Suicide

[kvothe27]

It's never "just" some simple framework, such that you could devalue your life by thinking about this stuff. Like, "are we in a Matrix?" .. that would change absolutely nothing about what our concept of "life" has always been about, and what it has entailed. It only seems disturbing, and it only has the chance to cause disruptions within the whole of society which would then change the perceived value of life, or whatever. But it's the same as it's always been. Peoples' decisions for living, logically may be thin; but that's only because you are grossly oversimplifying with reductionist type thinking.

Life is incredibly complex and forever wondrous for the individual. Have you ever heard a phrase to the effect of "I looked at some water and I knew everything" ?

Phrases like that indicate intuitive knowledge. I don't like trusting my intuitions when I cannot back them up with logic. I won't always back them up with logic and must rely on intuition often, but knowing I can provides me with some sense of certainty. I tend to get into trouble when I just rely on intuition, especially in cases when my intuition is being heavily informed by my emotional states. So, why would I want to rely primarily on intuition for life's value, unless I'm misunderstanding you?

Some part of me will always be trying to simplify things so that I can understand them. I desire a model to apply to my life. Again, it troubles me that I lack a reasonable model that doesn't require me to make a lot of baseless assumptions (i.e. anything supernatural). Besides, even the intuitions behind the value of life strike me as flimsy. We're a bunch of apes continually congratulating ourselves on our existence, based on our own evaluation. Mountains are beautiful, so I want to live? The universe is overwhelming to the point that I must continue on in supplication? It's absurd. In some sense, I appreciate the sentiment behind it, but in another I just want to bury it and find something more tangible to apply.

 

[kvothe27]

Another troubling aspect of suicide is how we often rely on the conceptual framework of character to analyze it. Folk psychology that is, more often than not, more harmful than helpful (i.e. referring to a depressed person as being lazy). What are we even saying? Do we even know? So much of character analysis is infused with emotions and attitudes hammered into us since we were young. Do we really want to trust our values when they're being so heavily informed by this conditioning? It seems to me that we need a good model to apply or we're just speaking nonsense. I desire to know what to use to analyze it before analyzing it. Otherwise, I'm stuck and I don't really know how to proceed. This is immensely troubling to someone like me who spends nearly every waking moment of his existence analyzing everything.

 

[LarsMac]

I've given it a lot of thought. There was a period where it seemed to be my only option.
Even planned out exactly how I would go about it.
On the other hand, I am so terribly curious about what will happen next, I couldn't go through with it.

 

[Niclmaki]

That's really beautiful! I'd FB it, but people would worry about my mental well-being.... f*$@ing tards....

Yeah, I worried the same thing. But I posted it anyways and it only got one like lol. I dont think most people care/read it.

 

[Duxwing]

I've come very, very close to following through after I realized that my Will to Truth could never be fulfilled. It's at once depressing and sad to know that there is no Truth for me to know and share with my peers, for I feel a sense of personal responsibility to move the sentient beings of the universe (a phrase chosen simply for inclusiveness' sake) up toward it through my mental efforts, be they writing, speaking, or miscellaneous.

It's like I've lost my identity, the pain of which, combined with knowing that Godel's theorem prevents an all-encompassing theory, is at times unbearable. In times like those, death seems like a way out, but only on an emotional level. On a rational level, I know that it would help nothing because I wouldn't be alive to experience any possible relief garnered, but sometimes your feelings overwhelm you and you just want to die.

I'm sorry if I've disgraced this thread and myself by being emotional instead of objective, but I had to get this off my chest.

-Duxwing

 

[Polaris]

Ants and the meaning of life. (Inspired from the thread on ants).

Lately I have been thinking about it again, on and off.

If there was an easy way of opting out I probably would have done it a long time ago. I like the idea of having an on/off button, for example. I would just switch it off.

The thoughts have given me a sense of peace and even excitement, thinking about how I should go about it. The idea of no existence is appealing. More so than enduring this over-rated thing called life. I'm not sure why I keep clinging on. But that is perhaps the wrong choice of words, I do not cling....

I was born and here I am. It is difficult to reverse.

I have woken up at times in the middle of the night or during the early hours of the morning, cursing the fact that coming back to consciousness also means I'm still here.

Those are the "dangerous" times where one may be more prone to acting upon the desire.

So I have been thinking hard: what is rational?

Stay or leave?

It becomes a balancing act, you attempt to weigh up the various values, negative against positive.

It seems so much easier to not be.

Then on the odd afternoon I will be sitting on my porch with a bottle of German beer, contemplating what is valuable to me at this moment in time.

