Assisted Suicide for Mentally Ill

[The Voice of Time]

thedoc, why would it be a truth what you (plural) purport and not what I am saying?

One does not agree or disagree, one argues, I'd like to seem so arguments, not just agreeing for no particular reason.

[Hobbes' Choice]

On this subject,

I think you are in a state of adolescent denial about the truth of human existence.

I agree.

Thank you. I seems to me that VOT is of the age when he thinks he will live forever.
Calling people wishing to die mentally ill, is not only stupid. It is ill considered and ignorant.

[Hobbes' Choice]

The view that wanting to die is a mental illness is the pinnacle of ignorance and denial.

We all die, so there is nothing mentally wrong with wanting to have some control over that event.
In the avoidance of pain and suffering, wanting to die is a logical and balanced choice.
I think you are in a state of adolescent denial about the truth of human existence.

I've wanted to die before, and even tested the extent to which I'm willing to commit to suicide, and I've heard about others do it and experienced people expressing desire to do it. I saw nothing sane about it, to paraphrase yourself: it's the pinnacle of irrationality and inability.

This is not an argument. It is not even the start of an argument. All you are doing is extending your rather limited personal experience and to a general statement about all people.
This is a school-boy error in philosophy. It is refuted by a single example of a rational person making a decision to die.

Irrational because there's nothing of real value about ending everything,
A death of a person is not "everything". And there is much value in death.
in order to escape pain you'll have to live to experience the escape, if you die, there is only the void, nothing you have escaped, because you're dead, what you've instead done, is perverted an idea of escape, a form of pervasion only possible by mental illness, and used imagination in order to conjure the possibility of attaining anything at all.

This is just meaningless. You will be reduced to your constituent atoms in 100 years; void. Thus you will take this step at some point; probably sooner than you think. For the vast majority of people there comes a time when their life is of negative value.

However, like sex day-dreaming, you're only fooling yourself, however enjoyable it may be. The difference between a sex day-dream though, is that you're aware of your own silliness, while a suicidal person is lost in their own imagination.

This adolescent reference does nothing to dissuade me of the comment I made above in the previous post.

It's inability because you're incapable of seizing control over yourself and reaffirm the power of your will. In my experience, the void of death, is desired as a way of not exposing your thoughts to the disorder of your mind, the destructive behaviour going on in your mind (a reallocation of mind resources). You put your desires and thoughts there in order to achieve an irrefutable order in your disorder. However, you are perfectly capable of achieving the same kind of order that the void is giving you with other forms of reallocations (indeed, healthy minds are very capable of this, and it is how they attain joy or "peace of the soul" and things like it...). It is my belief that you first have to have a perverse belief in the value of death (as an object in and of itself) before you will choose to make that special reallocation, or a poor mind, such that you don't know any better (and therefore you're simply: too stupid to value life). And perversity and ignorance are not valid reasons to worship death.

You are just ignoring that there will come a time in your life that there are no longer any reasons to "worship life". When you reach that point you may easily find that it is perfectly rational to want to die.
...'PLONK...
There is everything to be gained at living (as long as you live, you can never l.

Are you immortal?

You gain nothing from life ultimately as we all die.

[The Voice of Time]

This is not an argument. It is not even the start of an argument. All you are doing is extending your rather limited personal experience and to a general statement about all people.
This is a school-boy error in philosophy. It is refuted by a single example of a rational person making a decision to die.

No. Unless, as I explained elsewhere, it is part of a greater trade-off, the person couldn't be rational if it simply decided to die, because to die is not of any gain. This answer of yours btw is a personal attack and isn't part of dealing with the subject, and to paraphrase you again, your answer is a "wanna-be philosoper's answer". This is by all means an argument (maybe you should do some reading on the definition of arguments?), you may not like it, but it is still very much an argument. Also, personal experience is very much valuable in making assessments, it doesn't need to include everyone to raise an important question which was the point. I would bring up the question later: how can committing to die (besides as a by-product of wanting something else) be rational at all?

[The Voice of Time]

A death of a person is not "everything". And there is much value in death.

Now this my young Padawan, is not an argument. Shall I recap for you why? Because the first statement makes a single declaration, and then another unrelated declaration. Meaning, you have two instances of unfinished arguments, as they both contain a single premise with no other premise to unite with to form a conclusion.

You don't just tell me that "death of a person is not everything" or "there is much value in death", what you tell me: is why. That's when philosophy starts. You never started it.

This is just meaningless.

Your understanding and intellectual capabilities are not part of whether or not it has meaning. It has very much meaning, but requires a capable mind to understand its meaning and what is implied and understood by the text.

You will be reduced to your constituent atoms in 100 years; void.

Physics is not part of it.

Thus you will take this step at some point; probably sooner than you think. For the vast majority of people there comes a time when their life is of negative value.

