Suicide

Rationality is an illusion of language. you are made of things that get replaced by other things around you constantly. just parts of the same things that make you can create city wide destruction. we destroy living creatures to make our lives easier yet consider similar incidents tragedy when they involve us.

Having nothing to live for is nor a valid logical excuse for suicide. Most suicides aren't driven by logical decisions; they're people who cannot cope with their situations and think that death is the only escape they have. This is why possible suicide victims should be helped, they're in emotional distress and cannot make clear rational decisions that aren't warped by emotion.

People are people user, they're not machines that think solely on logic and reason. If you had a pretty rough life and cannot cope with your current situation that might be made more unbearable under certain circumstances for a long time people can break under that kind of pressure. If you didn't live that kind of life you wouldn't understand, sorry.

Sounds like a fascist rationale

Rational means "based on or in accordance with reason or logic" (Oxford English Dictionary). So as long as you have reasoning for your actions that is logically coherent, then it must be rational, right? There are rational reasons why we consider the murder of humans within our own societies a crime (killing enemies in war isn't a crime, though), but why we don't for animals in slaughterhouses (but killing pets probably is a crime, I don't know the law but I think it probably is). The reason is that the most successful human societies are those where people co-operate, and where everybody is working towards the betterment of that society. So we've made rules to not kill people unless they do something wrong, in which case some countries impose the death penalty. That basic standard of fairness is what allows us to have a functioning society, rather than a rabble. Societies that don't function get destroyed by competing societies. So there are rational reasons for wanting to function as a society with basic rules like "don't murder". As for killing farm animals for food, it gives us nutrition, and the animals are not smart enough to fight back. It's harsh, but it's still rational.

R. Budd Dwyer (who I mentioned in an earlier post) killed himself so his family would get a $1.28 million payout which they wouldn't have got if he had been sentenced the day after his suicide. How is that not a rational and logical basis for the decision? Logically, yes his family would get the money. Logically, they needed it because they were broke from paying his legal costs. Logically this is good for the future of his children. You could say that if he lived then it would be less traumatic for his kids, sure. That's a rational basis for that decision. But that doesn't mean the suicide decision isn't rational. Another example: you could take a new job offer or you could stay in your current job, and different factors will influence you which way or the other, but it's perfectly possible that both decisions would be rational, whichever one you chose.

Why shouldn't you be able to discard something given to you? I mean who does it belong to?

That does not make most suicides rational, that's a small anecdotal portion of all cases. An appeal to emotion does not change this fact.
Check your countries constitution, you likely have the right to life but not the right to death. Euthanasia and assisted suicide are not widely legal.
He valued his family above his own life. That's clearly not a decision devoid of emotion. Masking it as utilitarianism is just an excuse to not consider that he could have faked his own death of accepted the financial debt as the consequences of his corrupt actions. It's also discarding deontological ethics which would otherwise be opposed to suicide from principle as he would have a duty to his wife, children, society and justice not to kill himself. He was not an unbiased thinker, he was not completely logical.

No matter how you try to spin it, most suicidal people shouldn't kill themselves as there's always alternatives which they fail to consider whilst being in the altered state of mind that they're in. And while I think that euthanasia and assisted suicide, as well as constitutional amendments to give people an inalienable right to death, should be legalized this does not excuse that some people need help and should get the help they need.

Sorry, I might not have been clear un my previous post. You can have rational reasons to suicide, but nobody considers suicide as an option without any sort of emotional stress pushing them into it.
There always has to be an emotional trigger that pushes you in that direction, and only then you can create a rational reasoning, but the thought of suicide by itself is not rational. Nobody suicides while having a perfectly find and functional live because they have reasoned in their free time that it's actually the better course of action at their given situation for X logical reasons.

>nobody has suicided with a perfectly fine and functional life
Heh

There is a problem with the question itself. What does it mean for a decision to be based on rationality? If Dwyer’s payout were $50,000 would it still be a rational suicide? At what dollar value does it become rational? Can we put a dollar value on the impact on those around him of a father and husband committing suicide on film? Is a 15 year-old gay kid who after being persecuted for their sexuality and seeing no end in sight decides to commit suicide, is this person acting without reason?

