I don't know, I might go to hell or heaven, the underworld of Greek myths, or eaten by Egyptian afterlife monsters, or even merely go from one folder to another folder, if we are inside a giant simulation.

.
I say that, after suicide, you’d be stuck with your discontent, anger, unhappiness and life-rejection, as you bring it with you into the eternal ever-deepening sleep. You can’t get away from yourself.
.
If your suicide is by a method that could instantly end experience (but you’d be unlikely to achieve that, and death would likely be lingering and painful, if achieved at all), even then, do you really want your last experience to be one of doing traumatic painful violence to yourself?
.
Do you call that an improvement?
.
You can’t get away from your life. You can just irreversibly put yourself into a stage of it where you’ll be stuck with yourself and your discontent and there’s no longer anything that you can do about it.
.
Would that unhappiness be eternal? I can’t guarantee that it wouldn’t be.
.
As I said, death is continuation of life. …continuation of where you were before death.
.

All I know is that, when you're not content with your life, and deem it too trivial to begin caring about, it's nothing but a big, yet brave, risk to take.

.
It is that. It’s also irreversible and final.
.
So you kill yourself to express contempt for life, and then what? Then where are you? You’re still with yourself, your contempt, rejection-attitude and discontent, and you can’t get away from yourself.
.

It might get worse if there's an afterlife and we don't reside in blackness (I still don't understand how there can't be oblivion, you go there every night when you sleep).

.
There’s more than one answer to that:
.
1. Even if there were complete shutdown and oblivion in deep-sleep, it isn’t part of your experience. Likewise, the state of complete shutdown at death isn’t part of your experience.
.
As I said, you can never experience a time when you aren’t. You can never experience a time when there’s no experience.
.
Experience of a time when there’s no experience is a logical contradiction, a logical impossibility, a verbal self-contradiction.
.
That’s important to these discussions, because advocates of suicide usually mistakenly believe that they’re going to achieve oblivion.
.
2. Just because you don’t remember experience during deep-sleep doesn’t mean that there wasn’t any. …doesn’t mean that there wasn’t experience or consciousness of any kind or to any degree.
.

But it's only sensible to take action to improve your life, even if it ultimately ends up hurting you

.
You can’t really say that hurting you is an improvement.
.
If it ends up as a horrifying irreversible mistake, trapped in horror, is that improving your life?
.
Michael Ossipoff
.
10 F

Do you think you can prove that 1+1=2?

No. That's the definition of 2.

...at least as I'd say it.

The positive integers can be defined by repeated addition of the multiplicative identity (1).

Such things as 2 + 2 = 4 can be proved by the additive associative axiom.

Michael Ossipoff

10 F

“…and suicide might satisfy you?
.
How?” — Michael Ossipoff[/i]
.
Imagine that you've just bought a new gaming console, with two brand new games. You put the first disk in. You get so immersed in this game that you don't notice how much time has passed, you are thoroughly enjoying it, it's been a long time since you've had this much fun with a game.
And now you put the second disk in. 10 mins in and you already know how much of a crappy and generic game it is, with no substance in it, it's just there for no apparent reason.
What would you do with the second video game? Keep playing it until you compulsively convince yourself that you like it? Or do you rationally delete the damn game?
life for some is the first video game but for most it's the second one.

.
The analogy doesn’t fit the situation.
.
In your analogy, you’ve been playing the 1st video-game for a long time, and you know exactly what it’s like and how good it is. …and you know, when you play the 2nd game, that the 1st game is much better, because you’ve thoroughly experienced the 1st game.
.
In the life-situation, you really couldn’t have any idea what suicide-death will be like.
.
As I said, life is without reason, purpose or meaning, and what’s wrong with that? Your way of “fixing” that, is to add another pointlessness:
.
So first there’s the reasonless, purposeless life, which happened to you not by your doing, and which you didn’t ask for. But then comes the pointlessness that you add. The pointless choice and forcing of a pointless transition to death. …and this time it’s your pointlessness, done by you.
.
You see, that makes it a whole different kind of pointlessness. It will be your pointlessness, made and done by you.
.
You didn’t ask for this life. You’re not responsible for the fact that it happened. But you will be responsible for what happens when you make it happen, when you destroy your body to force your death.
.
Your pointlessness.
.
Another thing:
.
I mentioned that in the last half of my teens I wanted to die. Yes, but it wasn’t because of contempt or disdain for life, or because I considered life pointless. It was because I (thought that I) couldn’t have life. It was for a reason (even though it was a mistaken reason). There was nothing low about my valuation of life.
.
In your case, though, it sounds as if your suicide would be because of contempt and disdain for life, and a belief that life is pointless. Not for any reason other than rejection of life itself.
.
You reject life, and destroy your body, to force your death, because of, as an expression of, that rejection. Ok, now what have you then got? Rejection?
.
Surely you see how dry and empty that would be for you. And that’s how you’d start eternity, with empty angry hard-to-please dissatisfaction, discontent, and an attitude of rejection. Does that sound good?
.
As I’ve said, you’d be taking your discontent with you into death. …and yes, of course it obviously would remain with you.
.
As Rajneesh pointed out, your death won’t be better than your life. …at least partly or mostly because you bring your life into your death. Death, that deepening sleep, is a continuation of your life. Why, then, would you expect your discontent to go away just because you’re dying? Your rejection-attitude, your discontent and hard-to-please built-in dissatisfaction, isn’t going to bring you happiness in that continuation of life during your death, any more than it is now.
.
\But, returning to my own attitude during my teens:
.
I wasn’t life-rejecting. I just felt that, if I couldn’t have life, then I didn’t want to co-operate with the social pretense of it, a phony non-life that was being imposed on me. (I was right about that part).
.
I didn’t know what would follow, but (as an Atheist at the time, having been raised Atheist), I assumed that it would be, in some way, a continuation of life. (Though I was wrong about a lot, I was right about that.)
.
In a better, enlightened, society, should they have given me the medicine for death? At the time, I thought so. But should they have? No. If it were an enlightened society, it would have been an easy matter to point out my obvious fallacies, and then the death wouldn’t have seemed necessary.
.
Michael Ossipoff
.
10 F

"Is this just philosophical Nihilism, or is there something about your particular life-situation that makes your own particular life inadequate for you?" — Michael Ossipoff

to answer that question, I think it'd be better if we chatted somewhere than here. Google hangouts is a great choice — Rhasta1

I've sent a message to your forum-inbox, so just click on "Inbox" at the top of your forum-screen. When there, click on "Reply".

That's the convenient off-forum discussion-space that the forum provides. If Google hangouts would be better, then your reply could give instructions for accessing and using Google hangouts. (But I never sign in to any website that requires me to give my gmail password.) But surely this forum's off-forum PM inbox messaging is perfectly good.

Michael Ossipoff

10 Th

I feel deeply unhappy (and ethically perturbed) with the fact that I am (and others are) having horrible experiences and that any experiences including these I did not consent to initially.

.
That’s all true. My own background, and the worse things that happen to a lot of people around the world are as you say, and we didn’t ask for it.
.
Yes, when there’s a “Shit!” moment, I’m reminded that I didn’t ask for this. When people say that, it’s true.
.
But the fact that life is without reason, purpose, meaning or agency (Your parents, purposefully-responsive devices like all of us, and like a Roomba, were only cogs in the machine, not original agents of your life), and the fact that the start of your life was just inevitable, and is now an accomplished fact…
.
--all that doesn’t leave me with anything to complain about.
.
When I spoke of my parents’ culpability, I meant it as proximal explanation, not complaint.
.
So yes, it’s often “Shit!”, but it’s just an inevitable reasonless accomplished-fact.
.
It was inevitable because every hypothetical possibility-world and hypothetical experience-story is inevitable and spontaneous. …including one in which your parents reproduced.
.
As physicist Michael Faraday pointed out in 1844, what’s observed and known about this physical world is logical and mathematical structural-relation. The supposed objectively-existent (whatever that would mean) “stuff” is the stuff of metaphysical theory only.
.
For instance, an inter-referring system of abstract facts are inter-related (…as a truism, just by the facts themselves and their being about eachother). And that’s so, without reference to any outside reality or frame-of-reference, and without any claim of objective existence or real-ness for that system, whatever that would mean.
.
There is this physical world, in its own context, and in the context of your life. …as the setting of a life-experience story that’s a system of inter-referring abstract implications (if-then facts).
.
…inevitably.
.
That isn’t a theory--just uncontroversial statements..
.
It isn’t a metaphysics or ontology, because it claims nothing about what’s “real” or “existent”.
.