Which is the irrational and incapable mind speaking.

This adolescent reference does nothing to dissuade me of the comment I made above in the previous post.

It was an aboutish explanation to extend understanding, not a point that persuades.

You are just ignoring that there will come a time in your life that there are no longer any reasons to "worship life". When you reach that point you may easily find that it is perfectly rational to want to die.

You say that time will become as if you are sure of it. So if somebody dies unwillingly, even of old age, are you saying there is something wrong with their will to live? That they should be wanting to die? Because unless this is a thing that happens to everyone, I don't see how you can be so sure I would want to die or want anybody else to want to die?

Are you immortal?

You gain nothing from life ultimately as we all die.

You don't need to always keep things to enjoy them. Impermanence is a source of joy, I once wrote a tiny book I called "A Philosophy of Importance", and one of my chapters dealt with the joys of impermanence. But it's a bit like this, that only as long as you have impermanence to spend, it is enjoyable, so one should spend all the time of living one can have to enjoy it for the impermanence that it contains.

[Hobbes' Choice]

This is not an argument. It is not even the start of an argument. All you are doing is extending your rather limited personal experience and to a general statement about all people.
This is a school-boy error in philosophy. It is refuted by a single example of a rational person making a decision to die.

No. Unless, as I explained elsewhere, it is part of a greater trade-off, the person couldn't be rational if it simply decided to die, because to die is not of any gain. This answer of yours btw is a personal attack and isn't part of dealing with the subject, and to paraphrase you again, your answer is a "wanna-be philosoper's answer". This is by all means an argument (maybe you should do some reading on the definition of arguments?), you may not like it, but it is still very much an argument. Also, personal experience is very much valuable in making assessments, it doesn't need to include everyone to raise an important question which was the point. I would bring up the question later: how can committing to die (besides as a by-product of wanting something else) be rational at all?

You are simply not addressing the argument.
I am saying that, depending on the circumstances it is perfectly rational to end one's own life.
You seem to want to avoid addressing the simple fact, and have preferred to characterise all those who wish to die as mentally ill.
An on what rubric? So nonsense about "gain". You have not supported the view that a healthy mentality has to be concerned with 'gain"? By what warrant? None!
But even using your rubric, a person has much to gain, by ending his life; an end to suffering.

It's your sort of pseudo-religious morality that has condemned millions to the most painful and excruciating suffering for generation after generation.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
You need to take yourself off to a Hospice and find someone who is begging for release, and ask them if there is anything more to gain from staying alive.

[Hobbes' Choice]

A death of a person is not "everything". And there is much value in death.

Now this my young Padawan, is not an argument.

I am pointing out your ridiculous hyperbole.

This adolescent reference does nothing to dissuade me of the comment I made above in the previous post.

It was an aboutish explanation to extend understanding, not a point that persuades.

Indeed and leads me further to my opinion that you are too young to get it.

You are just ignoring that there will come a time in your life that there are no longer any reasons to "worship life". When you reach that point you may easily find that it is perfectly rational to want to die.

You say that time will become as if you are sure of it.

Er, yeah. You are going to die. Dah.

So if somebody dies unwillingly, even of old age, are you saying there is something wrong with their will to live?
No I said quite the converse. I am saying it is irrational. Most people want to cling to life for far longer than makes ANY rational sense.
Such is the primitive urge to survive. This is not rational.

That they should be wanting to die? Because unless this is a thing that happens to everyone, I don't see how you can be so sure I would want to die or want anybody else to want to die?

What I said was;"When you reach that point you may easily find that it is perfectly rational to want to die".
In other words you might wish to irrationally cling to a life of suffering, or you might reach a point when you decide to end it.

Are you immortal?

You gain nothing from life ultimately as we all die.

You don't need to always keep things to enjoy them. Impermanence is a source of joy, I once wrote a tiny book I called "A Philosophy of Importance", and one of my chapters dealt with the joys of impermanence. But it's a bit like this, that only as long as you have impermanence to spend, it is enjoyable, so one should spend all the time of living one can have to enjoy it for the impermanence that it contains.

Great, But relevant, how?
Unless you are saying that a life temporary is is a source of joy. And as such ending it can also be rational.

[The Voice of Time]

This is not an argument. It is not even the start of an argument. All you are doing is extending your rather limited personal experience and to a general statement about all people.
This is a school-boy error in philosophy. It is refuted by a single example of a rational person making a decision to die.

No. Unless, as I explained elsewhere, it is part of a greater trade-off, the person couldn't be rational if it simply decided to die, because to die is not of any gain. This answer of yours btw is a personal attack and isn't part of dealing with the subject, and to paraphrase you again, your answer is a "wanna-be philosoper's answer". This is by all means an argument (maybe you should do some reading on the definition of arguments?), you may not like it, but it is still very much an argument. Also, personal experience is very much valuable in making assessments, it doesn't need to include everyone to raise an important question which was the point. I would bring up the question later: how can committing to die (besides as a by-product of wanting something else) be rational at all?