Horrible logic that dehumanizes the depressed. Its this line of thinking that leads to school shootings and suicide(ironically)

Anyone who doesnt believe suicide can ever be justified actually believes that humans are cattle instead. Thats the conclusion of their train of thought. Humans are cattle and arent capable of thinking for themselves much less owning themselves.

Don't listen to people like this. Suicide is justified wherever it happens. Nobody kills themselves for no reason.

Attached: ykksea.gif (540x408, 1.63M)

It's funny how you dehumanize school shooters while accusing me of dehumanizing the depressed for taking an informed position on the issue. Most suicidal people did not get gang raped everyday of their lives, they're perfectly normal people that are depressed in some cases or tired of living their monotonous life so they get suicidal thoughts that they can otherwise stave off with some help that should be afforded to them.

I didn't post here to argue about this shit anyway, OP asked a question, I answered.

Nah i didnt do that

I don't think it is. Non-existence is non-existence. In a typical human life, you will not experience enough pain to warrant suicide. However if you have extreme physical discomfort from a disease that might justify it. I have mental health issues that have me going to therapy and struggling to function, I wouldn't mind dying, but people rely on me, and the pain I feel is punctuated with brief moments of feeling good. There is a chance I will get better, maybe a decade from now, maybe sooner. But that chance alone is enough to keep trying. There are so many people on Earth, obsessing over your own failures and pain is hard to justify. Just keep moving along and try to find joy where your can, even those who desperately want to live don't have much time

Important side note:
Suicides are committed by people with anxiety problems, specifically panic disorder and ptsd. It's not necessarily a "sad, nothing to live for" thing like you see in the media. I think the one unifying theme of Jow Forums is that a lot of us have anxiety disorders, most are undiagnosed

Sure, like if you've got one of those horrible degenerative muscle diseases that eventually results in full body paralysis and you're already starting to lose function. Might as well go while you can still make the choice.

Nah I don't think it's just that. I think if you get into a situation in life which is truly shit then you're basically fucked.

E.g. if you've been out of work for years. It actually can't be recovered from. And everyone knows it. When people express what they're REALLY thinking they will express just how fucking annoyed they are that there are people who are only live off state benefits, who don't work for a living. Because it's THEIR taxes who are paying for those benefits. Those benefits WOULD NOT EXIST if it wasn't for people EARNING THAT MONEY, which is then taxed and paid out in benefits. There is NOTHING to tax if working people don't go out and earn that money.

Let's just face the facts, life is a competition, OF COURSE IT FUCKING IS, and it becomes extremely apparent whenever anyone is locked in a competitive endeavour. Even the workplace is of course competitive. For people who have fucked up beyond any sense of reasonable mistakes, there is no possible comeback.

In Japan they have a cultural idea, which is less strong now but is still believed by some people, that committing suicide when you've failed is honourable. This is one reason why they have a high suicide rate for people who have lost their jobs. They see it as a way to atone for failure, and to relieve shame from your family. It makes sense at the end of the day - society doesn't want failures, because failures either endanger the society or are dead weight.

I actually think suicide is completely rational when you genuinely believe life is hopeless. However the belief that life is hopeless is usually based on some bad ideas. I think this is important because I wound up being forcibly hospitalized for trying to talk about suicide with my therapist. And it is all because of the idea that suicide is never rational and I wouldn't have been able to listen to reason because I was just possessed by a bad idea or some shit. But really I was still thinking normally and did not need hospitalization .

>Suicide is justified wherever it happens.
I don't agree with that. I do think suicidal people are not "crazy" though.

>he keeps making the same thread
kek you're never suiciding and i'm glad :)
keep bitching about life i guess

>However the belief that life is hopeless is usually based on some bad ideas. I think this is important because I wound up being forcibly hospitalized for trying to talk about suicide with my therapist. And it is all because of the idea that suicide is never rational and I wouldn't have been able to listen to reason because I was just possessed by a bad idea or some shit. But really I was still thinking normally and did not need hospitalization .
I was also involuntarily hospitalised, also for mentioning the fact that I had been thinking of suicide to a mental health person I was seeing. Anyway, you say you think that hopelessness is "usually based on some bad ideas", but then you say you think you were thinking straight? So your suicidal thoughts weren't based on bad ideas, you don't think?

