# What do you think happens after death?



## xxDark Horse (May 13, 2015)

What do you think happens when we die?


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## RestlessNative (Jun 17, 2014)

I believe in Heaven and reincarnation, and I don't believe in Hell. I suppose that's kind of strange and confusing.


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## TheWildeOne (May 15, 2014)

I'm going to have to join the vote on "nothing," but I should technically be allowed to vote both that and "not sure," because no one is sure, and anyone who claims to be sure is lying.


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## kesker (Mar 29, 2011)

_...I don't know what happens when people die
Can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It's like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
That I can't sing
I can't help listening..._

~Jackson Browne


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## Just Lurking (Feb 8, 2007)

We return to the earth...
We rejoin the winds...

No pearly gates for us.


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## AffinityWing (Aug 11, 2013)

Reincarnation used to be more like some sort of wishful thinking for me when I was younger, but now I've thought it's more like what there is before you're born - nothing. Your conscious ends and you just cease to exist, that's it.


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## SD92 (Nov 9, 2013)

Eternal oblivion.


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## SENNA (Jul 3, 2015)

You die then come back as another living thing, but forget your previous existence. I want to be a cat, easy life


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## ScorchedEarth (Jul 12, 2014)

The conciousness is erased but I like to picture floating in an endless void with no sense of time... like dreamless sleep.


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## a degree of freedom (Sep 28, 2011)

I will either soon enough find out, or I won't, but I don't feel like I need to find closure for the ultimate closure. I'm sure it has enough of it that I can wait.


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## knightofdespair (May 20, 2014)

Something else.


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## bad baby (Jun 10, 2013)

after death we roam the earth in cloaks of invisibility and laugh at the living people and spy on them in the shower and raep them in their sleep.


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## cmed (Oct 17, 2009)

You rot in the ground while life goes on and slowly forgets about you.


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## knightofdespair (May 20, 2014)

RestlessNative said:


> I believe in Heaven and reincarnation, and I don't believe in Hell. I suppose that's kind of strange and confusing.


I'm kind of the opposite.. I feel more like there is a hell than a heaven.. All the bad and rotten things seem to definitely exist while the good is a phantom on the wind.


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## Cletis (Oct 10, 2011)

We go to the spirit world.


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## alienbird (Apr 9, 2010)

We die, which means we no longer exist in any form. You have no thoughts, no feelings, nothing matters anymore. Dead. The world moves on. You might as well have never existed at all.


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## Scrub-Zero (Feb 9, 2004)

We go to Valhalla and get drunk silly with Thor and Odin. Probably not, but it sounds like a grand old time.


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

The universe goes on.


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## kageri (Oct 2, 2014)

If I absolutely had to give a solid answer I'd say nothing. However, I do not like to ignore possibilities in situations where no one has any real information one way or the other so I don't know. Maybe something, maybe nothing.


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## SplendidBob (May 28, 2014)

Two things I like to consider when thinking about death.

1)We have all been dead before (pre birth) and it was fine.

2)If you could trade 5 minutes of death for 1000 years more life would you take it? if yes, when you are dead your perception of time is irrelevant. 5 minutes of death is identical to a billion years of death from the perspective of the dead person, and it doesn't even matter if you don't come back, you don't care if you are dead. 

Fear of death is a biological instinct that doesn't match up to the realities of the situation. Its like any anxiety, founded in irrationality, just this irrationality is hard coded into us. Personally I fear dying, but I no longer fear the state of death.

Obviously given this there is no reason for me to believe in unlikely possibilities in order to ease my discomfort, because there is no discomfort. When you die you cease to exist, there is no reason for me to consider anything else.


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## bad baby (Jun 10, 2013)

i fear death as a truncation of life. since there's usually little forewarning, it's highly likely that i would have left behind lots of unfinished business, lots of things yet to be done. it's that feeling of what i would be missing that scares me. is that irrational?

obv the process of dying in itself might be uncomfortable if not downright painful, and that scares me too.

all in all i am just a big










...someone once summarised that john donne poem "death be not proud" beautifully for me: because when you die, you kill Death and It loses Its power. the fear is always preemptive, but god it feels so real in the moment though.

i try not to think about it. ><


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## twitchy666 (Apr 21, 2013)

Being rehearsed

nice when you're well and ready to go home, but security in hospital do hold me down. 

imagining a scenario when people give up their efforts when they can't induce a pulse

accepting the undertaker

but scratching from within the coffin
the should be a relief valve. Unlike child locking in a car. A way for a misdiagnosed patient to have access to an inner bolt...

popping out for air 

hoping there wouldn't be a warrant to have the person rehearsed


Told at early school & secondary school that I was always the best in class when teachers offer an essay title (Thread) to produce good material when some pupils wouldn't think of anything new: usual just oh! Hello! I was told to read out my story after the master had reviewed them all

so we're all essay experts.


