Aponia & Ataraxia
Experienced
- Jun 24, 2018
- 233
Consciousness is irreducibly subjective, it effectively renders the individual a shadow of time, in a very literal sense. Only the present moment exists as far as human experience is concerned --have you ever been sharply conscious of just how uncanny this actually is, and how time itself is the only thing that exists aside from one's own conscious state? This being said, philosophical presentism is a double-edged sword which contains a radically potent silver lining: a redemptive property buried within the unknown future. By harnessing the subtlety of the now, the future is therefore open for the subjective seizing of a death characterized by aponia & ataraxia (what those two concepts mean for one's subjective experience will vary from person to person).
This is the very real advantage suicide has over the socially acceptable trajectory of aging, disease, and "natural" deaths: the painless, peaceful, pleasant, or even euphoric death, holds possibly the highest value of anything to be found within the human experience since it must be intercepted (whereas aging and bodily agony come naturally). No matter how much "long-term" societal "success" one may have had, it means nothing when the then-aged, infirm, and suffering human would, if they could: in that final succession of conscious moments, trade their subjective conscious experience with the 20 or 30 year-old (or simply anything younger and less damaged by time than an elderly state).
Everyone would like more time in the sense of the duration (provided their life is going well), no one (if they are being honest) wants to be in the state of old age where the abrasion of time has taken them down a dark alley of indignity. By contrast, blissfully falling asleep to one's favorite music and simply never waking up, when one is still relatively healthy is obviously the more preferable state to be in...
The punchline: the elderly person in this scenario is you, unless you divert course to a safe alternative. Under philosophical presentism, the primary experience in holds more value than merely remembered or anticipated experiences.
Under philosophical presentism, a suicide which is subjectively satisfying holds intrinsic meaning (as opposed to extrinsic meaning, which is a social construct) that is in-line with the very temporal structure of nature & reality as we know it.
"The fact is that we only fully arrive at ourselves in a freely chosen death (when/where/how). It, and only it, is "la minute de la verite" (the moment of truth). --Jean Amery, 'On Suicide: A Discourse on Voluntary Death'
Just as children owe their parents nothing (parents receiving love from their children is a privilege, not a right; parents must earn the love of their child a posteriori, --there is no basis for love being justified a priori), consciousness owes nothing to abiogenesis & natural selection --nor to its Homo sapiens outgrowth. Stemming from the big bang, time itself is distant tyrant, ruling from afar.
"Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper." -Albert Einstein
Conclusion: the individual can now become viscerally aware of the cage that they have been born into, and orchestrate for their sole self a graceful escape of their own creation/choosing (when/where/how), all the meanwhile evading further temporal entrapment as much as possible. Abiogenesis & Natural selection need you for your time, these slave-drivers care not for your conscious states. Consider everyday people who oppose the right to die as being, in effect, lost in time --they haven't a clue when they are.
As of 2018, nitrogen is the sole method at the apex/overlap of so many preferred criteria: reliability (virtually 100% if all precautions are taken), affordability (~$450), painless, reaching a fainted state within fractions of a second (it's over for you at that point, then over completely in just 4 minutes thereafter), legal components/equipment, indefinite shelf-life
"A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind." --Susanna Kaysen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspectival_realism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egocentric_presentism
This is the very real advantage suicide has over the socially acceptable trajectory of aging, disease, and "natural" deaths: the painless, peaceful, pleasant, or even euphoric death, holds possibly the highest value of anything to be found within the human experience since it must be intercepted (whereas aging and bodily agony come naturally). No matter how much "long-term" societal "success" one may have had, it means nothing when the then-aged, infirm, and suffering human would, if they could: in that final succession of conscious moments, trade their subjective conscious experience with the 20 or 30 year-old (or simply anything younger and less damaged by time than an elderly state).
Everyone would like more time in the sense of the duration (provided their life is going well), no one (if they are being honest) wants to be in the state of old age where the abrasion of time has taken them down a dark alley of indignity. By contrast, blissfully falling asleep to one's favorite music and simply never waking up, when one is still relatively healthy is obviously the more preferable state to be in...
The punchline: the elderly person in this scenario is you, unless you divert course to a safe alternative. Under philosophical presentism, the primary experience in holds more value than merely remembered or anticipated experiences.
Under philosophical presentism, a suicide which is subjectively satisfying holds intrinsic meaning (as opposed to extrinsic meaning, which is a social construct) that is in-line with the very temporal structure of nature & reality as we know it.
"The fact is that we only fully arrive at ourselves in a freely chosen death (when/where/how). It, and only it, is "la minute de la verite" (the moment of truth). --Jean Amery, 'On Suicide: A Discourse on Voluntary Death'
Just as children owe their parents nothing (parents receiving love from their children is a privilege, not a right; parents must earn the love of their child a posteriori, --there is no basis for love being justified a priori), consciousness owes nothing to abiogenesis & natural selection --nor to its Homo sapiens outgrowth. Stemming from the big bang, time itself is distant tyrant, ruling from afar.
"Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper." -Albert Einstein
Conclusion: the individual can now become viscerally aware of the cage that they have been born into, and orchestrate for their sole self a graceful escape of their own creation/choosing (when/where/how), all the meanwhile evading further temporal entrapment as much as possible. Abiogenesis & Natural selection need you for your time, these slave-drivers care not for your conscious states. Consider everyday people who oppose the right to die as being, in effect, lost in time --they haven't a clue when they are.
As of 2018, nitrogen is the sole method at the apex/overlap of so many preferred criteria: reliability (virtually 100% if all precautions are taken), affordability (~$450), painless, reaching a fainted state within fractions of a second (it's over for you at that point, then over completely in just 4 minutes thereafter), legal components/equipment, indefinite shelf-life
"A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind." --Susanna Kaysen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspectival_realism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egocentric_presentism
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