I feel life is immoral for two main reasons.

.
Logical inevitability isn’t immoral.
.
Immorality requires an agent.
.

The first reason is because of all the clear problems in the world

.
This societal-world is decidedly immoral.
.

…and the second is the lack of consent when bringing new beings here.

.
None of us consented to being born.
.
Our undeniably culpably-immoral parents were the proximal mechanism of our birth, not its original agent. There was no agency for the inevitable start of our lives.
.
Without agency, no immorality.
.

I don't think being alive or being dead are in my interest.

.
That’s right. Both the start, and the soon end, of this life were/are inevitable, and there’s no point or reason to blame, protest, second-guess or evaluate it.
.
Our time in this inevitable but temporary life is brief, so what is there to do, but to enjoy it while it lasts.
.
Michael Ossipoff
.
10 Th

It seems to me that death eradicates point and meaning because only the living can have desires.

Death disconnects the individual from her wishes and goals. — Andrew4Handel

Quite so. In the ever-deepening sleep at the end of life, there are no desires, wishes, goals, need, want, dissatisfaction , incompletion, identity, time or events, or any knowledge that there ever were or could be such things.

You cannot connect back with the world after you are dead( it seems) to see what happened to the world in your absence. — Andrew4Handel

You'll eventually have no idea that there ever seemed to be a physical world and a worldly life.

Michael Ossipoff

10 W

”If you don't have any wants, then why would there be a reason to do anything?” — Michael Ossipoff
.
I quite haven't figured out whether life is incapable of satisfying me in any way

.
…and suicide might satisfy you?
.
How?
.

, or there's something out there that will make me more at ease. And I'm searching to see if the latter could be true

.
I don’t think complete ease is to be expected. Some anxiety and insecurity is a natural and appropriate part of life, regardless of what kind of societal-world we live in.
.
I should emphasize that I don’t claim smug superiority in this matter:
.
During the last half of my teens I, too, wanted to die*, but it was for a reason (…instead of due to Nihilism)
.
*(…but didn’t, because I was very particular about reliability and comfort)
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Was it a good reason? No.
.
In brief:
.
Due to parental-bullying, I gave up on life long before kindergarten, long before any time that I can remember. By the time I was in elementary-school, that giving-up was conscious as well as subconscious, and I knew that there wouldn’t be a life.
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Though, in those days, it was entirely impossible for me to objectively regard and evaluate that giving up and how I’d arrived at it—it was subconsciously ingrained— and so I didn’t have a chance, I did nonetheless understand that I didn’t have a chance. So I was right about that much, while unaware of (and mistaking for fact) the parentally-taught false perceptions, attitudes, valuations and conclusions that that were the reason why I didn’t have a chance.
.
A question:
.
Is this just philosophical Nihilism, or is there something about your particular life-situation that makes your own particular life inadequate for you?
.
Michael Ossipoff
.
10 W

”Approaching nothing, sure, but never getting there” — Michael Ossipoff
.
all the things that you mentioned prior to this sentence were true and made sense, but i dont understand their correlation with this statement "Approaching nothing, sure, but never getting there"
Why has there gotta be anything [in your experience] but blackness and simply ceasing to exist?

.
How would you experience a time of no experience?
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Yes, from the point of view of your survivors, they experience that you’re gone when your body has shut down. But we’re talking about your own experience.
.

”Say you eventually die naturally, or by physically-necessary auto-euthanasia or requested-euthanasia, because of a disease or injury that spoils your quality-of-life. That isn’t suicide, and it isn’t a bad death. —“ Michael Ossipoff
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But I'd like to argue that euthanasia, self-requested, is a form of suicide nevertheless.

.
Of course. “Suicide” is often merely defined as causing one’s own death. I don’t consider that a useful definition, because there’s a distinction to be made:
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Is there or is there not a disease or injury that spoils their quality-of-life?
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At the opposite extreme, would be if it’s done or spoken of for no reason whatsoever, other than a belief that it will cure existential-angst. …or because of a contemptuous opinion of life, necessarily accompanied by an exalted belief in oneself as someone who can be sure that he can “fix” the situation by destroying his existing situation. …like someone who works on his car without sufficient training.
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…usually accompanied by a fallacious belief that one can achieve oblivion.
.
Of course there’s a gradation between those extremes.
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In my usage, it’s “suicide” unless there’s an irreversible disease or injury that spoils the person’s quality of life (in their own opinion).
.
Briefly, regarding one point in that gradation:
.
Well, alright, what if life became impossible for someone for drastically, prohibitively, extreme societal/economic situational-adversity? Then, too, I probably wouldn’t call it “suicide” either, though then the justification or need would be less than the abovementioned disease or injury, because there might be an avenue of survival that the person hasn’t found, doesn’t know about. …as when refugees are accepted somewhere.
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There are other points in the gradation, but that would unnecessarily lengthen this reply, because, here, we’re probably talking about the Nihilist extreme.
.

See, people who take their own lives, teenage girls [only girls?] or unemployed dudes, are suffering to an extent which is unendurable for them. They don't kill themselves because their boyfriends broke up with them or they lost their job, they suffer because the value of their lives, which was based on careers or a loving relationship, shatter and they seem unable to find any reason to why they have got to continue the futile existence.
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And in my opinion, this kinda existential crisis is far more painful and excruciating than any kind of cancer or disease

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Because it’s difficult to compare things so different, we can just agree that they’re different, and agree to disagree about which is worse.
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The psychological reasons you describe above are in the gradation, between the extremes, that I referred to above.
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…not physical justification, but not frivolous existential-angst either.
.

, and only a madman would linger on their lives.

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I agree with the person who pointed out that it’s the other way around.
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We’re talking about a drastic irreversible destructive action, usually without a clear non-fallacious expression of what it is believed that it will gain.
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…an elective action, chosen for psychological reasons. …as opposed to something that physically happens to someone. That’s the simple and clear distinction that I make in my definition of “suicide”. Did it physically happen to you, or did you choose it?
.

Unnecessarily ending one’s life by destroying one’s body would be the ultimate device-malfunction, self-denial, self-hate, and misery-preservation. …attempting to end misery and discontent, but instead bringing it with you.” — Michael Ossipoff”
I just don't understand why people have got to hate themselves to commit suicide? I don't understand this notion at all.

.
Alright, I’m not a mind-reader, so I shouldn’t say “self-hate”.
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But yes, it’s undeniably self-harming, choosing to actively, electively, end one’s life by destroying one’s body.
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…with only a vague notion of what it’s supposed to gain… other than a fallacious notion of achievable oblivion, nothingness.
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I also commented on that above in this reply.
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Yes, life doesn’t have a reason, purpose, or meaning. What’s wrong with that?
.
You think you have a way to fix that? Destroy your body to gain meaning and purpose?
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Your being in this reasonless, purposeless, meaningless life is something that just happened spontaneously and (I claim) inevitably.
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Adding, to that, the purposeful destruction of a body, to send yourself into the final stage of that life that you never asked for. …you’ll still be in that experience that you didn’t ask for—just the final stage of it instead of its waking-life part that you were born to. In other words, you’ll still be in the reasonless, purposeless, meaningless life experience, but now its final part.
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The reasonless, purposelessness and meaningless will remain, with the addition of a purposeless transition done by you (as opposed to your birth, which merely happened to you).
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Still purposelessness, but now purposelessness by you.
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Your watch isn’t running well? Let me fix it, with this sledgehammer.
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And yes, when you destructively (on yourself) act-out your discontent, you’ll bring your discontent with you into death (in which there’s no oblivion).
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I remind you of what I said in my earlier post, regarding, after the loss of waking-consciousness, the nightmare knowledge that something really bad and irreversible has happened due to a self-destructive act.
.
Given the irreversibility, how sure are you really that it will result in something better, and not worse?
.
Michael Ossipoff
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10 W

I've just found these 2 message,s and it's too late to start one of my (usually long) replies tonight (I'm in the -8 timezone), so I'll reply tomorrow morning (February 27th, reckoned at my longitude).