The sun is setting, and I have noticed every afternoon during the warmer months, there is a constant stream of soldier-ants walking from one end of my porch to the other, all heading in the same direction. Why? And all my potted plants are flowering, thus attracting a myriad of little creepy-crawlies.

My little bonzai-conifer has a resident stick-insect, for example. I now understand why the conifer is becoming healthier; the stick-insect is silently stalking the little insects that lay clusters of eggs which seem to cause a die-back of the branch they occupy. Every time I water the conifer, the stick-insect comes out shaking his little head and wiping his great eyes, begrudgingly letting me know of his presence.

And there is a new colony of ants, these a lot smaller in size and different in shape than the larger, tail-up endlessly patrolling soldier ants. They have established little networks that go from one pot plant to the other. They climb up and down the plants, appearing to be harvesting something from the flowers and stems. It seems they aid with pollination and also help to keep the slugs away; where there are ants there are no slugs.

So I am grateful to these little creatures for providing me with their involuntary services.

I am grateful for the distraction they provide me.

Thus I am reminded that despite the meaninglessness of it all, it is still damn bloody wonderful.

 

[BigApplePi]

Suicide Defined?

I thought since this is such an important topic I had to say something. But what to say? Something personal or something theoretical? Since I love theoretical (general truths) I have to go that way first.

The first thing coming to my mind is suicide is about death. That means it is about life ... or terminating it. Why would someone alive want to terminate theirs ... or any others? Life is a tremendous force. It's very hard to terminate it. Life takes on many forms and I'll look at them this way:

1. Emotional. If one feels bad one wants to get rid if that. Normally one knows since one has not always felt bad and there are plenty of other emotions that don't feel bad, eventually the badness will pass. There is hope.

2. Physical. Same with physical pain. I recall as a kid when I had a bad headache I wished I could cut my head off. It was my head that was the villain knowing the rest of my body was okay. Now why didn't I take steps to do that? Last year due to some yard work my hand swole up to twice the normal size. Looked scary and was very painful. I wanted to or wished I could cut my hand off. Why didn't I do that? In the moment I didn't think about the swelling going down. I waited it out anyway, went to the doctor, but only after the swelling was past peak. The doctor said I'd better get that ring off or I'd lose my finger. That scared me. When I got home I soaped the area and removed the ring. But why didn't I take revenge on my hand in the first place? I don't believe I thought of hope or waiting. I just wanted my hand removed. Answer: it must have something to do with alternatives. Intuitively I thought there must be a solution. Reason said I'd never heard of anyone solving the problem by cutting off their hand. There must be a solution even though I wasn't concentrating on that.

3. Action. Not being able to act is painful. How many people enjoy prison? If one finds themselves confined and unable to do things and wants to do things, that's not going to be a happy situation. (I'm assuming one is not merely tired and wishes to rest.) Going back to my hand, I know my hand could be very useful. Cutting it off would permanently remove all hope of doing future hand things. Perhaps that had to do with not suiciding my hand. (Killing a part of one's body is really suicide in the small.)

Perhaps life is like that. Whether the pain is emotional, physical or due to imprisonment, one finds it hard to cease imaging life and its satisfactions. There is always somethings or a single thing left one wants. One can't stop imagining that. Suicide kills any possibility.

Some of the posts above talk about assisted suicide. Suppose one is at the end of life and one is convinced this is end of life having checked it out with a few sources: oneself, one's doctor, research into one's disease. Then the factors above enter in: physical pain, loss of ability for action. Reason saying any future life has no hope. There is still the hope to hold on, say for a few more moments. Emotions say one is causing or is going to cause others pain. This pain for others goes both ways. Others, not being in your terminal situation still carry hope. One has to decide (rationally) what is best for oneself combined with what is best for others.

I could go on as I'm reminded of a few stories, but I'll stop here.

 

[Sorlaize]

It's never "just" some simple framework, such that you could devalue your life by thinking about this stuff. Like, "are we in a Matrix?" .. that would change absolutely nothing about what our concept of "life" has always been about, and what it has entailed. It only seems disturbing, and it only has the chance to cause disruptions within the whole of society which would then change the perceived value of life, or whatever. But it's the same as it's always been. Peoples' decisions for living, logically may be thin; but that's only because you are grossly oversimplifying with reductionist type thinking.

Life is incredibly complex and forever wondrous for the individual. Have you ever heard a phrase to the effect of "I looked at some water and I knew everything" ?