Clearly you didn't follow through with your plans so does that not mean by default that your reasoning at the time for suicidal thoughts was bad? You must have dismissed the idea since you're typing this story.

I don't mean any of this is a negative way by the way, I hope it doesn't come across that way, I'm just genuinely interested. Like I say I was also detained for suicidality. I am free now, and have been for a few months, although I still haven't fixed my fucking life to be honest.

I don't disagree that people really shouldn't kill themselves arguably even if really horrible life events come up. However I don't agree that you should treat suicidal people like they are just irrational and nothing they say matters. That is completely dehumanizing and unhelpful. Literally nobody has ever been saved by going to a psych ward they only buy themselves some time that's it. I fucking hate how it is legal to lock someone up for feeling too much. And no psych wards do not even help schizophrenic people stop making fucking excuses for this broken ass system. FUCK.

No. As soon as your life becomes useless and it becomes rational to kill oneself, there opens up a logical argument that concludes that other lives too are useless and rationally should be exterminated as well.
Terror attacks are objectively morally superior to suicides, if one's reached that point.

It is like a late term abortion where the person dying is involved in the decision making process.

What I mean is you can have a bad idea but still be thinking like a normal human being. If you had a horrible life, people treated you poorly and now you are completely alone and feel no reason to live is it irrational to want to die? No it is a normal thought however if you can realize that the future is not hopeless that there is hope then that is much better. I guess the point is that human beings don't know the answer to much of anything we have choices we can make just because one choice seems bad to others and maybe is bad doesn't mean the person is now inhuman until they agree with you.

>As soon as your life becomes useless and it becomes rational to kill oneself, there opens up a logical argument that concludes that other lives too are useless and rationally should be exterminated as well.
Absolute bollocks because other people are in better positions in life and are succeeding in life; that's the whole point behind (most people) feeling suicidal. They think "shit there's no way I can have even a semi-respectable life, really bad things have happened or I've made such a gigantic mistake, or years of being unemployed / being a drug addict / whatever that I don't think there is any possible way of fixing this".

>Terror attacks are objectively morally superior to suicides
Part of me hopes this is a joke, but even if it is, it's in incredibly poor taste.

I get where you're coming from, and I definitely felt when I was detained (I've been detained a couple times by the way) like "how the fuck can you dickheads do this to me, I'm a free fucking human being, this isn't right, what right do you have to decide what's best for me, the only person who is entitled to make these decisions is myself". And part of me still thinks that and maybe they should have just let me kill myself (not that I necessarily would have - I was definitely strongly considering it though, but I definitely wasn't committed to it). But then on the other hand I do think they're trying to put you on the right track. I might think there are better ways of trying to help people (e.g. sitting down with them and trying to work out a plan for getting into work, getting things back on track, etc.). And yeah maybe they could have just done that instead of locking me up. But whatever. First time I was locked up because they thought I would harm others (which I think was dumb and I don't think I ever would) and the last time they thought I would kill myself, and like I say, I wasn't committed to it, but eh.

Yeah it does suck being detained. Maybe we should just let people kill themselves, I dunno. Maybe individuals should have the right to kill themselves even when others don't agree with those decisions.

>better positions in life
lmao? is this real? So because someone has more gold or some wet hole to fuck he's doing better? or succeeding?

Subjective positions about how life 'should' be are worthless as life itself in it's living and dying are both worthless, how can you even start to describe success?
That being said, most people do commit suicide because of not feeling successful or not living up to their own or society's standards, but that's not the point. It's whether suicide is rational in certain circumstances. Most people commit suicide because of this feeling of sorrow, but that's not what they necessarily need to do.
Considering that your suffering is solely due to the meaningless of life it becomes clear that killing others isn't morally wrong, it's actually interchangeable with birthing a child morally since morality itself is also worthless drivel.

>Part of me hopes this is a joke, but even if it is, it's in incredibly poor taste.
Kill a man, or birth a baby, luckily for you, the fact remains that in this mindset and way of thinking you're stuck with the fact that you're programmed by your genes and environment and effectively have no self control. You will birth a baby, or kill a man, neither are your choices, if you had any at all.