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## farfegnugen (Aug 16, 2010)

Trying to decide between zombie and vampire.


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## SplendidBob (May 28, 2014)

bad baby said:


> i fear death as a truncation of life. since there's usually little forewarning, it's highly likely that i would have left behind lots of unfinished business, lots of things yet to be done. it's that feeling of what i would be missing that scares me. is that irrational?


I would try to counter your worry here in two ways. Firstly in the sense that if you do what you can to avoid death, there is no _further benefit_ from worrying, as the worry won't alter anything. (the general 'worry is only harmful if it doesn't have any positive effect' argument).

Secondly that your dead self won't mind not doing those things, or leaving unfinished business i.e. these things are only of concern to a living person - once you have died you won't care, but worrying now won't do anything to help the dead you (who won't care anyway about this stuff). (hope this isn't too morbid and makes some kind of sense lol)



bad baby said:


> obv the process of dying in itself might be uncomfortable if not downright painful, and that scares me too.


Yes, this terrifies me. This is honestly why I find it fairly appalling that our societies don't make this process painless and easy for people who want to end their lives. There would be a few bugs to straighten out (re depressed folks etc), but in principle a great deal of suffering could be eliminated by allowing folks to die cleanly and painlessly.


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## bad baby (Jun 10, 2013)

farfegnugen said:


> Trying to decide between zombie and vampire.


vampyr obv. how is this even a question :roll



splendidbob said:


> I would try to counter your worry here in two ways. Firstly in the sense that if you do what you can to avoid death, there is no _further benefit_ from worrying, as the worry won't alter anything. (the general 'worry is only harmful if it doesn't have any positive effect' argument).
> 
> Secondly that your dead self won't mind not doing those things, or leaving unfinished business i.e. these things are only of concern to a living person - once you have died you won't care, but worrying now won't do anything to help the dead you (who won't care anyway about this stuff). (hope this isn't too morbid and makes some kind of sense lol)
> 
> Yes, this terrifies me. This is honestly why I find it fairly appalling that our societies don't make this process painless and easy for people who want to end their lives. There would be a few bugs to straighten out (re depressed folks etc), but in principle a great deal of suffering could be eliminated by allowing folks to die cleanly and painlessly.


well i can see your point, but it's often the case that i would know something intellectually (e.g., worrying is useless) but feel the irrational emotion anyway. and no that's not morbid at all, although it is kind of strange to think of my dead self as a separate existence. i still feel like i should prioritize the concerns and worries of the living me over the dead one (if i should give the latter any thought at all) - by your argument isn't it perfectly logical to jump into the river and off myself tomorrow, because dead me wouldn't know what it's missing anyway lol??

and it sounds to me like you're a proponent of euthanasia? ...i think generally society still has this notion that many things, including death, are best left to nature with as little human intervention as possible. which i would tend to agree with, although not for any reason that i can logically explicate... overall though, i find a lot of ideas great in theory but should probably never be put into practice because the real world is a poop bag.


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## SplendidBob (May 28, 2014)

bad baby said:


> well i can see your point, but it's often the case that i would know something intellectually (e.g., worrying is useless) but feel the irrational emotion anyway. and no that's not morbid at all, although it is kind of strange to think of my dead self as a separate existence. i still feel like i should prioritize the concerns and worries of the living me over the dead one (if i should give the latter any thought at all) - by your argument isn't it perfectly logical to jump into the river and off myself tomorrow, because dead me wouldn't know what it's missing anyway lol??


Kinda - its more that you shouldn't _worry_ about if you ended up jumping in a river - death is inevitable at some point, and you can be certain you wont dislike being dead, or have any concerns at that point at all. If you enjoy life (or think you enjoy life, same thing) then no need to hasten death. But it doesn't make much sense to allow worry about death to have a negative impact on your life when it won't matter to you when the time comes around.

Your question is a hint at why antinatalists believe in antinatalism though 



bad baby said:


> and it sounds to me like you're a proponent of euthanasia? ...i think generally society still has this notion that many things, including death, are best left to nature with as little human intervention as possible. which i would tend to agree with, although not for any reason that i can logically explicate... overall though, i find a lot of ideas great in theory but should probably never be put into practice because the real world is a poop bag.