Phrases like that indicate intuitive knowledge. I don't like trusting my intuitions when I cannot back them up with logic. I won't always back them up with logic and must rely on intuition often, but knowing I can provides me with some sense of certainty. I tend to get into trouble when I just rely on intuition, especially in cases when my intuition is being heavily informed by my emotional states. So, why would I want to rely primarily on intuition for life's value, unless I'm misunderstanding you?

We're a bunch of apes continually congratulating ourselves on our existence, based on our own evaluation. Mountains are beautiful, so I want to live?

I'm not asking you to rely on intuition- these are pretty simple truths. If your problem is that we're walking apes that over-congratulate ourselves-- yeah, that's an interesting point, but that doesn't devalue all the different kinds of experiences you can have with these apes/people. It is, in all honesty, a very limited and narrow-minded way of looking at the whole of life/reality. Anything is. Being one person in one mindset, is the most limiting thing ever. This is why trying new hobbies and new life experiences can be uplifting. It teaches you that indeed, the world is not as dull as you feel it is.

Of course, depression like this is nothing to do with intuition. It's to do with feeling, and what kind of situation you FEEL is around you. When in reality, there are ways out, and there are ways to enjoying life better. But it's human to get scared and to worry etc. .. we often exaggerate in this vein, too. We panic, and we get our hopes up. Those two things are irrational if you think about it in a different frame of mind for one moment: chance.

Whether we are stupid apes that think we're smart or not, the fact remains and the processes remain-- of experience and of all the kinds of things that continue to amaze us, every day repeatedly, without fail. Music is one of the things that you can just enjoy the next day and it's so fresh and great. Because your experience as an individual is something so profound and complex; because there are breaks in consciousness; because of reasonings that are beyond us. When people talk about looking at water and realizing how wonderful the pervasity of the complexity of conscious life is, they are falling in love with it and its continued ability to amaze them. People get up again every day not because they have a logical reason to; but because, like all human beings, they continue to be amazed by what society and therefore by extension what physical reality somehow continues to amaze and entertain them with. New sets of colours in a digital painting of a forest scene. New model of BMW. New Windows logo. New season of Breaking Bad. New arrangement of sounds and notes you're familiar with but didn't know was possible. Pretty much anything new is entertaining and this is what we abuse everywhere in society.

Life doesn't fail to stop distracting us from depressive thoughts; so even if you were to conclude for yourself that LIFE WAS LITERALLY POINTLESS BEYOND REGULAR HUMAN LIFE, you still have society which welcomes you and you still have plenty of ability to think; experience; enjoy. As a human you will always have those things. It's only in the case that you were no longer able to do things that you enjoyed in life, or were for example held prisoner facing certain death, that suicide is "fully logical". Logic cannot account for human experience; and so.. it's useless for contemplating suicide. 1) experience is complex; 2) logic is simple. One cannot replace the other. It can transpose, for a short time, but it cannot do that if you are still thinking about life.

The existential crisis [for me, I encountered this from absurdist philosophy] has an interesting relation to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Night_of_the_Soul

Some part of me will always be trying to simplify things so that I can understand them.

I desire a model to apply to my life. Again, it troubles me that I lack a reasonable model that doesn't require me to make a lot of baseless assumptions (i.e. anything supernatural). Besides, even the intuitions behind the value of life strike me as flimsy. We're a bunch of apes continually congratulating ourselves on our existence, based on our own evaluation.

Yeah, you can say the foundations of society are flimsy. Sure. But again I say you are oversimplifying. It's true that we developed society from our biologically-emerged social need to group together; and that after that we just built and built, once again, on top of what was already there. So that leaves us with *what* sincerity exactly? None; we "simply", we "just" emerged from "monkeys" and 4-legged monsters and fishes and whatever came before that. So what are we? We are "just" whatever emerged biologically, ultimately from cells.. just for the hell of it; just because a time came whereby enough fluctuation for what's now happened, happened right there in some "freak" genetic mutation in some group of cells on a bare-empty ground of the earth. What does this MEAN? It means nothing. There *is* no human answer for all of that, you see-- because we are the result of that process; and because that process itself and all it entails to get all the way to today (cultural revolutions; industrial advances; wars and domination and emergent crafts, trading laws, skills, cultural memes, experiences, writings, psychologies, schools of political and philosophical thought, and experiences.. ancient dynasties towards the present, along also with whatever other crap was in-between man and "ape") .. --all of this is way over our heads in what can be compressed or summed up into a "human meaning". It simply doesn't exist. There is no reason we are here; no explanation that can replace actually knowing those facts and insights.


