The case against suicide
I guess this is a good a place as any.
Ive struggled to find a good argument against suicide that doesnt involve either nonsense or special pleading to life or hindsight bias.
The way I see it if there is no greater reason to meaning to life then there isnt really a reason to keep going. Not reason to really struggle and fight for a place in the world. No reason to really pursue anything. One can just end their life and be done with the pursuit and struggle.
To me arguments for staying alive or for meaning only work if you HAVE to live. Filling life with good things, doing what you love, all that junk only has logical weight if one is unable to die until a set time. Baring that I see no reason for living. Desire for pleasures only applies if you are alive, if you die there is no need for any of that. Same with love, friendship, food, money, etc.
Ive struggled to find a good argument against suicide that doesnt involve either nonsense or special pleading to life or hindsight bias.
The way I see it if there is no greater reason to meaning to life then there isnt really a reason to keep going. Not reason to really struggle and fight for a place in the world. No reason to really pursue anything. One can just end their life and be done with the pursuit and struggle.
To me arguments for staying alive or for meaning only work if you HAVE to live. Filling life with good things, doing what you love, all that junk only has logical weight if one is unable to die until a set time. Baring that I see no reason for living. Desire for pleasures only applies if you are alive, if you die there is no need for any of that. Same with love, friendship, food, money, etc.
Comments (189)
You want companionship. Affirmation. Guess what. Those who truly have things worth affirming need no such thing. So what is it you're truly after?
Sure, it's a good question. The average person, no matter if they "came" from wealth or poverty, sometimes wonders, if they died right now, who would miss them? Why and for what? At the end of the day every person that lives and walks was brought into their circumstance outside of their will and simply tumbled out of a womb. Why do we value one over another? Because of the perceived power they have. That's all. Your depression is an absolute lie. And I could prove it, easily. If I haven't had my eye set on much higher sights. Perhaps you should just refocus your own. Given the fact you've been given everything.
This is a really inappropriate post.
We either live in truth or lies. Such is the stated goal of philosophy. Name one lie that would reasonably be found in said post. Go on, I dare you.
To won't let your rival win the race.
The beings that value the suicidal may include friends, relatives, loved ones, and they may also include the future selves of the suicidal. Perspectives change, even if the present suicidal doesn't value their life, their future selves might. If you ever enjoyed your life, you owe that enjoyment to the fact that all of your past selves chose not to kill themselves. Had just one of them done so, they would have stolen that enjoyment from you.
Future selves are just as worthy of protection as present selves. Giving someone poison that kills them in a month is just as wrong as poison that kills immediately, even though the time delayed poison only kills a future self.
Quoting Darkneos
But you are alive, not dead, so you desire at least one of these. Killing yourself permanently frustrates all of the desires you had at the moment you died, and all the desires you would have had in the future.
Will you please put an end to this discussion.
The Spiritualists may disagree regards the one visible sided barrier.
With overpopulation and the other rafts of issues that have and still do face us, suicide may get more popular, but its proponents will still only have life based arguments to use.
Maybe what answers you seek can only be found eventually by living, questioning and moving through life. However you find them, you'll have to stay alive to explain them and appreciated the answers.
And agree with T Clark... "You won't find appropriate answers here".
Well I have never found a "good argument" for suicide either. Afaik, empirically, suicide does not solve any unsolvable problems or change anything that cannot be changed (e.g. past events, past actions, persisting consequences) and often only deeply harms the suicide's own family, former lovers and/or close friends.
If you are struggling, sir, seek professional clinical help ASAP.
:up:
Since this discussion hasnt been so far closed
Ive never much understood why permanent solutions to temporary problems ought to be shunned. Its only temporary problems that have solutions, not the permanent ones. And does one not want ones solutions to problems to last and thereby be permanent? How then is this supposed to assuage those who are suicidal and have no doubts regarding there not being an afterlife?
But since no one can infallibly prove any metaphysical system of beliefs, physicalism/materialism very much included, there is then a quite viable existential possibility that mortal death is in no way the known of a permanent solution. Namely, that known solution which takes the form of an everlasting non-being. But is instead an open-ended unknown in which awareness persists.
One then not only has to deal with the inadvertent suffering self-murder causes in others within this world, impressionable strangers potentially included, but with the possibility of experiencing things such as regret for the deed well after the act of self-murder is committed. Thereby compounding an already bad case of ones own experienced suffering in some form of hereafter.
In which case, self-murder then becomes only a temporary solution to a permanent problem of suffering - permanent in that this problem of suffering could survive ones death to this world, ones death in the next world, and so forth.
This being one possibility of a Sisyphean reality in its broadest sense.
That said, I endorse this in relation to the OP:
Quoting T Clark
:100:
This is the first and last question that philosophy must answer - 'What's the point?' The answer is "love". If you wonder what love is, I can only tell you that it is what you lack, whenever you ask this question. Suicide makes sense if there is no love, but only self. We are not here to be satisfied, but to become satisfactory.
:fire:
And I agree with @T Clark, this doesn't seem as philosophical discussion about the subject. But simply immediately removing the post won't be helpful either. At least I would be sad and pissed if my thread would be simply moved away.
___
I didn't appreciate the last thread being closed as I asked a serious question about the worth of life and was proven right about what I said about the value of said life and the bias that we have towards it. Society won't ever really advice if people are too scared to talk about why one should persist instead of end it when there isn't any compulsion to keep going.
People there said this isn't the place for it or to seek professional help, which just highlights the problem. That this can't be talked about without suggesting something is wrong with the person, so long as people have that "sweeping it under the rug" mentality we aren't ever going to get an answer to the question. The fear of talking about life being worth living implies a fear of the answers.
It's easier to label such people sick or mentally unwell because that way we don't have to deal with the discussion. I mean...they have to be sick or something to not want to live anymore right? There can't be good reasons for it right? To me that just sounds like people are afraid of the answers and how someone can be lucid and still want it.
The answers in the last thread that I got like love don't really answer the question and I explained why with my first post. Such things only carry weight if one must live or is not able to die.
Stuff like this:
This is the first and last question that philosophy must answer - 'What's the point?' The answer is "love". If you wonder what love is, I can only tell you that it is what you lack, whenever you ask this question. Suicide makes sense if there is no love, but only self. We are not here to be satisfied, but to become satisfactory.
Just dodges the question. Therapists can't help with the question because their assumption is that something is wrong with the person for questioning the notion of going further, which assumes the conclusion. They are biased like everyone else and don't have answers to the question. People just assume it's self evident because of survival drive but if that was the case a lot of people likely wouldn't consider it an option.
And this:
Sure, it's a good question. The average person, no matter if they "came" from wealth or poverty, sometimes wonders, if they died right now, who would miss them? Why and for what? At the end of the day every person that lives and walks was brought into their circumstance outside of their will and simply tumbled out of a womb. Why do we value one over another? Because of the perceived power they have. That's all. Your depression is an absolute lie. And I could prove it, easily. If I haven't had my eye set on much higher sights. Perhaps you should just refocus your own. Given the fact you've been given everything.
Is an utter non answer. Never mind that depression isn't a lie, but that's not what's happening here and I think that also just sweeps it under the rug to avoid a serious talk on the question. Though it does beg the question that if someone is "Given everything" and still wants to opt out then why?
I also find hind sight bias plays a big role in people saying life is worth it. Just because your life worked out doesn't mean others would and wanting them to stick around for your sake and sanity in the rightness of your choice is selfish. People have to stop being so scared to talk about death and the value of life.
So yeah, I'll restate my last argument in the previous thread I made, please don't close this one. I feel like it does a disservice to philosophy to dodge difficult questions.
__
If you feel like rewriting it as a response in this thread, do so.
A therapist, who just might suggest "euthanasia as a treatment option", as is slowly becoming the new normal in "civilized" societies?
Unlikely
Pretty sure they don't do that.
They aren't answers thought. Love isn't a reason it's just platitudinous nonsense, same with making meaning. I gave the case at the start why such reasons don't hold water.
I don't understand this view of compulsion. Whatever this life thing is, it has its own life. I have survived a number of crises because something took over while I was being stupid. We are more than we can talk about. Your premise assumes the contrary.
Quoting Darkneos
Let me see if I can use other words that you can accept more. If one considers only oneself, and only from one's own point of view, then it is clear that satisfaction is only ever transitory, suffering and death are inevitable and the sooner life is over the better.
Therefore, if there is any reason to live, it is not to be found in oneself in any pleasure or satisfaction one might obtain from living.
Therefore, I posit (but offer no proof) a reason for living that is self-overcoming, or self- transcending. This is illustrated in the film Groundhog Day, in which suicide fails utterly to end life but results in a repeating life that goes nowhere. This repetition only ends when everything is put into the day to make it better for everyone.
As long as you think only of yourself, you will keep coming back to the same miserable thoughts again and again. I wish I could be more clear about this for you, but I cannot disprove the platitudinous nonsense of your "platitudinous nonsense". If you want to understand, you will begin to understand, but if you don't want to, then you will have make do with the thin satisfaction of winning the argument, and you will miss all the richness of life.
