Would you choose nonexistence?
To never have lived?
the whole thing started in the comments section of this post, when i took exception to a phrase uttered by jake
a separate thread seemed cleaner...
edit. jakespeak
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33 comments:
eh dude ... the link that you have,'jake' takes you to somebody else's page do remove it or lint it to my lj page.
dude... that's your blogger profile. if you look carefully, you will notice there is a title in there that points to your jakespeak post. i will edit the post accordingly.
however, you could have pasted a copy of the link u know... lol. encouraging you to work... so i dont have to cut and paste. im too lazy for that...
no. if you click it takes you to a profile .jake' whose blogger site is 'bethinkingjake.blogspot..." while my blogger is "insuferablejake.blogspot ..."
lol, i know, i somehow managed to edit his profile and put in my lj link. i dont know how tho ..lol .. i'll mail someone at blogger to take a look ..
that is the best blogger story ever. well, somewhere up there in the list. can u still edit it?
i suggest you blog it. everywhere.
now back to the post title.
you dont believe me ? mon ami ...
look at the name displayed for this and the name in the previous comments ... ones i jake and the other is jakespeak ..hmmm ...
er .. ahem.. sorry .. i figured it out. course i wont evidence his lord jake's stupidity here .. :-)
but my bad folks! my bad.
Thanks zimbly mallu for hauling this debate to this side of town. No, Aruna doesn't mind this dialogue continuing, in fact I know she was feverishly logging onto my blogspot for the comments.
Let's face it, the world has has become hostile. I mean we are too many. And the Earth's resources are at breaking point. We are facing catastrophic calamities. A wise friend says , that perhaps this is why the population is exploding, because natural calamities will wipe out a fair chunk of our population in bits in the coming years. The tsunami was just the beginning he says.
And if people like Aruna do not want a piece of their soul bought into this environment, then we should commend the thought.
good to know. will comment when appropriate. hehe. will even see if i can drag a few more people in.
i seem to be at a disadvantage, since i derive a lot of my thought straight from holy writ, and people tend to dismiss them out of hand...
i would say the world has always been hostile, and that somehow, we have been crying about the earth's resources being depleted, but we still survive. the beginning of the end, you say, i agree. although for other reasons...
i do, however, wouldn't it be tantamount to giving up on life, to leave no hope for the future?
zimbly mallu said " however, wouldn't it be tantamount to giving up on life, to leave no hope for the future?"
No I dont think it is giving up on life. Surprisingly, this seems to be view taken by many.i.e "giving up on life."
We will be 2 billion soon! The scene was not so earlier, when there were enough resources for the existing population. Of course it was not fully exploited then. Today everything is over exploited leading us to the critical edge of oblivion.
And yes I am a "willing conspirator" Awakening!
this is getting interestinger and interestinger ... nice.
i have to agree with aruna. over exploitation and all that bad jazz. but .. lets look at it objectively, the need to procreate is very powerful, a species rides on that. the good of the colletive is greater than the good of the individual. making up your mind is one thing, looking at things logically, but who said everything was logical anyway? lol!
And to zimbly, when i said "area few moments of happiness worth the other moments of suffering ", i was asking a question that can only be answered subjectively. each for and to himself.
and to asnwer your would i choose non-existence ? i dont know. how could i? i dont know what non-existence is ... myabe it is nirvana, maybe its nothing. we cant talk about non-existence from where we are, we lack a frame of reference. All i know is existence and its not much fun for the most part.
ahem! careful folks we are on highly subjective terrain here .. teard with care ..
2 billion, and so many mallus...
agreed, but the sea is still there, the last frontier, and what about the rest of the solar system? jst saying that resources do exist...
would you equate quality of life with the amount of resources we have? i feel that an undue importance has been placed on resources and thus the argument becomes skewed...
resources are needed for survival no ?
how did we arrive at the conclusion that we're running out?
global warming, rising fuel prices, smog, animal species going extinct, reduction in forest and green cover, ice-bergs melting,
holes in the ozone layer ... need any more ?
Quite the heaven innit ?
interesting.
a few years ago, before the post-modern age that we all live in, they thought mankind would go on to glory and rule the universe.
now we have resorted to nihilism and a sad pathos that leaves no joy.
what if... both were wrong...
anyway, the question was whether you would choose to exist, given one.
@fellow zombie in name
i keep remembering arthur c. clarke's 'the fountains of paradise'
i could weep to think it will remain a story.
god remains the last resort...
i cant answer that question bcos i dont know how the alternative feels or what it is like. mybe it sucks, maybe it doesnt. i dont know, you dont know, no one know .. (whoah .. that was jamaican ..:-) ) but back to the question. demonstrate existence aand non-existnec. then i can decide.
ha. the lines have been drawn, and behind sentience lines up 2 zombies.
any more?
to living dead : you prefer life over what mon ami ? hast thou experienced the alternative ? pray tell.
touchè...
if life must be what we have, then the negation would be nonexistence? in which case we would not have any awareness...
how would it be possible to experience it? its an either or statement, they are mutually exclusive. you exist or you dont.
