Exactly. But that's how nature works. It self regulates through homeostasis. I can fully understand people seeing this as the action of God, because it is pretty spectacular and if viewed from the anthropic principle, looks orchestrated. It's ironic, it's contradictory and it's paradoxical. The very things that raise us up also strike us down. Each opposing principle has the seed of the other embedded within it, in a constantly moving dynamic equilibrium.
There are several rational reactions to this:
- Faith that there is a greater plan or reality
- Stand back, point and laugh
- Go insane
- Run
I can't help but feel that that's why religion is so common. Because the other alternatives are not desirable.
"Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer."
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
@Underscore, I'm pessimistic, to say the very least, but not as pessimistic as you. I don't necessarily think that it must be unavoidable. I'd like to liken it to climbing a mountain. First, it might be hybris to think that you can reach the summit at all. If you actually manage to approach the summit, you reach a critical point. Will you be able to remain focused and cautious, or will you become sloppy and over-confident and get stuck, tumble down the cliffs, or even fall to your death? Unfortunately, I think mankind has become sloppy and over-confident.
Damn, the more I think about it, the more I like your Genesis metaphore. I will steal it from you and use it in a book.
Talking out of my ass here, I would expect the suicide rate way back then to be much lower, but not zero. There are hundreds of factors to consider, but life expectancy was significantly shorter, which can mean people died of natural causes before they might have otherwise committed suicide. I'm too tired right now to coherently get into any other reasons why I think it would be lower, but basically survival of the fittest. Depression weakens the immune system and makes it harder to learn.
@FusRohDracarys, I believe you should continue to talk out of your ass, because I think the link between suicide and life expectancy is very interesting and hasn't even entered my mind, to be honest. Nowdays, the majority, although probably not a big majority, of all suicidess are middle-aged or old. The question is, how important is culture as a factor for the higher suicide frequency among middle-aged and old people today? I suspect that social factors speicific for our era might play an important role.
As soon as awareness of death entered the picture the thought and possibility of suicide will likely not have come far behind. While the environment would have been very different I'd think human or human-like emotions and mental states would probably have been present in the hominid species so that would broadly cover motives. Culture plays an important role but I don't think a lot is known about that.
@Jean Améry, sounds very reasonable. I guess the big question is, how big a role does culture play in suicides? There are members of this forum that basically thinks that mental health conditions and suicides purely are products of societal and cultural factors. I don't really share this point of view, but they present most reasonable poins.
All one can do is speculate but I'd venture that the methods would likely have been what they had readily available: plants that are poisonous, falling on a weapon, cutting oneself with a sharp object, jumping from a height, drowning or using a predator or an enemy as means.
Interesting! I haven't even thought about the possibility of using a predator or enemy as a means of suicide. When I think about it, it might very well have been common. Cf. death by cop. On a related note, 2hen you speak of predators I come to think of using poisonous snakes, à la Cleopatra. They must have made the connection between getting bitten by a snake and dying. As for cutting, I wonder how aware the first humans were of anatomy. Did they know that cutting one's wrist or neck could lead to death? I think they did, but I'm of course not sure.
As to estimation of suicide rates in those times: that's a virtual impossibility even in civilized cultures like ancient Greece and Rome that knew writing let alone in early humans. Venturing a percentage wouldn't even be educated guessing (which is possible with the aforementioned cultures given knowledge of their moral and religious views as well as their laws and customs) so I'm afraid I have nothing even remotely useful to say about that. Probably no-one has.
Indeed, it's difficult to even make a wild guess what the suicide frequency might have been. Still, it's interesting to speculate. History is basically speculation. The history of Rome is based on the writings of bafflingly few authors and there are many gaps.