I've never been looking for a "reason to live," though. What I was looking for was... determination. Either way: determination to get myself in order, or determination to end it. I think if I'd found determination, I wouldn't be here today. Being a wimp saved my life, for whatever that's worth. I grew out out the suicidal mindset, but the language stayed with me. I still think every now and then, I should just end it. But I've lived through wanting to be dead, so when it comes up now (I don't say this out loud to any one), I'm quite confident that I don't mean it. Wanting to die just feels different.
Something I've often wondered, though, is this: what if I'd really found "determination"? What would I have done? Would I have killed myself, or would have gotten my act together? It's possible, for example, that if I had been the person who could reach the determination to kill myself, might I have been a person who didn't want to kill himself? I'm quite content to never find out, because quite frankly I don't want to go through something like that ever again.
I don't have a "reason to live", though. And I don't feel like I need one. I find that life is... naturally persistent. I've been living all my life, and I'll be living until one day I won't be living anymore, which is a stretch of time only available as abstract protection - I may call it death, but since it's not part of my life it's not a state I'll ever have to contend with. Dying though... Dying is part of life, and a lot of the ways to go are unpleasant. Unless you die really quickly, or just drift off while asleep you'll have to contend with dying. Dying is far more frightening than being dead, to be honest.
So I just muddle through from day to day, enjoy what I can, and take on the rest as it comes. Life is value neutral, though it acquires secondary value - as a perceived binary switch - through the balance of things enjoyable and not. You can switch it all off, but if you do you're dead, and the question of whether it was worth it or not won't apply anymore. While I'm here, I might as well make the best of it, no? Won't always succeed, but, well... that's life. Because I used to be sucidal, and because the language never really left me, though, I have to stay vigilant. You see, a good internal "life sucks" can be quite cathartic, but say it just once too often, and it becomes this... habit, and it takes over the way you think. That's quite frightening. From someone who's been through it: life spent brooding about wanting to die is far more scary than death can ever be. It's a state of mind I don't ever want back.
But at the same time, all this talk about "love", or "life is good"... it all feels hollow and unreal to this day. It's ineffective. At the same time, though, some of it is demonstrably true.
Quoting unenlightened
Oh, yes, have I ever been through this. Around ten(?) years ago, I remember saying that not much worked when I was in deep, but what ultimately helped me was "doing things and watching people". That's how I phrased it, and it got a laugh out of who I think might have been a suicidal teen. It's really simple. In theory that is. Your wordview's quite a prison; tailored to keep you in.
So if people ask for a reason to live, what is it they ask for? A surefire plan to go through life without suffering? A teleological end so that your live will have had meaning once it's gone? A pot of gold at the end of a rainbow you can chase even if you know it's not there?
To me, looking for a reason to live sounds like trap to keep brooding. Life is value-neutral. Without it, you have nothing - which is sometimes good and sometimes bad, and when it's gone, it's neither good nor bad, because value has gone out with it. (Er... yes, we have social effects that outlast us and cast tendrils back in time to influence what we do while we can still do things, but my post's too long as it is.)
So, yeah, what helped to get back into the groove was "doing things and watching people", as a younger, wiser me has put it. Life won't necessarily get better, but the bad things get easier to bear, and the good things get easier to enjoy. The latter I found especially valuable.
Not easy, though. Not easy at all. A song that gets it, but promises too much:
Quoting Darkneos
Any discussion of suicide and the meaning of life has to take into consideration the legal status of euthanasia and assisted suicide in a particular country/jurisdiction. Individual countries differ greatly from one another in this regard, from those strictly opposed to them to those where they are legal.
Then there are other considerations to take into account, like insurance companies refusing to pay for the medical treatment of the terminally ill, but willing to cover the cost of euthanasia.
It is implausible to think that death only harms a person when someone else kills them, but not if they kill themselves. If I accidentally step off a cliff to my death, my death is just as harmful to me if someone had pushed me off the cliff instead.
Therefore, whether self-inflicted or other-inflicted, death is harmful to the one who dies. (None of this is seriously in dispute; 'why' it is harmful - yes, that's in dispute...but 'that' it is harmful is not)
There is clearly a moral difference between inflicting death on another and inflicting it on oneself. That seems obvious too. But there is no difference in the amount of harm it does to the one who dies.
From this it follows that a person has powerful reason not to kill themselves under most circumstances - circumstances in which their continued living would not harm them more, anyway.
That's a case against suicide. It's not a moral case - the conclusion is not that it is immoral to kill oneself (though it may be), but that it is imprudent to do so. The reason it is imprudent to kil oneself under most circumstances is that doing so will harm the one who does it more than continued living would .
It seems like a very strong case too, as if you argue that death is not harmful to the one who suffers it, then you're going to struggle to explain why it is so wrong to kill someone else.
No.
William Styron wrote "Darkness Visible", a short memoir of his depression. It struck me as conspicuously superficial, but with one point sticking out. Namely, he says words to the effect that the only thing that was worse than his depression was the medical treatment he received for it (he freely went to a mental institution). He writes how he then complied, superficially, with the treatment, just so as to get out of the institution.
It's important to understand that especially in modern Western society, existential topics 1. are tabooed, and 2. what the consequences of breaking this taboo are. Talk about these things at the wrong place, and you could get the police at your door, and then some.
There is a whole art to not talking about existential topics, and it's important to master it. Already simply because of the sheer amount of time and energy that can be wasted in the process if done wrongly.
Quoting unenlightened
The same applies to your so called love. At the end its still about you and feeling better for yourself it just happens to help others. Though that said that doesnt mean there is value in it. Like I already explained and why your logic still falls short.
Quoting unenlightened
That movie is a terrible example because the loop really only breaks when he wins the girl over, didnt really have much to do with helping others. But again, its a movie its not reality and obviously the lesson of most films is to reinforce positive social norms. Try again. Quoting unenlightened
Oh I know this doesnt work because Ive done this most of my life and its just as hollow and empty as the pleasure of the self you seem to place less importance on.
You didn't even read the original post I made which addresses why your argument fails.
Never mind that I've done that before and it doesn't lead to meaning or value or anything you mention.
Is there a way you'd prefer people to respond to you in the thread?
I guess some indication that my replies and posts are being read and engaged with.
The whole "love" thing I covered at the start and yet it just feels like people are simply saying shit without reading how I covered that part.
Love only matters if one has to live and in death there is no concern over any of that stuff, even the pain that would follow from your death. To make a case against it you'd have to engage with why living would be preferable when it's not a requirement to be alive.
I suppose if you contrast a life which stops now, and a life which stops in the future, if you believed the life which stops now accumulates less net suffering (what's good - what's bad) than the life which stops later, that would be a "good reason" to end it.
Where other people come in is that there's a presumption in your posts so far that the person considering suicide's suffering is more important than the suffering of those they leave behind. It's a big gamble there, as a sudden death is the kind of thing that can ruin loved ones' lives. NB it does not matter if the person who wants to commit suicide loves them back, those who loves' wounds matter equally. Well not necessarily, but it's a good principle to believe that every person's suffering is of equal note all else held equal. Though perhaps that is obviated if our hypothetical person who wishes to die has people who love them.
Yes, I am saying it can be more moral to trap yourself in a cage of others' love than to end it. Even if your life is so worthless that it might as well not have been, for you, that does not mean others share that valuation. A person ending themselves in that instance deprives others of something they cherish: them.
Quoting Darkneos
Im a staunch nihilist, because my impeccable reasoning /slash/ faith makes me so. Prove to me that there is any worthwhile meaning which can occur in a meaningless world! Agape as meaningful, btw, can only be irrational and thereby idiotic in the world I live in. To which, anyone who opens their mouth can only be an idiot for not agreeing with nihilism. Come to think of it, this line of reasoning sort of has the same vibe that arguments for solipsism does - which in a way is the ultimate valuing of the existence of self.
So, being just such an idiot myself though maybe with a different flavor, anyone ever seen the movie Wristcutters: A Love Story?
Yes, yes, as a movie its about upholding societal norms via the partial plot of romantic love only that it aint. No absolute wrong to killing oneself in the movies story. Besides, it nicely touches upon the taboo existential topic of suicide in sometimes poignant manners with a good deal of humor. Heres a trailer to it:
But again, it hinges on death not being the end, which is contrary to nihilism, which, as all nihilists will attest to, is idiotic. Funny in a way how certain nihilists can entertain possibilities from solipsism to an infinite number of universes but not in any way the possibility of an existence after death.
You're sort of hardwired to try to preserve your own life. Adrenaline is your body's argument.
What a number of philosophical people have done in the face of the challenge is to seek authenticity. Discover who you really are and live life like a sacred dance. Of some kind.
So it takes some courage to direct a firearm into your mouth. It also takes courage to find the way to live life on your terms: to learn to say yes to life as Nietzsche very well might have said. It starts by learning to listen.
What kind of greater reason do you mean? Whats wrong with meaning people create for themselves?
Quoting Darkneos
Huh? Nothing in life matters because you will die and when youre dead nothing in life matters? Is that what you are saying? If so, why wouldn't the life stuff matter while youre alive?
As far as I know the cosmos does not supply ready-made meaning for us. You are certainly NOT the first person to discover that life may be, can be, may seem to be... meaningless. Get used to it and move on. That's what people do.