Michael Ossipoff

10 W

i gotta live if i wanna play guitar and fall in love, and if i don't want anything, suicide is the best option — Rhasta1

If you don't have any wants, then why would there be a reason to do anything?

Michael Ossipoff

10 Tu

You could say:

A fact is a state of affairs.

....or a fact is a relation among things.

You could say that a proposition is something that (before we know if it's a fact) might be a fact, &/or something that purports to be a fact.

...or a proposition is something that has truth-value (or undetermined truth-value)

A proposition is true (has affirmative truth-value) if it's a fact.

Truth is the property of being true or having affirmative truth-value..

(These are what occur to me now, but I don't know how good they are.)

...or:

Within the context of possible experience......

Empirical truth: that of which the negation is impossible. — Mww

...or seemingly impossible?

Logical truth: that of which the negation is contradictory.

The proposition's negation implies a contradiction?

Michael Ossipoff

10 Tu

Do you remember the short version of the explanation I gave as to why my unwillingness or inability to do so is unimportant? — S

I remember various versions. But I've taken the time to go through your various replies in this conversation, and, lo, your explanations that I found consist only of the ones that I remember.

1. You said that, in reality, I know what you mean, but I'm lying about that.

...and that, because we both know what you mean, it's unnecessary for you to say what it is that you mean.

Here's a quote:

Whether I can or can't, defining it isn't necessary if we understand the meaning, which we do.

2. You kept invoking a census of other members.

3. You mistakenly tried to claim that unqualified, noncontextual, absolute, objective "There is..." is one of those words (like "on" or "this" or "taller", that we know the meaning of from the context of physical pointing or physical-reference. ...that it's one of those terms that, for that reason, needn't be defined in terms of other words.

There's constant disagreement about whether the (infinitely-many) digits of the decimal expression for pi exist, or whether the square-root of 2 exists, or whether abstract facts "exist", etc. There will always be those disagreements, because of the undefinedness of "Exist" and "There is..."

If someone wants to make the broad statement that it all exists, that's fine (but, not making any distinction, it might not be real useful). But not everyone agrees. There's no such accepted definition of "Exist" or "There is..."

As for myself, I avoid using those terms and don't advocate a definition for them or a dividing-line for "existence" or "real".

By the way, that means that i don't believe in any metaphysics or ontology. What I've been mistakenly calling "my metaphysics" isn't really any metaphysics or ontology at all. It's non-metaphysics, non-ontology.

Materialists, for example, believe in a metaphysics. I don't.

Given the lack of accepted definition for the contested term, a definition is called-for if you want to use unqualified "Exist" or "There is"

As I said, I acknowledge that you believe that the term in question has a meaning and that you believe that you know that meaning.

There's nothing more to say.

Michael Ossipoff

10 M



.

You keep getting point number three wrong, by the way, in spite of my corrections. — S

No, S. did say that the term has a meaning.

...and that he knows what it is.

He won' say what it is.

Either that's because he can't say, or is unwilling to say. It has to be one or the other.

So now is he saying that he can say the meaning, but is unwilling to?

Alright, I'll change # 3 to say:

3. S. then said that that term has a meaning, though he’s either unable or unwilling to say what it is. — Michael Ossipoff

Why then do you appear to find such a simple point so complicated that you cannot understand it? — S

Alright, maybe I misunderstood S. when I thought that he meant that he couldn't say the meaning, when actually he meant that he doesn't want to say it.

But maybe S. meant something else? Forgive me for trying to guess what S. meant to say.. Only S. knows. :D

Michael Ossipoff

10 M

You need to read more Wittgenstein.

.
Now S. is resorting to handwaving.
.
Not a quote from Wittgenstein, but just a name-dropping, the invocation of a holy-name.
.
So, does S. mean that Wittgenstein provided a definition of an objective, general, noncontextual “There is…”?
.
Then quote it.
.
Or is does he mean that Wittgenstein said somewhere that that “There is…” has a meaning that is unspeakable, but which we all know anyway?
.
S. doesn’t say, but merely (as I said above) invokes a holy-name.
.
Wittgenstein has been quoted in these forums as saying something that uses “There is…”. He was quoted as saying that there are no things, just facts.
.
For one thing, facts are things. Presumably the quote means that there are no things other than facts.
.
What might someone mean when saying that?
.
I won’t speculate, because I don’t use that term or claim a meaning for it.
.
In any case, whatever Wittgenstein said, to which S. is referring, the saying of something by Wittgenstein doesn't make it true.
.
S. has now resorted to thumping his scripture and waving it at me.
.
This isn’t complicated:
.
1. S. asked a question.
.
2. I said that the question is meaningless because it contains and depends on an undefined term.
.
3. S. then said that that term has a meaning, though he’s unable to say what it is.
.
4. I acknowledge that S. believes that that term has a meaning that S. is unable to express.
.
In other words, I acknowledge that S. believes that, and I agree to disagree.
.
There’s nothing more to be said on the matter. Argument concluded.
.
Michael Ossipoff
.
10 M

The asymmetry makes sense to me, because harm requires a victim. If everyone were to immediately start practicing contraception or abstinence, no one would be harmed by that.

But the Antinatalist goal has a practical problem:

I know people who don't want to bring someone into a societal-world like this one. Fortunately one of them is my girlfriend's daughter. I wouldn't want to either. What if everyone on every inhabited planet in every universe felt that way? No one would ever be born in a bad-society.

The problem:

The judgment, consideration, ethical-ness, caringness, altlurusim, unselfishness, etc. needed for such a choice is exactly what is mostly missing in a bad society. The societal worlds that most need large-scale Antinatalism are the very ones that wouldn't have it.

Michael Ossipoff

10 M

That reply of yours doesn't progress the debate or engage productively. It merely reasserts premises I rejected ages ago.

Yes, the premise that what we say doesn't mean much if we can't tell what we mean.

How does S. expect anyone to "engage productively" with someone who can't say, and doesn't know, what he means?

Michael Ossipoff

9 Su

Incorrect. It ended with me informing you that I was going to ignore you, because we reached a dead end whereby you kept asking me to do something which is demonstrably unnecessary - provide a definition - and thus a waste of my time, and I had already explained that. The meaning is understood by both of us, but the difference is that I don't pretend otherwise for the sake of pushing some rubbish argument. — S

Translation:

S. was unable to tell what he meant.

If you can't tell what you mean, maybe you don't know what you mean.

Michael Ossipoff

9 Su

Are you saying that because the horrific nightmare knowledge that something really bad has happened would comprise our last moment…

.
I’m not talking about a moment. I’m talking about ever-deepening sleep. …timeless, because eventually one will no longer know that there ever were, or even could be, such things as time or events.
.
But yes, I’m saying that maybe that nightmare knowledge that something really bad happened, by one’s own doing, would color and define the nature of that timelessness. I can’t guarantee that it wouldn’t.
.

, that a lack of oblivion would somehow perpetuate this subjective moment into eternity?

.
If the horror of that nightmare-knowledge, is persistent in that timeless ever-deepening sleep, that wouldn’t be a good thing.
.
I can’t guarantee that it wouldn’t be. Why take the chance?
.
Michael Ossipoff
.
9 Su

How can you know for sure that there's no such thing as oblivion, absolute silence and blackness?