You are simply not addressing the argument.

How do I not? I started with saying "no", and then I pointed you to that I'd already talked in ways that would answer the argument, so unless you didn't see my very clear pointing, you have no grounds to say I did not address the argument. You shouldn't be lying, that's not good behaviour.

I am saying that, depending on the circumstances it is perfectly rational to end one's own life.

Yes I did hear you, but until you explain how this is possible, you are not being very philosophical or cooperative. Reveal to me your secret enabling situation.

You seem to want to avoid addressing the simple fact, and have preferred to characterise all those who wish to die as mentally ill.

I'm not avoiding it, I'm saying it's not a fact to begin with, and until you can prove otherwise, I'd be right. And yes, to wish to die is mental illness.

And on what rubric? So nonsense about "gain".

Please show me how it is nonsense.

You have not supported the view that a healthy mentality has to be concerned with 'gain"?

This is a strange question, you write it as a declaration but end it with a question mark? To answer you: I have supported that view, I was after all introducing it to the discussion, saying that it is what separates a healthy from an ill mind.

By what warrant? None!

You must have failed in reading all of my words, as I remember very clearly I did write a reason, and the reason was that upon death you seize to be able to cash in on things because you enter the "void", or empty conciousness. What you are experiencing in the moments up until that death can be a glorification or in other ways conjuring pleasant images of death. Those whoever are not part of death but perverted fantasy.

However, as I also said, in the case of soldiering or scientific endeavour or the like, where it is not death but more the cause for which you aspire to which carries with it a coincidental risk of death, it is possible your imagination is part of a greater whole that extends beyond your own lifetime.

But even using your rubric, a person has much to gain, by ending his life; an end to suffering.

But you can't experience not to have suffering when you are dead, because you are dead, and dead people don't (supposedly) feel or have experiences while being fully dead ^^ You are therefore not able to cash in on your expected prize. It is better to live with suffering then, because at least then you have the prospect to experience anything, including good. This is rationality, desiring to die would be caused by irrational thinking, which doesn't take into account gain in reality, but use imaginative gains.

It's your sort of pseudo-religious morality that has condemned millions to the most painful and excruciating suffering for generation after generation.

Pain is desirable to avoid, but if you are gonna avoid it, you better check your math first, and don't play your mind with tricks. Avoiding suffering in death is as meaningful as multiplying any number by zero, ergo, none, null.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
You need to take yourself off to a Hospice and find someone who is begging for release, and ask them if there is anything more to gain from staying alive.

If they were begging, something is obviously bothering them, and I would see to what can be done about the problem first. Instead of taking their word for it, I would investigate to as the circumstances of their life. For people where life is cheap, it might be easy to let somebody you don't know just die (why care? You don't know them... currently in Belgium, where euthanasia is legal, there's an ongoing epidemic of suicides, in 2012 more than 1400 people committed suicide in a country with 10 million people, in comparison with birth rates, for every 90 children born, 1 person commits suicide), but if I know one thing, it is that life is not cheap, and that the wealth about each individual must be explored before you make any decision of great value. Some people might simply take their own life because nobody cares to keep them alive... I wonder how much money the Belgian state is saving on those 1400 people they can just rub off their budgets for social- and health welfare ^^

[The Voice of Time]

I am pointing out your ridiculous hyperbole.

It is not a hyperbole, please show me how it is a hyperbole? From wikipedia:

Hyperbole (/haɪˈpɜrbəliː/ hy-pur-bə-lee;[1] Greek: ὑπερβολή hyperbolē, "exaggeration") is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally.

Where exactly did I do that?

Indeed and leads me further to my opinion that you are too young to get it.

This is another personal attack. My age has nothing to do with whether I'm right or not. If you wish to discuss my age, do so in the Lounge, but try to stay on-topic here.

Er, yeah. You are going to die. Dah.

You must have forgotten what you yourself said, because dying and wanting to die are two different things. Yes, I'm surely going to die, but that doesn't imply I'd want to die.

No I said quite the converse. I am saying it is irrational. Most people want to cling to life for far longer than makes ANY rational sense.

That was not so quite the converse as I would expect from somebody who writes "quite the converse". People want time, and so they try to stay alive longer. Unless you've forgotten what rationality means, you should know then that rationality would imply they stay alive so as to have that time.

Such is the primitive urge to survive. This is not rational.

I don't find it primitive. Why should people take your word that, as you say, it is primitive?

What I said was;"When you reach that point you may easily find that it is perfectly rational to want to die".
In other words you might wish to irrationally cling to a life of suffering, or you might reach a point when you decide to end it.