Struggling? Fighting, Pursuing? Suicide is a possible solution but the most obvious alternative to the unsatisfactory rat race of striving, struggling, and all that is to stop striving, stop struggling. Try to be more in the present moment rather than being busy trying to accomplish something in the future, or fretting over something not done in the past, because "now" is where you live.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850) said,
We are way too busy striving which leaves us depleted, deflated, depressed. Step one: stop it.
Avoid perseveration. What's that? spending a lot of time chewing over the same idea (like, [i]life has no meaning, nothing matters, I might as well be dead[/I]).
What should you do if you are perseverating? In a nutshell, stop it, at once! Stop it because it's a giant waste of time going in mental circles and wearing a rut in your mind.
At the very least, hold off planning your suicide until you have a really good reason to do it, like developing Huntington's disease, terribly painful terminal cancer, or some other mortal threat. As for discovering that life is meaningless, well...pfffft.
That's an awfully idealistic scenario. Not rarely, it's precisely those other people who want someone to die, and they even say so.
Spoken like a retired baby boomer.
For an increasing number of people, the struggling and the striving isn't a matter of too much ambition, but a matter of bare survival.
The sheer physical and mental exhaustion from work eventually makes one wonder why go on with it.
People of your age could at least hope to retire someday, they had something to look forward to. This is the case for fewer and fewer people nowadays.
Official psychology tends to be quite out of touch with the realities of life.
I'm gonna chime in and say, it seems like a lot of more people nowadays are simply dissatisfied with work itself. Just the idea of 'work' makes them lose the motivation. If that's the case, there's no solution. We all need to work to live.
Agreed, though; as a group, the post WWII birth cohort were lucky--what with a 25 year growth period, generous government programs, full employment, and so on. If subsequent generations find it difficult to retire (a pattern that prevailed before the 20th century), there are several guilty parties to blame: The administration of the government has not been as good a steward of Social Security and Medicare funds as they could have been. Wealthy people have worked hard to avoid being taxed at a level where entitlement programs could be properly and fully financed. Antigovernment politicians have worked to hobble agencies, like the IRS which gathers in what the government needs; they'd like to do away with social security / medicare / medicaid altogether. Fucking bastards!
Fortunately or unfortunately, people tend to live longer now than when Social Security was set up. Longevity uses up more reserved funds.
I have a great deal of empathy for younger people who are starting out or are at mid career, or heading toward retirement age. Short of major reform (nothing revolutionary is required), millions of old workers are going to have a tough time. 20% of younger people -- those professionally employed at good salaries -- will do fine. The rest, no so much.
BTW, it isn't just Social Security. Many state managed retirement funds are in very bad shape. Generous promises were made to the state employees, but not nearly enough cash was collected to actually fund the promises.
So, spoken like a retired baby boomer or not, I'll stick to my advice to Darkneos.
Interesting fact: prior to the social security expansion act and other social program actions in the mid 1960s, poverty among the elderly was around 35%.
:up:
Quoting L'éléphant
:up:
Now back to suicide.
Irrelevant, for reasons I already mentioned. There is no real need to be concerned over what happens to others if one is dead. All that stuff vanishes so why should it matter if other people hurt?
Quoting javra
Saying not to do it because there might be an afterlife is, IMO, a stupid argument. Considering there is no reason to think there is one it's about as effective as wet sand.
Quoting frank
I already explained why that argument doesn't work.
Quoting DingoJones
There is no reason to do it. Filling life with stuff to do only counts if you have to live and you don't.
Quoting BC
The present moment is where one feels pain and wishes to end it, so that's a pretty terrible point to make. The arguments against suicide often appeal to a future that doesn't exist and can't be guaranteed, hence the hindsight bias.
So be a bum. Many people give up, get off the hamster wheel and drop out of "the struggle" e.g. monastics, hermits, homeless, (RV) nomads, off-the-grid preppers, et al. Ancient traditions of (e.g.) Epicureans & Kynics celebrated this marginal way of life as attaining "ataraxia". For some, dumb animal "happiness" suffices. :strong:
You (all of us) are going to die soon enough anyway so why the rush to end yourself? :eyes:
As pointed out already, suicide is a permanent (non)solution to a temporary (non)problem thus, irrational (or pathological). That there is no inherent reason to live demonstrates that there is no inherent reason to kill yourself. You were Born. You Learn. You Love-Lose. (You unLearn.) You will Die. No "argument" for or against "life" or the lack of an "argument" changes these facts of life, so stop whining and get over yourself, dude. :death: :flower:
I mean, I know such arguments are unfavored here, but you don't actually know anything about what does or does not happen after death minus what a 2 year old can observe and comment on.
So, you know. The idea that there is a multitude of reasons to favor what we consider mortal life versus death is wholly valid. I mean, you just woke up one day and came to the conclusion every thing that can be possibly known or experienced in such a vast world and universe happens to be in your head? Pretty flimsy argument, all things considered. Just saying.
Beyond that, there are tangible things, which I presume is what you are demanding. The unyielding sacrifice and strides man has made to provide such a quality life that any thinking person would undoubtedly be overjoyed at and desire to experience. From caves and clubs to interplanetary travel and technologies that those, not that long ago, before us could barely fathom in their wildest dreams. I mean, the logic is there. And boy is it sound. Deafening, really. It's simply up for you to see it when you're ready.
Does man become content when his pleasures and necessities are met? Absolutely. Is this contentedness perhaps not always ideal for his condition and positive opinion on life versus his idea of non-life? Maybe so. Maybe so. Read into the idea of the hedonic treadmill some. This may help you better understand what others are suggesting and following along with to a tee.
Yes, we do not know that at all, despite the fact that seculars today pretend to.
Harming oneself is bad. ...That's a sound principle that does not require pretending to know that there is nothing after death. Things are not at bleak as they seem. Reality has a way of surprising our simplistic and short-sighted fears and expectations.
Is it? What is it good for? What other places have you visited?
Quoting Darkneos
You want an 'argument against suicide' - why? Are you considering suicide and want to be argued out of it? Or is it simply intellectual - you present a case 'for' with reasons, others either agree or disagree, and you either accept or refuse any 'conclusions' because...
Either way, it's good to talk about it, listen carefully to other perspectives, even if you judge them not relevant to your case. This is a public forum, not everyone participates but people read and can gain from an exchange of views.
Quoting Darkneos
What do you consider 'nonsense'? What is 'special pleading to life'.
Is it something along the lines of wiki's:
Quoting Special Pleading - Wiki
'Hindsight bias' - do you have any examples used in previous 'arguments'? Is it related to:
Quoting Wiki - Hindsight Bias
Edit: you mentioned this:
Another perspective: People can look back and wonder if it was all worthwhile. The struggle and its overcoming doesn't mean that life is great or has 'worked out' well. You are right, not everyone wants the same. So what? See bolds, not sure what you're driving at. I think the topics of life and death are being more openly discussed. For example: The right to die.
MPs have voted in favour of proposals to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2l7m6r55do
What I've read of the discussion so far, you seem to have been there, tried it all and either ignore or are pretty dismissive of suggestions. It seems that you have closed your ears and eyes and are focusing more on 'winning an argument'. Why does this matter to you?
Quoting Darkneos
What do you mean by 'no greater reason to meaning to life'?
This post by @180 Proof pretty much gets straight to the point:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/953804
Ending:
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting Darkneos
I don't know that we HAVE to live, but for the most part people want to live or are not ready to die.
Life goes on, no matter what physical or mental state we are in.
Why do you use the derogatory 'all that junk' towards the idea that people can find life rewarding in caring about self, others and the world? What does logic have to do with it? It's about being or becoming the best that you can be in sometimes difficult circumstances. Overcoming the overwhelming negatives that can surround us, externally and internally. Making the most of it. Just getting on with it, because there is nothing else for it. Unless you end it all. That is not always an option, or the best one.
If you live, there are needs and wants. It seems you don't care much for 'so-called love'.
If you die, there is no need for anything. That's logical. Why don't you want to need anything?
I don't know the answers but I've enjoyed listening to others. Good to know that your discussion continues...and people are engaging. Take care :sparkle:
Thanks for pointing out perceptions and realities of the term 'baby boomer'.
I dislike the term and how it is used to create divisions and rancour between the generations.
I dislike generalisations in particular/general...
It seems that an 'existential crisis' can happen to anyone at any point in their thinking lives. When people despair and have no hope...they can't see a way forward.
This article and the BTL comments are fascinating. Some philosophy also included:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/dec/15/im-nearly-80-and-theres-a-void-in-my-life-that-hobbies-cant-fill
It's trivial compared to the subject of Suicide. However, it is real and illuminates 'existential boredom'.
Edit to add someone's BTL comment:
Important to recognise the reasons/causes underlying a mental state. If you think it's all in the mind, then you'd be wrong. The body and the brain are interlinked. Disconnection, mental confusion or depression has a host of physical causes. Correct diagnosis is essential if any disorder is to be fixed.
You might think you know the answers to the 'problems'. Been there, tried that. But perhaps you need to dig deeper to see what the problems or difficulties really are.
Another BTL comment:
One is not dead when one is deciding whether one should be dead. What you just wrote frames the debate as if someone who is already dead is trying to decide if they should kill themselves. Usually someone is in the former case and not the latter.