Yes I am, its probably the one 'issue' I actually have particularly strong feelings about. This is because it appears particularly clear cut and one sided to me, we can very simply and easily act to reduce a huge amount of suffering. How it might affect the feelings of those _not_ wishing to die are trivial compared to the reduction of suffering in those who do. My position is that if an individual genuinely wants to die they are overcoming the almost unfathomable evolutionary pressure to stay alive, their distress must be _immense_.


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## NewDawn (Aug 5, 2015)

My head tells me "Nothing. When you die that's it. You lose consciousness and cease to exist." But it's hard to imagine being nothing, less than nothing with no thoughts. Just dead like a swatted fly! 

I'd like to believe reincarnation was real, like you come back as another new born human with your memories wiped clean like a formatted hard drive. Maybe you do, who knows. Or you come back as any living thing, or anything with matter. Are electrons conscious? Why do they change from a wave to a particle when their is an observer? 

I can understand the comfort thinking you go to heaven or meet your loved ones again, but I doubt that is true. What I'd really hate is if this all repeats as a cycle. If this present universe ends one day and it all starts over from the beginning and everything happens the same. So at this point, we just live this same life and then die. Then billions of years later, rinse and repeat.


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## knightofdespair (May 20, 2014)

Scrub-Zero said:


> We go to Valhalla and get drunk silly with Thor and Odin. Probably not, but it sounds like a grand old time.


If you were a werewolf you get trapped by Hircine though.


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## 684625 (Aug 22, 2015)

I had a similar dream on a few occasions. 

In the first one, I saw my own grave. It terrified me.

In the second, I saw my own grave again, only this time the dream continued, with me staring down at the world from space and I was happy. 

I like to think of death as being like this. We are all made of stardust so to stardust we shall return.

It wasn't about heaven. I don't believe in that.


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## bad baby (Jun 10, 2013)

splendidbob said:


> Kinda - its more that you shouldn't _worry_ about if you ended up jumping in a river - death is inevitable at some point, and you can be certain you wont dislike being dead, or have any concerns at that point at all. If you enjoy life (or think you enjoy life, same thing) then no need to hasten death. But it doesn't make much sense to allow worry about death to have a negative impact on your life when it won't matter to you when the time comes around.
> 
> Your question is a hint at why antinatalists believe in antinatalism though


hehh? i thought antinatalists believe in what they believe in because they think the world is a ****ed up overpopulated place and that if we all had a heart we'd spare any potential new lives the misery of existence. which is kind of a pessimistic no fun way of seeing things imo, but hey if they want to self-select their own negative asses out of the gene pool who am i to stop them, right?

(lol. i kid)



> Yes I am, its probably the one 'issue' I actually have particularly strong feelings about. This is because it appears particularly clear cut and one sided to me, we can very simply and easily act to reduce a huge amount of suffering. How it might affect the feelings of those _not_ wishing to die are trivial compared to the reduction of suffering in those who do. My position is that if an individual genuinely wants to die they are overcoming the almost unfathomable evolutionary pressure to stay alive, their distress must be _immense_.


funny, that's exactly how i feel about gay marriage (probably something terribly wrong with my brain that i made that connection immediately...but aaanyway moving on) ...wr/t the euthanasia issue, i don't disagree with you in theory but as i mentioned previously the dilemma lies mostly in the logistics: i.e., who can/should make the judgement call of how much suffering would justify death, and also then you'd run into problems with slippery slopes and potential 'abuse' of the system, etc.


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## TCNY (Dec 3, 2014)

you respawn into someones dick and have a rave with other dicks because god


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## Scrub-Zero (Feb 9, 2004)

knightofdespair said:


> If you were a werewolf you get trapped by Hircine though.


That works for me too. There's quite a few people i wouldn't mind hunting in the afterlife


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## knightofdespair (May 20, 2014)

TCNY said:


> you respawn into someones dick and have a rave with other dicks because god


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## bad baby (Jun 10, 2013)

knightofdespair said:


>


if reincarnation is real i wanna be that in a next life


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## markwalters2 (Mar 18, 2013)

Get 72 virgins. After a week, they no longer are virgins.


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## iCod (Feb 17, 2015)

I really want to believe in reincarnation or heaven. But you probably just rot in the ground and remain in pitch black darkness for all of eternity.