Well I don't know how it goes for most people or how it went for you exactly but when I told my therapist I really thought she made the wrong decision. It started when I told her about my fears of being forcibly detained and she said it wouldn't happen unless I was a danger to myself. I told her I thought that rule was bullshit because how could I talk about my suicidal feelings for real. I said I had downplayed how bad they were the moment I saw her pull out a paper with green yellow and red coloring on it (extremely obvious that being in red means time for prison bitch). Anyways I wanted her to give me a guarantee I could just talk and not have any fear of being locked up or forced/pressured into medication. There was a brief moment where I felt comfortable sharing my real feelings and actually started crying in front of her which I never did before. I thought maybe I was actually making some progress now but instead the next day she had me come in and sent me to the hospital. And the psychiatrists and nurses at the hospital were completely uncaring they didn't give a fuck. Now I am never going to therapy again. The good news is I think I have been making progress on my own I know the real reason I have been depressed so long.

No just like things can get worse things can get better. But when you are dead that's it there nothing no good no bad nothing and that terrifies me more than hell. I'm sure death is nothingness.

Fair. Was this in the US? Just guessing from how you spelt "hospitalized". I'm in the UK but yeah the rule is the same - they'll only detain you if they think you're a danger to yourself or others.

As for therapy, yeah I've questioned the value myself. I did have counselling at my university quite a few years ago, which was my own choice, and that was alright. The guy was a chill dude. And it was free from the uni so I was like yeah why not. But then I've had counselling sessions more recently and thought eh, this is probably pointless, the only thing that will change things is if I change my life situation, rather than talking about it.

Good to hear you're making progress man, good stuff.

Yeah I'm in the U.S. Honestly the whole experience really was a wake up call. I would probably call myself an antipsychiatrist now. I do think therapy could have worked because my therapist was very empathetic I could tell she cared and that is really all I needed, someone to care and listen. Problem is the whole system is more concerned about liability and it is obviously driven by fear too. People are afraid of mentally ill people they think they will kill people or destroy things in our society. Well in some ways it may be true maybe only mentally ill people want to change shit because they got fucked over, doesn't mean it will change for the worse though. Anyways my real problem is having a shitty childhood and shitty people in my early life it shaped the rest of my life and relationships. I find acknowledging that and taking responsibility for the future but not the past has helped me.

I mean, maybe if you're going to be killed anyway, like in a military coup or invasion, or if you're going to be sentenced to death. I would never advocate suicide, but that does seem to be a rational time to take your life on your own terms.

>lmao? is this real? So because someone has more gold or some wet hole to fuck he's doing better? or succeeding?
You're being flippant about real life issues that people have. So it's not about them comparing themselves to those who are high-flying; it's about them feeling that they can't even get a basic standard of living. E.g. they've had drug problems, gambling problems, are in tons of debt, are being convicted for a serious crime, have been out of work for a long time, have chronic / worsening health conditions, whatever.
>Considering that your suffering is solely due to the meaningless of life
The complete OPPOSITE is true. Suicidal people feel bad precisely because life DOES have meaning. Having a job, having purpose, having a partner, starting a family if you can, give life meaning. I would argue that the most important goal for all life forms on this planet is to procreate, and that's why people feel suicidal; they think "I'm never gonna have a shot at getting a partner, I'm a fucking failure".
>killing others isn't morally wrong
It is, because morals are set by society. I don't set them, and neither does "god" (because there is no god - not that we know of). Society, by mutual decision/understanding, sets the morals.
>you're programmed by your genes and environment and effectively have no self control
Ah the free will debate. I'll answer this in another post because this post is about to hit the limit.

this dudes right... if you think suicide is a mistake then, logically speaking, youre invalidating any given instance of it... to disagree with it, that is, as a means of solving life's problems, or as a objective moral wrong, presumes the suicide to want to solve a problem in the first place, or to be at all interested in some platonic ideal...

>you're programmed by your genes and environment and effectively have no self control
Is everything, including our actions, caused? Maybe. Maybe it is. But that doesn't mean we don't have choices. A choice is when you are presented with different options, and you know there are several different actions that you COULD take at any one time. You, as an organism, have to make that decision. E.g. you see a sexy girl at a bar, and you think "I could say to her 'hey how's it going', or I could say 'HEY LET'S FUCK'". The second might work if you're both very drunk, but otherwise probably not. So if you did try the second, you'll learn from that experience. So clearly we do still make choices.

