No it isn't. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of how evolution works to suggest we're programmed for a purpose — Benkei

The purpose is inferred from facts as they stand/appear to us. Objection sustained!

My life ain't something to brag about but here I am, (seemingly) content, happy enough to want to keep breathing.

That's wonderful, Mr Smith! As long as good people like you keep breathing, hope for a new dawn will persist. (Also, considering that nice comments are sometimes considered to be sarcastic these days, I want to make it explicitly clear that I am not trying to be sarcastic/snarky).

:pray:

:pray:

Getting killed being unpleasant is debatable and pleasant feelings don't make life worthwhile just tolerable. — Darkneos

Getting killed means overcoming the survival drive, which makes it unpleasant. Maybe you don't have enough pleasant feelings, because pleasant feelings are what makes one enjoy life - by definition. Aren't you diagnosed with anhedonia?

Also it sounds horrifying to think that all these drives out of your control keep you here when you don't want to be. — Darkneos

But they also drive you to improve your life, so they can be your friends. You are what you are, so it seems best to accept it and make the best of it.

Why indeed but that's not really an argument to continue living. — Darkneos

Perhaps not for you.
You are 'overruling' natural instinct. I am glad that humans can do that or else we could not overrule a Darwinian law of the jungle approach to life but as I said before, I am glad I don't carry your self-imposed cage in which you experience your life as a moment to moment curse.

Also "unjust", "unnecessary"? That's casting an awful lot of assumptions onto existence. — Darkneos

So you disagree with the antinatalists that its immoral to have kids due to the existence of unneccessary and unjust harms/suffering?

since a universe with life is just as purposeless as one without it. There is no ultimately point to existence, it simply persists. — Darkneos

So I suppose you see terms like 'human progress' or 'legacy' or 'lives building on lives' or 'compulsion to find the answers to the big questions,' or 'I feel its my purpose in life to.....,' etc to be purposeless. You employ a very strange and unconvincing form of logic. Quite irrational actually.

But you're in the wrong here. I universe without life sounds amazing. I would like to "live" in it, ironic I know, to bask in the absolute silence of it all. For however long I last, and then know with my death extinction of all life would at last occur — Darkneos

Perhaps we could scientifically test how much you would enjoy this by placing you in a simulation of complete sensory deprivation. We could remove 'ironic' and allow you to actually "live" it.
We can use chemicals to temporarily paralyse you and completely remove your sense of touch. Temporarily remove your sight, hearing and sense of smell and taste. No sensory input whatsoever. We could leave you like that whilst still maintaining your bodily functions for 10 years. We can then reinstate your senses and you can describe your bliss to the human race. There are many 'locked in' medical conditions which are not so far from this state such as Encephalitis lethargica as depicted in the film awakenings. We would of course leave your brain working in the same way it does now so that your experience would be 'live' as you wanted instead of the 'no awareness' offered by death. We can induce 8 hours of sleep for you in each 24h period. Would you volunteer for this 'living death' experiment?

The purpose is inferred from facts as they stand/appear to us. Objection sustained! — Agent Smith

Having a lively imagination is no excuse to misunderstand what possible interpretations exist. Biological facts do not support a teleological interpretation. Period.

Having a lively imagination is no excuse to misunderstand what possible interpretations exist. Biological facts do not support a teleological interpretation. Period. — Benkei

Mea culpa. Philosophy ain't no picnic. Sometimes, I feel like I came to the wrong place!

No, that's just a claim. There is nothing to say the world wouldn't end if I died. — Darkneos

The law of the conservation of energy is not a claim, the clue is in the title. There is indeed a frame of reference that suggests that from your point of view, the Universe ends when you die. In reality, it might take many trillions of years for all life to truly end in the universe but as you will not experience time passing after you are dead, trillions of years and an instant will be all the same to you. This was also the case before you were born. Just as well you were formed and became alive or else you and all other antilifers would not have ever been able to complain about your existence.

Transhumanism is literally death anxiety. — Darkneos

Nonesense!

Hope is little more than delusion that promises what it can't deliver. — Darkneos

I am with Alexander Pope. Hope springs eternal.

Transhumanism is literally death anxiety. — Darkneos

Nonesense! — universeness

Just a little more on this. Transhumanism seeks more control over the inevitability of death and there may be an aspect of death anxiety as one of the drivers but you ignore the absolute practicality of improving human choices, robustness, ability and longevity. Space is not life-friendly in the main at the moment and it is very advisable that humans become an interplanetary or even interstellar species asap.
It is a pragmatic survival imperative. We must leave the nest as we are too vulnerable if we stay confined to one planet. Feel free to label this concern 'extinction anxiety.' Having improved robustness, ability and longevity will help us survive in the vastness of space. All power to transhumanism! as long any enhancements will maintain at least the majority of what is considered human identity or me, myself and I ....... and of course you.

Actually yes since it's less painful — Darkneos

How is it less painful?

Death is a natural thing. It happens. When you have had a nice relationship with someone, when the person dies you will have fond memories about him or her. It's just part of life.

Yet not having parents is usually far more traumatic and a rare unfortunate thing.