Yes. There seems to be a lack of imagination or empathy as to the effect on others. Perhaps they have nobody who cares for/about them. Or it seems that way. And so, the feeling is reciprocated. Perhaps they want to ruin any happiness others might appear to be enjoying. Appearances can be deceptive. Others might be just as pissed-off about life but dealing with it in their own way.
Quoting Darkneos
'Life stuff' might not matter to you - in life or death. But it does to others. If you don't see a need to be concerned or care about people and their emotions, then so be it. I doubt you will be persuaded otherwise. Have you been hurt? Is it worse or better than not being recognised or cared for? Or is being ignored a fate worse than death?
Perhaps people have to stop being scared to open themselves up. Perhaps there should be improved access to 'talking therapy'. To talk about life difficulties, relationships and how best to cope. Keeping it all in can be toxic. But, then again, why open a can of worms, especially when there's nobody around to catch the blighters.
This supposedly adverse effect on others is so often grossly overstated.
Sure, if those others have depended on the person financially or in some practical way (such as for cleaning and cooking), then, sure, if that person dies, for whatever reason, those dependents will suffer a loss.
But so often, it's precisely those "loving loved ones" who push someone into taking their own life. Not rarely, they even wish for it.
A lack of imagination or empathy means that the person can't envisage being in someone else's shoes. There is a lack of understanding and low consideration of how their actions can affect others; their emotions or wellbeing.
This can adversely affect relationships. Because if so self-centered, they don't want to listen or know. There is little point in continuing a discussion, about suicide, with someone who sees it only as an argument to win, logically.
Some people don't even realise their lack of awareness. And the role empathy plays in building trust and maintaining good relationships. Communication.
If they show a lack of compassion, care or love, it might not be that they don't care but that they don't know how to, or haven't experienced any.
Or, in the case of certain politicians who have reached high positions of power (without much responsibility), it can be part of a narcissistic personality disorder. This type is not likely to be considering suicide. Even if they are unhappy, they have too much to live for...
There are other areas or spectrums of mental health issues but I've said enough.
Leaving it here, thanks.
The irony, oh the irony.
Sounds more like you dont have an actual case to make.
I already addressed this with my so what at the beginning. Quoting Amity
Not an argument. Like Ive mentioned before people who argue against it dont have a real cases to make against it. You say you wont be persuaded but thats more signaling that you have nothing to offer and rely on people just assuming life is worthwhile and to think otherwise makes you sick, thus proving my point.
Par for the course
Not really. I think I've played my part in listening and responding.
I will continue to read with interest.
As are your repetitions.
I'm cluttering up the thread with meaningless stuff, because everything is meaningless, and i am an idiot. Or as I would rather put it, making a performative affirmation.
I like that. Great term--existential vacuum.
I've experienced that a few times -- major goals which took years to reach, then achieved, then "now what?" Or, foundational beliefs play out and new foundational beliefs have to be found and set in place. James Russel Lowell (New England poet, Romantic era) said in a poem that "Time makes ancient good uncouth". But one doesn't want an existential vacuum of values--too much of that going around.
I stumbled when I encountered my first vacuum. I had finished a degree, worked in a peace-corps type program a couple of years, did some more school, then got a job at a college. After 3 or 4 years, the 10 year plan was over. Now what? It took me years to fill the vacuum but I did, several times over.
I've lived with chronic depression for decades (under control, thanks to medicine) but have never felt more than a twinge of suicidal thinking. We must be careful how we talk to ourselves: if a lot of our internal dialogue is about the pointless, meaninglessness of life, suicide as a solution, and so on -- we are -- at the very least -- sowing the seeds of more unhappiness, if not our death.
:lol:
Stay cool and in the groove, man :cool:
You have yet yo explain why, make an argument instead of an assertion. Also, no reason for you doesnt mean no reason for anyone. Obviously plenty of people have found their own reasons reasons.
You didnt answer my other comment:
Quoting DingoJones
You need to expand on these points youre trying to make if you're actually interested in discussion.
Yes. From the Guardian article linked earlier, glad you enjoyed it.
The sharing of life experiences - such as you have done here - is so valuable. To hear the stories. Life wisdom passed on. Sometimes too late. If I knew then, what I know now. Yup.
Quoting BC
You've had your share of challenges, and finding your way through them.
Great to have you here to tell the tale.
I never had a 10yr plan. It took me a bit of trial and error to eventually find something I had thought not for me. But hey...
I find it strange that I'm still in the process of discovering mysel. I've never contemplated suicide but have felt like I didn't want to go on. I imagine most people go through similar.
Chronic, clinical depression is a whole other ballgame. Glad to know yours is well controlled with medication.
I saved some of the comments from the article, including this. Note, it isn't about a vacuum but a change.
To see the potential in an apparent problem. Not always easy.
To become who we really are. To find a hidden talent.
For some, it can take a lifetime...
Enjoy the ride! :flower:
And yes. This:
Quoting BC
The idea of committing suicide is not simple. That is because some self-harm and survive, whereas others may make acts of self-harm and survive. It is about the juggling of risk in the tension between life and death existentially.
A good reason to stay alive while we can!
Yes?
The way the suicide discussion is so often carried out in Western culture (what little there is of such discussion, that is) is that all the blame is conveniently placed on the person who killed themselves or seems to want to, along with calling them mentally ill, selfish, etc. While it is somehow considered bad taste to point out how others may have contributed to the suicide, or even caused it.
All that talk of love, empathy, compassion. And yet, it is somehow always other people who should be the first to practice love, empathy, compassion, and never those who preach them.
How vulgar.
This is another vulgar attitude. No, it has not been my experience that people generally accept that life is meaningless. This is a perverse, vulgar sentiment that can be found primarily among the educated poor.
You yourself have noted more than once how your degree in the humanities and your socioeconomic background were in conflict, and how you could never really be part of the academia or the intellectual class, given your socioeconomic background. It's this conflict that is the breeding ground of existential anguish.
It is my hypothesis that people who are poor but whose ambitions in life are realistic aren't likely to get depressed. In contrast, policies like the "no child left behind", all that striving for equity, equal opportunity, this is what is creating depressed people.
It's when one is trying to be something one is not that one gets sucked into an abyss of existential problems.
Thank you for sharing your experience of 'the suicide discussion'.
I don't see any blame or name-calling being attached to anyone here. It's been instructive, even if responses have been repeatedly dismissed.
Most have been patient but there is a limit.
Quoting baker
'All that talk' - 'those who preach them'.
I talked about a lot more than that. There was no preaching. It concerned the lack of empathy and its effects on a person and their relationships.
Like others, I took time, listened, asked questions, provided other perspectives which were ignored.
I will leave this thread for the time being. Another TPF Activity beckons. :sparkle:
Unfortunately for your theories, the reality is the majority of unsuccessful suiciders regret their decision to attempt suicide. In fact among unsuccessful suiciders, greater than 90% will never die of suicide (23% will have another unsuccessful attempt, but a whopping 70% will never attempt it again).
I'm no stranger to being wrong, but I so far don't find a connection between what I've said and what you've said. Can you embellish?
I honestly don't understand what you're after, though. "Preferable"? So I consider suicide: (a) Do I prefer to continue living, or (b) do I prefer to die? That's a choice. "Requirement"? Someone or something requires me to live. Who? What? How does that impact the choice I'm about to make (as soon as I stop dithering)? Or would you like some convincing philosophical position that makes the choice moot?
The two poles aren't equal, here. It's not a choice between to equally attainable options, where you can also just walk away. Vanilla or chocolate ice cream? Meh, I want strawberry. Maybe next time. If one wonders whether one wants to die or not, one is necessarily alive. You don't need to make a decision to go on living: that's the default state. When I was suicidal, I was constantly dithering until I was no longer suicidal. I never made a choice, so I still live. If I'd made the choice to go on living, that would, presumably, have changed the way I went on with my life.
In real life situations, rather than being between life and death, the choice is usually between taking different sorts of action: there are quite a few ways to go out, and there are quite a few ways to go on. A lot of the time, people may have decided to kill themselves, but they don't go through with it because they can't find a good method (success-rate too low, too painful, leaves too much of a mess for others to clean up...). Some people might kill themselves because there's an easy method available (e.g. the gun in Daddy's locker), and because the way forward has no visible path. People don't pick between life and death in a cosmological slot machine. They decide act: one way or another. (Or, as in my case, make no choice at all.) It's a rare philosophical suicide who chooses between life and death on some underlying requirement.
That doesn't mean that there's no discussion here; it just means that, because over the course of my life, I've read a lot about suicide for personal reasons, I tend to have my head filled with the practicals. So what could a requirement for life even be in principle? The way I see it living things live and eventually die. Any choice occurs during that stretch of time. "To live" is thus not a choice. The child that wasn't born doesn't get to choose life. The child that does get born, doesn't get a say either. So the requirement must somehow be ex post facto: it's a requirement for the living to continue living. And they do anyway: until they die. So it's not so much a requirement to continue living (which is automatic), but a proscription: don't take actions that shorten your life. But then we're not quite with suicide yet. See, that can apply to any risk taking behaviour, too: don't smoke, don't be a fire fighter etc. So maybe it's "Don't set death as your goal?"
