Thread: Why? Why Exist?

Originally Posted by Korittke

You are not. You're not a computer. You can easily prove this to yourself by committing suicide.

What makes you think I can easily commit suicide? I would not be able to bring myself to doing it without an overriding opposing will. I don't have such an opposing will, so there is no way I would be able to find it in my nature to kill myself.

Originally Posted by Korittke

Who says dogs and fish want to live? They have to. Humans choose to live, animals have no options in the first place. No animal can think on the level of a human being, so the analogy is worthless. It's almost like anarchistic primitivists telling me that cats and monkeys have no need for money, science or agriculture and thus it would be perfectly reasonable for humanity to go back to the stone age. Who came up with the notion that animals are perfect role models for humans? I'd slap that person.

Dogs and fish don't have to live. By your reasoning, a dog could easily jump off a cliff or start a fight with a much bigger dog and a fish could easily jump onto land and stay there. It goes against their nature, just like it goes against our nature, unless there is an overriding opposing desire, which is rare. I don't think animals are perfect role models for humans. I think animals are much like humans, that humans evolved from animals, and that humans are animals.

Originally Posted by Korittke

How does that work...? Obviously it depends on the definition of 'will'. If you truly want to live, you'd have to be pretty fucking stupid if you kill yourself. I use 'will' in the meaning of action-operant wish. If you want to live but as a matter of fact, you kill yourself, your will to live is wishful thinking and nothing more. It's like someone telling me "I want to be a writer", but they're not actually doing anything. They don't really want to be a writer, they just wish that one day they'll wake up with a completed manuscript on their desk.Which means that, in effect, they do not want to live. Maybe they would want to live if their life wasn't shit. But their life is shit and thus they choose to end it.

I am talking about opposing wills. An alcoholic might cry every day and go to AA meetings twice a day in a struggle to stop drinking, but he would not be doing it if he were not also craving alcohol. You are assuming that opposing wills cannot exist. They can, and they do.

Originally Posted by Korittke

If you disagree with this definition, tell me yours. What's the meaning of a hardwired willingness to live if it includes the option of suicide? To me that sounds like "I installed only Windows on this computer, but sometimes it'll boot up Linux just for the heck of it."

Have you ever resisted a temptation? If so, then you have experienced opposing wills. You might want to stay on a diet, but you still really, really crave that doughnut in your pantry. If you eat the doughnut, it doesn't mean you didn't want to stay on the diet. It is a matter of one will overriding another one. Have you ever been in that situation?

Originally Posted by Korittke

Why do you think it's a good idea to compare a fly to a human? Misanthropy? Next thing will probably be a comparison between humans and viruses and then rocks. Flies don't think, humans do.

Flies avoid death even though they don't see a purpose in living. Humans have the same tendency.

Originally Posted by Korittke

Most species don't come remotely close to the freedom of choice of a human being. Some species will easily die of psychosomatic illnesses if you deprave them of their senses though. More complex animals don't even care to live if they're put in a situation they cannot cope with or that doesn't make any sense to them. The same can happen to a human, but he can speed up this process as a result of his intelligence. All it takes is a gun.

It takes more than a gun. It take a will to die that is stronger than the will to live. If such opposition of wills does not exist, then why are there suicide hotlines?