• leo
    882
    so what youre basically saying is that, i gotta live if i wanna play guitar and fall in love, and if i dont want anything, suicide is the best optionRhasta1
    I'm not saying that, I say finding a point requires feeling a desire, and that it is meaningless to try to apply the concept of point to the whole of existence, I don't say that if you don't find a point you should kill yourself.

    Why should you kill yourself if you don't find a point? Is life really so unbearable to you that you prefer not to live if you don't find a point? If you suffer then why don't you try to find what it is that makes you suffer? It's not the absence of point that makes you suffer, there's something at the source of that.

    In another thread of mine I argue that fear and false beliefs are the source of most suffering. And I believe you hold false beliefs which you haven't uncovered that make you suffer.
  • leo
    882
    If you want something practical, if you were next to me I would hold you in my arms and tell you that I'm here for you and I won't let you down, that you deserve love and that I want you to live.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Why should you kill yourself if you don't find a point? Is life really so unbearable to you that you prefer not to live if you don't find a point?leo

    You could put it this way: "My credo is that if I don't have a point, I should kill myself..................but wait, that's a point, so I guess I can't kill myself after all."
  • Jake
    1.4k
    thats not actually practical. i dont know how one can control his/her thoughts. no apologies needed, im 19 , younger than you expected.Rhasta1

    19 is kinda young to be declaring things impossible.
  • Rhasta1
    46
    as stated earlier, wish i could i help it. and too much exposure to internet can send you down paths you really shouldnt go.
  • Rhasta1
    46
    In another thread of mine I argue that fear and false beliefs are the source of most suffering. And I believe you hold false beliefs which you haven't uncovered that make you suffer.leo

    can you explain what you mean? you might be right.
    and yes, life is unbearable without the fun
  • Rhasta1
    46
    thats not a point, that's just some way to phrase your sentenece
    point is something that you feel
  • Jake
    1.4k
    as stated earlier, wish i could i help it.Rhasta1

    As I stated earlier, 19 is too young to declare things impossible. Maybe you can't help it because you haven't tried. Maybe you can't help it because it takes time to learn. Maybe you can't help it because you don't want to learn it. Maybe you like the drama and don't wish to give it up. Maybe lots of things. Time can help sort through the pile.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    Any "should" is necessarily a way that someone feels.
  • hks
    171
    A dangerous question to ask.

    As I recall Hamlet was pondering this while on the point of suicide.

    Aquinas' God has placed us here for some purpose.

    To void that purpose by one's own hand is defiance of that God.

    To make an enemy of God is the greatest failure a person could commit.

    While I do not fault anyone in extreme pain facing terminal death to end their own suffering, I would say anything short of that would be a moral crime and in defiance of God.
  • Rhasta1
    46
    suicidal is nothing but an option to extract early if you do not like this game, this labyrinth that God or the gods have put forward.
    its highly ironic to me that god gave us this life that sucks in every level and get mad if we don't play by the rules
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    As many in the past have reached this conclusion more or less, it all comes down to the most simple of questions. To be or not to be?
    Some live good lives even though they know that life is ultimately pointless.
    So what keeps you alive, and why? Do you have any tips on how to get past nihilism?
    Rhasta1

    People are too busy just living to think about living. It's like the situation where you're in some crappy deal but it's too late for you to change your mind. So, you simply follow the path that lies in front of you - hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
  • Michael Ossipoff
    1.7k


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

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

    Michael Ossipoff

    9 Sa
  • Michael Ossipoff
    1.7k
    suicidal is nothing but an option to extract early if you do not like this game, this labyrinth that God or the gods have put forward.
    its highly ironic to me that god gave us this life that sucks in every level and get mad if we don't play by the rules
    Rhasta1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Michael Ossipoff

    9 Sa
  • _db
    3.6k
    So what keeps you alive, and why?Rhasta1

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    Do you have any tips on how to get past nihilism?Rhasta1