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## knightofdespair (May 20, 2014)

farfegnugen said:


> Trying to decide between zombie and vampire.


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## SplendidBob (May 28, 2014)

Gah, I posted a nice long reply to ya yesterday then managed to lose the post. Will try again 



bad baby said:


> hehh? i thought antinatalists believe in what they believe in because they think the world is a ****ed up overpopulated place and that if we all had a heart we'd spare any potential new lives the misery of existence. which is kind of a pessimistic no fun way of seeing things imo, but hey if they want to self-select their own negative asses out of the gene pool who am i to stop them, right?
> 
> (lol. i kid)


I think re your previous question (since you won't mind when dead, why not just kill yourself?), hastening your demise would be inflicting a harm (if you consider your life to me more good than bad, I guess) whereas not creating a new life at all doesn't carry that harm, so it leads one to these types of antinatalist arguments (see Banatar's asymmetry arguments etc).

My recent thoughts on the 'everything is ****' brand of antinatalism, are that there are huge problems with the subjective nature of these arguments.
It is impossible to determine an absolute measure of whether life is worth living, because all life is built by evolution with its significant biases. So, we can't say 'objectively life is good/bad, and is a +4/-4 on the scale' because we are using our brains which evolution shaped (with its biases) to make this assessment, and there is no external unbiased measure we can use to make this assessment.

My conclusion is that it doesn't matter what life is like objectively, but it matters what the individual _believes_ it is like. So it could be that life is complete arse and we have all been biologically tricked into thinking its amazing by evolution. Well that's fine, because its the subjective measure that counts. Therefore since if you polled most people they would say 'I like life and want to live' deception or not, you can't say they are wrong, because its their subjective measure of whether life is worth living is what matters.

Banatar's argument though, is harder to defeat, and your question gives a hint of it - the kind of notion that when you apply strict rationality to these questions, you run into some troubling areas 



bad baby said:


> funny, that's exactly how i feel about gay marriage (probably something terribly wrong with my brain that i made that connection immediately...but aaanyway moving on) ...wr/t the euthanasia issue, i don't disagree with you in theory but as i mentioned previously the dilemma lies mostly in the logistics: i.e., who can/should make the judgement call of how much suffering would justify death, and also then you'd run into problems with slippery slopes and potential 'abuse' of the system, etc.


The gay marriage thing is quite similar indeed. The benefits to one group of individuals vastly outweighs the costs to another, laughably so. The costs to the people who are upset about it are about on the same level as someone with a slice of cake being 'hurt' by someone else getting a slice of cake. 'wtf, this cake was only supposed to be for me!!!!!!'.

Euthanasia, there might be some difficulties, but I think the temptation is to consider the current situation a neutral one, so 'things are ok now, so why risk making things worse?'. This isn't the case in my opinion. As it currently stands there are a great many people in severe distress who want to end their lives and we could allow them to do so painlessly thus eliminating much suffering. So long as the suffering inflicted by allowing euthanasia is less than the current suffering being inflicted by not having it, its the correct move to make, and I think it would be by a huge margin.

We are talking about people consenting to end their own lives, given enough restrictions and safeguards I don't see how this can't be managed. We already ensure people give consent for things like wills and surgeries, there is no reason imo to see this as a slippery slope into a society where we kill the old and disabled (or whatever the slippery slope argument is). I mean the slippery slope is literally a logical fallacy, so without any good reasoning as to why these outcomes would result its hard to take seriously.


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## bad baby (Jun 10, 2013)

oh good, i thought you'd ditched our conversation, and then who will i talk about all this morbid stuff with? :bah

i agree with your conclusion, and out of curiosity i looked up the asymmetry argument. admittedly it is quite clever indeed, although it seems to me that it would be necessary to quantify each of the four postulates - i.e., the pros and cons for and against procreation - and tally up a final score, rather than thinking of them as four equally-weighted categories and going, "oh yea the natalists have one count against them and the anti-natalists have none, so they win". and of course the quantification process would vary from person to person, though that would probably extend beyond the scope of pure logic.



splendidbob said:


> The gay marriage thing is quite similar indeed. The benefits to one group of individuals vastly outweighs the costs to another, laughably so. The costs to the people who are upset about it are about on the same level as someone with a slice of cake being 'hurt' by someone else getting a slice of cake. 'wtf, this cake was only supposed to be for me!!!!!!'.
> 
> Euthanasia, there might be some difficulties, but I think the temptation is to consider the current situation a neutral one, so 'things are ok now, so why risk making things worse?'. This isn't the case in my opinion. As it currently stands there are a great many people in severe distress who want to end their lives and we could allow them to do so painlessly thus eliminating much suffering. So long as the suffering inflicted by allowing euthanasia is less than the current suffering being inflicted by not having it, its the correct move to make, and I think it would be by a huge margin.
> 
> We are talking about people consenting to end their own lives, given enough restrictions and safeguards I don't see how this can't be managed. We already ensure people give consent for things like wills and surgeries, there is no reason imo to see this as a slippery slope into a society where we kill the old and disabled (or whatever the slippery slope argument is). I mean the slippery slope is literally a logical fallacy, so without any good reasoning as to why these outcomes would result its hard to take seriously.


OMG. that is an awesome analogy, and it involves cake!! here, have a gold star:









and yea i do think people who are terminally ill and in extreme pain should ideally be given that option, but then wouldn't the chronically and severely depressed be all like, "why only those with physical pain? why not psychological pain, too?", and then because of the subjective nature of individual conditions and sufferings it's like, where does this all end? should anyone who decides that they are in enough pain and gives their consent be granted the right to die? should our societies readily embrace that notion?

it's also worth noting that different societies have different value systems and views on issues of life and death. like i'm aware that euthanasia has been legal in the netherlands for a while now, and so far it's been doing what it's intended for, which is excellent, but i'm less optimistic about how it would work out in places with, say, a ****tier legal system and less of an atmosphere of commitment to social justice and secular ethics amongst the general population.


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## SplendidBob (May 28, 2014)

bad baby said:


> oh good, i thought you'd ditched our conversation, and then who will i talk about all this morbid stuff with? :bah


Nope, tbh I got a bit too enthusiastic about my artwork in the guns thread, and managed to delete my original reply as I was so keen to post the powerful artistry 

I do sometimes decide to delay replying though if the topic is quite challenging, and then forget. I have done this to @truant a few times (her reply in a recent thread I meant to reply to but haven't gotten around to it yet).



bad baby said:


> i agree with your conclusion, and out of curiosity i looked up the asymmetry argument. admittedly it is quite clever indeed, although it seems to me that it would be necessary to quantify each of the four postulates - i.e., the pros and cons for and against procreation - and tally up a final score, rather than thinking of them as four equally-weighted categories and going, "oh yea the natalists have one count against them and the anti-natalists have none, so they win". and of course the quantification process would vary from person to person, though that would probably extend beyond the scope of pure logic.


Yep. So (and I am reading about this argument again now, I always get to the point where I understand it, then forget the damn thing again)

So say our 2 scenarios, Existence and Non Existence:

1)Existence:
+1 Has pleasure
-1 Has pain

Total: 0

2)Non Existence:
0 Has no pleasure
+1 Has no pain

Total: +1

Non existence wins.

(this seems to be the easiest way to get my head around it heh, basically the no pain is classed as a good, thus represented by a +1), so the total is higher for non existence than existence.

So can we use magnitude here, rather than just binary? Lets stick in some 0-10's for the luls.

*Super Happy Person (super wealthy simpleton?).*

1)Existence:
+7 Has pleasure
-3 Has pain

Total: +4

2)Non Existence:
0 Has no pleasure
+3 Has no pain

Total: +3

Existence wins by 1.

Is this right? (not sure heh, I am saying the absence of -3 pain is a +3 good in the parallel universe, this might be wrong).

*Average Person with minor overall happiness* (these magnitudes would be debated by many antinatalists even):

1)Existence:
+6 Has pleasure
-4 Has pain

Total: +2

2)Non Existence:
0 Has no pleasure
+4 Has no pain

Total: +4

Non existence wins by 2

*Mildly depressed person:*

1)Existence:
+4 Has pleasure
-6 Has pain

Total: -2

2)Non Existence:
0 Has no pleasure
+6 Has no pain

Total: +6

Non existence wins by 8

I am not sure if we can use magnitudes like this though - it kinda hurts my brain. Assuming we can, then it seems possible for a life to be a net gain than non existence, but Banatar's argument would still hold even under conditions of moderate happiness. I think to defeat Banatar you need to question the notion of the absence of pain being a good (or at least a good to the same inverse magnitude as the pain), or perhaps question the legitimacy of comparing these two states at all.