The whole of humanity/society has not given itself a reason for existence. It is impossible to, unless we are able to make one up. But we can't accurately do that if we don't know what we are; what reality is.

We seem to be saying that life is about creating a better quality of life for most people. In modern times, our collective mind isn't really onto this. Actually, there is far more important stuff going on if you value "the survival of humanity as we know it".. but I don't really want to get into that


--

Mountains are beautiful, so I want to live? The universe is overwhelming to the point that I must continue on in supplication? It's absurd. In some sense, I appreciate the sentiment behind it, but in another I just want to bury it and find something more tangible to apply.

Yes. What other reason is there? There are no human reasons for anything, in reality. Physical reality does not sympathize; it does not joy and it does not care. Reality is no beast, and that is the human crisis.

"The sea has neither meaning nor pity."
-Gusev (1890)


I don't know what you mean by "supplication" there, but yeah you don't have much of a choice, in modern times at least, as to what your life can be in that sense. The universe is pervasive; it is everything around us. You are a part of that, and that is what life is. It is being part of this sharing; you are part that is being shared. Buddhist teachings, philosophy and other aspects of life wisdom, might tell you rationalizing insights along the lines of "throw away your fears"; "don't try to gain society's idea of wealth and just invest in your ability to enjoy"["happiness is a way of travel not a destination"]; "your emotions are lying to you" ... these things are what I'm working on adopting at the moment.

Ultimately, though, yes the nature of life is absurd; there is no pre-ordained or inherent purpose of life. There is nothing human that exists in life or even the objects right in front of you; but what we/you attach to them. Every thought and every piece of knowledge exists only via human creation and application of those things; every goal and purpose and aim we might have exists entirely within whoever is imagining it. The absurd, when talking about existence, is its nature and it is all we have. However, that is "not the end but the beginning", according to both nihilism and absurdism.

In future we will develop both better ways to help people deal with the absurdity of life; and more and more distractions and ways and rationalizations for a purpose of life itself. Culture can and will be far more richer than it is today, in future civilizations...


If there is a limit of being distracted that we never reach.. then life will continue to exist as it always has; as if there is a god or whatever other rationalizations people need; whatever human or post-human purposes for life like a partner that needs "protecting from the dangers of society", or whatever. "Whatever floats your boat". If you think about it like that-- if life from now existed like that.. what's so bad about that? I think about it like returning to an objective view of all humans; and how much quality of life they could all have. Is the truth really worth losing sanity over? Maybe there is more truth to find, but doing so is maybe quite impractical considering how we think and feel and rationalize and NEED, in this epoch of humanity.



You might think yourself lucky to be caught in this very rare phenomena of an existential crisis (--which is again a rationalization of the "luck" of "existing in our time rather than somewhere else" .. what can I say. It's nonsensical from a wider scope, but we like those things).


If you want to go further with philosophy, there is absurdism and nihilism which you can read & think about, as well as buddhist teachings.



--

Folk psychology that is, more often than not, more harmful than helpful (i.e. referring to a depressed person as being lazy). What are we even saying? Do we even know? So much of character analysis is infused with emotions and attitudes hammered into us since we were young. Do we really want to trust our values when they're being so heavily informed by this conditioning? It seems to me that we need a good model to apply or we're just speaking nonsense.

Objectively I'd reason for suicide by saying you're relieving yourself of all pain while other people have to grieve but get over it. One far outweighs the other over a period of time.

Of course, we will never be able to say ultimately what is fair and what is not, in society. Because there is no way of empirically evaluating -everything-. It's so very complex. There can be no perfect model. All we have is what we think; nobody can preside over what is right or wrong ultimately. The law is an example of something society agrees on; but only that. It's part of the status quo which, if anything, is an excuse for most people not to think for themselves on the issue at hand. You'll often hear people justify[for themselves] emotional pain by reminding a killer that they killed someone which is "just wrong". That's a particularly controversial example, but I was involved in a long online debate about an Internet troll and whether or not he deserved his prison sentence because defacing an Internet page was "just wrong!".

Society is very complex, and we will for a very long time (potentially even 1000s of years) be unable to make "reasonably fair" judgements about discrepancies between parties where a 3rd party has to get involved. But more importantly in the case of prison sentences, I'd ask; regarding critical thinking-- is jailing offenders all we can do? Regarding suicide, I'd ask; do we need to make this about selfishness? This is someone choosing to end their own life, after all.

 

[Sorlaize]

Lately I have been thinking about it again, on and off.

If there was an easy way of opting out I probably would have done it a long time ago. I like the idea of having an on/off button, for example. I would just switch it off.