what would you prefer?
touche, but not for what you say .. you are assuming non existnce from the view point of what you know about existence. flaw there ... who is to say that non existence is the negation of existence, and really whatt part of existence are we really aware of, our miniscule lives, we cant even grasp the whole of our reality, let alone assume things about the other .. ?
your turn.
here comes the heavy artillery.
really now, lets get definitions down, and then we can work from there.
existence - can it be defined as self awareness? that simple realization, i exist, therefore i am.
by definition again, we can infer that non existence is the negation of existence. by the definition of non/negation this time... the opposite...
and so, we are aware of the totality of reality about us, which is that we exist. the universe didnt show up for this one.
i could learn to love arm chair philosophizing...
so could i, and to please my darling armchair, here goes ...
Ok heavy artillery eh ? awright.
First are we assuming a subjective universe or an objective universe ?
Subjective : things do not have an exitnce independent of your perception. you and you alons are the final judge. hence and so, arguments cant exist in a subjective universe. since we are arguing, lets look at the objective.
Objective universe : things very much have an exitence independent of your perceptions. men may come and men may go, but the pigs might fly one day ..lol.
your definition of existense and non existence will and does work beautifully in a subjective universe. the quintessence of 'i am therefore i exist' and if i am not idont exist, the world doesnt, and hence and so you obviously choose existnce.
In an objective space, existnce is there, so is non existence. your perception has no value. so your definition doesnt hold good.
again in an objective universe, I have empirical data about existence. i dont about non-existence. hence i cant say. and so i cant answer your question.
in a subjective universe, your perception would affect reality. arguments themselves would be meaningless, as you said.
whereas in an objective universe, your perception matters only to you, and does not affect reality. lol. i submit this as another possible proof that reality is objective.
there are so many facets to consider here... you've managed to mix everything up. lol.
first of all, we must consider if the reality perceived by you is subjective or objective. if it was subjective, then all of this has no meaning whatsoever, since you can change the rules whenever you please. subjective reality in fact, does not work, demonstrably, since you cannot change the universe to your desired end. i mean, you are welcome to try...
if reality is objective however, we then come to the question of how we may know all of it. from our own observations, its obvious that we dont comprehend all of it. moreover, i submit that certain knowledge would be beyond our ken. However, if it was 'revealed' to us, that would be a different matter. in an objective universe, or a subjective one, nonexistence would be merely the negation of existence, a mathematical concept. since we are dealing with concepts, its a hypothetical question when we consider which we would choose. as such, while we might not have empirical evidence, we can still make conjectures and based on logic, choose what we may.
i submit that under those conditions, you can answer the question.
your answer however, is not dependent on the nature of reality, but on your choice. which operates independent of reality.
Earth to zimblymallu and jake, do you read us? Please descend or beam us up pronto Scotty. We are totally lost.
aiyo sorry...
i recommend c.s. lewis - mere christianity, if you're interested in some clearer writing on something like this.
lol. mr. jake here seems determined to soar. im keeping him company.
actually, you should probably blame me...
i asked the question. lol. so far, jake seems to be saying that since he cant know what not existing would be like, he cant decide.
and im saying, know what existence is, you know enough to know what not existing would involve...
ahem! my apologies too....
it is not that i wish to soar, its these digressions, albeit of the depth of discussions,that we get into. Esp with mallu man here, for he posts a mean argument, and my hand is but forced to go meaner.
There my dumb british ass is doing it again. lol! sorry ... :-)
Mallu man says that knowging about existence, we ought to and can know about non-existence. I say 'no'. We shouldnt assume. i am saying we cant know about non-existence since none of us has experienced it.
ashte monay.
and here's an appropriate quote by bill watterson : "Talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience."
:))
now that apologies are out of the way...
how is it british, unless british is dumb? ahhh, no more hatred wasted on the oppressors of my motherland. lol.
isnt that an assumption, sir jake, that you cant know about nonexistence without experiencing it. i agree you cant know everything about it.but i seem to be telling you that you can know enough to make a choice.
facilitating the spiritual man here... apparently.
it is not an assumption chappo, it is but statement of mere fact.
existence : i know, non: i dont.
And as you say, it comes to down to that old villain, choice.
I dont want choice. choice smells of subjectiveness. and then alls a heaven or hell. see this is supposed to be objective. no choice allowed.
not vacillating here ... hopefully.
(and talking about scotty heres a classic )
"Very funny scotty. now beam me my clothes."
by their very definition, again...
existence and non existence are mutually exclusive.
if you know about existence, you know what non existence is not.
if you know what non existence isnt, can you not define non existence in those terms...
thus, by the very fact that you can define non existence, you know what it means.
however if i asked what ñÄksúkaçenx was, you wouldnt know... there's no frame of reference. i dont know either.
while the argument might seem circular, i'm just trying to establish that based on our existence, we can indeed know something about nonexistence.
ha. no choice in that. lol. unless you wish to talk about choosing to accept that argument or not.
Nice story as for me. I'd like to read something more about this theme. Thanx for posting that data.
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