Discussion Is it better to exist than to not exist?

[Yavannah]

if one does not exist there are no desires -
desires lead to longing and longing often times results in unhappiness.
if i dont exist anymore i cant hurt others anymore because of my mental illness and i dont have to witness anymore suffering happening every second on this planet.
so for me its clear that non-existence is true peace.

 

[Fabi_2312]

The answer is very different for everyone. There is no right or wrong answer. For me life and death is worth equally. But there being no difference between it, I choose to exist. Life itself is something special. If you start seeing through suffering, beginning to label it as meaningless and just focus on little things, life could possibly become somewhat bearable.

 

[Darkover]

The answer is very different for everyone. There is no right or wrong answer. For me life and death is worth equally. But there being no difference between it, I choose to exist. Life itself is something special. If you start seeing through suffering, beginning to label it as meaningless and just focus on little things, life could possibly become somewhat bearable.

It's about the journey, those little moments of happiness," blah blah blah. But come on—there's no clear objective here! No big reward, no ultimate level to reach, just a bunch of random nonsense. Am I really supposed to slog through 80 years of this for nothing? That's messed up. How do you expect anyone to enjoy a life that's this pointless?

 

[betternever2havbeen]

As for hospice, I advocate for right to die. I'll certainly have it in my will to pull plugs ASAP once I lose autonomy.

As for rare occurrences of extreme suffering, I understand statistics and I'm willing to take the risk. But you know what? I have felt extreme pain. (Mental and physical. I've been very, very sick.). No, I've never been set on fire. I've never had a limb amputated. There are plenty of potential harms I've not specifically felt, but I understand pain generally.

Every day that one of those rare outlier occurrences doesn't happen, the total utility of my life accumulates more and more. This is my one chance to experience life, to experience love. Each night with my love is worth whatever pain might maybe possibly be waiting. I'm going to build up the good rather than living in fear of the bad - particularly the unlikely bad.

I'm not "smoking" anything. I've spent a good deal of time hurting and thinking deeply about existence to reach this point.

I guess I'm just surprised you're on this website if that's your view on life. I just don't understand it but you're right you're probably in the majority. Must be something in the way we process suffering differently. Why pull the plug ever though if this is your one chance to experience life? I thought the pain was all worth it.

 

[derpyderpins]

I guess I'm just surprised you're on this website if that's your view on life. I just don't understand it but you're right you're probably in the majority. Must be something in the way we process suffering differently. Why pull the plug ever though if this is your one chance to experience life? I thought the pain was all worth it.

My peak suicidality was a good 5-10 years ago. I still fight depression but I've been recovering lately pretty well. I just object to the black and white "non existence IS better. Always."

I think you can ctb when you're just kinda done. Doesn't mean you have to regret the totality of having existed. You also might ctb if you have a particularly bad experience. Even if I slipped back into depression and ctb'd I'd be glad I got the good times at least.

In my pull the plug example I said once I lose autonomy. If I can't do things for myself I'd rather not bother, personally.

 

[betternever2havbeen]

@derpyderpins ah ok fair enough. Good to hear you're doing better these days. I do have a very strong reaction to suffering, I've seen a lot of extreme pain with family members (cancer mostly) and in hospital visiting them there were other patients in there clearly suffering horribly. I feel guilty I couldn't do anything to help them. For me unbearable pain outweighs EVERYTHING else, but I know others don't see life like that. I have OCD and suffering is something I spend a lot of time ruminating on unfortunately.

*Edited as posted too soon.

 

[excaliboyz]

I would rather not exist a trillion times more than exist .

non-existence means no pain , zero suffering, no problems , no bad memories ever .

all the thousands of horrible things in life and this world are absent in non-existence

in life / existence / consciousness there is always the chance of constant unbearable pain while that is not possible in non-existence . That alone makes non-existence superior . but also the 1000's of horrible things like diseases, oppression, old age , extreme pain etc. many of these reasons sum up on top of each other, for example the hard labor and daily suffering only to exist to be under threat of extreme torture all for no reason since life is meaningless suffering.

I hate and fear existence / life / consciousness with every fibre of my being, every single part of evil life and this evil world

nothing matters except avoiding extreme pain. all else is meaningless and no one can convince me to think that anything else matters or that anything else is important in life or this evil world.

