The temptation to NOT exist

[Russell Nash]

I wonder if any other TLO member has ever felt this temptation to NOT exist.

About two nights ago I had a conversation with someone (age: twenty something), which more or less could be resumed in the following paragraphs:

Him: Do you smoke?
Me: No.
Him: Have you ever smoked?
Me: Not much.
Him: (silence)
Me: Do you smoke?
Him: Yes.
Me: (thinking…) Why do you smoke?
Him: (thinking…) I don’t know. It’s an addiction.
Me: Oh! An addiction… But you realize that if you keep smoking, sooner or later, there is a high probability that you die from cancer. Don’t you?
Him: Yes.
Me: So, before it was an addiction, why did you start smoking? (I repeated loudly…) Why?
Him: (thinking…) (silence)
Me: (rephrasing…) Do you know that the best questions in life are of the form “Why…?” For example: Why do you live your life? Why do you exist…?
Him: I don’t understand. I live because I live.
Me: Answer this: why don’t you throw yourself under the wheels of a bus right now…?
Him: (thinking…)
Me: What reason or reasons do you have not to kill yourself right now?
Him: What do you live for…?
Me: (I lied…)

That night I tried to compare my reasons to keep going living my life against my reasons to finish with it for good. Here you have my list.

1) Guilt. Example: I cannot do this to my wife and kids.
2) Hope. Example: Who knows if one of theses days an alien civilization appears on Earth and grants us the gift of immortality. If I kill myself I may not see that.
3) Inertia. Why should I kill myself? Avoid answering by asking questions.
4) A religious person may think that suicide is against God’s commandments.
5) (My wife’s opinion) Just live your life the way it is. Unfortunately some people (like me) need a reason to exist.
6) Prorogation. Example: let me finish my studies, then let me finish paying off my mortgage, then let me finish this chess game, then let me finish… thus, hoping that we die while we sleep. See number 3)
7) Wait. Example: Have a night sleep and in the morning you will wonder why you asked such a stupid question. Never answering. See number 3)
8) Cowardice. Example: Death is coming, it’s better to wait than to do it yourself. See number 6)

When I get up every morning I wonder why I don’t jump off my balcony. Why not? Non-existence is easier! Just why are we still living our lives if NOBODY and NOTHING seems to care about us? Nothing cares whether we live or we die. Our sun is going to be there tomorrow, with or without us, “earth abides”.

Have you ever experience this fear… of living here, right now, without knowing why…?

[gveranon]

I want to feel perfectly secure and perfectly at ease (no stress, no anticipation of stress), with no uncomfortable sense of lacking anything. I want to have a "self" only in a dreamlike way that is never burdensome or troubling or limiting. Every day I want this. Of course, this state of being is probably not possible in life. (I only said "probably" because I don't know if it is possible in advanced meditational states of mind.) Indeed, the state of being I desire sounds much like death, except that I would (impossibly) like to retain awareness and a vestigial sense of "self" to go along with the perfect security and ease and plenitude. So, to answer your question: No, I am not tempted not to exist. I am tempted to exist in a manner that seemingly, and paradoxically, has every attribute of non-existence except non-awareness. Intuitively it seems to me that this ought to be my way of being!

If I could find a gun that could do that, I would pull the trigger.

[Jeff Coleman]

Russell Nash,

I think it is safe to assume many people here have been tempted to not exist. You seem to be looking for a confirmation of your own reasons for ceasing to exist, and I don't know if I can provide it. At a certain point I can only make a gesture with my hands that says "Who knows?"

I think I get your point, but I am not sure.

Here is a short list of reasons I have for continuing to exist rather than killing myself as soon as possible. There are more I'm sure, but these are what come to mind at the moment:

1) I cannot unmake my own birth. In other words, I cannot make myself unexist absolutely. Even if I kill myself now, I can't escape the problem that I existed in the first place, and that problem will continue to exist even if I am no longer here to experience it. It won't be a problem for me then, but it is a problem for me now.

2) I cannot experience my own death. When I think of killing myself, I don't imagine myself passing on to some other form of existence. I want to die completely. The problem is, if I die completely, I won't be around to appreciate it.

3) It seems possible that if I continue to live, I might experience some form of enlightenment, in which everything will make sense. I am almost an absolute pessimist at this point, but I allow for the possibility that there is a flaw in my reasoning.