Those other words does not match the self-quotation you made, so I don't see why they would be other words and not simply a follow-up indirectly related sentence. There's nothing rational about "clinging to a life of suffering", it doesn't mean ending the life is any answer at all. Putting ones efforts at trying to turn that life about is what would be the rational choice. A small chance is better than the zero chance that death offers.

Great, But relevant, how?
Unless you are saying that a life temporary is is a source of joy. And as such ending it can also be rational.

I am saying that we enjoy objects, but only as long as those objects are temporary. However, in order to enjoy those objects, we must stay alive to be able to do so. The tiny book was not particularly well-written for the logical mind, it was more an exploration of ideas in a thought-train, and so gave the appearance of a "stream of consciousness" more than a solid work of philosophy. As such, many or most parts of it were written rather subtly.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Hyperbole: Irrational because there's nothing of real value about ending everything,

1) Your life is not "everything". This is your fear speaking. Man up.

2) Youth means less experience. Maybe if you live long enough to suffer enough to not want to live you will know what I mean.

3) You are confusing an emotional desire (to live) with reason. They are not the same and you would do well to realise that reason can overcome the primitive desire for survival. Older people get this more than the young.

4) You clearly have no idea what rationality is.

5) The desire to avoid death is the minimum quality required of all species to overcome the problem of natural selection. That is why it is primitive. And as it exists in all animals without reason there is not reason to suppose that the same quality is not also present in each of us as a primitive desire. It is reason that may be used to overcome this and accept the inevitable.

6) To summarise. You stated that wanting to die is a sign of mental illness. I am suggesting that wanting to live is fundamentally an emotional state and has no basis in reason per se.
Nothing you have said even begins to establish the will to live as rational.
Nothing you have said begins to establish that a person with a reason to die, is mentally ill.

What you are doing is insulting people who, right now, are making their own choices in how and when to end their own lives, to avoid the suffering of a life not worth living. Or those that for whatever reason who no longer wish to continue.
I believe this is based on your own primal desire to live, and has nothing to do with any "reason", as you have shown no reason, expect a weak sophistry, which is, as yet groundless.

I realise that your peri-christian upbringing will have infused you with a mystical sanctity of life ideology, and will make you pause at the contemplation of a voluntary euthanasia. I seems to me that this ideology is primarily informed by the emotional desire to live. Christians may believe this to be a god given imperative. But take a moment to look into this:

http://www.dignitas.ch/index.php?option ... 22&lang=en

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignitas_( ... anisation)

And this:

http://www.exitinternational.net

[The Voice of Time]

Hyperbole: Irrational because there's nothing of real value about ending everything,

1) Your life is not "everything". This is your fear speaking. Man up.

To the last: that is a common figure of speech, it means you are no longer able to be an agent in the world and take part in it, so "everything" that is you, ends. All that is left are memories and people's choice to follow up on the choices you made while you were alive.

To the above, that is part of a context, and as such the words are bound by the context. It is no exaggeration, there is nothing of real value... -> except, which is what I explain later in the text, and which you chose to ignore.

2) Youth means less experience. Maybe if you live long enough to suffer enough to not want to live you will know what I mean.

I've experienced it myself more than once in my youthful life, and as I already mentioned to you, I got plenty of experience with suicide both in thought and in action with myself and people around me and people in indirect relation to me... two of my fathers brothers commit suicide, although that was before my time. My own father I think has also had periods when we has been taken by despair at his life, partly because of me I think, when I rebelled against his violent and abusive behaviour, it hit him mentally.

3) You are confusing an emotional desire (to live) with reason. They are not the same and you would do well to realise that reason can overcome the primitive desire for survival. Older people get this more than the young.

Yes, but that can equally be a pathological sign of the older generation, for instance people who have experienced the great wars of the 20th century or experienced times when legal authority and the standards of society were weaker, than anything to do with their mere age. But we won't know the answer to that before I am old and we can see how my generation will react, however I think that when I'm old a lot of things will be a lot better in many ways and people's reasons for committing suicide will be much fewer, as well as the natural life for many will be much easier to extend.

I don't see how I'm confusing emotional desire to live with reason. Emotion and Reason walk hand in hand and they affect each other, there is no either/or. Over time, one person's reason become their emotion, and over time, people's emotion can affect their reasoning. Reason is there to tame emotion, and emotion is there to stabilize reasoning, they work together and not apart, when they work apart you have a problem, and such problems are often made fun of or portrayed in comedies and love stories.

4) You clearly have no idea what rationality is.

Well that's not very explanatory. I know very well what rationality is, I've been instantiating its meaning in my reference to why wanting to die is irrational. Rationality is reasoning for the optimal, "the best", in its modern use its about making the most gainful choice/decision, with reason as its tool for reaching the conclusion of what is the best. As such, I portrayed how wanting to die was not gainful and therefore irrational.