.
I guarantee that there’s no such thing as oblivion.
.
You’ll never experience a time when you aren’t. How could you?
.
When your body has completely shut down, the doctor will declare you dead, and your survivors will know that you’re no more. But you never experience that time.
.
Death completely separates the dying person’s timescale from that of his/her survivors.
.
So, what then do you experience? Ever deepening sleep.
.
Approaching nothing, sure, but never getting there.
.
So no, you can’t get away from yourself. You can’t get away from being. By electively (not by physical necessity) destroying your body, you can’t get away from being; you can just make it bad.
.
During that deepening sleep, you eventually won’t know that there were ever, or even could be, such things as worldly-life, a body, a physical world, identity, individuality, time or events.
.
Because you won’t know that there is, was, or even could be time or events, it’s reasonable to say that you’ll have arrived in timelessness.
.
Yes, your body will be about to shut-down, but you won’t know or care, because you’ve arrived at timelessness.
.
That, happening in the normal course of events, normally is something good, but, by suicide, you can make it bad.
.
As I said in my reply to Schopenhauer1, that I referred you to:
.
Death doesn’t interrupt life. Life (temporarily and briefly) interrupts sleep.
.
Sleep is the natural, normal, usual and rightful state-of-affairs.
.
The time in this life is limited, and so one might as well enjoy it while one can. You’ll be out of it soon enough, in the normal course of events.
.
I emphasize that the end of life is normally not a bad thing at all. It just crucially depends on how and why it happens.
.
Say you eventually die naturally, or by physically-necessary auto-euthanasia or requested-euthanasia, because of a disease or injury that spoils your quality-of-life. That isn’t suicide, and it isn’t a bad death.
.
Then, during the ever-deepening sleep that I referred to above, additional things that you won’t know that there ever were, or even could be, include:
.
Problems, adversity, menace, need , want, lack, dissatisfaction, discontent, and incompletion.
.
But I’m talking about a death that’s natural, or by physically-necessary autoeuthanasia or requested-euthanasia, due to a disease or injury that spoils your quality-of-life.
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If, instead, it’s by suicide, all bets are off, and I can’t guarantee that the nightmare knowledge that something really bad has happened, by your own action, won’t color that timelessness.
.

Oblivion sounds like nothing, but it can give you that nothing else can, peace of mind.

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No, because there’s no such thing as oblivion, because you’ll never experience a time when you aren’t.
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But yes, the timeless ever-deepening sleep at the end of life normally brings peace-of-mind.
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…unless the death is by suicide, in which case it’s a whole other ballgame and all bets are off.
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Unnecessarily ending one’s life by destroying one’s body would be the ultimate device-malfunction, self-denial, self-hate, and misery-preservation. …attempting to end misery and discontent, but instead bringing it with you.
.

I'd love it if you could tell me why you think that oblivion is nothing but an illusion.

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Oblivion is a logical impossibility, because you can’t experience a time when you aren’t.
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But, yes, there will be ever-deepening sleep, and that can be a good thing, when it happens in the normal course of events.
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Michael Ossipoff
.
9 Su

The question doesn't have meaning, because the word "exist" isn't metaphysically or ontologically-defined.

...at least not when it's used unqualified and absolute, without specifying a context in which you speak of something being (...and, even then, I'd avoid the word "exist", and word it another way).

Michael Ossipoff

9 Sa

Sounds like Rod Serling opening an Outer Limits episode. — Mww

No, Rod Serling opened episodes on Twilight-Zone, not Outer-Limits

He also wrote some of the episodes, but the best ones were by regular Sci-Fi writers.

But Serling was an excellent mood-creating talker.

Michael Ossipoff.

9 Sa

suicidal is nothing but an option to extract early if you do not like this game, this labyrinth that God or the gods have put forward.
its highly ironic to me that god gave us this life that sucks in every level and get mad if we don't play by the rules — Rhasta1

Not all Theists believe that God is responsible for making there "be" this physical world, &/or our lives.

The Gnostics don't believe it, and I suggest that they're right.
------------------------------------
If you're contemplating suicide, then maybe it would be prudent ask yourself what you expect to gain by it. I suggest that, with loss of waking-consciousness, you'd have the vague but horrific nightmare knowledge something really bad has happened, and that it was done by you.

There's no such thing as oblivion. You'll never experience a time when you aren't. Then how do you want it to be?

Action to gain something can at least be justified in some way. What about action to achieve nothing? Can that be worth the trouble needed to do it?.

..action whose only purpose is to separate you from opportunity to deal with what you mistakenly thought you could escape? You'd feel rather silly, and that's an understatement.

If you're discontent and in unrest now, do you think it will be otherwise just because you die?

By the way, self-deliverance from a genuinely unacceptable and irreversible medical condition (injury or disease) isn't suicide. But it's suicide if done without such a medical need.

Michael Ossipoff

9 Sa

I refer you to my reply to Schopenhauer1's recent thread, entitled:

"It is life itself that we can all unite against"

Michael Ossipoff

9 Sa

If we take the assumption that God is good, then whence came evil?

If we take the assumption that God is all knowledgeable then, he will know every single action, and permutation that is possible...he will know that it is possible for for a being to kidnap and torture to death someone who meant only good to the beings they came into contact. He will know that the torturer was once an innocent being himself, and fell to an existence of destruction.
And that is just a glimpse of what he knows. — wax

You didn't say that God is omnipotent. Not all Theists believe that God created this physical world or is responsible for its worse aspects. (I'll avoid your Biblical word "Evil"),. For example, the Gnostics don't believe it, and I agree with them.

Omnipotence is problematic, and brings contradiction.

Do you think it would be possible to make there be a logical proposition that is true and false?

Do you think it would be possible to make there be two mutually-contradictory facts?

If not, then maybe you're blaming too much on God.

Michael Ossipoff

9 Sa

Regarding my conversation with S., in this thread, just for the record, that conversation ended by S. being asked what he meant, and being unable to tell what he meant.