But if it's about goal setting, what do I make of this line from your OP:
Quoting Darkneos
Pleasure and Death are alternative goals you can set. As you say, they're mutually exclusive. What you're saying sounds to me like "Given that I'm dead, why should I set as a goal any of those things that can no longer matter to me?" But this makes no sort of sense to me: first, you can't set any goals once you're dead. Second, once you're dead that-which-matters-to-you is n/a. You're gone. It's a category error. It's not that things no longer matter to you; it's that mattering has ceased.
This is a long and maybe pointless post, but I'm having trouble pinning down a perspective from which it makes sense to tackle your question. I hope you understand my troubles otherwise we're bound to talk past each other.
(Besides this, there's a secondary question I have: what if there's a requirement for life, but I don't like that requirement and kill myself anyway? But that's a different post.)
Why would ice cream be preferable if youre not required to eat it? Why is it preferable to drive your car when you dont have to drive your car?
These questions dont need to be engaged with because they are incoherent, and so is your comment above. Once you bring requirement into it you are no longer talking about preferences at all. Incoherent.
I made that point already, such things matter only if you have to live and there is no have to when it comes to living.
Theyre not, youre just not able to engage with them. Its easier to just dismiss such things rather than wonder why we even bother with them.
Its true, why eat ice cream if you dont have to. Why do things that make life enjoyable when you can just die and not need to do such things anymore? Filling life with good things only makes sense when one is prevented from dying and thus must make life enjoyable. But since there is no such restriction then we dont have to do all that.
Quoting Dawnstorm
Its more like why prefer life to death, which is the end of the pursuit.
Every day you dont off yourself is a choice to live. Its not really the default.
But that ignores your life. Whatever is keeping you alive does not care a whit about your logic.
I didnt ask you to make the point, I asked you to expand on the points and specifically:
What kind of greater reason do you mean? Whats wrong with meaning people create for themselves?
Quoting Darkneos
You cannot engage with something incoherent, correct. However it is not true that I am being dismissive, I do wonder why people bother. Observe I have not made flowery appeals to lifes beauty etc.
That is because I dont think those things are inherently good and people are free to place no value on any of that stuff (inner peace, self love, loving others, being part of a community any of that pro life jibber jab)
Just answer my two questions above if nothing else.
You are keeping you alive when you eat and all that stuff.
Quoting DingoJones
I already covered that at the start, youre just not paying attention.
Quoting DingoJones
No its not incoherent you just arent able to engage with it. If you read the posts youd see why your questions arent relevant.
I think were lucky to exist. Sure life is unfair and a struggle at times but were lucky enough to experience the good that comes from it. You dont have to be rich to enjoy it, its just a ride and getting off it before it finishes hurts (suicide) so just let life play itself out, dont put too much pressure on yourself, were blessed that we get to exist because when we cease to exist that will be forever and its a once only event.
And I suppose that applies to all the other desires I have.
There are different kinds of desires and pursuing their consummation is an engagement with one's life. That is why apathy and depression factor into some considerations of suicide. On the other hand, the rush of risk taking also leads to a lot of death. I find both extremes unnecessary for myself.
What I had in mind about one preserving life is the way one jumps out of the way of the truck or jumps to save a colleague. These actions are not on a drop-down menu. The person who does them is just as alive as the other agents of choice.
I have worked in a dangerous industry for most of my life. The epistemology of learning what is stupid has joined forces with this person who is always alert for the bad things. It is a beautiful partnership that I am grateful for.
(PM me personally if you feel such matters need to be discussed further)
Not even a reply because it's speaking massively of privilege and doesn't grasp the whole scope of life. Outside of modern society life is pretty brutal, and even in society you have to be born lucky to experience the good stuff. Honestly man...have some perspective.
Quoting Tom Storm
I think the least helpful answers are the ones that insist life has good points or that one is lucky to be alive. That smacks of hindsight bias. I'm not an anti-natalist myself but I find it hard to argue against their claims and reasoning. People who think life is worth living are lucky and shouldn't speak on it's value.
Huh? Only a small minority of the population attempt suicide. And even among those who attempt it and fail, only about 7% will reattempt and succeed, that is 93% won't die by suicide.
@Tom Storm - that was a good question to ask, after all the different responses are gathered in.
And found wanting.
Most interesting to read @Darkneos reply.
Quoting Tom Storm
And now what?
I agree it makes sense but not sure it is hindsight bias. I think some work hard, every day, to counter life's negativities and real life problems. We don't know what posters have been through, might still be going through. Some have worked out their own best coping mechanisms, others might have had professional help.
I seem to remember you have expertise in this area, or similar.
Do you agree with Darkneos that people who think life is worth living shouldn't speak to its value? Or try to persuade someone. It could be counter-productive, no?
Perhaps, if they are rubbing their good fortune in, like salt to an open wound, I can see it's not helpful.
I can't remember all the responses but I can't recall anyone doing that. Perhaps, its all in the perception.
And not everyone is 'lucky'. Life is what we make it. It's hard work. Where there is a will, there is a way.
Someone once said. But what if there is no will? What then?
You said you were interested to read people's responses. And waited until now to ask a most pertinent question. So, what now? What advice would you give people who only want to help?
Is it even possible to make a satisfactory logical argument in this kind of situation?
What are the main causes of suicide in young people?
And how can they be addressed?
What does it mean to say, "Life is worth living"? or "Lucky to be alive"?
It doesn't always seem like it is, or we are, does it? Even for those perceived as 'lucky'.
It depends on so many circumstances that we have no control over.
Which philosophy or psychology coping strategy is the most helpful, in your opinion?
In the Northern hemisphere this is the shortest day, longest night. The hours of daylight will start to increase. Some celebrate this: "Happy Winter Solstice!".
But the days are still dark and dreich. Lack of sunlight can bring mood right down.
People making merry, when you are feeling low, can make you feel worse.
Loneliness is felt. Not only by the young.
Is this when most suicides are committed?
What changes would make someone's life more bearable?
So the question for this thread topic isn't something like "Is life worth living?"
But rather, "Is life worth living for underprivileged, unlucky people?"
And if we look at the modern socioeconomic trends, the answer to the latter is clearly, No.
Modern cultures that view euthanasia and assisted suicide positively and have legalized them are clearly saying that if one cannot live up to a certain socioeconomic standard, then it's better to die.
And whence is one supposed to get the optimism to believe this argument or see it as relevant?
Presumably every person has a breaking point, some just reach theirs temporally sooner than others. Once a person has reached that point, based on what can they still see their particular predicament not only as temporary, but, more importantly, that many better things are yet to happen for them and that their life will be nice and easy from that point on until the end?
Not always. Don't forget people who have degenerative illnesses who would prefer to die than continue to experience suffering. Also people who have experienced traumatic events (prolonged sexual abuse, etc). The memories and pain - the PTSD may never go away either. Suicide may feel like the only method to gain permanent relief.
Several things.
First, the source of the "optimism" is the Actual Data that proves that among those in your exact situation (contemplating suicide), the vast majority (70 - 93%) will change their mind and decide that life is, in fact worth living after all. Though your implication is correct that many can not or will not understand or accept that data. But that is an error.
Additionally, we all continuously make a calculation that weighs the positives and negatives associated with continued existence. And you are correct some reach the point whereby the calculation tips to favor suicide. Say someone comes to that point at age 24. Statistically such a change is commonly brought about by a sudden, unanticipated negative (divorce, death of a loved one, financial or professional loss). That is: an acute event, as opposed to the effect of accumulated chronic issues. Think about it, if everything was going great for me then in a week my dad dies, my wife sleeps with my best friend and divorces me and my business is sued and goes under, my calculation will switch from "worth living" perhaps to "not worth living". However, fast forward 2 years, the death of a parent is something essentially everyone comes to grips with, as is divorce and bankruptcy. You'd be in a totally different mindset than the previous time point. OTOH, if I was born into abject poverty, with no family support, no economic resources and clinical depression, and I have reached the age of 24, by definition my calculation at age 23 was "worth living", so maybe at 24 it has tipped to "not worth living". Well considering what I have (successfully) dealt with all my life probably what has changed is my clinical depression (since everything else is rock bottom). Clinical depression is notorious for it's roller-coaster trajectory of ups and downs, that is how you're feeling is likely temporary.
Lastly your goal of life being "nice and easy" is a false one. Loads of people with not nice and not easy lives believe their life is worth living, which is the decider in this context.
Well, you've pointed out a permanent problem (the degenerative illness), and I fully agree with Physician Assisted Suicide in such cases (as do many if not most).
As to grinding, chronic issues, those become the "norm" over time and don't independently tip the scales to "not worth living". True, the pain they cause provides plenty of examples in the "negative" category, but if despite their presence, the calculation is "worth living" something else, or a drastic worsening, needs to cause the balance to shift.
I have spent 35 years working with people who have experiences of complex trauma and abuse, some were tortured in prisons overseas, some were, as children, sexually abused by care givers in horrific ways. Many people who undergo such things never recover, their brains seem to be rewired by the trauma. The high levels of substance misuse and suicide for this cohort are indicative. The assumption to date is that in some cases counselling or medication can assist recovery. But recovery eludes many people who wrestle with trauma for years and some, understandably, give up.