5) The desire to avoid death is the minimum quality required of all species to overcome the problem of natural selection. That is why it is primitive.

Because it is a favoured quality of natural selection doesn't make it primitive. There's no logical connection there, the one doesn't lead to the other. Because natural selection might make you think about a pre-civilized history (this is the only way I can understand how you could think that to be a lead, you've read too much natural selection history) doesn't mean natural selection favouritism makes anything primitive. Civilization has made human beings the natural selection number one hero after all, we don't rank high on natural selection because we are primitive, quite on the contrary.

And as it exists in all animals without reason there is not reason to suppose that the same quality is not also present in each of us as a primitive desire.

I don't feel at ease calling it "primitive", I mean, what has made us desire it and not desire it can be equally primitive and civilized and possibly neither also. For instance, organized religion is a characteristic of civilizations, and there are both people who out of religious belief choose to commit suicide and people who out of religious belief choose to stay alive for as long as possible, in neither case does it seem particularly civilized or primitive to do either, I'd say one must assume it has nothing to do with being either primitive or civilized at all.

It is reason that may be used to overcome this and accept the inevitable.

Aye reason may be used, but reason without rationality is a soup of words, reasoning does not mean good reasoning.

6) To summarise. You stated that wanting to die is a sign of mental illness. I am suggesting that wanting to live is fundamentally an emotional state and has no basis in reason per se.

No basis? So you say that people's thoughts about life and death do not influence their choices about the matter? I think this would appear rather radical to most people to state. I for one see no reason to believe it to be so, in my own experience reason has a lot to do with it, and your ability to control yourself greatly influences your decisions, a feat which requires fostering and training and believing in yourself to make adequate enough, or in other words: self-discipline.

Wanting can be deeply in-grained in your emotions, but wanting is not 100% emotion. Ones beliefs influence the way in which ones emotions grow and are nourished, and reason supply beliefs (logical or not).

Nothing you have said even begins to establish the will to live as rational.

Will was not part of the question, wanting was.

Nothing you have said begins to establish that a person with a reason to die, is mentally ill.

Only if they believe that death in and of itself holds value, and I've written quite exactly on that subject, so given that you meant that it's the value of death we are talking about, then you're wrong. Reasons to die, however, we can all have, they do not have to be good reasons, to be rational reasons, for that sake, and it's about how seriously we take them or believe in them which determines our mental health, as per characteristic it can never be gainful to merely die least it is part of a greater trade-off.

What you are doing is insulting people who, right now, are making their own choices in how and when to end their own lives, to avoid the suffering of a life not worth living.

All lives are worth living by themselves, because the alternative has no value. Death is like a minus infinity sign, so even how much negativity there is in your life, it can never exceed the negativity in death, which is what I explained, talking about "the void", or empty consciousness. If those people are insulted, then they act contrary to how they should act, as they should really be putting the question to mind themselves: how absolute nothingness can have value.

I believe this is based on your own primal desire to live, and has nothing to do with any "reason", as you have shown no reason, expect a weak sophistry, which is, as yet groundless.

The opinion that I deal in sophistry is your opinion, and which I of course find very groundless of you to make. I deal very much not in sophistry but much in logical, reason and rationalization. That I have my desire to live undoubtedly inspire me to reason the way I do, it is part of life to live up to ones identity, but my reason is its own master and if I could not make the arguments I make I would not make them, if I could not nest the logical sequences I nest, I would not do so, and could I not rationalize as I do, I would not.

I realise that your peri-christian

What does peri-Christian mean? I've never seen a "peri" prefix before.

upbringing will have infused you with a mystical sanctity of life ideology

There's nothing mystical about it. Life only has value as long as there is somebody which desires things, whether it be humans or animals, to live. There you have it, nothing mystical.

, and will make you pause at the contemplation of a voluntary euthanasia.

I was born with a desire to experience life, to pause at euthanasia is natural for all human beings least those human beings have had abnormal experiences that have twisted their self into somebody else, a death greeting other. For people like me this is worrisome because of its distinctly harmful feel and the harmful way it is experienced, that people one learns to have affections for cease to be for the rest of ones own life, that all opportunity to share anything with them cease, and the way it may influence oneself and cause oneself not to be able to see life the joys of life but be overwhelmed by death and destructive forces undermining life. The closer it is felt, the more worrisome it is, for people far away, it becomes more of a matter of wanting a world of happiness where the demand for euthanasia is not there, where the idea of the life of human beings in general is not polluted by death and destruction.

I seems to me that this ideology is primarily informed by the emotional desire to live. Christians may believe this to be a god given imperative.