Michael Ossipoff

9 Sa

Yes, we’re born for the purpose of being used by society. Regarding my early life, I’ve often wondered, “What was that for?”; Whom was that for?”.
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For various reasons and people, always for someone else’s benefit. Someone else’s pride and feeling of “accomplishment”(?!); Feeding someone else’s hypocritical and egotistical self-image and altruistic-pretense as “nurturing”; Someone else’s gainful-job managing a compulsory juvie-jungle propaganda-prison called a “school”; Someone else’s opportunity to act-out their jealousy of youth; And of course, ultimately, as a labor-unit.
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Often, when uncomfortable, as when out on a freezing day, or in some kind of thoroughly undesirable adversity, I’ll say “ Shit! I didn’t ask to be born here!”
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Antinatalists say that, and it’s true.
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“Why did this life happen?! “
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Antinatalists ask that, and it’s a good question.
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Life, including specifically your life, is inevitable, and it neither has nor needs a reason, purpose or meaning. Because it’s inevitable, it isn’t your fault, or anyone else’s fault. Therefore there’s no need for regret or recrimination. Because it’s inevitable, what would be the point of objecting that it happened? It’s just literally an inevitable fact. Therefore, there’s no room, need, or even meaning, for complaint, objection or recrimination.
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When I was in elementary school, junior-high-school and highschool, I was convinced that my life was a mistake.
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But, because it has no purpose or reason, it wouldn’t be meaningful to speak of it as a mistake, or to speak of “loss”.
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Expectations. Without purpose or reason, there’s no reason for expectations.
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Without reason, purpose or expectations, there’s nothing against which to measure or define “wrongness”, loss or disppointment.
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It’s irrelevant that we disagree about whether you have one life or a long finite sequence of them. Either way, there eventually will be relief—final ultimate relief, in ever-deepening sleep.
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Sleep is the natural, normal, usual and rightful state-of-affairs.
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Death doesn’t interrupt life. Life (temporarily, briefly) interrupts sleep.
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Alright, you’re here for a while (It was inevitable, and no one’s fault). It’s temporary, and it won’t last long, so why not just enjoy it while it lasts (when it’s enjoyable*, of course, which, as we all know, isn’t always). What else is there to do?
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*and, when it isn’t? See above. There’s nothing to do about it, it’s no one’s fault, and it was inevitable. I don’t even claim that it was for a reason.
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Of course it isn’t necessary or important to enjoy it.
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It isn’t a matter of requirement, need or want. No need for those.
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Surely, if, as you’ve said, it isn’t necessary to start a life, then, in a life, there aren’t really necessities or genuine needs.
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It wouldn’t make any sense to say:
.
“You have to enjoy it!”
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As Ringo Starr sang:
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“You don’t have to shout, or leap about; you can even take it easy.”
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Hindus say that life is “for” play (“Lila”). But of course that’s voluntary and optional. …not a need, want or purpose.
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Some anxiety and insecurity is natural and appropriate…even if this weren’t the kind of societal-world that it is. That’s just goes with having been born.
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You say that suffering is inevitable, regardless of how good a society it is. Are you sure? In a genuinely good society, we wouldn’t suffer at eachother’s hands. Disease and injury? For any unacceptable (as judged by the individual) disease or injury, there’d be euthanasia-upon-request. …as promptly as requested
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…or supplied or assisted auto-euthanasia on request.
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Significant suffering, by the standards of this societal-world, wouldn’t be present in a good-society. Might you still stub a toe, or step on a board with a nail in it, or get turned down when you ask someone out? Sure, but it would be a societal-world without the worst suffering of this one.
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Janet and I are relieved that we (at least so far) don’t have any grandchildren. …and so our family won’t be affected by the later worsening of grim future that’s on the way.
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(I wasn’t in a relationship till I was 30, and my girlfriends (roughly my age) either didn’t need more children, or (like me) didn’t want the responsibility of parenthood. Therefore, I never had to face the responsibilities of being a parent.)
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Schopenhauer1 makes good points, and, truth-be-admitted, do any of us not have those same feelings?
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I’m tired of debating Materialists and aggressive-Atheists, but the anti-life question in the Antinatalist threads interests me, and is worthwhile for discussion, because it’s about our impressions about, how we feel about, how things are. …how it affects us in the most meaningful ways. These Antinatalist threads are about the basics of how we feel about life.
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I often have the feelings and questions that are discussed in these Antinatalist threads. I bet that all of you do too.
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Life is the big old monster that is the basis of all else

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…certainly the basis of all that’s in life.
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- including suffering.

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Of course.
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Not being born hurts literally no one.

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Of course. Someone not conceived won’t have any reason to object to not being conceived.
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As Mark Twain said:
.
“Before I was born, I was dead for millions of years, and it didn’t inconvenience me a bit.”
.

We should all be against procreation. It is what causes the suffering. I don't equate suffering itself with procreation, we all know that procreation inevitably leads to suffering. The great human project can be that which unites us against the principle of procreating more life. This can be our great cause. It is an inversion of the usual trope that life is always good- including the pain. Humanity can finally say, "ENOUGH!" and do something about it, by non-action - that is to simply not have future people.

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I have no objection to that.
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…and it might be nice if pigs could fly.
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“If wishes were horses…”
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Sure, universal choice of contraception or celibacy would be fine, but (as has already been pointed out here), if that were achievable, then more modest proposals, such as a really good societal-world, would be achievable too.
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I like good sci-fi fantasy, and I’d say that a genuinely good societal-world is a better one than extinction.
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That’s why I like calendar-reform proposals. ..not because of any claim that they’re achievable, but merely because, as I said, I like good sci-fi fantasy. …and, if there were a “Utopian-Epoch”, a grand triumphal arrival of a completely new and better societal era, then people might want a complete departure from the old ways of doing things. …a complete break with the bad-old-days.
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Michael Ossipoff
.
9 Sa

”Incorrect. I explained the difference in the text that followed what you quoted from me above. You left out that part.
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I refer you to that part of my post. …the part that spoke of why we usually know what someone means, but why the terms “Real”, “Exist” and “There is” are different in that regard.” — Michael Ossipoff
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You said that we usually know what people mean when they use terms in context. I used terms in context.

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We learn English in physical context. We don’t learn English from dictionaries. Something is being used, something is being pointed-to or picked up. Some action is done or demonstrated while being referred-to.
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Then, based on the words we know in that way, other words can be defined, by parents, teachers, or dictionary.
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No, you didn’t use “There is…” in physical context.
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…or specify any context.
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You didn’t say in what context you’re asking about the rock’s existence. You just said “Would there be that rock”. How can you call that “in context”??
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It’s that context-less usage whose meaning is undefined. …as if it means something to speak of some absolute existence.
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You didn’t answer my question about what “Exist”, “There is…”, and “Real” mean, when used unqualified, without specified context.
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By the way, if you’d said “Would that rock still be part of the physical world that it was part of before everyone died?”, then your question would mean something, and would have an answer: “Yes”. The rock would still be part of that physical world, and the existence of both would remain as undefined as it was before everyone died.
.

Therefore, what I meant is something which is usually understood. You're either an exception to your own rule or you're just pretending.

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This discussion is testament to the understanding of what I asked. Most, if not all, other people understood what I meant. That's why we're having a discussion about it, instead of everyone just responding like, "What? I have no idea what you just asked", as though I was speaking in my own made up gibberish.

I didn’t say that you made up the gibberish. I merely said that it’s gibberish.
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Look at how many people voted in the poll. Would you vote in a poll when you had no idea what it was asking?

You keep falling back on, resorting to, a census.
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Since the time of the Greeks, Western philosophy (those “footnotes to Plato”) has gotten nowhere (in spite of a few exceptional comments from Faraday and Tegmark, who weren’t academic philosophers).
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People say things whose meaning they can’t specify, and then wonder why they’re confused.
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Wasn’t it Chalmers, who pointed out a lack of progress, and suggested that there’s no reason to believe that things will be any different in the coming centuries?
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”You really need to spend a bit more time checking what you’ve written before you post it.
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Yes, you asked if there would be that rock.
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Does it occur to you that your question about “Would there be…” used the interrogative conditional form of “There is…”? “— Michael Ossipoff
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And...?

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And you’d just claimed that you didn’t use “There is…”.
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You used it.
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What's this supposed problem you're having with understanding what I asked?

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Your failure to define your terms that need defining in order to have a meaning.
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Words describing things that can be pointed-to in physical context have known meaning without verbal definition in terms of other words.

Unqualified “Exist”, “There is…”, and “Real” aren’t such words.

Why shouldn't I believe that you're feigning ignorance, when that's what the evidence suggests?

Because of your failure to define your terms.
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Why shouldn't I believe that you're just dancing around the real issue about whether or not there would be a rock?

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See above.
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Michael Ossipoff
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9 W

"No, I didn’t say that." — Michael Ossipoff

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If you want to get technical, then yes, you didn't say that. It was logically implied when you said, "defining our terms is necessary". You even quoted yourself saying that.

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Incorrect. I explained the difference in the text that followed what you quoted from me above. You left out that part.
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I refer you to that part of my post. …the part that spoke of why we usually know what someone means, but why the terms “Real”, “Exist” and “There is” are different in that regard
.

That sentence, along with this one, and with the exception of punctuation marks, is composed entirely of terms. Yet I haven't defined these terms I'm using, and nor do I need to, because you obviously understand what I'm saying.

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As I said above, I refer you to my previous post to this thread. …you know, the post that you think that you’re replying to.
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” “Exist”, “There is”, and “Real”, without context, intended in some absolute way, are meaningless sounds with which philosophers have befuddled themselves for a long time.” — Michael Ossipoff

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That is completely beside the point, because that's obviously not what I've done. I didn't just say, "Exist" or "There is" or "Real". I asked if there would be a rock in the situation that I described.

:D You really need to spend a bit more time checking what you’ve written before you post it.
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Yes, you asked if there would be that rock.
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Does it occur to you that your question about “Would there be…” used the interrogative conditional form of “There is…”?
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You know what I asked.

