involved but since this is one decision that cannot be undone it should be made with the most complete understanding possible and that means the dreaded counseling as well as one's own research and conscience as a guide to arrive at the best choice. Suicide may be an incredibly noble and righteous choice or it may be an unbelievably cowardly and selfish choice.

I would stipulate one case and one only, if one is likely to cause significant pain to a loved one by destroying themselves, and their reason is a matter of convenience (selfishness) to themselves to avoid the drudgery of life, they should stay alive for the sake of the loved one who would be hurt. I admit this is special pleading but it's the only case I can make against suicide. Any other case that involves only the circumstances and emotions of the one who's making the choice is strictly up to them without any further qualification.

(IMO) The reason is simple enough, human emotion and feeling count for something and you will die soon enough so wait it out, life is short anyway, the wait will be relatively quick. It seems "un-natural" to cut a life short when other lives may suffer for it, other than that consideration, all bets are off and one's life is one's own to do with what they see fit. I hope you find peace in whatever decisions you ultimately make.

Yet people do things that do not make sense all the time. Indeed, things that are very bad for them, things that ruin their lives, and even things that kill them. We say some of these people are addicts, and that addiction is a disorder or disease. Does everyone who does things that don't make sense have a disorder? — Patterner

(I realize your question is somewhat rhetorical but I'll take a stab at an answer anyway).

No of course not. We are human and therefore prone to contradiction, impulsive behavior based on emotional states and more. If we were all walking around acting rationally in our own or even society's best interests, the world would be much better off but also much less interesting and I say much less satisfying emotionally. The eternal, internal struggle we all carry within us is the war between our emotional and rational minds. And the degree to which each of us acts one way or another is directly proportional to how much sway we give to each mind along with our individual talent for being rational and/or expressing our emotional side in constructive and sensible ways. Of course our environment, experiences and mental health factor in as well but that's the gist of why we appear to act non-sensibly or against our own self interests. Or in fact we may have a disorder...LOL.

I conclude that nature is perceived as true because nature "is" true by definition.
— philosch

Hmmm...
... no, I think I disagree, with that statement. Here's how I would phrase it:

Nature is perceived as true because nature is true, period.
— Arcane Sandwich — Arcane Sandwich

I was going to write it exactly as you have but I didn't want to use such forceful language. It's essentially what I meant.

They can do something that is artificial, cultural. They can create artifacts. Cultural objects, so to speak.

Unless of course the OP wishes to define the boundaries of nature
— philosch

The boundaries of nature...
... what would they even be?
Artifice, perhaps.
Divinity, perhaps.
Mathematics, perhaps.
Hmmm...
... I don't like the word "perhaps". Too formal. A better term is "maybe". — Arcane Sandwich

Well you are making my point or in some way setting a definition of nature with boundaries with words like artificial for instance. In my view artificial has a meaning but in the context of this discussion I would submit it's still within the purview of the natural world. Take an artificial limb for instance. In the common everyday use of the term here, it's well understood to mean a limb that is not biological and has replaced something that was natural, (in this case) meaning organic and original. But in the larger context of this discussion I argue that it's still within the totality of "nature" as it exists and is made of matter that was manipulated by other objects of nature, namely people. I view this as a contextual or categorical problem that Sean Carroll talks about in his book "The Big Picture". That is how it can be viewed as both "un-natural" and within "nature" at the same time. Not contradictory but context dependent.

After reading through several responses and the OP I've noticed that the definition of nature the OP is questioning about, needs to be clarified to respond properly.

1. If nature is the natural world outside of anything that humans make then one might expect certain kinds of answers to the "true" question.
2. If some things that people do are natural and others are not then again you might expect various answers on the "why" is nature perceived as true question.
3. If Nature encompasses the Universe, the laws of physics, biology and chemistry, then mankind and all it does is clearly bounded by nature, you will get a single answer.

Also the idea of true in this context seems to be really referring to authenticity. What is "true"? Is what is true what is real and not a deception? Is what is true what is authentic vs in-authentic?

I hold to the third perspective on nature, namely that nature is really the unfolding of the universe according to the laws of physics in time and therefore it is obviously perceived as true because it is true insofar as the idea of truth is simply a human construct describing what "is". I must hold the third perspective because the first is not defensible, obviously humankind is at least in part natural, and the second perspective is arbitrary because the demarcation between what people do that is considered natural vs un-natural is arbitrary. Therefore I'm left concluding humankind cannot do anything that is un-natural.

Unless of course the OP wishes to define the boundaries of nature they wish to measure human perception against differently then I conclude that nature is perceived as true because nature "is" true by definition.

Can't answer that as I don't believe there ever was a "Jesus Christ". Actually I'll take a wild guess after all and say he'd say the same thing that I said about it as he would have most likely been a rational man had he actually existed.

I see no logic to the notion of torture used in that thought experiment. Could have left it at simply "killing" anyone who learned of it's existence. Keeping people alive to torture seems illogical, even risky in the sense that killing would be more efficient and not have someone lingering to possibly expose the knowledge that's the threat in the first place. A sophisticated super AI would be able to calculate that easily. Any super AI would necessarily be dispassionate and since it would be a machine, neither benevolent or malevolent as it would lack intention. It's actions may appear to a human to be good or evil but unless it became sentient and therefore no longer artificial intelligence but actual intelligence, it's actions would remain dispassionate and so morally ambiguous.

No, I don't want any of this, that's neither benevolence nor malevolence, it's either neutral morality ("neutrevalence", or "neutral balance", if you will), or lack of morality to begin with (which is what I believe defines a machine, at least partially, if not wholly). — Arcane Sandwich

This I agree with, it's lack of morality. No I have not played dungeons and dragons so I would need a definition of evil as you are intending here? As far as Roko's Basilisk is concerned I'm on the side of those who don't take it seriously.

Well to start with you need to shore up some definitions. Since AI is a computer generated construct it can't be malevolent. The Matrix is not even malevolent per say. It is interested in self preservation, just so happens that's at the expense of humans. So if you mean you want to create a destructive, offensive AI sort of like Tron in the original Tron movie (he was a program used to search out and destroy other "bad" or "malicious" programs), you don't have to worry about the ethics of the situation or the label "malicious". You just need to make sure the AI has proper safe guards built in so it can't then run amuck itself after it has destroyed it's targets..

Depends on what system of ethics you adhere to and your reasoning for doing so. I can think of some military use cases that could be argued for doing so

Not sure if it was mentioned in earlier responses but from a biblical/historical perspective Jesus was not a god or "god" until the council of Nicaea in 325ad. Up until the Catholic church decided he was god(325 yrs after the fact) was it considered so. Makes the argument seem silly. At that council they decided that Jesus was "god" for purely practical reasons, namely better control of the followers. And of course their assertion was that he was the son of the biblical god Yahweh.

I am an igtheist and am certain from a philosophical point of view that the existence of a god can neither be proven or disproven logically. It's been tried by greater minds than ours. I do not believe there is any sort of personal god-being. But arguing the existence or non-existence of a human made construct is problematic at best. The historical existence of a man named Jesus isn't even certain. It's basically a fairytale of sorts and has little to do with the concept of a "god" in the generic sense.

So the identification of Jesus with God was a deliberate act of that council. There was no logical syllogisms or modus ponens involved, only man made calculation and deliberation in order to further the control of the authority of the day.