They may believe so. But I didn't grow up a Christian, though I did grow up with some Norwegian-Christian values about me, I grew up a humanist, and humanism is a proud and strong tradition in all of Norway. National Heroes such as Fridtjof Nansen was a world-renowned humanist for instance, and among the scientific academia humanism carries with it much admiration and respect, as well as in the political tradition.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Hyperbole: Irrational because there's nothing of real value about ending everything,

1) Your life is not "everything". This is your fear speaking. Man up.

To the last: that is a common figure of speech, it means you are no longer able to be an agent in the world and take part in it, so "everything" that is you, ends. All that is left are memories and people's choice to follow up on the choices you made while you were alive.

So much so inevitable. So what, we all die and all reach this state. Why does it matter to you when it? You have no reason to stay alive as time will remove any rationale.

To the above, that is part of a context, and as such the words are bound by the context. It is no exaggeration, there is nothing of real value... -> except, which is what I explain later in the text, and which you chose to ignore.

I did not ignore it. I found it unconvincing. You life is meaningless, and it is absolutely rational to think that way. In fact it is utterly liberating. The knowledge that whatever you do will not matter in absolute terms means that you are free to pursue your truth and life without fear. Your life can be far more useful if you do not cower like a puppy at a loud noise. I think you need to rad some Albert Camus.

2) Youth means less experience. Maybe if you live long enough to suffer enough to not want to live you will know what I mean.

I've experienced it myself more than once in my youthful life, and as I already mentioned to you, I got plenty of experience with suicide both in thought and in action with myself and people around me and people in indirect relation to me... two of my fathers brothers commit suicide, although that was before my time. My own father I think has also had periods when we has been taken by despair at his life, partly because of me I think, when I rebelled against his violent and abusive behaviour, it hit him mentally.

3) You are confusing an emotional desire (to live) with reason. They are not the same and you would do well to realise that reason can overcome the primitive desire for survival. Older people get this more than the young.

Yes, but that can equally be a pathological sign of the older generation, for instance people who have experienced the great wars of the 20th century or experienced times when legal authority and the standards of society were weaker, than anything to do with their mere age. But we won't know the answer to that before I am old and we can see how my generation will react, however I think that when I'm old a lot of things will be a lot better in many ways and people's reasons for committing suicide will be much fewer, as well as the natural life for many will be much easier to extend.

I don't see how I'm confusing emotional desire to live with reason. Emotion and Reason walk hand in hand and they affect each other, there is no either/or. Over time, one person's reason become their emotion, and over time, people's emotion can affect their reasoning. Reason is there to tame emotion, and emotion is there to stabilize reasoning, they work together and not apart, when they work apart you have a problem, and such problems are often made fun of or portrayed in comedies and love stories.

4) You clearly have no idea what rationality is.

Well that's not very explanatory. I know very well what rationality is, I've been instantiating its meaning in my reference to why wanting to die is irrational. Rationality is reasoning for the optimal, "the best", in its modern use its about making the most gainful choice/decision, with reason as its tool for reaching the conclusion of what is the best. As such, I portrayed how wanting to die was not gainful and therefore irrational.

5) The desire to avoid death is the minimum quality required of all species to overcome the problem of natural selection. That is why it is primitive.

Because it is a favoured quality of natural selection doesn't make it primitive.

It completely and absolutely does. What the fuck do you think Primitive means?
"Reason" is on a higher level and with it we are able to transcend your primitive fears.


There's no logical connection there, the one doesn't lead to the other. Because natural selection might make you think about a pre-civilized history (this is the only way I can understand how you could think that to be a lead, you've read too much natural selection history) doesn't mean natural selection favouritism makes anything primitive. Civilization has made human beings the natural selection number one hero after all, we don't rank high on natural selection because we are primitive, quite on the contrary.

Duh!

And as it exists in all animals without reason there is not reason to suppose that the same quality is not also present in each of us as a primitive desire.

I don't feel at ease calling it "primitive", I mean, what has made us desire it and not desire it can be equally primitive and civilized and possibly neither also. For instance, organized religion is a characteristic of civilizations, and there are both people who out of religious belief choose to commit suicide and people who out of religious belief choose to stay alive for as long as possible, in neither case does it seem particularly civilized or primitive to do either, I'd say one must assume it has nothing to do with being either primitive or civilized at all.

Stop playing semantics. Fear of death is an emotion, it is not reasonable.

It is reason that may be used to overcome this and accept the inevitable.

Aye reason may be used, but reason without rationality is a soup of words, reasoning does not mean good reasoning.

6) To summarise. You stated that wanting to die is a sign of mental illness. I am suggesting that wanting to live is fundamentally an emotional state and has no basis in reason per se.

No basis? So you say that people's thoughts about life and death do not influence their choices about the matter?