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  • Rhasta1
    46

    I was crying because I was in the middle of an existential crisis, but then you made me laugh. Thank you good sir.
  • Rhasta1
    46
    How can you know for sure that there's no such thing as oblivion, absolute silence and blackness? Oblivion sounds like nothing, but it can give you that nothing else can, peace of mind.
    I'd love it if you could tell me why you think that oblivion is nothing but an illusion.
  • simmerdown
    19
    If you're contemplating suicide, then maybe it would be prudent ask yourself what you expect to gain by it. I suggest that, with loss of waking-consciousness, you'd have the vague but horrific nightmare knowledge something really bad has happened, and that it was done by you.

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

    Are you saying that because the horrific nightmare knowledge that something really bad has happened would comprise our last moment, that a lack of oblivion would somehow perpetuate this subjective moment into eternity?
  • Michael Ossipoff
    1.7k


    How can you know for sure that there's no such thing as oblivion, absolute silence and blackness?
    .
    I guarantee that there’s no such thing as oblivion.
    .
    You’ll never experience a time when you aren’t. How could you?
    .
    When your body has completely shut down, the doctor will declare you dead, and your survivors will know that you’re no more. But you never experience that time.
    .
    Death completely separates the dying person’s timescale from that of his/her survivors.
    .
    So, what then do you experience? Ever deepening sleep.
    .
    Approaching nothing, sure, but never getting there.
    .
    So no, you can’t get away from yourself. You can’t get away from being. By electively (not by physical necessity) destroying your body, you can’t get away from being; you can just make it bad.
    .
    During that deepening sleep, you eventually won’t know that there were ever, or even could be, such things as worldly-life, a body, a physical world, identity, individuality, time or events.
    .
    Because you won’t know that there is, was, or even could be time or events, it’s reasonable to say that you’ll have arrived in timelessness.
    .
    Yes, your body will be about to shut-down, but you won’t know or care, because you’ve arrived at timelessness.
    .
    That, happening in the normal course of events, normally is something good, but, by suicide, you can make it bad.
    .
    As I said in my reply to Schopenhauer1, that I referred you to:
    .
    Death doesn’t interrupt life. Life (temporarily and briefly) interrupts sleep.
    .
    Sleep is the natural, normal, usual and rightful state-of-affairs.
    .
    The time in this life is limited, and so one might as well enjoy it while one can. You’ll be out of it soon enough, in the normal course of events.
    .
    I emphasize that the end of life is normally not a bad thing at all. It just crucially depends on how and why it happens.
    .
    Say you eventually die naturally, or by physically-necessary auto-euthanasia or requested-euthanasia, because of a disease or injury that spoils your quality-of-life. That isn’t suicide, and it isn’t a bad death.
    .
    Then, during the ever-deepening sleep that I referred to above, additional things that you won’t know that there ever were, or even could be, include:
    .
    Problems, adversity, menace, need , want, lack, dissatisfaction, discontent, and incompletion.
    .
    But I’m talking about a death that’s natural, or by physically-necessary autoeuthanasia or requested-euthanasia, due to a disease or injury that spoils your quality-of-life.
    .
    If, instead, it’s by suicide, all bets are off, and I can’t guarantee that the nightmare knowledge that something really bad has happened, by your own action, won’t color that timelessness.
    .
    Oblivion sounds like nothing, but it can give you that nothing else can, peace of mind.
    .
    No, because there’s no such thing as oblivion, because you’ll never experience a time when you aren’t.
    .
    But yes, the timeless ever-deepening sleep at the end of life normally brings peace-of-mind.
    .
    …unless the death is by suicide, in which case it’s a whole other ballgame and all bets are off.
    .
    Unnecessarily ending one’s life by destroying one’s body would be the ultimate device-malfunction, self-denial, self-hate, and misery-preservation. …attempting to end misery and discontent, but instead bringing it with you.
    .
    I'd love it if you could tell me why you think that oblivion is nothing but an illusion.
    .
    Oblivion is a logical impossibility, because you can’t experience a time when you aren’t.
    .
    But, yes, there will be ever-deepening sleep, and that can be a good thing, when it happens in the normal course of events.
    .
    Michael Ossipoff
    .
    9 Su
  • Michael Ossipoff
    1.7k


