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Suicide
why not just end it all?

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Suicide

Adam P. Brunswick
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 07/12/08 - 08:42 PM: Subject: Suicide	#1
I am having trouble getting past this. If there is no life after death, then the 100 years we spend here means nothing; it doesn't matter if you live one year or one hundred years because in the end you will be annihilated and have no recollection of your life anyway! So the question is this: why not just end it all? The only answer I can think of is that it makes no difference whether you commit suicide or not--suicide doesn't follow necessarily from atheism; whether you let yourself live or not is entirely your choice, whatever you wish to do. The problem I'm having is that, even if you want to live and enjoy life, you will have no recollection of your life once you're annihilated. You won't be able to say, "Well at least I lived my life to the fullest!", because you'll be annihilated. Could anyone help me with this?

Arkon
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Posted 07/12/08 - 09:05 PM:	#2
Adam P. Brunswick wrote: The problem I'm having is that, even if you want to live and enjoy life, you will have no recollection of your life once you're annihilated. I don't see how this is a problem. Once you're no longer, this would no longer stand as a problem, as there would be no longer you to consider it as such. Adam P. Brunswick wrote: You won't be able to say, "Well at least I lived my life to the fullest!", because you'll be annihilated. That's correct, you won't. As far as we know, only live people are capable of making such statements. What is the position of the speaker saying this? Is the speaker already dead, but "alive" in a sense that he is still has the ability to have regrets? Only live people can say things like these, and if you want to live your life to the fullest, you can still do it.

Paul
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Posted 07/12/08 - 09:13 PM:	#3
Adam P. Brunswick wrote: If there is no life after death, then the 100 years we spend here means nothing If anything that ends in meaningless, then everything is necessarily meaningless. Either accept the nihilism you've prescribed or accept that there's a serious problem with your definition of meaning. There are lots of events in your life which have slipped out of your memory. Were they retroactively meaningless because they're gone now? If so, then yes, the heat death of the universe will retroactively render the entire history of the universe meaningless no matter how much meaning it seems to have before then.

Incision
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Posted 07/12/08 - 10:56 PM:	#4
Even at a time when your life no longer is making a difference, it would still be true that your life made a difference -- that the history of the universe was better thanks to you. Say for argument's sake that value is subjective: something is valuable only if there is a person who perceives it as valuable. Then for one thing, your life is meaningful as long as someone feels it is. Your life could matter as long as the human race does. But if the solar system suffers the heat death and everyone dies, then nothing will matter. Of course, even at that time, it would still be true that in the past your life mattered. So altogether, you can say (if you keep your tenses straight) that even in an apocalyptic future, it will still be good that you had lived.

swstephe
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 07/12/08 - 11:56 PM:	#5
Adam P. Brunswick wrote: I am having trouble getting past this. If there is no life after death, then the 100 years we spend here means nothing; it doesn't matter if you live one year or one hundred years because in the end you will be annihilated and have no recollection of your life anyway! So the question is this: why not just end it all? The only answer I can think of is that it makes no difference whether you commit suicide or not--suicide doesn't follow necessarily from atheism; whether you let yourself live or not is entirely your choice, whatever you wish to do. The problem I'm having is that, even if you want to live and enjoy life, you will have no recollection of your life once you're annihilated. You won't be able to say, "Well at least I lived my life to the fullest!", because you'll be annihilated. Could anyone help me with this? Sounds like you have come down with a case of "nihilism". Eventually to realize that all meaning is absurd, just arbitrary assignments of society and humanistic thought. All meaning in the subjective. There are two main roads from this point -- the realization that since all meaning is arbitrary, you can make any meaning you want, that satisfies you and that is as valid as any other arbitrary meaning -- you are on your way to "existentialism", (although some of those on that road still claim to be "nihilist"). The other road out is to finally break down and accept the authority of an external agent which grants existence meaning. That can mean turning to theology, (insisting on the existence of something that does remain after death), or a kind of permanent existence from a historical perspective, (I was here now has meaning, even if I won't be here in 100 years), or to become part of a large social group which will exist at least long after your are dead.
Ethics is the measuring of morality. Morality is the measuring of good. Good is the measuring of benefit. Benefit is the measure of values.

Adam P. Brunswick
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Posted 07/13/08 - 06:11 AM:	#6
Interesting thoughts. I guess what I'm struggling with is the fact that my existence isn't necessary (then again, my existence isn't necessary on theism either).

yffer
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Posted 07/13/08 - 07:41 AM:	#7
There’s a middle ground. Existence or life is neither necessary nor not necessary, neither meaningful or meaningless….

180 Proof
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Posted 07/13/08 - 08:35 AM:	#8
Adam P. Brunswick wrote: I am having trouble getting past this. If there is no life after death, then the 100 years we spend here means nothing; it doesn't matter if you live one year or one hundred years because in the end you will be annihilated and have no recollection of your life anyway! *So the question is this: why not just end it all? The only answer I can think of is that it makes no difference whether you commit suicide or not* ... Two quotes come to mind: "An old legend has it that King Midas hunted a long time in the woods for the wise Silenus, companion of Dionysus, without being able to catch him. When he had finally caught him the king asked him what he considered man's greatest good. The daemon remained sullen and uncommunicative until finally, forced by the king, he broke into a shrill laugh and spoke: 'Ephemeral wretch, begotten by accident and toil, why do you force me to tell you what it would be your greatest boon not to hear? What would be best for you is quite beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best is to die soon.'" -- Friedrich Nietzsche "It's not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late." -- E.M. Cioran My own take from an old thread titled "Suicide": http://forums.philosophyforums.com/comments.php?id=24755&findpost=418958#post418958 Edited by 180 Proof on 07/13/08 - 08:44 AM. Reason: "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem ..."
If faith is irrational, then it is rational to dismiss "faith-based claims" out of hand. If faith is rational, then "faith-based claims" must be testable and/or sound -- but they are neither. If faith is a-rational, then "faith-based claims" are inexplicable and thus cannot explain anything.

kris
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Posted 07/13/08 - 01:37 PM:	#9
Adam P. Brunswick wrote: I am having trouble getting past this. If there is no life after death, then ........ So the question is this: why not just end it all? ............. Could anyone help me with this? Some of us have a distinct awareness of existence before this life and we have no doubt that we will be here always.
kris http://kris10846902.tripod.com/

JAMMIEG
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Posted 07/14/08 - 07:08 AM:	#10
No one knows for sure that it's all meaningless, or that there is an afterlife. What usually keeps me going is I'm curious what's to come.
If you have proof you have to pursue it! LA DEE FRICKIN DA!!!

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