No I am saying exactly what I wanted to say. Stop dancing around the point. If you continue, I might have to ask you another straight question and ignore you until you answer it.

I think this would appear rather radical to most people to state.

Yes, because most people are motivated by their passion and not their reason.

I for one see no reason to believe it to be so, in my own experience reason has a lot to do with it, and your ability to control yourself greatly influences your decisions, a feat which requires fostering and training and believing in yourself to make adequate enough, or in other words: self-discipline.

Wanting can be deeply in-grained in your emotions, but wanting is not 100% emotion. Ones beliefs influence the way in which ones emotions grow and are nourished, and reason supply beliefs (logical or not).

Why not try and make a case for wanting to die is a mental illness?

Nothing you have said even begins to establish the will to live as rational.

Will was not part of the question, wanting was.

Wanting to DIE, was what you are arguing about.
Gee whizz. Maybe you should try to do that: give a rational argument which applies only to mentally ill people?

Nothing you have said begins to establish that a person with a reason to die, is mentally ill.

Only if they believe that death in and of itself holds value, and I've written quite exactly on that subject, so given that you meant that it's the value of death we are talking about, then you're wrong. Reasons to die, however, we can all have, they do not have to be good reasons, to be rational reasons, for that sake, and it's about how seriously we take them or believe in them which determines our mental health, as per characteristic it can never be gainful to merely die least it is part of a greater trade-off.

Fucking hell. You are like a bloody Oil tanker. You know my objection is sound. You just don't like turning round.

What you are doing is insulting people who, right now, are making their own choices in how and when to end their own lives, to avoid the suffering of a life not worth living.

All lives are worth living by themselves, because the alternative has no value.

Utter fucking bollocks! The termination of suffering is highly valuable. It helps, not only the person dying, but the people that care for them.

Death is like a minus infinity sign, so even how much negativity there is in your life, it can never exceed the negativity in death, which is what I explained, talking about "the void", or empty consciousness. If those people are insulted, then they act contrary to how they should act, as they should really be putting the question to mind themselves: how absolute nothingness can have value.

Maybe if you keep saying this you might one day believe it.

I believe this is based on your own primal desire to live, and has nothing to do with any "reason", as you have shown no reason, expect a weak sophistry, which is, as yet groundless.

The opinion that I deal in sophistry is your opinion, and which I of course find very groundless of you to make. I deal very much not in sophistry but much in logical, reason and rationalization. That I have my desire to live undoubtedly inspire me to reason the way I do, it is part of life to live up to ones identity, but my reason is its own master and if I could not make the arguments I make I would not make them, if I could not nest the logical sequences I nest, I would not do so, and could I not rationalize as I do, I would not.

I realise that your peri-christian

What does peri-Christian mean? I've never seen a "peri" prefix before.

upbringing will have infused you with a mystical sanctity of life ideology

There's nothing mystical about it. Life only has value as long as there is somebody which desires things, whether it be humans or animals, to live. There you have it, nothing mystical.

, and will make you pause at the contemplation of a voluntary euthanasia.

I was born with a desire to experience life, to pause at euthanasia is natural for all human beings least those human beings have had abnormal experiences that have twisted their self into somebody else, a death greeting other. For people like me this is worrisome because of its distinctly harmful feel and the harmful way it is experienced, that people one learns to have affections for cease to be for the rest of ones own life, that all opportunity to share anything with them cease, and the way it may influence oneself and cause oneself not to be able to see life the joys of life but be overwhelmed by death and destructive forces undermining life. The closer it is felt, the more worrisome it is, for people far away, it becomes more of a matter of wanting a world of happiness where the demand for euthanasia is not there, where the idea of the life of human beings in general is not polluted by death and destruction.

I seems to me that this ideology is primarily informed by the emotional desire to live. Christians may believe this to be a god given imperative.

They may believe so. But I didn't grow up a Christian, though I did grow up with some Norwegian-Christian values about me, I grew up a humanist, and humanism is a proud and strong tradition in all of Norway. National Heroes such as Fridtjof Nansen was a world-renowned humanist for instance, and among the scientific academia humanism carries with it much admiration and respect, as well as in the political tradition.

[The Voice of Time]

It completely and absolutely does. What the fuck do you think Primitive means?

Primitive is relative to the technological, social and philosophical advancements of a society. The further away from attaining the point of origin from which you refer to yourself as civilized, the more primitive something becomes. Whether or not it is primitive in a simple non-relativistic term would be decided by mutual agreement, in a relativistic term it would be given prior qualifications, such as for instance saying "it is primitive... because it has this and this characteristic", in that sense it would be primitive given that it is related to that characteristic, although still subject to recognition by others. As such, natural selection favouritism plays no part in determining whether something is primitive, as natural selection is self-determining while technological, social and philosophical advancements are determined by us and what we want to advance towards. If we want to advance in any particular direction that is counter to wanting to live, like trying to create a nuclear holocaust, then wanting to live would be primitive, while if we wanted to advance in a direction that requires us to stay alive, like attaining bio-technical immortality, we would be civilized.