[Russell Nash]

Quote Originally Posted by Jeff Coleman

[...] I cannot unmake my own birth. In other words, I cannot make myself unexist absolutely. Even if I kill myself now, I can't escape the problem that I existed in the first place, and that problem will continue to exist even if I am no longer here to experience it.

Tonight I was thinking about how impossible is to "unexist absolutely". In literature we find very good examples that, in fact, may validate this possibility.

1) Disappearing act (1953), Richard Matheson. Later, an episode in Twilight Zone, "And When the Sky was Opened".

[Richard Matheson was first represented on the Twilight Zone with the December 11, 1959 episode "And When the Sky Was Opened," adapted by Rod Serling from Matheson's short story "Disappearing Act." After an experimental space flight crash-lands, the three crew members -- who have miraculously survived -- begin experiencing strange sensations. As the episode develops, it becomes obvious that no one but the crewmen have any memory of the crash. . .and before long, no one has any memory whatsoever of the crew itself!] The Twilight Zone: And When the Sky Was Opened Synopsis

2) It didn't happen (1963), Fredric Brown. This is the first of all 4 stories that I'm mentioning here, that I read. For me, then, the other stories look more or less the same.

3) The Vanishing Life and Films of Emmanuel Escobada (2002), in Nemonymous two.

4) I may add "His Shadow Shall Rise to a Higher House", in "In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land", by Thomas Ligotti.

[This is a story of labels. Many words become catch phrases (eg Twilight Talk, Uncreated Grave, Ascrobius Escapade etc) and reputations earned by people as well as things, ‘the charlatan Dr Klatt’, ‘the Uncreated Grave’ etc, many wrapped within “ “ (as I said before, to exact purity for words outside the impingement of any deceptive ‘tabula rasa’?). The “annulment of existence” (as the story tells), a parthenogenetic late-labelling...
Twilight Talk’s Mrs Glimm (another Purity Ghost?) has a lodging-house or a brothel? Reputations proceed as well as follow. The use of a disfigured body as another body’s headstone...most disturbing image. Genius!
With such weak glimmering twilight, can there be a shadow at all let alone a higher house (or astrological mansion)?
I found myself “thinking” about this story even before I first read it (this was a second reading of it). It was as if I had known about this story (which I didn’t) before inventing the word ‘Nemonymous’ because uncreation has to come before creation or because one needs a ‘tabula rasa’ to create anything at all.] (Review written by Nemonymous In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land - THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK)

[Nemonymous]

Quote Originally Posted by Russell Nash

The Vanishing Life and Films of Emmanuel Escobada (2002), in Nemonymous two.

A good example. A mythos tha made a non-existence really seem to exist.

[Russell Nash]

Quote Originally Posted by With Strength I Burn

Isn't it essence that defines our existence?

If you allow me to change the order of the words in this line for the following one: “essence our existence defines that isn’t?” And I ask you: does it have a meaning for you? The answer would probably be: no, it does not. Well, reading it again, you own line doesn’t have any meaning for me either. I have no idea what are the meanings of “essence” or “existence” for you, or if defined, these two words mean the same thing for everyone else. You may say that I’m reducing your thought to a simple language problem, yes, and you would be right.

We perceive reality (whatever it is) through our senses, and our brains do not duplicate reality, they recreate it as they understand it, later to communicate it (a reality conceived, not the true reality) to someone else by mean of symbols: ideograms, words, sounds, whatever, through a given language. Languages create words that do not exist in reality, and they also create theoretical entities like “ideas” (for example, does the idea of “white” truly exist in our brains, or even outside of them?”) that do not exist beyond human invention either. Take, for example, the words “bottom” and “less”, both words describe something, “the bottom of something”, and “less than expected” but, do both words together which form another English word exist? Do the word “bottomless” refer to something real? The language has created words that are completely disconnected from reality. Other words that may not have a meaning could be: “soul”, “ghost”, “God”, “evil”, and so forth, the list being too long. On the other hand, we don’t know what ideas are. Where are they located for instance? As told in the article, are they distributed throughout 12 neurons? Therefore, is this neural activity among 12 neurons an idea? Well, if this is so, according to which voltages we have among them, we could have not only one, but many other different “ideas” (with the same collection of 12 neurons). We keep using these words in our daily life knowing that 1) everybody understands them, and 2) they do have a certain and definite meaning. Both are wrong.