    Are you saying that because the horrific nightmare knowledge that something really bad has happened would comprise our last moment…
    .
    I’m not talking about a moment. I’m talking about ever-deepening sleep. …timeless, because eventually one will no longer know that there ever were, or even could be, such things as time or events.
    .
    But yes, I’m saying that maybe that nightmare knowledge that something really bad happened, by one’s own doing, would color and define the nature of that timelessness. I can’t guarantee that it wouldn’t.
    .
    , that a lack of oblivion would somehow perpetuate this subjective moment into eternity?
    .
    If the horror of that nightmare-knowledge, is persistent in that timeless ever-deepening sleep, that wouldn’t be a good thing.
    .
    I can’t guarantee that it wouldn’t be. Why take the chance?
    .
    Michael Ossipoff
    .
    9 Su
  • Christoffer
    1.8k


    Everything is pointless. But even though I'm of the opinion that there's nothing behind the beauty that exists around us, I find there's even more beauty in the idea that the randomness and probabilities of the universe settled on something that can perceive its own beauty. Even if it's just probability, it's truly mind-boggling and epic. I don't need fantasies to experience the grand awesomeness of everything, I think it in itself is enough.

    Other than that, what else is there to living than to live the life you have? The other option is to never have lived, which is pointless as it cannot perceive itself not living. The question of pointlessness just becomes absurd as there's nothing to compare to. You have a pointless existence, and it's more than not existing at all.
  • Michael Ossipoff
    1.7k
    i gotta live if i wanna play guitar and fall in love, and if i don't want anything, suicide is the best optionRhasta1

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

    Michael Ossipoff

    10 Tu
  • Rhasta1
    46
    Approaching nothing, sure, but never getting thereMichael Ossipoff

    all the things that you mentioned prior to this sentence were true and made sense, but i dont understand their correlation with this statement "Approaching nothing, sure, but never getting there"
    Why has there gotta be anything but blackness and simply ceasing to exist?
    Say you eventually die naturally, or by physically-necessary auto-euthanasia or requested-euthanasia, because of a disease or injury that spoils your quality-of-life. That isn’t suicide, and it isn’t a bad death.Michael Ossipoff
    But I'd like to argue that euthanasia, self-requested, is a form of suicide nevertheless. See, people who take their own lives, teenage girls or unemployed dudes, are suffering to an extent which is indurable for them. They don't kill themselves because their boyfriends broke up with them or they lost their job, they suffer because the value of their lives, which was based on careers or a loving relationship, shatter and they seem unable to find any reason to why they have got to continue the futile existence. And in my opinion, this kinda existential crisis is far more painful and excruciating than any kind of cancer or disease, and only a madman would linger on their lives.
    Unnecessarily ending one’s life by destroying one’s body would be the ultimate device-malfunction, self-denial, self-hate, and misery-preservation. …attempting to end misery and discontent, but instead bringing it with you.Michael Ossipoff
    I just don't understand why people have got to hate themselves to commit suicide? I don't understand this notion at all
  • Rhasta1
    46
    If you don't have any wants, then why would there be a reason to do anything?Michael Ossipoff

    I quite haven't figured out whether life is incapable of satisfying me in any way, or there's something out there that will make me more at ease. And I'm searching to see if the latter could be true
  • Rhasta1
    46
    I find there's even more beauty in the idea that the randomness and probabilities of the universe settled on something that can perceive its own beautyChristoffer

    what beauty are you talking about exactly?
  • Michael Ossipoff
    1.7k


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

    Michael Ossipoff

    10 W
  • Christoffer
    1.8k
    what beauty are you talking about exactly?Rhasta1

    It's often the last thing people hold onto when going from belief to nihilism and understanding the meaninglessness of life. People who believe in religion or some higher meaning attach an aesthetic beauty to existence which they feel would be pointless as well if they accept that all else is. My point was that I find this to be misleading for them because they have no concept of the aesthetic beauty of existence and the universe, outside of the idea that it was in some way designed. I'm referring to the mathematical precision and aesthetics of how we perceive everything around us. It can feel like it has some higher and spiritual beauty, but we have a programming that makes us see the world in a way that changes our emotions, that's all, but also in of itself a kind of beauty not to be missed.
  • Michael Ossipoff
    1.7k