So basically I think the free will debate is muddied by two different senses of the word "free". If by free will you mean a will that can change the laws of physics or causality, then no I guess we can't change the laws of physics or causality, so yes our actions probably are determined by the universe in a sense, but that doesn't mean we're not in control of our actions. We very much ARE in control of our actions. We make decisions, and we learn from them. The other sense of "free" means to be free from impediment, influence, etc. E.g. if someone is escorting you at gunpoint to a cashpoint so they can rob you, you're not fully free to do what you like in that situation, in the sense that certain actions might lead to death. THAT sense of freedom is meaningful. We can be more or less free in that sense. But in the defying-the-laws-of-physics sense, that sense of freedom is pointless and uninteresting to talk about. Nothing can defy causality, so it's uninteresting. Doesn't mean organisms don't still make choices.

The problem with people who believe there is no free will is they make the assumption that you are not a force of nature itself. Perhaps consciousness is embedded into existence and consciousness collectively shapes the outcome of reality. That's what I believe, I personally believe the world is shaped by consciousness.

Yeah I can understand all that. I definitely was considering myself an anti-psychiatrist especially when I was locked up. Have you ever read about Thomas Szasz? Maybe you have, he was a famous psychiatrist who disagreed with compelled / forced treatment and many other practices of psychiatry. He wrote a book called "The Myth of Mental Illness", and he said "mental illness" is just a euphemism, and really people with these problems are just having emotional problems which are making their lives difficult, and I fully agree with that. I really should read his book. In fact it's funny, I read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest when I was a teenager - classic book obviously, also from the 60s which is when Szasz was also writing, and the whole countercultural rebel-against-authority thing was going on - and I fucking loved it. I considered it my favourite book, and this was years before I eventually got detained. Which I did find ironic, when I was detained, that I had read this book precisely about mental hospitals that had inspired me that personal freedom was so important, and now I was a patient myself. Anyway yeah I see where you're coming from. Hope things keep getting better for you man.

>I personally believe the world is shaped by consciousness
In the sense that conscious organisms have an impact on their environment, I would agree. E.g. I consciously decide to mow the lawn, so I do so, and now the world (the lawn, which is part of the world) has been shaped by my consciousness.

But I still believe that the universe would continue shaping itself even if all organisms died out tomorrow. The Milky Way Galaxy would still be hurtling towards the Andromeda Galaxy.

I have heard about him I think I saw him give a talk once on youtube. I haven't read his books though. I do agree with that assessment I think these problems are not mental illnesses at all but that does not make them "less" or anything. They call it an illness to justify the drugs and actually I think most if not all mental illnesses have the requirement that drugs can be used as treatment that is completely laughable. Even the use of the term "anti-psychotics" and "anti-depressants" is just ridiculous they call it that to make it sound like it is an antidote to those problems when it really isn't.

I did find a man named Daniel Mackler on youtube and I find a lot of what he says to be so true he also has great perspectives on life. He believes that pretty much all mental illness is caused by trauma and that most people are traumatized to some extent. It really does make sense to me especially because of my early life. And I have found most of my growth has been in acknowledging the pain I felt in my past.

Thanks though user hope things get better for you too.

I actually think the universe itself is consciousness which is essentially what everyone thinks of as God. It's not so crazy when you think about it actually. The more I learn about life and the world the more I believe there are no actual material things it is all just information in our minds which are connected by a larger mind.

Maybe the drugs can help in some situations, some people swear by them, but I definitely think it should be a person's choice whether they take them or not. And thanks, yeah I'll try and get on top of my shit.

Hm, can't say I agree personally. I believe the material and empirical world does exist. Because I've been looking at it my entire life. And its physical laws have remained consistent throughout. And the more I look at space, and everything we know about our universe, I realise just how amazing the material / empirical world is.

As for a larger mind, I've seen no evidence of such a thing personally. So I can't say I believe in that. Or God. That's just my view though.