The thoughts have given me a sense of peace and even excitement, thinking about how I should go about it. The idea of no existence is appealing. More so than enduring this over-rated thing called life. I'm not sure why I keep clinging on. But that is perhaps the wrong choice of words, I do not cling....

I was born and here I am. It is difficult to reverse.

There's a phrase by a comedian or something that goes;- "We're here for the ride, just enjoy it." But I'm not happy with that.

I say we are addicted to life. But if you look at the inverse, it's very strange. How could you *not* be alive but exist for being considered not an addict of life? Being so attached, then, is a prerequisite to conscious life. This attachment, if we assume things like seeing and learning-- is required of *anything* that doesn't have a consciousness. Even flies and ants display a very pure "agitation / rage" that seems to be inherent in conscious life-- technically/objectively/scientifically, a requirement for species survival.

So I have been thinking hard: what is rational?

Stay or leave?

It becomes a balancing act, you attempt to weigh up the various values, negative against positive.

It seems so much easier to not be.

We are talking about existence. There *is* no peace of you don't exist. There is a someone else in place of "you", in school or in work or in the number of people society can handle. (Which itself opens up some very interesting new thoughts maybe) ..It's true that suffering ends in suicide, but you are missing the point I think. Life is beautiful because we have moments of peace despite suffering and challenges and evils. At least, that's what we say, and I think that's the best rationalization for life that we have. Life will always be waiting for you with friendly people and comforts. I think in you might be taking these things that conscious life gives and transposing them onto death.


Sure, living in the universe poses a lot of difficulty, because in all areas like in science and like in even cooking a meal, we're bending and shaping reality to our needs which is very difficult and always poses a great deal of challenge. We make life pretty difficult for ourselves.

But "after this, there's just.. blankness?.."


Yeah, it's easier not to be. But the only thing that's ever interesting is what's actually here, in existence. If you are "tired of life"; if you are convinced you will do better not living, you couldn't be further from the truth. Every second of every minute, there are opportunities to do something different and something great. Reality gives us that, constantly. Death gives you, (in life), an imagination of your current self as lifeless or asleep or whatever; just another coping mechanism; another manufactured fantasy purported by the human mind, to deal with how difficult life is. (although sure, I would say it's fine to take your own life.. who needs a reason when one sure as hell doesn't exist? ..grace is imaginary anyway and pretty useless in suicide.)

You can imagine dead people are okay "in heaven", But that's purely for yourself and your own grieving process.

I was born and here I am. It is difficult to reverse.

Yeah. This is an absurdity of life. Or a paradox, I don't know. You come into existence and there really is no human answer for "why me in particular" or indeed the difference between how each person developed. That is so very complex as is the nature of the society which drives it.

All these things bleed into each other. What is my purpose? Do I hold the torch of my ancestors "while I'm on stage"? What responsibilities do I have in society? Should I be grateful for wealth and time to think in peace? What should I do with my life? ..again, it is the complexity of life. The creation of human life, itself, is too part of a very complex process of physical reality.

The thing about questioning your yourself, and your emergence.. like I said, it's part of this system, and for it to be understood much at all we need to reframe it. The process of society and by extension physical reality, is responsible for the things that happen, and that influences certain people with certain "fates" at each step of the process. Earlier today [[I have House moments every day sometimes.. fuck yeah]] people were driving past a huge cement mixer, and they probably thought I was crossing the road to go to "my house" which would "not really likely" be that particular house it was being used on. But it was. The thing about how we perceive chance within a set of choices is, that the unlikely item would never be chosen. But, we think this every time we approach such a problem. We never ascribe the same kind of significance to items that seem the same (other houses), so we sometimes have such a moment where something seems very "out of the ordinary"-- when in reality it's just that item of the set having its chance being chosen. This applies just as much to things that happen to us in our lives, like losing a family member or having a particularly bad start at life in comparison to other people. Someone always has to be last in line, etc etc. ..so yeah, that process is how things happen, and you yourself are "just one person that happens to be the one.. <insert whatever here. "INTP"; "with a lot of money"; etc.>"

 

[BigApplePi]

@Duxwing

It would seem as if life could overwhelm us. There is so much out there and we are so small and insignificant. True? Not true. These things are relative. Ever heard the expression, "Seize the day"? One may not be able to seize the whole day, but one can seize something. Not everything controls us. We can control something. Take a look at what you can control and go with that. A seed can be planted and it can grow. If growth falls fallow, plant another seed. After all you are alive. The dead don't do that.

Think of Godel's theorem as a natural event among many. What do you expect ... to have all the answers? That's silly.