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…and I reminded you of it directly above.
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(…though neither of us knows what you meant by it.)
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This is getting more and more ridiculous.

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You got that part right. :D
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”But no one here has been able to answer regarding by what they mean by those words, used in the absolute sense with no specified context.” — Michael Ossipoff
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Right, and they shouldn't do, as that's a challenge that has no relevance in the context I set for this discussion.

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So, what you meant by what you said has no relevance to what you said :D
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Michael Ossipoff
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9 Tu

”Yes, defining our terms is necessary. Without that, philosophy becomes meaningless, muddled gibberish.

If you can’t define it, then you don’t know its meaning, and that supports my claim that it doesn’t have one.” — Michael Ossipoff
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So until I define every term in this sentence, you have no idea what I'm saying.

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No, I didn’t say that.
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No finite dictionary can noncircularly define any of its words.
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But of course many words, like “here”, “go”, “with” “and”, “on”, “this”, “up”, “hit”, etc., can be known from gesture or experience. And, based on such words, and on the dictionaries’ definitions of words in terms of other words, we usually know what other people mean.
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Problem: Without specified context, “Real” “Exist” and “There is” don’t have metaphysical definitions in terms of other words, and aren’t the sort of words that we know from daily experience or gestures.
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When a dictionary tries to define “Real” or “Exist” in terms of other words, without reference to a specified context, the circularity is blatant and doesn’t terminate in an experience-known word, and the definitions aren’t helpful.
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“Exist”, “There is”, and “Real”, without context, intended in some absolute way, are meaningless sounds with which philosophers have befuddled themselves for a long time.
.

”What you’re saying (what you’re asking in your OP question) is meaningless.

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…and, not having a meaning, it also doesn’t have an understandable meaning.’ — Michael Ossipoff
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Yet almost everyone else understood it. How peculiar.

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“Everyone else” has previously heard, and recognizes, what you were asking, as a very familiar part of philosophical-talk.
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But no one here has been able to answer regarding by what they mean by those words, used in the absolute sense with no specified context.
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Anyway, I’m not interested in a census.
.
Michael Ossipoff
.
9 Tu

So in conclusion..reality is infinite hallucination..appearances without an actual "substance " to them. It's a dream. — Nobody

If, by "reality" (lower-case "r"), you're referring to physical reality, then what you're saying might be another way of saying what I've been saying.

There's no reason to believe that "physical reality" is more than the hypothetical setting of one's hypothetical life-experience story, consisting of a system of inter-referring abstract logical implications.

As physicist Michael Faraday pointed out in 1844, there's no reason to believe in the "stuff" that the abstract mathematical and logical structural-relation is "about".

The question about whether that complex system of inter-referring abstract implications is "real" or "existent" is quite meaningless.

Michael Ossipoff

9 M (South-Solstice WeekDate Calendar)

...Monday of the 9th week of the calendar-year that started with the Monday that started nearest to the South-Solstice.

”Translation:

“I can’t define it.” “— Michael Ossipoff
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I went over this. Your reply is nonresponsive and doesn't progress the discussion. Whether I can or can't, defining it isn't necessary if we understand the meaning…

.
???!!! :D
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Yes, defining our terms is necessary. Without that, philosophy becomes meaningless, muddled gibberish.
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If you can’t define it, then you don’t know its meaning, and that supports my claim that it doesn’t have one.
.

, which we do.

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No, you don’t. If you knew its meaning, you’d be able to state it.
.

”1. You point to a cabinet whose contents are unknown, and say “Is a rock there?” “ — Michael Ossipoff
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And you're going to pretend that you don't understand what is being asked there?

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It’s obvious, clear, and well-defined what’s being asked there.
.

”2. Or you say “Is there the rock that I referred to, after everyone dies?”. (“Exists that rock?”)” — Michael Ossipoff

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And you're going to pretend that you don't understand what is being asked there?
[/quote]
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No. I’m not going to pretend that.
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But, though I don’t pretend it, I’m truthfully saying it.
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I don’t understand what’s being said there, and neither do you. You don’t know what you mean. That’s why you can’t say what you mean.
.

”Those are two entirely different kinds of question, and “There is…” is being used entirely differently, with a different meaning. (..an unknown or absent meaning, in #2)” — Michael Ossipoff
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The part about existence is no different in either. They're just two different scenarios, two different contexts,

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They’re two entirely different questions:
.
In #1, you’re asking if there’s a rock in the place that you’re pointing to. Either the cabinet contains a rock or it doesn’t, and we all know what that means.
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In #2, you’re asking if a certain particular rock still exists (…objectively (no context specified), whatever that’s supposed to mean.)
.

…and you understand what's being asked in both cases

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No, I don’t, and neither do you. …in the case of question #2.
.

”As you meant it when you asked if there still is that rock after everyone has died, “There is” means “Exists”.
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“Exists that rock, after everyone has died?” accurately translates your question.
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It’s a matter of whether or not you can define “Exist”. “ — Michael Ossipoff
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It doesn't make a difference if you use "is" or "exists", as they have the same meaning per my usage here.

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Yes, in your OP question, “There is” means “Exists”.
.

And nope, it's just a matter of whether what I'm saying is understandable…

.
What you’re saying (what you’re asking in your OP question) is meaningless.
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…and, not having a meaning, it also doesn’t have an understandable meaning.
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Michael Ossipoff
.
9 M

”However I don’t know what you mean by “There is…” “— Michael Ossipoff
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Yes you do, and it's self-explanatory.

.
Translation:
.
“I can’t define it.”
.

”A metaphysical or ontological question or statement is meaningless if it uses one or more terms that aren’t metaphysically or ontologically defined.”— Michael Ossipoff
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Poppycock. You know the meaning of "there" and you know the meaning of "is" and you know the meaning of "there is", as in "there is a rock".

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Nonsense.
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It’s common-knowledge that English has word-combinations whose meaning isn’t given by the meanings of their parts.
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1. You point to a cabinet whose contents are unknown, and say “Is a rock there?”
.
2. Or you say “Is there the rock that I referred to, after everyone dies?”. (“Exists that rock?”)
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Those are two entirely different kinds of question, and “There is…” is being used entirely differently, with a different meaning. (..an unknown or absent meaning, in #2)
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As you meant it when you asked if there still is that rock after everyone has died, “There is” means “Exists”.
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“Exists that rock, after everyone has died?” accurately translates your question.
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It’s a matter of whether or not you can define “Exist”.
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Saying that there is a certain thing, in its own context, is a truism. And it doesn’t say anything about its objective existence or reality.

(And what meaning it has isn't shared by the "There is" in your question.)
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For instance an inter-referring system of abstract facts are inter-related (…as a truism, just by the facts themselves and their being about eachother). And that’s so, without reference to any outside reality or frame-of-reference, and without any claim of objective existence or real-ness for that system, whatever that would mean.
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There is this physical world, in its own context, and in the context of your life.
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That use of “There is” is different from your use of it in your question. You’re asking about some supposed objective existence, and you can’t define it.
.

Are you seriously going to pretend otherwise?

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No.
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I don’t agree that I’m “pretending”. But yes, I’m saying that it isn’t self-explanatory.
.

Obviously, if you know the meaning, then there is a meaning there, otherwise you couldn't know it.

.
Did I say that I know the meaning?
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But neither do you.
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Philosophy gets into so much muddle and befuddlement, when we say things whose meaning we don’t know.
.

What you're doing amounts to a performative contradiction and is therefore self-defeating. We start from the fact that you understand what I'm saying…

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We start from the fact that I don’t know what you mean, and neither do you.
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…unless you can tell me what you mean by “Exist”. …for something to “exist”, objectively (without limiting that existence to a particular context).
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Michael Ossipoff
.
8 Su

My main concern is this: there is something different about a person A and an exact copy of that person A1. I don't know what it is. Do you?