>Because I've been looking at it my entire life.
Yes what you see is still real but not in the way you believe it is. It is there as part of your conscious experience but it is not there independent of consciousness. Of course it is independent of your consciousness but not consciousness itself. It is easier if you just call consciousness spirit to avoid confusion.

>the more I look at space, and everything we know about our universe, I realise just how amazing the material / empirical world is.
It is beautiful but it does not need to exist the way we think of it to be beautiful.

>As for a larger mind, I've seen no evidence of such a thing personally.
You are connected to minds all the time is it so strange that the universe would also be a mind?

Why don't you try not being a cunt? If you're going to be a cunt then why say anything at all?

>It is there as part of your conscious experience but it is not there independent of consciousness.
I disagree. If the universe doesn't disappear when people die every day (thus ending their consciousness), then why would it disappear when I die, or if all life were to die? The universe will exist without consciousness - it already did for a very long time. Our best science currently indicates that life is around 4.28 billion years old, but the Earth is 4.54 billion years old - so the Earth is 260 million years older. And the universe itself is 13.8 billion years old, existing for about 9.3 billion years before the Earth formed.
>It is easier if you just call consciousness spirit
Consciousness exists, spirits don't - at least I have seen no evidence to suggest that there is any sort of supernatural "spirit" to a human body, and therefore no reason to believe such a thing exists. Humans hypothesised "spirits" before we understood that the brain runs on electricity and chemicals (indeed, we didn't even know what electricity was back then).
>It is beautiful but it does not need to exist the way we think of it to be beautiful.
I think a lot of scientists would say it couldn't exist any other way, since the development of the universe has just followed static, unchanging physical laws, like gravity.
>You are connected to minds all the time
I am not physically connected to any mind other than my own.
>is it so strange that the universe would also be a mind?
From Wikipedia: "The mind is the set of cognitive faculties including consciousness, imagination, perception, thinking, judgement, language and memory, which is housed in the brain (sometimes including the central nervous system)." The universe is not a living thing or part of a living thing so it cannot be a mind. The universe is a collection of rocks spinning around balls of burning plasma.

user believe me I used to think like you but none of what you are saying disproves anything I have said. Our society is very much ruled by science and anyone without a scientific mind is ridiculed of course that causes people to worship science as if it is the be all end all of reality. Science is just a tool and nothing more, the "laws of physics" are mere models to model sensory information. Nobody really knows what exists outside of consciousness it is all we know. But it is certainly the case that you are connected to others you are actually connected to everyone through the objective "World" that is what I mean by God and spirit.

Suicidal people forget that they don't need to give life meaning.
Morals are chosen by you for yourself, not set by society. Society can tell you what it wants, but you as a programmed being will never be able to choose whether to listen or not, you were programmed to do or not do so from the start.
No the free will debate is exactly about these choices. Do you have a choice? No. You never ever have a choice, you pick the thing you would have picked and you cannot ever pick any of the other options unless your genes and environment had caused you to 'choose' differently. Free will is a massive lie and that girl at the bar, you'd have fixed her or not, but you never had a choice in whether you were going to do so or not. Walking away shyly or daringly going at her is just hormones pushing you, which is also due to genes and environment, hardly chosen by you.

All that being said, free will as in the freedom to make real possible choices is an unsustainable ideology that has no basis in reality or logic.

Luckily I've left most of that behind when I realize God granted us free will, and that there isn't a better answer as to why 'we can make choices'. Not saying muh Christianity suddenly gives life meaning, because it's not that simple. But it atleast solves one question.

If it's about rationality I'd do it tomorrow, I feel the reason people don't is because of guilt. At least that's why I wouldn't.

He wouldn't have any workers to exploit if all the poor dumb people killed themselves.