This is all way beyond my capabilities though, it would need someone who actually understands philosophy to handle I think.



bad baby said:


> OMG. that is an awesome analogy, and it involves cake!! here, have a gold star:


Hah, thank you 

I think these kinds of scenarios lend themselves quite well to a utilitarian style evaluation. The harm caused to those who are against gay marriage is quite hard to fathom. No doubt there is some harm there (they evidently seem to be distressed for some reason), but can this come anywhere close to the benefits experienced by gay folks allowed to marry? - and there are concrete legal benefits as well, not just the wishy washy lovey dovey stuff  - it just seems extraordinarily one sided to me.



bad baby said:


> and yea i do think people who are terminally ill and in extreme pain should ideally be given that option, but then wouldn't the chronically and severely depressed be all like, "why only those with physical pain? why not psychological pain, too?", and then because of the subjective nature of individual conditions and sufferings it's like, where does this all end? should anyone who decides that they are in enough pain and gives their consent be granted the right to die? should our societies readily embrace that notion?


The mental health angle is the one _real_ tricky area I think. I consider actually legitimately wanting to die to be _enough of a measure of pain_ to justify it in almost every circumstance (because it overrides an awful lot of biological programming to the contrary). Mental health is tricky though, because we are pretty much saying 'you can't reliably make that decision' (at least with some types of mental illness). So, if we take someone who no longer has the mental capabilities to make an informed decision, but nonetheless demonstrates they want to die, what do we do?

Depression? - its tricky, but not as tricky. A depressed person who has undergone all treatments without success (i.e. still wants to die) I would see no problem in letting them die. If their pain cannot be removed sufficiently to make them want to live, that would be the qualifying measure, mental or physical pain isn't really the issue. If we as a society cannot help a depressed person that wants to die, keeping them alive is just cruelty imo.



bad baby said:


> it's also worth noting that different societies have different value systems and views on issues of life and death. like i'm aware that euthanasia has been legal in the netherlands for a while now, and so far it's been doing what it's intended for, which is excellent, but i'm less optimistic about how it would work out in places with, say, a ****tier legal system and less of an atmosphere of commitment to social justice and secular ethics amongst the general population.


You might be right. It would likely require quite a shift in thinking from a great many people in a lot of societies for it to even happen.


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## probably offline (Oct 8, 2012)

I'll probably get reborn as myself and mess everything up again.

(nothing)


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## truant (Jul 4, 2014)

splendidbob said:


> Nope, tbh I got a bit too enthusiastic about my artwork in the guns thread, and managed to delete my original reply as I was so keen to post the powerful artistry
> 
> I do sometimes decide to delay replying though if the topic is quite challenging, and then forget. I have done this to @truant a few times (her reply in a recent thread I meant to reply to but haven't gotten around to it yet).
> 
> ...


I don't buy Benatar's argument at all. You can't say the absence of something is good or bad. It doesn't exist. And it's blatantly unwarranted to say that a non-existent good should be treated differently from a non-existent bad. That's logical nonsense. If you remove the logical inconsistency from his argument, all you're left with are his first two premises which are tautological.

The only reason he gets away with his logical sleight of hand is because in our culture pain is considered worse than pleasure. We have an emotional incentive to invest in his conclusion even though it's logically unsound, so we turn a blind eye to the double-standard he introduces. We WANT to believe that it's true, but his argument doesn't support that conclusion.

Also, it's impossible to quantify pleasure and pain. Whether or not an experience is pleasant or painful depends on our interpretation.



> There was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. "Such bad luck," they said sympathetically.
> 
> "Maybe," the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. "How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed.
> 
> ...


All of life is like this, everything being reevaluated as new contexts make themselves available. Much of therapy revolves around providing people with new contexts in which to place their experiences (reframing) so that they can convert something which is painful into something which becomes a source of strength and satisfaction. (This is the essence of Frankl's Logotherapy. People survived their concentration camp experiences largely because they found new ways to reframe their experience.) The reason why suicide is discouraged is because people hope that these new contexts will arise, either naturally or through therapy, and the patient will learn to see their experience in a way which frees them from their depression. That change of context may never happen, ofc, but there's no way to know for sure that it won't.

A culture, like a person, can be pessimistic or optimistic. Its worldview shapes how we interpret our experience. Our culture is pessimistic, so our attention is naturally drawn to our negative experiences. We learn to dwell on them at the expense of our positive experiences, to give them more weight and meaning; this inevitably creates the impression that we experience more pain than pleasure, but that doesn't mean that it HAS to be that way. If our culture as a whole spent more time dwelling on the positive experiences of our lives we might very well experience our lives as being, on the whole, more pleasurable than painful. But ofc it's impossible to know for sure without the necessary framing devices, just as it's impossible for someone who's depressed to know for sure that it's possible to escape from their depression.