Quoting LuckyR
I have read two suicide notes in the past ten years from people who used precisely your term, e.g., 'I can't cope with the roller coaster ride any more.' It's hardly temporary if it's a continuous cycle. The experience of this is exhausting and every time you seem to be feeling better, you are conscious that just around the corner is another crash.
I was not aware that you are a professional in this very area. Then you're obviously conversant with the data, which (as far as my contribution to this thread is concerned) can be summed up thusly:
"The Houston study interviewed 153 survivors of nearly-lethal suicide attempts, ages 13-34. Survivors of these attempts were thought to be more like suicide completers due to the medical severity of their injuries or the lethality of the methods used. They were asked: How much time passed between the time you decided to complete suicide and when you actually attempted suicide? One in four deliberated for less than 5 minutes! (Simon 2005).
Duration of Suicidal Deliberation:
24% said less than 5 minutes
24% said 5-19 minutes
23% said 20 minutes to 1 hour
16% said 2-8 hours
13% said 1 or more days"
In an Australian study of survivors of self-inflicted gunshot wounds, 21 of 33 subjects (64%) stated that their attempt was due to an interpersonal conflict with a partner or family member (deMoore 1994). Most survivors were young men who did not suffer from major depression or psychosis, and the act was almost always described as impulsive. A similar study in Texas with 30 firearm attempters found 60% had experienced an interpersonal conflict during the 24 hours preceding their attempt.
Hence my reference to suicide trying to solve (most commonly) a "temporary problem".
That age range is kinda problematic and the size is too small.
Quoting LuckyR
It's only temporary in hindsight, so that statement is false.
Uummm... no. 1) the reasons for most suicides are temporary. 2) many lay persons don't realize that.
It behooves all of us to make fact #1 more widely appreciated.
Ummm...yes. The reasons for suicide aren't temporary, we just say that because of hindsight. At that moment you don't know what's gonna happen.
Think of Stephen King's Mist where the dad offs everyone in the car at the end because there is no guarantee the horrors will be gone and they can't live like that. Later the mists lifts but regret remains. But again it's hindsight.
You can call research and experience "hindsight", if you want to. And "knowing what's gonna happen" isn't the requirement to make life decisions, otherwise no one would decide anything.
But seriously, we're in agreement that being in the state of mind to seriously contemplate suicide pretty much guarantees the individual is unlikely to be able to process counterintuitive data. Hence the need to broadcast what is known in general from past experience.
Knowing what's going to happen is a requirement, that's how we make decisions. We do what we think is best based on reasons.
Quoting LuckyR
No we're not, because the alternative data is just hindsight and is invalid.
No, the data is not generally relevant to the practice of suicide intervention. It's also understood that the data on suicide isn't accurate. Deaths by suicide are often misclassified and underreported.
It's true that for many people suicidal ideation appears to be situational and may be crudely described as temporary. But most people I've seen in this space seem to have persistent triggers over a given year for many years. In other words, the temporary is recurrent. Birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, etc are regular triggers for some.
But even where suicidality is temporary, this doesn't generally assist the person experiencing the emotional pain. The reality is that at the time people feel a chronic emptiness and/or hopelessness. To tell someone that this is temporary and they will feel better later may be experienced as unhelpful or irrelevant. People sometimes try to use this approach in counselling and the results are somewhat haphazard.
I never said nor implied that the REASON an individual contemplates suicide is always temporary (though you agreed that sometimes it is, say when it's situational). No, I meant that the conclusion after weighing of reasons to continue living vs dying concluding that suicide is the overall best course of action, is temporary. Sure, the REASON, let's say PTSD from a terrible upbringing, continues. But the day before the equation shifted towards "life's not worth living overall", the individual had the same terrible childhood and the same PTSD as a result and the decision was: "life IS worth living". The following day, for some reason the conclusion is the opposite, BUT some time after that, it shifts back the majority of the time (70 - 93%). All the while you're correct, for many, the stressor itself is not temporary. And I never said nor implied that the fact of the temporary nature of this conclusion should be the basis of therapy, as I have no experience in that aspect of the subject.
Okay dude, you be you.
The suicide prevention hotline has a success rate of barely 50% so their assessment on a problem isnt exactly valid.
And yeah the advice they give you is hindsight, they cant see the future. Some people never get over something and they just suffer in torment at feeling like they should be when they dont.
You just dont have a counterargument to what is obvious hindsight. You dont know the future so you cant say its a temporary problem.
You dont need to know the future to rationally conclude something is a temporary problem. You can assess outcomes based on previous cases, scientific knowledge, experiences, case studies etc etc.
if a doctor tells you your cold is a temporary problem are you going to say the same thing? You cant tell the future doc so Im going to just assume this will be a forever thing.
Of course there are cases in which what you're saying is true, that sometimes a persons suffering will be chronic or not temporary and suicide is a valid option but not in every case. Many times the suicidal thoughts do go away, or the problem is temporary.
Quoting Darkneos
Doctors have a much less than 50% rate of curing certain cancers, should we ignore their assessments on cancer as not valid either?
Several things.
First, I said it's usually temporary, not always temporary.
Second, while "some people" never get over their girlfriend's breaking up with them, wouldn't a normal person be interested in knowing that historically that number of "some people" is way less than 5%?
Lastly you can magically say it's NOT temporary (or permanent) as if you know the future. Not logical.
Hello! This is my first post, and of course I'm diving right into a heavy one! This is something I have considered a lot, actually, though obviously it's a tricky subject to talk about sometimes. I think the crux of the issue can be boiled down to a few things.
Q0) Does life have inherent value?
A0) Depends on the scale you're talking. Cosmically? Not really. Personally? Very much so. Spiritually? Obviously very debatable. I find there are a lot of different contradictory ways to answer this question, and how someone chooses to answer it tells you a bit about them.
Q1) Does life have value even when it isn't pleasant or is there a degree of unpleasantness to which death would be preferable?
A1) I feel like this is ultimately subjective, as the nature of suffering is personal and individual for the most part. From my perspective there are fates much worse than death, but I imagine everyone would have slightly different ideas on what that would be and some would disagree entirely.
Q2) If life does not have value when it is unpleasant, can value be generated or life be made less unpleasant?
A2) Again, ultimately subjective and/or due to circumstance. Fate is fickle though, so it's difficult to say with certainty if anything is truly unchangeable, so it's also difficult to advocate for walking away from the table when the game isn't over yet. Granted, I do also believe that sometimes a person can know when the only remaining move it to longer play. I just think that's a very personal decision.
Q3) If life does not have value, what is "the point" of anything?
A3) This is one I've personally struggled with, but I think it can rephrased and answered with another philosophical question I've chewed on over the years. "Why is there something instead of nothing?" can also be put "Why am I alive instead of dead?" And I think the answer then is simply "because you still are."
Ultimately, we are all surrounded at all times with a variety of ways to end our lives if we really really wanted to, and yet most people don't. Many don't ever even consider it. I believe to some degree life has a kind of momentum to it. So instead of "What is the point?", perhaps it's more like "What *is* the point." Being alive is to some degree, inherently self-affirming, or at least that's how I've tried to square that circle.
I think everyone comes up with reasons *why* they stay alive, be it religion, love, family, duty, honor, etc., Along the way, sometimes we lose those reasons, temporarily or permanently. Sometimes we find new reasons, sometimes we don't. However, I wonder if a lot of it really just boils down to "The argument against suicide is that you are alive to ask the question."
Thank you for your service.
Quoting LuckyR
You can't even say that, again it's hindsight.
Quoting LuckyR
We don't know that.
Sorry, it's the only answer I've got. Whether or not a person's life is "worth living" is one of the most personal questions I can imagine. I admit I also find it somewhat unsatisfactory, but it's the conclusion I've come to. I'm not convinced this can be objectively measured since so much of life is ultimately subjective.
You seem to be wedded intellectually to the concept of prospective knowledge (knowing what's going to happen, before it does). Since that's your thing, can you please give some examples of knowing what's going to happen before it does?
Not the same thing.
Youre making a claim that something doesnt last forever which can only be known in hindsight. Telling someone with suicide that is lying because you cant predict the future.
Not really, this is more like predicting future events. The store still standing is pretty much likely apart from a bomb going off or something.
But you prove my point, you don't know your grief is temporary so telling someone it is when you don't know isn't an answer just because other's was. It's like for those whom it wasn't they took their lives.
And I'm saying you don't know that.
A source of optimism for whom? The general public?
What are you talking about??
So if a person is contemplating suicide, they should reflect that there is a 70 - 93% chance that they will not pull the trigger/jump off a cliff/etc.??
You keep bringing in this sociological/statistical approach to a discussion that was from the onset intended to be philosophical. You keep avoiding the OP.
While it's understandable that the discussion of existential topics has to be opaque to some extent, at some point, all this opaqueness is just a waste of time.
One thing that is systematically being avoided in this discussion is the topic of shame and disgrace.
There are things that a person can do or which can happen to a person that render the person's life worthless, from then on forever.
On the one hand, there are criminal acts a person might do that the state deems so evil that the person's life must be taken via the death penalty. What the person has done might in fact be "termporary", but the state thinks the person doesn't deserve to live anymore. Treason is a prime example.