There's a delightful little tale of a philosopher who said to a friend, "There's no difference between being alive and being dead."

The friend, in a playful mood, asked, "If there's no difference between being alive and being dead, why not just kill yourself?"

The philosopher replied, "Since there's no difference between being alive and being dead, why should I go to the trouble?"

Well, you won't ever experience death. Death is simply, "The end". You'll experience dying if you're conscious at the time. But that's it. There is no peace, no rest, no etc. — Philosophim

How do you know????

This has nothing to do with peace in life, it's about the cessation of all things. — Darkneos

No, it has to do with the belief that you are your body; and it has to do with the belief that when the body dies, "it's all over".

Note: These beliefs are dogmatic, axiomatic. We're not supposed to question them.

Yet every day, we also act in ways that show that we don't hold those beliefs consistently.

If society had a different mind they'd see that and allow people to exit if they choose.

And they do, the list is growing:

Physician-assisted suicide is legal in some countries, under certain circumstances, including Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland, parts of the United States and parts of Australia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_suicide

I guess people only rationalize living by stating "precious joys are worth cherishing" is due to death anxiety, as Ernest Becker put it. — Darkneos

It's more the case that we're craving sensual pleasures. We don't fear death per se; we fear that we won't be supplied with sensual pleasures or that we'll run out of them.

Imagination is good, but living at the moment requires courage. That's it. Courage to face the mundane and the ordinary. — L'éléphant

The courage to lower one's existential standards! Yay!

Escapism has flourished over the last last decade or so.

"Facing" the mundane and the ordinary is yet another form of escapism.

The philosopher replied, "Since there's no difference between being alive and being dead, why should I go to the trouble?" — Torus34

E.M Cioran said it better:

The obsession with suicide is characteristic of the man who can neither live nor die, and whose attention never swerves from this double impossibility.

When people come to me saying they want to kill themselves, I tell them, "What's your rush? You can kill yourself any time you like. So calm down. Suicide is a positive act." And they do calm down.

Only optimists commit suicide, the optimists who can no longer be . . . optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why should they have any to die?

It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.

"I'll go on" like reading the blackest passages of Cioran — 180 Proof

The irony of living to be 84 years old and die of Alzheimer's!

I'd love to discuss Buddhism with him.

He truly understood melancholy from the inside. That is to say.. He knew that suicide was only ever something as an idea and was never a proper response because the damage is never undone. Basically, there is no relief, only moments of calmness within life itself. Though rare.

I shall name this village Melancholia, which sits in a flood prone depression next to the River Angst. The dark clouds are confined in the valley by the heights of Mount Despair and Mount Regret, where a true rain never falls, just an eternal cold drizzle.

Only one small path leads out, but its trailhead can only be seen by casting one's gaze above shoulder height, and none have yet looked that high up. They've heard of this Path of Hope, but never having seen it, they scoff and shrug, looking at the ground, firmly denying it. — Hanover

The righteous will be glad when they are avenged,
when they dip their feet in the blood of the wicked.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+58&version=NIV

Like I said, I'd love to discuss Buddhism with him. He said he understood the Buddha. To begin with, back in his day, there weren't many translations of the Pali Canon available. I wonder what his source for Buddhism was.

Yes, but it exists to gather all the anti-life stuff in one place, so that it can be easily ignored. Until Baden merged them all into this thread, there were at least two or three such active discussions. We've had enough. Containment seems like the best option. — Jamal

Given the global trend toward legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia, will you rethink your negative take on the "anti-life stuff"?

Your point, while perhaps a fair one, seems not to have affected my position.

What causes life to turn on life? — ChatteringMonkey

Not enough return upon investment.

Contrary to the belief of capitalists and assorted others, people do not have an infinite willingness to invest any amount of effort, however great, into obtaining any amount of sensual pleasure, however small. You will not work the entire day just for a morsel of food.

Stuff takes time ...

@rossii What should I live for or how should I live?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13302/page/p1

A person doesn't live in a socio-psychological vacuum, therefore, the answer to this question cannot be idiosyncratic.

It doesn't have to be interpreted as a negative take or mod judgement on the subject. E.g. We could say it's more convenient and efficient to have everything in one discussion. Anyhow, it took me years of careful consideration and preparation to come up with this cunning plan, so I'm not for backing down now.

Why do these quotes oddly cheer me up :lol:?

Life is somewhat of an ouroboros (prey-predator, food web). Death (destruction/0) works against with Birth (creation/1)!

Life is somewhat of an ouroboros (prey-predator, food web). Death (destruction/0) works against with Birth (creation/1)! — Agent Smith

The market place is like Schopenhauer's Will playing out in an endless cycle of "supply" and "demand" eating each other, as you say- like the ouroboros (prey-predator). Your constant demands and his supply means suffering will continue.. NOW GET BACK TO WORK! People need work to provide "meaning". It's part of a "system" (free, socialist, or otherwise) that needs feeding with more people and more people's attention. Nothing gets done on its own.. but everyone must contribute or perish. How can birth not be a political question? Obviously people want the system to keep going.. More reinforcing of the supply and demand.. Double down. Meanwhile the ouroboros' squeeze gets tighter and tighter.