    ”Approaching nothing, sure, but never getting there” — Michael Ossipoff
    .
    all the things that you mentioned prior to this sentence were true and made sense, but i dont understand their correlation with this statement "Approaching nothing, sure, but never getting there"
    Why has there gotta be anything [in your experience] but blackness and simply ceasing to exist?
    .
    How would you experience a time of no experience?
    .
    Yes, from the point of view of your survivors, they experience that you’re gone when your body has shut down. But we’re talking about your own experience.
    .
    ”Say you eventually die naturally, or by physically-necessary auto-euthanasia or requested-euthanasia, because of a disease or injury that spoils your quality-of-life. That isn’t suicide, and it isn’t a bad death. —“ Michael Ossipoff
    .
    But I'd like to argue that euthanasia, self-requested, is a form of suicide nevertheless.
    .
    Of course. “Suicide” is often merely defined as causing one’s own death. I don’t consider that a useful definition, because there’s a distinction to be made:
    .
    Is there or is there not a disease or injury that spoils their quality-of-life?
    .
    At the opposite extreme, would be if it’s done or spoken of for no reason whatsoever, other than a belief that it will cure existential-angst. …or because of a contemptuous opinion of life, necessarily accompanied by an exalted belief in oneself as someone who can be sure that he can “fix” the situation by destroying his existing situation. …like someone who works on his car without sufficient training.
    .
    …usually accompanied by a fallacious belief that one can achieve oblivion.
    .
    Of course there’s a gradation between those extremes.
    .
    In my usage, it’s “suicide” unless there’s an irreversible disease or injury that spoils the person’s quality of life (in their own opinion).
    .
    Briefly, regarding one point in that gradation:
    .
    Well, alright, what if life became impossible for someone for drastically, prohibitively, extreme societal/economic situational-adversity? Then, too, I probably wouldn’t call it “suicide” either, though then the justification or need would be less than the abovementioned disease or injury, because there might be an avenue of survival that the person hasn’t found, doesn’t know about. …as when refugees are accepted somewhere.
    .
    There are other points in the gradation, but that would unnecessarily lengthen this reply, because, here, we’re probably talking about the Nihilist extreme.
    .
    See, people who take their own lives, teenage girls [only girls?] or unemployed dudes, are suffering to an extent which is unendurable for them. They don't kill themselves because their boyfriends broke up with them or they lost their job, they suffer because the value of their lives, which was based on careers or a loving relationship, shatter and they seem unable to find any reason to why they have got to continue the futile existence.
    .
    And in my opinion, this kinda existential crisis is far more painful and excruciating than any kind of cancer or disease
    .
    Because it’s difficult to compare things so different, we can just agree that they’re different, and agree to disagree about which is worse.
    .
    The psychological reasons you describe above are in the gradation, between the extremes, that I referred to above.
    .
    …not physical justification, but not frivolous existential-angst either.
    .
    , and only a madman would linger on their lives.
    .
    I agree with the person who pointed out that it’s the other way around.
    .
    We’re talking about a drastic irreversible destructive action, usually without a clear non-fallacious expression of what it is believed that it will gain.
    .
    …an elective action, chosen for psychological reasons. …as opposed to something that physically happens to someone. That’s the simple and clear distinction that I make in my definition of “suicide”. Did it physically happen to you, or did you choose it?
    .
    Unnecessarily ending one’s life by destroying one’s body would be the ultimate device-malfunction, self-denial, self-hate, and misery-preservation. …attempting to end misery and discontent, but instead bringing it with you.” — Michael Ossipoff”
    I just don't understand why people have got to hate themselves to commit suicide? I don't understand this notion at all.
    .
    Alright, I’m not a mind-reader, so I shouldn’t say “self-hate”.
    .
    But yes, it’s undeniably self-harming, choosing to actively, electively, end one’s life by destroying one’s body.
    .
    …with only a vague notion of what it’s supposed to gain… other than a fallacious notion of achievable oblivion, nothingness.
    .
    I also commented on that above in this reply.
    .
    Yes, life doesn’t have a reason, purpose, or meaning. What’s wrong with that?
    .
    You think you have a way to fix that? Destroy your body to gain meaning and purpose?
    .
    Your being in this reasonless, purposeless, meaningless life is something that just happened spontaneously and (I claim) inevitably.
    .
    Adding, to that, the purposeful destruction of a body, to send yourself into the final stage of that life that you never asked for. …you’ll still be in that experience that you didn’t ask for—just the final stage of it instead of its waking-life part that you were born to. In other words, you’ll still be in the reasonless, purposeless, meaningless life experience, but now its final part.
    .
    The reasonless, purposelessness and meaningless will remain, with the addition of a purposeless transition done by you (as opposed to your birth, which merely happened to you).
    .
    Still purposelessness, but now purposelessness by you.
    .
    Your watch isn’t running well? Let me fix it, with this sledgehammer.
    .
    And yes, when you destructively (on yourself) act-out your discontent, you’ll bring your discontent with you into death (in which there’s no oblivion).
    .
    I remind you of what I said in my earlier post, regarding, after the loss of waking-consciousness, the nightmare knowledge that something really bad and irreversible has happened due to a self-destructive act.
    .
    Given the irreversibility, how sure are you really that it will result in something better, and not worse?
    .
    Michael Ossipoff
    .
    10 W
  • Michael Ossipoff
    1.7k