This is an evil imposition . no one asked to be here. then you're born and have to feed yourself 3 times a day . all the labor work stress problems to feed that amount of food into this body : just this is unfathomable how everyone thinks this is ok . every animal has to do this continously eat, usually killing other animals to eat . i have to work all day at a job , groceries chores etc to have a few hours per day to do meaningless garbage like youtube

There is however a really good video that shows people say I can take the brazen bull for "this" i really like this i'll be put in the brazen bull if i can do "this" "good" thing . the brazen bull is a metal giant bull that people were put into to be tortured. fires were lit under the bull so that the metal of the bull would get scaldingly hot and slowly burn all the person's skin inside. but after a few minutes the person would say i want out i can't take it no i won't trade that for this unbearable pain. people really don't know how bad that kind of pain is. they think they can take it and that some meaningless garbage including evil life is worth the worst pain. it's not and it's all meaningless garbage . nothing is worth extreme pain.

After Death is non-existence forever, the ultimate bliss , the ultimate peace

I don't think rebirth is possible because your concsciousness is totally anchored only embedded in your brain and body, your consciousness is your brain and body

I have good news to those that say it's better to not exist . i did some research and thinking reading about evolution , brain science books, cell biology books and that and for many other reasons imo after Death is non-existence forever. anyone can figure this out if they read books like that

wow 94% so far say it's better to not exist . i agree . finally i see some humans that i agree with on something. seems like this site is starting to getting back to the way it was in 2018 2019 2020 before the ny times article and you know what else .

The Horror of Suffering

reducing-suffering.org

the video is linked in this reddit thread

where is the video?

 

[AliceTheGoon]

 

[excaliboyz]

generally I agree. Non existence is better, however...
I've had moments watching certain animes or TV shows thinking I'd not want to die right now, I need to watch this anime till the end! Maybe some here can relate. It's like u need to witness a certain moment before u can go

 

[todiefor]

It's about the journey, those little moments of happiness," blah blah blah. But come on—there's no clear objective here! No big reward, no ultimate level to reach, just a bunch of random nonsense. Am I really supposed to slog through 80 years of this for nothing? That's messed up. How do you expect anyone to enjoy a life that's this pointless?

Hmmm we can all talk about our own experiences and feelings but generally I do think u always take it a little too far with the "objective" rules and generalisations, sounding like u are trying to convince everyone here that they r better off dead, or perhaps u r trying to convince yourself.

As others have said, there's nothing objective here, nothing objective to say if u r starving to death then u were objectively better off dead, they r not more stupid than you or I or missing some crucial clarity about life, ppl should make their own choices that's true to them.

I personally think I'm probably better off dead than alive given my own set of circumstances and expectations for life. I lost my purpose and I'm finding it difficult to find a new meaning. But I don't wish I never existed, even if it turns out I prob should never have been born then I'm glad I bucked the trend to be here. But that's my own personal opinion on my own life.

In general though, ppl have to find their own subjective meanings for their life, and it could be a very small simple reason or something grand they want to achieve, what ever speaks to them. Life is unpredictable, it doesn't need a clear objective or big reward, for many ppl it is actually the journey and the experience of living that drives them. For some even the sense of struggle gives them meaning. Who am I to say that meaning is stupid. I dunno I can go on, but it's just saying the same thing. Ppl r just different, and have different state of minds etc. I am really sorry that u r clearly suffering very much

 

[Tommen Baratheon]

if you don't exist, you don't suffer. And you can't care about happiness either.

when I didn't exist I didn't care about the fact that I didn't exist. When I die I can't be sad about the fact that I'm dead either.

To know the answer would imply that one knows what it is to 'not exist'. I don't know a single soul that has experienced non existence and shared this with the world.

 

[Darkover]

Hmmm we can all talk about our own experiences and feelings but generally I do think u always take it a little too far with the "objective" rules and generalisations, sounding like u are trying to convince everyone here that they r better off dead, or perhaps u r trying to convince yourself.

i know i am better off dead i would just leave if i could get N
everyone as to make up their own mind whether there lives are worth living or not i am not trying to convince anyone is better off dead
i would like for everyone to live happy for filling lives but that's not the reality someone people get a bad hand in life and that isn't fair

 

[mythofsisyphus]

I think we can only ever answer this based on our perspective. Anyone that tries to make a universal claim that it's better to not exist, or equally better to exist, I think is very egocentric in their view.

The reality is the majority of people find meaning and purpose in life, despite facing adversities. To them, I imagine existing is better, because this enables them to experience the goodness that existence can bring, and this makes experiencing the badness, or potential badness, enough to justify existence.

I think it boils down to a simple pros/cons list that only each person can deduce for themselves based on their own perspective of life, it's difficulties and also it's potential for goodness. Does the good outweigh the bad in their perspective? I imagine this is how we come to answer this question.

Of course factors such as mental illness can make this very tricky, when they can temporarily skew our perspective on things. How do we ever trust our perception, when it could change, and we could once again find justification in existence? Not sure I have the answer