On the other hand, traditionally, some dishonoring events in a person's life, such as a woman being raped or a military general losing an important battle, for example, were considered so shameful that the person was expected to kill themselves (or be killed). It had nothing to do with PTSD or "not being able to bear the pain".
Do people even want everyone to survive?
If yes, then why the military industry (guns are for killing people, yes), why the approval of euthanasia and assisted suicide, why the approval of capital punishment?
Are suicidal people not correctly reflecting society's actual values? Namely, that some lives are not worth living?
Perhaps the most important thing to learn in such discussions is that existential topics (including the question of suicide) are mostly pointless to try to discuss with others, and that this is due to the nature of those topics.
The reality is we're all going to spend the vast majority of eternity as not alive, the only difference is the length of the tiny fraction of eternity being alive.
As to my statistical analysis, as it happens this topic of suicide is unusual in that there is a ton of experience of prior suicidal individuals who fail at their attempt and whether their personal viewpoint at the darkest moment of their life (by definition), ended up being an accurate analysis and prediction of their personal future. This analysis is an opportunity to glimpse into the future. Ignore this opportunity at your own risk.
Maybe, but they are also extremely important. To be honest such questions are more important than ontological or metaphysical stuff.
Quoting LuckyR
Well you can, it's just that death wins in the end.
My older brother killed himself last March, and in a pretty ugly way. This event devastated our large family. We are all traumatized, his siblings, his grown kids, his grandkids, some nieces and nephews, his friends. His grown son didn't speak for a couple of weeks after the death. My mom cries every day still. And prior to that, I saw her cry, just barely, maybe only five times. Was a tough lady!
My view of the world and life darkened considerably. I decided not to have kids with my wife partly because of it. And we just today decided on divorce over my reluctance to have kids.
And my brother was partly driven to that by the suicide of our nephew a long time ago, one he had taken under his wing and who spent his late teens with him. My nephew had two boys of his own when he committed suicide. That suicide sent my brother's life spiralling. He never got over it. Drove him to heavy drinking and painkillers. Destroyed his marriage. This nephew's suicide also wrecked the lives of his mom and three sisters.
Might sound like a BS story to you, but it's true.
I also have a friend whose stepdad committed suicide when my friend was a teen. Wrecked him. He was the darkest person I've ever known. So depressed. Suicidal himself. I was his lifeline, his only friend. Then, years later, his biological father did it too. And then, his counselor, also an older man, killed himself too. My friend was quite a mess for a long time. Luckily, he found God (I haven't), got married, and now has kids and is mostly okay, if a bit crazy.
Again, you probably think that's BS. It's not, unfortunately.
Suicide is horrific for the people who loved the person. It isn't at all like a normal death. I've thought about it myself a lot, but would never even consider going through with it unless I had no connections. I wouldn't do that to the people who love me. I've seen what it does to people.
I don't think it's on there.
I feel some obligation to talk to people who might become another of those people who might become another that one can no longer talk to, but there is- as others have pointed out, no argument to be made. Might as well sing a song.
There was a person who used to post on these forums some years ago, or at least before they moved to this new location. His handle was Miss Lonelyhearts. He was on the forums talking a lot about how meaningless his life felt, asking others to convince him that life is worth living. (These forums are a really bad place to come for that!) I really tried to help. I looked him up some months ago to see if I could learn anything and found an article about how there had been a search for him and they eventually found him in the forest deceased, apparently a suicide. I wonder if I could have done something differently to better help him.
I think I remember the handle, it was a long time back - on the old site? There are plenty of worse places to go, but if you can't find meaning in life, then words are not going to help, any more than a sign post can help when you don't know where you want to go.
(sorry for popping in mid conversation out of context) Without going into too much detail, I've had extremely similar events in my life and feelings. Hope you're doing okay.
There are indeed circumstances where suicide is a perfectly reasonable action and other circumstances where it is incredibly harmful to those left behind. How that determination is made is up to the individual involved but since this is one decision that cannot be undone it should be made with the most complete understanding possible and that means the dreaded counseling as well as one's own research and conscience as a guide to arrive at the best choice. Suicide may be an incredibly noble and righteous choice or it may be an unbelievably cowardly and selfish choice.
I would stipulate one case and one only, if one is likely to cause significant pain to a loved one by destroying themselves, and their reason is a matter of convenience (selfishness) to themselves to avoid the drudgery of life, they should stay alive for the sake of the loved one who would be hurt. I admit this is special pleading but it's the only case I can make against suicide. Any other case that involves only the circumstances and emotions of the one who's making the choice is strictly up to them without any further qualification.
(IMO) The reason is simple enough, human emotion and feeling count for something and you will die soon enough so wait it out, life is short anyway, the wait will be relatively quick. It seems "un-natural" to cut a life short when other lives may suffer for it, other than that consideration, all bets are off and one's life is one's own to do with what they see fit. I hope you find peace in whatever decisions you ultimately make.
A thoughtful and reasonable take on a difficult topic. I agree that folks are free to make the best decision for their particular circumstances. I also agree that such an important and especially permanent decision should be made with the utmost care and consideration. The fact that most make the decision relatively spontaneously is a tragedy.
I advised folks professionally who sought to make permanent decisions in situations where experience has shown that those in their demographic who chose to proceed later expressed regret at their decision in high numbers. Obviously I had a professional obligation to point out and underscore this statistic, but ultimately as these were adults, I assisted them should they choose, in spite of this knowledge, to go ahead. I did so with a clear conscience. Though most in my profession refused.
You cant really remove emotion and man made ethics or morality from it since wanting to off yourself is rooted in such things
Quoting Nietzsche
So with that we come to what Nietzsche details in Beyond Good and Evil
So find something that transfigures your outlook...
It's subjective to you. But Nietzsche says most people don't even know their way into or out of that labyrinth in his day, I'd assume that holds true today also.
Nietzsche isnt the best example given how his life turned out. He was wrong.
He overcame and became a world influencing philosopher who is still highly relevant to this day...
You just sound like the Narrator of the Aleph... a nihilist.
I wouldnt say he overcome anything since he didnt really embody the philosophy he preached.
What precisely didn't he live out?
I'm absolutely certain you've a lack luster knowledge of Nietzsche's philosophy to suggest that he himself would know it less than you.
Fine if you chose not too, but really all you've declared here is that you're too lazy to attempt to tackle Nietzsche. That your transfiguring mirror is sour.
"Everything is shit beneath me."
Certainly is with that reifying entry wedge into everything.
The man himself had a life that was effectively a downward spiral that ended with him having to be taken care of by others. He transfigured nothing.
In a sense all of it. He also happened to benefit from people not following his philosophy, especially morality.
He doesnt really understand how human society works or what made humans successful.
In short hes lucky people didnt obey his words.
Thanks and I also think your conscience should be clear, you were providing the right kind of support against conventional thinking but right nonetheless (although I do think people are coming around to the right way of dealing with this very important issue)
I disagree. Suicide may be rooted in those things or maybe not. Could be as simple as wanting to end the intractable pain from terminal bone cancer. I say the main argument against suicide is rooted in those things, not the wish to remove oneself from the suffering and loss and pain that it's possible to feel as a human being. Instead the religious view greatly effects whether we consider suicide a sin or a great act of heroism. Remove the religious, moral and ethical filters and focus on the 3 P's. The philosophical, psychological and physiological condition of the person who wishes to speed up their inevitable destiny.
:100: :up:
You can disagree but youd be wrong. Suicide is rooted in emotion same as philosophy. Wanting to end pain is emotional.
I mean you never really had an argument other than indignation so it wasnt hard.
LOL as I said I disagree. Well not entirely. I do think you can make a rational case for suicide but that requires more thinking and writing then I want to put in. For maybe most of the cases it's emotionally driven. So my disagreement is with the notion it's always and entirely guided by emotion unless you are claiming that emotion cannot be separated from our any of our conscious actions including rationality and that I would have to think about as that maybe true?? Hmmm
Its still not the case. Any sorta value system you would use to come to that determination is based on emotion. Its like Hume mentioned reason being a slave to the passions. There is no pure rational case for suicide or against it.
As you have stated it and quote Hume, that would suggest what I supposed. That rationality cannot be divorced from human emotion and so the statement that there is no "purely" rational case for suicide is trivial as there would be no "purely" rational case for anything else, by Hume's own quote.(reason is a slave to the passions) And as I stated last post, I'm amending my statement with regards to emotion anyhow.
Do you want to live? That's a perfectly fine reason not to commit suicide. Argument over. Now the greater question: Do you want to live, but currently you're not really feeling it right now? Go talk to a psychologist or friend. Try to get to the root of why you're not feeling that way when you once did. You cannot take personal emotional issues and turn them into philosophical issues. Good luck.
"Look at all the things you have to live for" is crap when you're on fire. So is "That's the coward's way out" and "You're going to hurt a lot of people if you kill yourself." It is all meaningless compared to the burning.
Obviously, burning is not a perfect analogy for mental illness. But it gets the point across of how constant mental illness is. And between physical and mental pain, mental is worse. How many of us have had something like a broken bone, bad burn, horribly painful illness, or serious cut that took weeks or months to heal? How much do we suffer from it now? How many of us were emotionally abused, even as adults; excluded by classmates when we were children; made to live in fear? Does all that go away as soon as the emotional abuser is gone? Or does it live with people for the rest of their lives?