    ”If you don't have any wants, then why would there be a reason to do anything?” — Michael Ossipoff
    .
    I quite haven't figured out whether life is incapable of satisfying me in any way
    .
    …and suicide might satisfy you?
    .
    How?
    .
    , or there's something out there that will make me more at ease. And I'm searching to see if the latter could be true
    .
    I don’t think complete ease is to be expected. Some anxiety and insecurity is a natural and appropriate part of life, regardless of what kind of societal-world we live in.
    .
    I should emphasize that I don’t claim smug superiority in this matter:
    .
    During the last half of my teens I, too, wanted to die*, but it was for a reason (…instead of due to Nihilism)
    .
    *(…but didn’t, because I was very particular about reliability and comfort)
    .
    Was it a good reason? No.
    .
    In brief:
    .
    Due to parental-bullying, I gave up on life long before kindergarten, long before any time that I can remember. By the time I was in elementary-school, that giving-up was conscious as well as subconscious, and I knew that there wouldn’t be a life.
    .
    Though, in those days, it was entirely impossible for me to objectively regard and evaluate that giving up and how I’d arrived at it—it was subconsciously ingrained— and so I didn’t have a chance, I did nonetheless understand that I didn’t have a chance. So I was right about that much, while unaware of (and mistaking for fact) the parentally-taught false perceptions, attitudes, valuations and conclusions that that were the reason why I didn’t have a chance.
    .
    A question:
    .
    Is this just philosophical Nihilism, or is there something about your particular life-situation that makes your own particular life inadequate for you?
    .
    Michael Ossipoff
    .
    10 W
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    So what keeps you alive, and why? Do you have any tips on how to get past nihilism?Rhasta1

    I believe that there's purpose to life and death. So I live and will die fulfilling that purpose. Hopefully I'm right and wrong about it.

    Nihilism is the truth but we can always opt for temporary meaning. I'm at a train station about to leave the land of the living. Might as well make some people happy and scratch my name on the wall or smile at the old lady.
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