>worship science as if it is the be all end all of reality
That's because carrying out experiments on the objective world is the ONLY way to understand the nature of reality. Even in our everyday lives - the only way to know how heavy an object is is to pick it up. Or weigh it. Or have an existing understanding of how heavy such an object might be, based on previous cases of lifting up such objects. This physical testing is the only way we can accrue reliable knowledge about our reality.
>the "laws of physics" are mere models to model sensory information
They're models of an objective reality which we're pretty confident exists. When you jump off a diving board, you need to be pretty confident that the water below you truly exists, because if it turned out to be concrete then you'd die.
>Nobody really knows what exists outside of consciousness it is all we know.
Ah, Cartesian scepticism. Well, like with all knowledge, all we can do is make our best guess based on evidence. Someone might be confident that their parents are really their biological parents, but a DNA test might disprove their long-held belief. Or maybe the DNA test is flawed. We can always doubt things; we have to just get evidence and make our best guess. When the evidence piles up, we can be pretty confident that something must be the case. I'm pretty sure that gravity is a real thing; I see it on Earth every day, and we've observed it on every other planet, and the lack of it in orbit.
>you are connected to others
Not physically.
>God and spirit
I mean, I've seen no evidence for any sort of "god", any sort of omnipotent creator. So I have no reason to think such a thing exists, personally. Just like if someone claimed they owned a time machine; to my knowledge time machines are impossible based on our current science, so I wouldn't have any reason to believe a claim that a time machine exists, unless I was given evidence.

Just my view really.

Attached: descartes.jpg (817x1000, 151K)

Not him but I'm wondering if you can prove the reliability provided by your experiments with experimentation

Like I say, you can always doubt. This is what Descartes realised. It's also what Hume realised with his problem of induction: if you always see green apples, you might conclude that all apples are green. But one day a red apple might cross your path, and your original belief is shattered. And all empirical knowledge is subject to this proviso: there could be counterexamples out there which we've just not seen yet. Repeated observation does not necessarily logically prove something because there could eventually be a counterexample that we're not aware of.

But the solution to this that I would use, and many people use, is that it's just a matter of the weight of the evidence. We can be pretty confident that the gravity of Earth causes objects to accelerate at around 9.80665 m/s2, for example (it varies depending on where you are on Earth because the planet isn't perfectly round, but it's approximately right). We can test this repeatedly, and we even see it every day when we drop objects. I'm pretty sure there is no example from human recorded history where the Earth's gravity was found to significantly deviate, and suddenly become as weak as the moon's gravity.

So perhaps the term "prove" only makes sense when talking about deductive reasoning - logically deducing a conclusion from premises. E.g. in maths, you might "prove" a conclusion based upon agreed-upon premises. But for inductive knowledge, like seeing multiple apples and concluding their colour, or any scientific knowledge which is based on repeated observation, the term "prove" becomes less meaningful, because there might be a counterexample that you just haven't seen yet. But the weight of evidence can lead us to be extremely confident that something is true. I don't think gravity is going to disappear any time soon.

Attached: david hume.jpg (800x970, 666K)

So it's a convenient assumption? I'm not doubting the fruits of exploitation that empirical science has harvested, obviously. I just haven't gotten to the philosophy of science yet in my studies and, since you're here and obviously have taken a stance, I figured I'd try to see what the root is. And you've shown me. Thanks, and farewell.

Which part is a convenient assumption? The thing is that mounting evidence is how we already come to have beliefs. Repetition is how a cat learns where its home is, and who usually gives it food. Same when it comes to humans using science to understand the universe. We just have to do the best experiments we can, and try and repeat something as much as possible, in order to get the best knowledge possible.

I never actually studied philosophy of science specifically, and if I did maybe I'd be more well-informed about other solutions or ideas about scientific knowledge. But yeah, the way I see it is that none of our knowledge is perfect, but repeated observation can make us extremely confident, and will make us perfectly justified in that extremely high level of confidence.

I appreciate the well thought out response and I don't have a lot of time to respond but I want to reply just in case the thread dies.

user again you are describing the information of the World, yes all of those are real in the same sense that your thoughts are real. However they are not real in the true sense of the word. What is real are the subjective experiences. God is simply the spirit that creates the shared subjective experiences or the "objective". I hope that makes sense. It is not skepticism.

Everyone is free to believe what they want to believe of course and I'm not trying to be disrespectful or anything, but personally I don't believe in any sort of "spirit" or "god" because I've seen no evidence for these things. Electricity I believe in, because there's evidence for it. Gravity too, water too, etc. Some people clearly find the idea of a "god" compelling but I've seen no evidence to suggest that such a thing exists.

Yea, but op said just based off of rationality. Ofc suicide is an extreme thing to do for us as humans, because we have emotions.