Quote Originally Posted by With Strength I Burn

Whether existence precedes essence is one thing, but we know for sure essence and existence are mutually exclusive based off evidence. Many people have had MASSIVE brain strokes permanently losing their accumulated knowledge, personality, and so forth (AKA their "essence").

Here, I see that you consider that our “essence” is what we call the sum of “knowledge”, “personality”, and “so forth”. I know a person who, after an accident, lost any memory of what she did before she was 12. Therefore, and for you, is she still her… after and before 12? If knowledge makes me be who I am, then would it be true that after reading a book by, say, Ligotti, I am a different man, or should I say I have a different personality as well? Does acquired knowledge change our “AKA essence”? Because, as you know, we keep learning and forgetting things all the time, does it mean that we keep changing who we are by adding or deleting fleeting memories as well? My mother, for example, had a MASSIVE stroke. Remember Captain Pike, from Star Trek, blinking a light to say yes or no, with the same idea, she answered me by closing her eyes, one meant yes, two times meant no. One of her cerebellums was annihilated in 90% or more, and the other one in 20% or so. Her midbrain was damaged, her brain stem too, and I don’t remember exactly what else, but her brain was untouched. Doctors said that she was already dead, and what I saw was not her, but a mechanical vestige of what she was (I don’t remember the exact words they used). She could tell me which arrow pointed right or left, by closing her eyes, she could tell me which ball was bigger or smaller, both examples allowed me to tell doctors that she still had certain mathematical knowledge of reality, she even remembered how many trees were planted in her house, or in what month she visited a doctor about 5 years before she had the stroke, which means that part of all of her memory was still intact. However, they kept saying to me that she was dead alive. So, was it not (according to you) that memory, knowledge, and so forth, makes who we are? Most scientists would not agree with the meaning of essence, or with other even more basic meanings.

Is it language, as I think, the real problem here? I tell you why I think so.

1)What is the middle of the number 10? Someone would answer immediately, 5. Why so? 2 times 5 make 10. Well, that’s too simple, and mathematics is another human invention to describe a conceived reality (that may not exist beyond our understanding of it, or without us). Put two of those baby cubes together. What is the middle of them? If you put both together the middle is an imaginary line that contains nothing. Mathematically speaking, the middle of 10 is not 5, but a number between 5 and the limit of f(x)=x when we approached it from the right side. The middle is a number between 5 and an infinitesimal number (that does not exist) after 5. But not 5. Here, you see, we are using simple mathematical terms in our daily life, like “half” as if our idea of half were real, or its meaning were absolute, or perfect.

2)How do we define velocity? If we say that we walked a block in one minute my speed or velocity was one block per minute. Excellent, but how do we define velocity in an ever expanding Universe? The answer is the same, but you can see that it is wrong. Moreover, equations that attempt to describe reality, like E=mc2 for example, was deduced considering that Space was static. If we introduce the expansion of Universe in the axioms it changes everything. Why don’t we do that? Basically we are not certain whether or not Space is really expanding. Have you ever seen the Empire State building being expanded in the last 50 years or so. Yes, I know, the Space is expanding between galaxies, yes? And Why is it so? Again, no answer.

3)Finally, basic words like “death” or “life” would probably have no meaning. I’m still trying to find the person who (beyond a doubt) would affirm that my mother is dead. Is she dead? Prove it. She was buried, you can say. But, was that body all she was. If you say that yes she was, then you agree with a materialist theory that cannot be proved yet. That we are our bodies and brain, and that’s all. It is strange, because at least 2 billion people would think that there is life beyond the grave. So, I ask again, is my mother dead? Prove it. She is legally dead, but that’s all. We don’t know what life and death are. Is the sun alive? If someone doesn’t breath is dead? The other day I watch on TV, CNN, how a man was dead (not breathing) for almost one hour and then he came back to life. Was he dead? Is he alive now? I may add that the dreams I have about my mother, the memories I recollect once in a while are part of what she was. If I affirm that, can I be refuted? Who truly knows here?