Let's say, as a child, a parent caused you great physical pain at times, but always made it seem like an accident, always told you they loved you, and that they were so happy you were their child. Or, let's say they never caused you any physical pain whatsoever, but made it clear that they wish you had never been born, and wish you were not their child. In which scenario will you turn out happier, with better mental health?
Our minds are where it all happens. Some people's minds hurt, constantly, unbearably. Telling them to suck it up, or look at the goods things, or think of others, is not going to help them. Ever. When someone commits suicide, think of how long they were in excruciating pain before they finally stopped enduring it for others, or in the hope that it would end.
Ive read enough of him to know his philosophy doesnt work in practice and he never lived up to it. Not to mention his care depended on people not following it
What is a single basic point of Nietzsche's philosophy?
You are aware that Nietzsche details the only time the Superman becomes a reality is when he points to Zarathustra suffering with others from themselves...?
No cause you're obviously too heavy handed to know the difference between pity and compassion.
You're a low disciplined nihilist with a youtube reference of Nietzsche's philosophy. Lame, and thus... not even worth "arguing" with.
Quoting Nietzsche
No I just see through his philosophy an know it doesn't address the existential questions of meaning.
Quoting Darkneos
So his care depends on resentful people? :roll:
Nietzsche's Amor Fati is based off of the Glad Tidings of Jesus Christ...
Kinda shows he didn't understand the teachings or Christianity, like I said, easy to see through. You seem to be bothered by this though.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
No, people abiding by the "slave morality" he talked about. Like I said, his philosophy doesn't work in practice, not that he lived it.
He literally defines you with its definition:
On the other hand...
Where as we can see the slave compulsively attempts to deny the fundamental condition of life: perspective...
Who would know? What do they say about him -easiest to read, hardest to understand? I certainly cant make any sense out of him - even the Kaufmann translations of Zarathustra, On the Genealogy of Morality, Beyond Good and Evil and others. Like any writer, his charms dont work on everyone. How does one gain a useful reading? Perhaps if you have an aptitude for his work and study him at college? Ive read enough to know that if I were contemplating suicide and all I had was Freddy, Id probably go finish the job.
People often imagine they have a way out of the darkness. What they imagine would work for them doesnt necessarily work for others. Im not sure that pissing about with slave morality and other rococo notions are of any practical use. But I could be wrong.
The heaviest burdern: Suppose you had to live your life exactly as it were innumerable countless times... would that proposition be a teeth gnashing nightmare? Or would the proposition suddenly take hold of you, sure that you begin considering: "What in this moment, must I begin doing, how should I begin living, such that the proposition to live this life countlessly more times over and over again, infinitly exactly as it were, becomes such that it is greatest blessing you've ever heard?
That is Nietzsche's heaviest burden...
If you would commit suicide under such a contemplation, then ... one prejudges in the atomic fact of their life that suicide is the key... the only prejudice they're pursuing...which is nihilism. The prejudice that life isnt worth living is nihilism.
2.012 Tractatus...
Also cause you suck at understanding Nietzsche doesn't mean everyone does... and Kaufmann's understanding of Nietzsche is actually altered through the incipient reification of his project to move Nietzsche away from association with the Nazi. Kaufmann did a stellar job, but it also blinded some of his analysis. Like in his discussion on Borgia... Kaufmann is confused about Nietzsche's formulation for Highermen.
And Kaufmann's Translation of TSZ is so sterile it kills the dithyramb all together... a note I found recently from the Nietzsche Sub Reddit: Hitler on Nietzsche:
Kaufmann sterilizes the beauty of the tyranny demanded by the dithyrambs flow in rhythm and rhyme cause he didn't like the singsong musical feeling of TSZ. An absolutely appalling grotesquerie of a translation ... because that's exactly what a dithyramb is, music in literary form that dissolves the mind of the reader into the self abnegated state of Dionsysian Oneness...
So when you come up in here being all "who know what N be talking bout..." well guess what, I possess a deep understanding of Nietzsche. And I can thread the production of his thoughts across the corpus of his work, fragments, and personal letters.
Yes. Even sooner. Given the shorter I live, the less I have to relive.
But frankly, I have no good reasons to accept this frame as anything more than amusing waffle.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
I have no idea what a sentence like this means. Sorry.
But if I suck at understanding Nietzsche, I have that in common with multitudes. There's also a good chance it won't help others navigate suicide.
Which might also be a polite way of saying that only certain sensitive or bright people understand FN - a common tactic used to dismiss criticism.
But moving away from this -
Why should someone who is suicidal care for Nietzsche - can you make that case? I am interested. And the trick here, I think, is to explain what Nietzsche does in his work that makes it useful for this application. No quotes required.
But, I'm more of the mind of dedication to intellectual integrity, and by that, I clear my mind and go in to see what Nietzsche says, I consider his words with extreme care to come from the angles he sets out in his philosophy and psychology. Bright has little to do with my ability, I had always prejudged in my self the dogged determination to break down, how ever slowly, through repetition through constantly discussing and reading other philosophers on Nietzsche or just reading them in general and something comes to mind to brings me back to revisit Nietzsche. I easily have over 20,000 hours handling his work across two decades. The gradation of understanding grows over time for those serious enough. The trick is to not assume Nietzsche's a dumbass simply because you're uncertain wtf he's saying at first...
Quoting Tom Storm
If you go back to my initial comment here, you'll see the notion I even brought up, which is the Wisdom of Silenus, did I ever say care about Nietzsche? No, what I said, was Nietzsche's observation on history about how the Greeks overcame idolizing the notion of suicide... overcame the wisdom of Silenus.
It's a hint that hey, maybe you could do the same fucking thing if entire civilizations did it... so bitching about Nietzsche as Darkneos did, was ultimately a lazy red herring.
And you... maybe there might be room for considering your disposition towards life if the following is how you feel deep down:
Quoting Tom Storm
Telling us you hate your life without telling us ...
Amor Fati
Huh? I was putting this from the potential perspective of a person experiencing suicidality to highlight how your point seems to work in reverse. This is not my view.
So this is just a conversation, right? I'm not having a go at you.
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
But none of this explains why Nietzsche? Why not Camus or Aristotle? Why philosophy? What is your frame of reference for selecting this particular perspective?
Quoting DifferentiatingEgg
Nietzsche's capacity to mythologise ancient Greece to serve his rhetorical purposes may not be accurate to begin with and not really have much to offer someone with real problems, right?
My question remains: so what? What does this incredibly niche and abstruse notion have to do with whether someone wants to live or not? Dealing with suicide isnt an academic exercise in writing a paper about how art transforms nihilism. Whether the Greeks transcended despair through some balance of the Apollonian and Dionysian is unlikely to matter to someone struggling with chronic anhedonia.
The moral of the damn story is FIND SOMETHING WORTH YOUR FUCKING TIME... jesus christ...
The point from Nietzsche was a method of delivery...
That you're even focusing on Nietzsche is the mootest point ...A unicorn can say it... it doesn't matter... imagine your penis saying it:
Find a damn hobby, that makes your time on earth worth fucking while... what a mind blowing concept I know...
Learn to comprehend what the fuck is even being said, and learn to focus on the subject matter... it wasn't fucking Nietzsche...
Trigger is an accurate word here
Hey, you need to lay off the language and insults like that. We're glad to have your ideas and thoughts and its ok to slip up here and there, but make an effort to tone the insults and personal attacks down. Not everyone is going to agree with or understand your points and that's ok. Don't take it personally.
Not even sure one should waste their time on philosophy if they're that poor at comprehension...
Normally you slap someone twice to break them out of hypnosis... you know the meme of Batman slapping the F out of Robin?
How does "I hate Nietzsche so I wont overcome suicide through finding my own transfiguring meaning in life" make any sense? As pretty much all civilizations have done this, hence why all nations have their own table of values which are different than their neighbors... all because they've found some type of values that made life worth living.
Take the advice of every culture: "life is worth living under a certain value system..." So make one's own system, if one is too much of a lazy nihilist, well stfu and don't complain about it here... it's not appropriate here to begin with. Dorkneo projecting his self loathing onto the forums.
Regardless if Nietzsche discusses it or not. It makes no difference... Nietzsche is the remainder that's round down to zero on this.
Ha ha! Look, I get it. We all get supremely frustrated with other people and posters some time, it happens. We're all people here and we've likely all had a blow up at one point. Just let your points speak for themselves. If people don't agree, don't take it personally.
We're behind anonymous text and all have different backgrounds and could be in a weird mood that day. The person you're chatting to could be a minor, an elderly person, a Phd, or someone just curious about philosophy and pretty new to it all. Using harsh language or attacks often just gets the other person defensive or dismissive. You obviously have some education in philosophy and have some good things to contribute. Slap with your points, not your language is all.
His only interests in this thread is his powerlessness, he doesn't have much control outside of it. It's the only place he can say everything is shit, while forcing it upon others through his obstinance.
The case against suicide is that he's too powerless to even do that... hence why he's here projecting self loathing. Cause pain is a production of desire.
Feel free to comment on the mundane.
Our genes are the most powerful determiners of our personality, behavior and life outcomes. They typically account for 50-70% of the variation. This is true even for complex behaviors such as social status and educational outcomes.