.
If neither is me, then there’s no difference. If I’m A, then there’s a big difference, because, as A, I actually experience A’s experiences; I experience being A.
.
Of course, as soon as A1 experiences something that A doesn’t experience, or vice-versa, then they can’t strictly be said to be identical, because they aren’t both in the same state. But, if I’m A, then even if A1 is in the same state as I, his state is irrelevant to me (disregarding such things as compassion).

.

Let's take your thought experiment Michael Ossipoff about a terminally ill person A. We make an exact copy A1 (all physical and mental features included). We then let A die and wake up A1. What is different between A and A1?

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A has experienced non-existence one might say.

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Nonexistence is never experienced. One’s own death is something ongoing, ever deepening sleep, never a completed shutdown.
.

But what we've done to A and A1 seems very similar to sleep. When we sleep we cease to exist mentally (that's what counts doesn't it?) and then we wake up - there's a discontinuity of mind caused by sleep. So we could in fact say that a person dies in his sleep only to wake up as another.

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I have to admit that I, too, don’t know the answer to that, though it seems like something that we should be able to answer. How could there be a matter so basic about ourselves that we can’t answer??!
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Vedantists have written that what you said above proves that we aren’t really unconscious even in deep-sleep. …that we must have been conscious to some degree, for there to be the continuity of experience that makes us the same person we were yesterday.
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Buddhists have said that we aren’t the same person from one day to the next.
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The Buddhist position is supported by the question: Who can prove that they’re the same person as yesterday, rather than just a similar person, like A1, who has some same memories?
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…like what I was saying about me when I was in elementary-school or junior-high-school.
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Don’t contradictions or seemingly unanswerable questions point to a wrong premise?
.

The only thing that seems to ground our identity is memory - we remember what happened before we slept. Of course our physical appearance too doesn't change.

.
Therefore, it seems, based on the analysis above, that A1 is A (A has been cured of his fatal disease) and we can rightly call A1 as A.

.
…or that I’m not yesterday’s Michael Ossipoff.
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Undeniably we’re the same organism we were yesterday.
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We’re purposefully-responsive devices, like a Roomba, a mousetrap, a thermostat or a fridge-light-switch.
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Of course there are a few significant qualitative differences: Our biological origin. The fact that the above-listed devices are, for the most part, constant-composition objects, while we’re systems whose composition needn’t be, and isn’t, constant.
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But those differences are just differences of origin and mechanism. As purposefully-responsive devices, we aren’t fundamentally different from Roomba and mousetrap.
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And we’re the same device we were yesterday, the same device-system, even though some of our molecules aren’t the same ones we had yesterday.
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So there’s a meaningful sense in which we are the same person as yesterday, and I’m the same person as I was in elementary-school. …the same system. …like that ship, on which we replace one part at a time until we’ve replaced every part.
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Antiques-dealer to customer:
.
“This hatchet once belonged to George Washington.”
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“Yeah? It looks pretty new to me.”
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“Well, it’s had a few new heads, and a few new handles.”
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As for being the same person in terms of continuity of experience, I don’t know, because if we were conscious during deep sleep, we (at least usually) don’t remember it. But not remembering it doesn’t necessarily mean that we weren’t conscious. But that brings up what it means to be conscious. …and that word’s meaning is hopelessly human-chauvinistic, mammal-chauvinistic, animal-chauvinistic, or biological-organism chauvinistic.
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I’ve suggested that “the property of being a purposefully-responsive device” is more definable, and more philosophically useful than “consciousness”. What about a purposefully-responsive device that’s temporarily turned-off? Well, if it’s temporarily turned itself off, and designed to later turn itself back on, then it’s still in operation, isn’t it. So maybe the Vedantists that I quoted above are right too.
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There’s no reason why both positions can’t be right, but just speaking of different matters.
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Now let's look at it from a moral standpoint. Suppose A had commited a crime but he ''dies'' before he can be punished. A1, by analysis above, is A since he has the memory of the crime and is an exact copy of A. Yet, it seems intuitively wrong to punish A1 for A's crime. It's just that A1 has A's memories. He didn't actually commit the crime.

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Agreed. You can only rightfully punish the same physical system that did the crime. …not a copy.

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Here we are. One point of view suggests A is A1 and another that suggests the opposite.

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My conclusion from this discussion is that both views are right, about different matters, different meanings for being the same person.
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By the way, to answer something from another posting here, I don’t think a reincarnated person is guilty of what was done by the person who was reincarnated. A past-life, it seems to me, is indeterminate. This life doesn’t need a past-life to explain it, even if there’s a past-life that leads into this one. That a past-life leads into this one doesn’t mean that it’s the origin of this life…which is an independently inevitable experience-story, a timeless system of inter-referring abstract facts (…whose “existence” or “reality” is a meaningless question.)
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An Antinatalist says, “I didn’t ask for this life! It isn’t my fault!” He’s right. It isn’t his fault, or anyone’s fault. I disagree with Theists who (unlike the Gnostics) blame it on God.
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The Antinatalists, too, want to blame someone, and I disagree with them on that.
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That Antinatalist’s experience-story is/was inevitable. Even if his story depends on having a protagonist (him) and he’s thereby essential to it and a complementary part of it, he nevertheless didn’t ask for there to be abstract facts and experience-stories.
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Michael Ossipoff
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8 W

I said:

There could be a number of people identical to you, indistinguishable by anyone. But there’s one person who’d know that there others aren’t you. You’d know.

I emphasize that, of course, all of your exact duplicates would know the same things about themselves, and you & they would all be right.

Each one ;of them would know that what happened with the other copies wouldn't affect him. Each would know that the other copies aren't him.

Michael Ossipoff

8 W

”The question is meaningless, because "Exist" and "Real" aren't metaphysically defined.
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We tend to believe in our metaphysicses too devoutly.” — Michael Ossipoff
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Firstly, I didn't even use those words.

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You asked if there is a rock. “There is” can be translated as “There exists”. But, if necessary, I’ll amend what I said to: “Exist”, “There is…” and “Real” aren’t metaphysically-defined.
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Secondly, I don't believe that you didn't understand what I meant.

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Well, you’re right that, in a loose sense of the words, I knew what you meant.
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However I don’t know what you mean by “There is…”
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And, truth told, neither do you.
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I like to quote Dunning (of Dunning & Kruger) when he admonished us that we should be a lot less free and loose with our claims, because there’s a tendency for what we say to overshoot what we can support..
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And thirdly, even if you didn't understand what I meant, it doesn't follow that what I said was meaningless.

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A metaphysical or ontological question or statement is meaningless if it uses one or more terms that aren’t metaphysically or ontologically defined.
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Michael Ossipoff
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8 Tu

There is a rock, but no one is there to perceive it, because we all died an hour previously. Is there a rock? Yes or no? — S

The question is meaningless, because "Exist" and "Real" aren't metaphysically defined.

We tend to believe in our metaphysicses too devoutly.

Michael Ossipoff

8 Tu (South-Solstice WeekDate Calendar)

...Tuesday of the 8th week of the calendar-year that started with the Monday that started closest to the South-Solstice.

”If you could be transported to those other places and times, and met those people identical to people you know here, of course you'd say that they're the original person you knew.” — Michael Ossipoff
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Why can't there be 2 you's?

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There could be a number of people identical to you, indistinguishable by anyone. But there’s one person who’d know that there others aren’t you. You’d know.
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All, reincarnations could be the same person.

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A next incarnation would be a continuation of the same personal experience, and in that sense it would indeed be You, from your point of view. The same continuity of experience, but you won’t necessarily the same person in all respects. You as someone a little different from before. Even in this life, though there was of course a continuity of experience, and though of course there are remembered events, I don’t even know the person I was when I was in elementary school, or even junior-high school. I know what some of my experiences, feelings and conclusions were, but I have no idea how I arrived at or justified those conclusions. Likewise, in a next incarnation, you won’t likely be exactly the same person.
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Reincarnation would depend on Materialism being wrong. As an Ontic Structural Subjective Idealist (…but really a disbeliever in any metaphysics, including Materialism), I believe there’s probably reincarnation, but a lot of people here are Materialists, and a lot of these subjects (I like the Antinatalist issues) can be discussed, and some conclusions agreed on, without agreement about Materialism or reincarnation.
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Strangely there seems to be something about identity I'm missing. Imagine there are two identical people X and Y coming into existence by the process I described in the OP. When X dies then Y would continue to exist, meaning, in some way, that X hasn't actually died.

