Suicide (warning: please do not read if you're suicidal!!!)

[Animus]

Animus,

I can get up and go to work every day with a smile, let stuff roll of my back and enjoy my life for the most part.

Right. You will lose all that with death.

I'm happy to live alone and don't even pursue relationships.

How old are you, if the question isn't too personal?

27

I'm quite content to be honest, yet if I was dead I wouldn't even care about that. I would have no care in the world, not even wishing I was alive.

True, but you also wouldn't have consciousness, and that sucks.

I can't look back and say I made the wrong choice.

You went through a suicidal phase?

Yea, like up until I was 20.

I'll put it this way, when I think about death, I think about what it is "like" to be dead, not the consequences of being dead because they are irrelevant to the state of "being" dead.

The experience of being dead is not an experience at all. That is what's terrible about being dead: you don't even get to find out what is it like to be dead, because you have no consciousness.

-

Yea, but when I'm dead I won't care. See I like to think of death as being dead which is emptiness, non-existence, therefor it cannot suck, there is nothing to suck.

[Carl G]

Animus wrote:

Yea, but when I'm dead I won't care. See I like to think of death as being dead which is emptiness, non-existence, therefor it cannot suck, there is nothing to suck.

You might like to think of death like that but that doesn't mean that's how it is. You might care. You might feel sucky that you killed yourself. Death may not be emptiness. You may not actually die. Your life may continue in another form, you still being you. You may have to deal with the fact that you killed yourself in addition continuing to have to deal with the reasons why. Can you say for sure? How do you know? Doesn't it make more sense to deal now, get past those issues, and then have a better quality experience while still in the present skin? That option hedges all bets and there's the quick payoff, to boot.

[Animus]

Hi Carl,

At this point I have really no problem with living or being dead. However, I'm pretty sure death will be a lot like not living. One obstacle to the suicide scenario is partial success/failure. It happens that people in an attempt to shoot themselves merely destroy their frontal lobes and half their face, but remain alive and consequently vegetabalized. That is the error of copying the method often seen in movies of placing the barrel in the mouth. Its more effective to shoot for the brain stem.

But I have no desire to die, per se, just that I'm not concerned about it. There was a time when it was the only imaginable solace, but philosophy and a string of bad luck changed all that.

Animus wrote:

Yea, but when I'm dead I won't care. See I like to think of death as being dead which is emptiness, non-existence, therefor it cannot suck, there is nothing to suck.

You might like to think of death like that but that doesn't mean that's how it is. You might care. You might feel sucky that you killed yourself. Death may not be emptiness. You may not actually die. Your life may continue in another form, you still being you. You may have to deal with the fact that you killed yourself in addition continuing to have to deal with the reasons why. Can you say for sure? How do you know? Doesn't it make more sense to deal now, get past those issues, and then have a better quality experience while still in the present skin? That option hedges all bets and there's the quick payoff, to boot.

[maestro]

You might like to think of death like that but that doesn't mean that's how it is. You might care. You might feel sucky that you killed yourself. Death may not be emptiness. You may not actually die. Your life may continue in another form, you still being you.

Carl, what happens in deep sleep, or a strong shock to the body system, when it goes unconscious. Why should death be any different.

[Shahrazad]

Animus,

Yea, but when I'm dead I won't care.

Yes, it is now that you are alive that you will care that pretty soon, it will all be over. And if you like life, you don't want it to be over.

See I like to think of death as being dead which is emptiness, non-existence, therefor it cannot suck, there is nothing to suck.

It doesn't suck because of what it is, it sucks because of what it is not.

-

[Carl G]

maestro wrote:

Carl, what happens in deep sleep, or a strong shock to the body system, when it goes unconscious.

You tell me and then we'll both know.

Do we actually know what happens to consciousness goes during those times, where does it go?

Why should death be any different

The question is not "why should death be any different," but is death different?

To paraphrase Clint Eastwood in that Dirty Harry movie, well, punk, is it?

[maestro]

Do we actually know what happens to consciousness goes during those times, where does it go?

Well human consciousness is not an object, but a process. When conditions for its arising are not met, it disappears, much like a flame disappears, it does not go anywhere. So under a strong chemical imbalance say a heatstroke, the consciousness process breaks and it ceases to exist.

The question is not "why should death be any different," but is death different?

To paraphrase Clint Eastwood in that Dirty Harry movie, well, punk, is it?

Death being the destruction of the body, it follows that consciousness must disappear as all processes are disrupted.

[mystex]

Does suffering have to be emotional?

[Shahrazad]

No, it can also be physical.

[mystex]

lol

Anything else?

[Carl G]

Do we actually know what happens to consciousness goes during those times, where does it go?

Well human consciousness is not an object, but a process. When conditions for its arising are not met, it disappears, much like a flame disappears, it does not go anywhere. So under a strong chemical imbalance say a heatstroke, the consciousness process breaks and it ceases to exist.

The question is not "why should death be any different," but is death different?

To paraphrase Clint Eastwood in that Dirty Harry movie, well, punk, is it?

Death being the destruction of the body, it follows that consciousness must disappear as all processes are disrupted.

All speculation.

[Animus]

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Neu ... sciousness

[mansman]

Often made by mistake by emotional sufferers who refuse to believe--
- in the blissful reality touted by sages, ie Nirvana and,
- in their ability to attain it at all.

So all it takes is a little faith and a "yes i can! yes i can! yes i can!" attitude.

[mystex]

All it takes is: "I am"

*bows*

[Cognition]

Remember this: Life may or may not get better. But there's always the possibility that it will, and nobody can ever predict how things will ultimately turn...usually a suicidal person will think they can though. By committing suicide, you are rejecting the possibility of a better life. Our lives tend to last around 100 years at best. Why not experience as much as you can before you die?

[1otherS]

I agree Cognition. Whatever makes you feel and act good...pursue it, as long as it doesn't include stealing other people's rights and dignity.