I do, however, think that an individual has the right to determine their own destiny, and also that there's no way to prove that a person who wants to end their life, or to not procreate, is wrong. I think whether or not life is worth living is an unanswerable question and should be left up to the individuals.

You should be careful about summoning me, splendidbob. If you don't inscribe the pentagram properly I have a tendency to escape and wreak havoc in a thread. :wink2:


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## bad baby (Jun 10, 2013)

splendidbob said:


> This is all way beyond my capabilities though, it would need someone who actually understands philosophy to handle I think.


i must admit i miss a lot that goes on in s&c, but i feel better for it, kinda. and uhh...yea....not going to even pretend i understand anything about philosophy lol, but those specs you posted are pretty kewl and would make excellent options should somebody someday decide to make a terribly depressing existentialist video game about whether or not life is worth living.



truant said:


> I don't buy Benatar's argument at all. You can't say the absence of something is good or bad. It doesn't exist. And it's blatantly unwarranted to say that a non-existent good should be treated differently from a non-existent bad. That's logical nonsense. If you remove the logical inconsistency from his argument, all you're left with are his first two premises which are tautological.
> 
> The only reason he gets away with his logical sleight of hand is because in our culture pain is considered worse than pleasure. We have an emotional incentive to invest in his conclusion even though it's logically unsound, so we turn a blind eye to the double-standard he introduces. We WANT to believe that it's true, but his argument doesn't support that conclusion.
> 
> Also, it's impossible to quantify pleasure and pain. Whether or not an experience is pleasant or painful depends on our interpretation.


of course you can quantify pleasure and pain. for example, having a stranger smile and greet you on your morning run would be mildly pleasurable, whereas winning the lottery jackpot would be several magnitudes more pleasurable than that. (well to most people anyway.) there may not be objective mathematical ways to quantify it, but the differences in experiential intensity are obvious.

and put into different terms the asymmetry problem is really about weighing the pros and cons of bringing potential life into the world vs. the pros and cons of _not_ bringing life into the world, via a pleasure and pain filter. that's a perfectly logical question, when you disregard the semantic arguments against it.


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## knightofdespair (May 20, 2014)




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## SplendidBob (May 28, 2014)

truant said:


> You should be careful about summoning me, splendidbob. If you don't inscribe the pentagram properly I have a tendency to escape and wreak havoc in a thread. :wink2:


Heh, I am always glad to have your input and opinions 



truant said:


> I don't buy Benatar's argument at all. You can't say the absence of something is good or bad. It doesn't exist. And it's blatantly unwarranted to say that a non-existent good should be treated differently from a non-existent bad. That's logical nonsense. If you remove the logical inconsistency from his argument, all you're left with are his first two premises which are tautological.


I am going to have to disagree here. Take the scenario of a man being tortured. When he stops getting tortured (the absence of torture) this is clearly good. The absence of torture isn't a physical thing, but it can be considered a good nonetheless.



truant said:


> The only reason he gets away with his logical sleight of hand is because in our culture pain is considered worse than pleasure. We have an emotional incentive to invest in his conclusion even though it's logically unsound, so we turn a blind eye to the double-standard he introduces. We WANT to believe that it's true, but his argument doesn't support that conclusion.


I would think the vast majority would desperately want to refute Banatar's conclusion. I find his conclusion fascinating (and clearly I have pessimistic tendencies) so perhaps your point does apply to me.

As a slight aside I would agree that pain has a greater magnitude of effect for us than pleasure (not sure if that is the right way to put it), but I would go further and suggest this is biologically driven and likely applies across the species. Imagine if you will the worst pain possible, or the greatest pleasure possible. You can either avoid the pain, or take the pleasure. I would choose avoiding the pain instantly. I would be surprised if anyone chose the other way, and wouldn't expect this to vary across cultures. Perhaps I am unique in this though.



truant said:


> A culture, like a person, can be pessimistic or optimistic. Its worldview shapes how we interpret our experience. Our culture is pessimistic, so our attention is naturally drawn to our negative experiences. We learn to dwell on them at the expense of our positive experiences, to give them more weight and meaning; this inevitably creates the impression that we experience more pain than pleasure, but that doesn't mean that it HAS to be that way. If our culture as a whole spent more time dwelling on the positive experiences of our lives we might very well experience our lives as being, on the whole, more pleasurable than painful. But ofc it's impossible to know for sure without the necessary framing devices, just as it's impossible for someone who's depressed to know for sure that it's possible to escape from their depression.


