What would you choose?

[Demian]

If you could end your existence or, after death, be reincarnated, but you wouldn't know anything about your next life, what would you choose and why?

 

[LXR515]

I would just end my existence, I wouldn't want to roll the dice of in my next life having an even worse life, even if I would have no memory of my last one

 

[JustAnx]

Idk anything about reincarnation. Do we suppose reincarnate as humans or just as another living ornanism?

 

[Plato'sCaveDweller]

End my existence.

One of my philosophical reasons for CTB is I believe that life is a gamble to even start (birth), and that there's constant risk in continued existence. Choosing reincarnation without knowing anything about your next life would not only be a gamble in itself (what if you end up as a gazelle on the plains of Africa, doomed to be eaten alive by a pack of lions?), but would also be restarting the cycle of dice rolling (living). I want my CTB to be the last dice roll I have to throw. The dice roll to end all dice rolls.

 

[HereIGoAgain24]

Idk anything about reincarnation. Do we suppose reincarnate as humans or just as another living ornanism?

I think it's going to depend on the religion. In Buddhism, my own (imperfect) understanding is that you can reincarnate in different forms, including on different planes (hells, animals, gods, etc.), with certain states (e.g. animals) being less positive/linked to bad karma.

For my own part... nonexistence. It's not ideal; I keep wishing there was some sort of positive afterlife I could go to. However, things for me are far, far better than they are and ever have been for 99% of humans. When you think about how for most of history, over 85% of people lived in extreme poverty, that thousands of people die every day in misery, and how bleak the future of our own world looks... I can't take my chances. I'll get out while things are good.

 

[Forever Sleep]

Definitely end my existence. Even if I was guaranteed an easier life next time round- I'd still end it. Plenty of very unpleasant things are pretty much guaranteed in this life- any life. Plus, maybe it's my imagination, but this world in general isn't feeling a nicer place to live day by day.

 

[Csmith8827]

This is Exactly what the short story called "Afterlife" is about by Stephen King. It's in his "Bazaar of Bad Dreams" book. In that story the main character can either choose to try to relive his life and fix the mistakes he made or just leave existence permanently.

It's strange but like as dark as it sounds I'd probably just end my existence. Life seems kinda like this rigged up game and to be honest it is sorta a bad dream. All I see around me is just evil and confusion and all I can do is witness all my hopes and dreams be crushed, ruined, and destroyed. The cruelty of that is more than I want to bear.

I don't want to live a life without privacy, without my rights as a human being, without the ability to live under a fair and honest government, without the ability to relocate where I want geographically.

Yeah so like I think I'd choose non-existence. As dark as that sounds...at least you'd be at a state of peace.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

I see both as being equivalent since, no matter which option I choose, I can be considered to be dead from the perspective of my current life and that's all I honestly want. I want to be dead from the perspective of my current life since I can't really consider my next life to be me if the memories and experiences aren't transferred during reincarnation. Just to answer your question though, I'd choose to never exist again as then there would at least be one less sentient being suffering in existence in the future

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

I'd rather just not exist anymore. I'm not much of a gambler and it's highly likely that the next life I spawn into would probably be worse somehow in a lot of ways. Who knows, I may have already picked the wrong choice and my current miserable situation is a result of me thinking I could reincarnate for the better.

 

[etherealspring]

i would end my existence. dont wanna do this shit again even if i knew it would be good. i just dont wanna think about having to live again

 

[FuneralCry]

Personally all I hope and wish for is to never suffer in this cruel, torturous existence ever again, I only want non-existence, I'd never wish to be conscious at all in this existence where there is all this endless suffering. Simply just existing is deeply undesirable to me and in my case the only relief lies in non-existence, it's all I've ever wished for, I see existence itself as such a terrible tragedy that just causes so much pain and I'm so tired of it all, suffering in this existence is deeply undesirable to me.

 

[Csmith8827]

To elaborate on this more there is actually like a Bible passage that talks about this. A few passages actually...

From Ecclesiastes chapter 4
4 Then I returned and considered all the oppression that is done under the sun:

And look! The tears of the oppressed,
But they have no comforter—
[a]On the side of their oppressors there is power,
But they have no comforter.
2 Therefore I praised the dead who were already dead,
More than the living who are still alive.
3 Yet, better than both is he who has never existed,
Who has not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

This is basically saying it's better to have never existed because life is evil.


In Ecclesiastes chapter 7 it says:

The day of death is better than the day of birth.

I think this is basically talking about like just the drama and frustration of life and how it's better to die and be at rest than to be alive and deal with all the BS.

Also it's interesting to note that Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon who asked God for wisdom so he was supposedly the wisest man to have ever lived.

 

[SilentSadness]

I don't know why I'd choose to reincarnate, my life is seemingly better than most peoples' and I still hate it. Having guaranteed non existence sounds priceless to me. The life I'd be happy with only exists in fantasy, and as long as I'm alive something terrible can always happen.