Stop playing semantics. Fear of death is an emotion, it is not reasonable.

I both agree and disagree here, obviously fear of death is an emotion, but obviously, it is reasonable, or people would not be able to calm themselves in the heat of battle before they were about to do dangerous things, or "pull themselves together".

No I am saying exactly what I wanted to say. Stop dancing around the point. If you continue, I might have to ask you another straight question and ignore you until you answer it.

If you do not want me to comment on what you say you shouldn't say anything x) Don't be so complaining, this is not so bad, we are forever getting closer to agreeing.

Why not try and make a case for wanting to die is a mental illness?

This is rather abusive behaviour from you, a clear example of domination technique. Pretending like you haven't read what I wrote is very hostile in a conversation, and is a sign you have nothing better to say, and if so you should remain silent and don't waste other people's time to cover up for your own short-comings... Here is my original text again, but you should read the rest of my responses also so I don't have to redo the entire conversation, and put some self-discipline and civilized behaviour into your further discussing:

I saw nothing sane about it, to paraphrase yourself: it's the pinnacle of irrationality and inability.

Irrational because there's nothing of real value about ending everything, in order to escape pain you'll have to live to experience the escape, if you die, there is only the void, nothing you have escaped, because you're dead, what you've instead done, is perverted an idea of escape, a form of pervasion only possible by mental illness, and used imagination in order to conjure the possibility of attaining anything at all. However, like sex day-dreaming, you're only fooling yourself, however enjoyable it may be. The difference between a sex day-dream though, is that you're aware of your own silliness, while a suicidal person is lost in their own imagination.

It's inability because you're incapable of seizing control over yourself and reaffirm the power of your will. In my experience, the void of death, is desired as a way of not exposing your thoughts to the disorder of your mind, the destructive behaviour going on in your mind (a reallocation of mind resources). You put your desires and thoughts there in order to achieve an irrefutable order in your disorder. However, you are perfectly capable of achieving the same kind of order that the void is giving you with other forms of reallocations (indeed, healthy minds are very capable of this, and it is how they attain joy or "peace of the soul" and things like it...). It is my belief that you first have to have a perverse belief in the value of death (as an object in and of itself) before you will choose to make that special reallocation, or a poor mind, such that you don't know any better (and therefore you're simply: too stupid to value life). And perversity and ignorance are not valid reasons to worship death.

There is everything to be gained at living (as long as you live, you can never loose anything... pain is struggle, not loss), nothing to be gained at death unless your death has other consequences that are not part of death itself and for which you strive for and just happens to be willing to "pay" for (without a such-called "suicidal bias", that means you are "selling out cheap" and that you are overly willing to let yourself risk death for death's sake and not the cause). Like a warrior who sacrifices him/herself to defend his/her cause, but not for the sake of dying, but for the sake of efforting towards his/her cause. Or a scientist workaholic that reaches into knowledge and experience that is exposing him/herself to dangerous high-risk situations, and that eventually kills the person. Or an extreme sportsperson trying to extend the limits of his/her capabilities and that dies in the attempt.

Gee whizz. Maybe you should try to do that: give a rational argument which applies only to mentally ill people?

You mean I should try to argue for them doing something good? What utility would that serve?

Utter fucking bollocks! The termination of suffering is highly valuable. It helps, not only the person dying, but the people that care for them.

If you do not want to care for the dying, you should get another job.

[Hobbes' Choice]

If you do not want to care for the dying, you should get another job.

Okay clearly this has gone on long enough.

The reason I contributed to the thread was to challenge your assertion that only mentally ill people want to die.

This is palpably false, and insulting to the many people that have made that choice, with I might add, a great deal of courage.

Since you have not addressed this question directly, nor proffered an explanation to your assertion, then I will await until you do.
The assertion that staying alive is ration does not imply that wanting to die is an example of mental illness.

Until then I'll stop posting.

[HexHammer]

If you do not want to care for the dying, you should get another job.

Okay clearly this has gone on long enough.

The reason I contributed to the thread was to challenge your assertion that only mentally ill people want to die.

This is palpably false, and insulting to the many people that have made that choice, with I might add, a great deal of courage.

Since you have not addressed this question directly, nor proffered an explanation to your assertion, then I will await until you do.
The assertion that staying alive is ration does not imply that wanting to die is an example of mental illness.

Until then I'll stop posting.

Hobbes is right in this, it's not just mentally ill people who wanna die, it's on par with medival peasent logic.

Horrible disfigured/ugly people who can never get love, who gets bullied, etc, may want to die.