Quote Originally Posted by With Strength I Burn

They are simply left with their existence, which we presuppose is true based off the Cartesian cogito, without any essence; they start from stage one, learning their language, basic motor skills, and etc. again.

Descartes in his monumental work, from 1641, Meditationes de prima philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstrator, writes: “I am, I exist”. See the difference between this thought and his Cogito Ergo Sum, “I think, therefore I am”, from 1637.

Quote Originally Posted by With Strength I Burn

Thus, what happens to that essence? Isn’t there a gap of nothingness? The gap of nothingness is the nothingness that separates our past being and our future new one. It is just that: an abrupt nothingness between two selves. On the other hand, Death LEADS to a perpetual gap of nothingness that extends for all eternity. The destruction of a past self from a MASSIVE brain-stroke OR the destruction of memory through horrible experiments LEADS to a gap of nothingness between a past and future self. The past self is also in an eternal gap of nothingness, for there is no conscious being to harbor it any longer. We can agree that both Death’s long gap of nothingness and the gap of nothingness between two selves involve the relinquishment of the known.

Nothingness, like “bottomless”, is another of those words that do not exist beyond human invention. Where is “nothingness” in “existence”, in our Universe? There is nothing that can be called “nothingness” in our Universe. How strange is this English language that allows me to say that there is "nothing" that could be called "nothingness". Trying to find meaning with another word that is devoid of meaning as well. Yes, the word exist, in almost any language, but not in conceived reality, the reality that we perceive with our 5 senses (or 6 sometimes).

Quote Originally Posted by With Strength I Burn

Furthermore, the key to my argument is our being (the whole constellation of our memory, passions, and etc.) defines our existence. Nothing intrinsic defines who we are.

"Nothing intrinsic defines who we are." With this line I agree completely.

The original idea (?) behind my thread was: is life worth living as it is? I may answer that after so many months I started this thread I'm still alive and that fact somehow (at least for me) answers the question.

[Jeff Coleman]

I think the problem hinges on the fact of birth. I could say, nature is almost perfect, except for the fact that I exist as a witness. My existence is the flaw that undermines the absolute perfection of nature. I am infinitesimal, so infinitesimal. I am almost nothing, but I still exist.

[Jeff Coleman]

gveranon,

"I want to feel perfectly secure and perfectly at ease (no stress, no anticipation of stress), with no uncomfortable sense of lacking anything."

That is a problem, though, isn't it? How to exist as a conscious being without experiencing lack? To be conscious at all seems to require lack, since consciousness requires something other than itself to be conscious of. Thus, consciousness lacks whatever exists outside of itself, which it depends upon for its own existence.

[Nemonymous]

In many ways, once you've existed - and we all exist those of us reading this thread - you can never NOT exist.

[gveranon]

Quote Originally Posted by Jeff Coleman

gveranon, "I want to feel perfectly secure and perfectly at ease (no stress, no anticipation of stress), with no uncomfortable sense of lacking anything." That is a problem, though, isn't it? How to exist as a conscious being without experiencing lack? To be conscious at all seems to require lack, since consciousness requires something other than itself to be conscious of. Thus, consciousness lacks whatever exists outside of itself, which it depends upon for its own existence.

Yes, it is impossible -- a solipsistic fantasy. And of course solipsism wouldn't really be appealing unless, inside its safe reality, one had the paradoxical sense of interacting meaningfully with external entities, too. In other words, interactions with the external would have to be somehow internalized, where they could be perfectly controlled, but without losing the feeling of real interaction. Impossible. A self-subverting but still solipsistic solipsism.

Maybe these types of mental experiences could some day be manufactured dynamically using virtual reality technology. If so, this would probably prove to be highly addictive.

And yet, from what I've read about the experiences of schizophrenics, delusions of solipsism can quickly turn into apocalyptic nightmares. And the omnipotent self can suddenly seem to be anything but omnipotent -- a burned-out ghost or a violently manipulated puppet.

Why did I start talking about solipsistic fantasies in a thread about the temptation not to exist? It seems to me that solipsism contains something of a death-wish (perfect security, etc.) -- or at least a wish to turn life into something that really isn't like life at all. Solipsism doesn't seem like a vital fantasy, does it?

[Posted in a hurry -- I hope this isn't complete gibberish.]