I view our culture as overly optimistic, but given my pessimistic tendencies, this isn't surprising. I believe most people are, and thus our culture is, optimistic to the point of insanity truth be told. But, we obviously wont get anywhere arguing such a thing methinks 



truant said:


> I do, however, think that an individual has the right to determine their own destiny, and also that there's no way to prove that a person who wants to end their life, or to not procreate, is wrong. I think whether or not life is worth living is an unanswerable question and should be left up to the individuals.


Yes, it is hard for me to consider any other measure necessary than an individuals legitimate willingness to end their own life, as overcoming our biological programming to survive is a measure of extreme suffering.


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## SplendidBob (May 28, 2014)

bad baby said:


> i must admit i miss a lot that goes on in s&c, but i feel better for it, kinda. and uhh...yea....not going to even pretend i understand anything about philosophy lol, but those specs you posted are pretty kewl and would make excellent options should somebody someday decide to make a terribly depressing existentialist video game about whether or not life is worth living.


lol. I can imagine someone pitching the idea to an exec in a games company. 'Bear with me on this, have you ever heard of Banatar's argument about why nobody should be born ever again....'


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## quewezance (Sep 9, 2013)

Right now i dont believes in afterlife, but i guess as i get older i will probably believe


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## ethericbody (Feb 22, 2016)

I have no clue, and I don't claim to know on such matters because they are beyond our understanding right now. But I will say that the belief that we just lose consciousness is very naive. This the view we can take on only due to our very limited knowledge, hence extremely naive.


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## Kovu (Jun 18, 2013)

Nothing happens.


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## Overdrive (Sep 19, 2015)

Grand said:


> We die, which means we no longer exist in any form. You have no thoughts, no feelings, nothing matters anymore. Dead. The world moves on. You might as well have never existed at all.


exactly


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## 2Milk (Oct 29, 2014)

The "oculus rift" comes off and then we are told by our immortal buddies "did you enjoy your experience." You look at them confused and ask "what experience?" they proceed to say "you know. The life experience you selected on the 3D life simulator 9000." You say say "oh yeah now I remember, that little device we use to kill time, because being all powerful and all knowing is such a boring state of existence."


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## Mur (Jan 20, 2011)

Eternal nothingness.


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## McFly (Jul 15, 2014)

It's like turning your old computer off, and recycling it, where it gets stripped and the components reused, aka worm food. Er... except if you get cremated that is.


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## i suck at life (Mar 14, 2014)

either go to heaven or hell


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## Erroll (Jan 18, 2016)

I question the "self". 

In order for me to die, there must be a "Me", but I doubt that there is. 

What I consider "me" is a collection of genetic information and sensory experience. It is nothing new or unique. We all share a genetic history, so those who live on carry that genetic info into the future. What I think of as 'me' is how that genetic information reacts with all the situations that I have experienced. Again,other people, in countless generations past, have experienced everything that I have. Future people will have similar experience. Each person is just a sampler of the kludge of experience available to human beings. 

What survives us are the effects of what our sampler of experience have had on the world. If each person has a different combination of one million experiences out of a possible billion trillion experiences, well then, each action emanating from that combination may be sort of unique. So some of "my" actions may well be unique and live on in their effects on others and on the physical world.

It is comforting to know that I do not have to undergo experience for ever. It is also comforting to know that I ampart of a grand system of physical interaction in the universe.


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## coldsorehighlighter (Jun 2, 2010)

My belief, for myself, is that my soul will go back to "heaven", and if I haven't yet experienced all that I need to experience outside of heaven, my soul will leave again, born into a new body, on this planet or another, and I'll repeat this process until I've become as all-knowing as I possibly can be.

I don't believe that's what happens for all humans, though. I believe there are dark souls who are simply repeatedly born into this world, and their only purpose is to cause pain and destruction. It has to be this way.


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## JustThisGuy (Mar 24, 2012)

I'm kidding. You just rot in the ground. >


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## BAH (Feb 12, 2012)

You become Satan's slave


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## iAmCodeMonkey (May 23, 2010)

Scrub-Zero said:


> We go to Valhalla and get drunk silly with Thor and Odin. Probably not, but it sounds like a grand old time.


I wish we all went to that place lol. >


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