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From his point of view, he’s dying (Of course he never experiences the time when he has completely shut-down). He has no way of knowing (and wouldn’t care) that someone identical to him is still involved in worldly-life.
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Yet, when you think of it X has become nonexistent and something has changed.

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It depends entirely on whose point of view is discussed.
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From X’s own point of view, he’s dying (but hasn’t died, hasn’t completely lost consciousness (…though he’s lost waking consciousness) ).
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Y has no relevance to him.
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From the point of view of someone who knows X, and is in the company of Y, that person couldn’t distinguish Y from X, and would mistake Y for X.
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Some writer once took this to a stark extreme:
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Suppose that a person is terminally ill.
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Suppose that there were a medical procedure that could:
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1. Build an exact copy of that person, but without the illness.
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2. Somehow connect (implausibly-futuristic) sensors to that patient, in order to cause the copy to at all times exactly duplicate the state of the patient.
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Now the two persons are indistinguishable, in all regards.
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So now they shut down the original person, the patient. Isn’t he now in the duplicate? No, not from his own point of view, and that’s what counts.
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The duplicate is nothing but a copy, a different individual who, though identical, is a different individual.
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That copy is irrelevant, from the original person’s point of view. From his own point of view, the original person just dies. He doesn’t experience continued worldly life as the duplicate. The duplicate, of course, fully believes that he’s the original person, and that the procedure has succeeded, but that’s irrelevant to the original person.
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Likewise, cryonics won’t and can’t deliver on its promise of the original person’s continued life upon revival of the frozen body.
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Michael Ossipoff
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8 Tu

Is this reincarnation? — TheMadFool

No.

Sure, if the universe (including any physically-interrelated multiverse that our Big-Bang universe is part of) is infinite, there must be many identical "You"s in the universe.

Since there is no possible way, for instance, to tell apart you dead and gone and the new person who is exactly like you in mind and body, we would be forced to say you were reborn.

If you could be transported to those other places and times, and met those people identical to people you know here, of course you'd say that they're the original person you knew.

But from your point of view, all those people identical to you aren't you. There are worlds in which one of them wins Lotto. Where's your benefit from that?

Michael Ossipoff

8 M (South-Solstice WeekDate Calendar)

...Monday of the 8th week of the calendar-year that started with the Monday that started nearest to the South-Solstice.

What are some metaphysical prerequisites to becoming an antinatalist?

Atheism, right?
— Roke

No. I'm not an Atheist, but I agree that it's undesirable to contribute the overcrowding of the world, and that it's undesirable to be the proximate physical mechanism of the start of a life (...for which one can't guarantee a favorable or successful outcome, or one free of undue suffering..)

Nihilism, but not quite... more like a desire for nihilism

No. Absurdists and Nihilists are right about life not having meaning or purpose. (I'd add that neither does it need one.) But dictionaries seem to strongly imply a negative value-judgment about that, for Absurdists, and especially Nihilists. ...a belief that life needs, but doesn't have, purpose or meaning.

In fact, when a dictionary says that those people believe that there's no value to life, that tautologically is a value-judgment, an unsupported expression of feeling rather than a supportable philosophical position.

"Alright" is a value. I suggest that, overall, what-is, is good.

What positions are incompatible?

Theism
Agnosticism

Not so. Why should the Antinatalist position that I agreed with at the top of this post be incompatible with Theism?

I remind you that not all Theists believe that God created this physical world and caused our lives to happen. For example, the Gnostics don't believe that.

Yes, there's local badness, misfortune, suffering. This life and any suffering in it, is temporary.

At the end-of-lives, or at the end of this life if there isn' reincarnation, as sleep deepens, you won't know that there was or even could be, such things as a life, time, events concerns, problems, menace, lack or incompletion.

Because you won't know of such a thing as time, you'll have reached timelessness.

Because that sleep is final and timeless, I suggest that it's the natural, normal, usual and rightful state-of-affairs.

Barbara Ehrenreich pointed out that death doesn't interrupt iife. Life (temporarily, briefly) interrupts sleep.

Mark Twain said something to this effect:

"Before I was born, I was dead for millions of years, and it didn't inconvenience me a bit."

I suggest that, overall, what-is, is good.

Reality is benevolent, That's an expression of my impression, not an assertion. The nature of overall Reality isn't a topic for assertion, argument or proof.

Michael Ossipoff

7 Sat (South-Solstice WeekDate Calendar)

...Saturday of the 7th week of the calendar-year that started with the Monday that started nearest to the South-Solstice.

”But you should resist the inclination to mock beliefs different from your own.” — Michael Ossipoff
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I don't have any beliefs, that is what atheism is all about, not have them.

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1. Sir2u is confused about what Atheism is. Atheism is defined as the position (belief) that there isn’t a God. Yes, it’s now fashionable to call oneself an “Atheist”, while professing Agnosticism.
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I have no criticism of Agnostics, or even of genuine Atheists, as such.
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2. Beliefs? Well, our aggressive-“Atheists” here typically have been saying that there’s no evidence, or justifiable reason for faith regarding, any God (by anyone’s conception of God). That’s an unsupported belief. Additionally, many self-designated “Atheists” here are firm-believers in Materialism. That, too, is a belief.
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(…a religion, in fact, by some definitions in Merriam-Webster and Simon & Schuster dictionaries.)
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So yes, the funniest belief of our “Atheists” is their belief that they have no beliefs.
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But I did not mock him, I told him what he wanted to hear. And he was happy with it until you burst the bubble.

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Should I apologize for spoiling Sir2u’s cover and deception?
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”Just briefly, remember that you don't know all the Theists or the beliefs of all Theists, — Michael Ossipoff
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I have little interest in knowing and it makes little difference.

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Good. But of course you need to remember that that would disqualify you when commenting on whether or not there is any evidence, or reason for faith, regarding their beliefs.
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You don’t make any such comments? Fine, that would be an improvement.
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As for whether you previously did or didn’t, I’d rather take your word for that than begin a long and laborious search of old posts.
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”What you do know, and should feel free to say, is that you don't know of evidence for, or reason for faith about, what someone else believes. Saying that, vs saying that there's no evidence, or no reason for faith--Those are two different kinds of statements.” — Michael Ossipoff
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Basically all I have ever said is that I have never heard convincing evidence to support peoples religious beliefs.

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As I said above, I’d rather take your word for that than start a long and laborious search of old posts.
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If that’s really all you’ve said--if you were only speaking of what’s known or not-known to you--then of course that wasn’t aggressive or dubious. Your statement that you don’t know of evidence for others’ beliefs is probably correct.
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But, if that’s your position on the matter, then it would be difficult to explain all the posting that you did in anti-Theism threads. :D
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…if Sir2u is speaking accurately now, rather than just (again) saying what he thinks someone else wants to hear.
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That practice of saying what someone else wants to hear, when it means saying things that one doesn’t believe, indicates a lack honesty, bringing into question whatever that person says.
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There’s a word for saying things that one doesn’t believe. But we don’t use that word here.
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Anyway, Sir2u’s mocking-behavior, in the 3rd post to this thread, amounts to aggressive and abusive behavior and shows a lack of honesty. …whatever may be the truth-value of his claim about his previous statements elsewhere.
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”A little humility and modesty would be good, and that's something missing from our aggressive-Atheist brothers.” — Michael Ossipoff
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For someone that takes it upon himself to preach to others about sinning…

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I made no mention of “sinning”. I merely exposed your mockery and deception.
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Michael Ossipoff
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7 Th