81 upvotes, 9 direct replies (showing 9)
View submission: A 97-Year-Old Philosopher Faces His Own Death (Herbert Fingarette, 1921-2018)
That was an experience. I've thought about this a lot. Would you rather exist and suffer, or not exist and feel nothing and experience nothing. I'd almost rather when I die go to hell despite the eternal suffering. Not that I believe in it but I might rather suffer for eternity rather than not be.
Though I'm reconsidering this now because I've had a headache all morning and crying at this video made it so much worse. And I'd rather sleep than suffer now, and sleep is almost like a mini death. So maybe I'd rather not exist than suffer for eternity.
Comment by MyWayOfSeeingThings at 19/01/2020 at 03:54 UTC
31 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Non existence would a better experience than eternal pain for me, you summed it perfectly with sleeping. I think you only say so because you haven't experienced hell, I mean neither have I but when I think about it there's a certain level of pain that makes people suicidal, the ultimate acceptance of death. To not be able to suicide and suffer eternal existence in pain, would be a fate worse than death itself.
Come to think of it while writing this, under torture, lots of people wish for death, a merciful fast kill rather than a slow painful death.
Comment by aesu at 19/01/2020 at 11:04 UTC
9 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I think this is only because we underestimate suffering due to our brains almost complete inability to relive physical pain.
Next time you're bent over the toilet, vomiting your guts out, shivering, banging your head against the rim of the dirty toilet to try and overwhelm the headache, think to yourself, in that moment, whether you could even stand a few weeks of that, non stop, without blowing your brains out.
I know I couldn't, and yet in every other context, even significant emotional suffering, I agree with your sentiment. But when your entire consciousness, your existence is just searing pain, I don't think it's truly better to exist. I think we just underestimate what that is like.
Comment by [deleted] at 19/01/2020 at 09:41 UTC
6 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Just imagine how you felt during the Roman Empire. That was no sweat, tight? Death is like that.
The only really scary part is DYING. Being dead is no problem.
Comment by Potomaticify at 20/01/2020 at 01:11 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
"not exist and feel nothing"
This doesn't really make sense to me. I think the problem with this line of thought is that is both possible to **not** exist and **feel** nothing, because in order to feel you must exist. It's not that in death (as I and most agnostics perceive it) you feel nothing and are in a black void of senselessness, it's that you literally don't exist to feel the nothing you are in.
Comment by ThatFuckinPlatypus at 21/01/2020 at 18:14 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Personally I think we all live to die. The thought of fading away into death is much more comforting than to live and suffer, and why? Just for the mere thought of existing. Death is a better alternative than existence in pain. Nobody asks for a slow painful death if they're tired of it all they want a quick end because after a life of suffering not feeling anything at all is a blessing
Comment by xioxiobaby at 23/01/2020 at 09:21 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Such an an interesting question ....
But you would think that the thought of non-existence is suffering. The thought of not being able to live, is terrifying, though you wouldn’t be able to be afraid ...
Maybe your existence is existing in spite of this fear, and if we chose not to exist, we would choose it too often and then nothing, eventually, would ever exist.
By this way, extant beings have evolved fear in order to live and get pleasure/rewards. If there was no fear of death, eventually, all beings would choose death than to suffer (natural animals, that is). There would be no higher beings that made it.
But there is no suffering for eternity my friend. Everything lives and dies. It’s a cycle. Even if there is a hell, there is an end to suffering. Eternal hell is just a made-up interpretation by our ancestors who were so afraid of everything that they had to be dramatic, even in death.
But maybe, non-existence is an eventual, ethereal, and evolutionary state of consciousness within our lifetimes .... maybe that’s the end-game.
Comment by ThusSpokeAzathoth at 26/01/2020 at 18:59 UTC*
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
If hell existed that means others would be suffering. I would despise existence as abomination if this were the case.
Aside from this, the "problem of death" and "meaning of existence" Fingarette couldn't solve is not something you "solve". It can only be strategized with, but this is a deterministic process - comic "luck" whether one can do this or not.
Note first that there is no "you" - the sense of an "actual self" is a delusion, but one that can be seen through if one works against their cultural programming and applies instrospection against the tendencies and qualities of the mind. This is easier for some people than others.
I had a traumatic childhood and didn't get along with people - so I wasn't programmed with much of the socio-cultural modeling that contributes to the "self" delusion. I'm also on the autism spectrum and have seen everything like a machine from a young age - including people.
On the other hand, I'm also highly sensitive in addition to being hyper-rational. Some people assume that hyper-rationality entails a lack of feeling. On the contrary, my life has been one of constant suffering because of all the horror in the world. Numeracy + sensitivity + awareness is a curse.
Fingarette didn't appreciate the trees until old age. I have always loved nature. Every time I go for a walk I'm enthralled with the play of light and clouds, with invisible birds that make it seem as if the trees themselves are singing, with tree branches that seem to yearn into a blue eternity, etc. The wonders are endless, and each one itself enduring.
However, now we have the climate crisis, ocean acidification, mass extinction, growing pollution everywhere (air, water, soil), and several dozen other terrible issues that quite clearly aren't going to be solved. We have sacrificed our children - handing them a dying world, and we are lying to them about it. This is one of the most cowardly and pathetic behaviors I can imagine.
I was not loved by my fellow beings, but I have to watch them destroy what I did love - my only home. Every morning I wake up, this is the first thing I realize - that I live in a hopeless nightmare that I must endure alone.
And I want to die, but my fellow beings are sick. They refuse to let me take my life peacefully. They say this is "immoral" - they say this while destroying my home. They make me watch, like a psychopath who forces you to watch him mutilate someone.
And what could be the ultimate consequence? That we go extinct far sooner than otherwise. That means higher-order consciousness goes extinct. That means the Universe itself dies for all we know, and that is the tragedy of the "self" delusion. It is blindness. It blinds us to the fact we are the Universe itself. We become self-absorbed. Fingarette was almost entirely self-absorbed. That's why he didn't recognize the enduring beauty of the trees until he was alone. That's why he can't be happy knowing he had one of the happiest lives a person has ever had, and that others still have their loves, and new generations will have theirs.
Aside from the fact this civilization is now doomed, that is. It always was.
Comment by Brigand92g at 26/01/2020 at 23:34 UTC*
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
If you existed in eternal suffering you would be wishing, BEGGING, for that nothingness. If suffering was worth it over death no one would commit suicide.
Comment by WishOneStitch at 19/01/2020 at 08:38 UTC
-4 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Would you rather exist and suffer, or not exist and feel nothing and experience nothing.
Exist *without suffering*, of course. What you've posited seems a great deal like a false dichotomy.