Would you do anything to survive?

This thread was inspired by the Nobody is Anti-violence thread (viewtopic.php?f=3&t=192770)

This is an important question to wrestle with for we are both the primal animal and the transcendental, higher consciousness combined into one being. Would I do anything to survive? Or would I succumb to a death that ironically I could live with? An honorable death…let’s say so many others could survive upon my demise. Wouldn’t the answer rest in one’s conscience, the greater the conscience the louder the proverbial “NO!” would be?

Interesting and strangely touched synchronously.Earlier my inlaw just mentioned a new law coming up, in Canada, perhaps Gib could verify the story, where assisted suicide has become law.

Now the bottom line is, that even if, a certificate of medical opinion, insofar as the condition of terminal illness has to be attached, wouldnt the mere recognition of a legal procedure lead to variance of opinion as to what terminal illness consists of-when in fact, life itselfmaybe considered a terminal illness?

In other words, a psychological pre disposition can have negative consequences health wise, so such lack of clarity in this regard, may constitute an open check of authorizing the procedure?

More broadly, can man decide the ultimate worth of human life in times, where man claims to be that ultimate authority?

Why do you think we are choosing anything?

We may choose if we are afforded a choice, I do understand in the largest scope of things, we do not choose to be born. But, even that is contested, where enlightened Beings, who do not have to be born again, can, only to try to benefit others.

Narrowly, the whole choice to progress , is using available choices to better ones station and those whom desires to love.

That is predicated on the notion that human love has the capacity to raise animal reproductive instincts.

Is that a choice?

Obviously a real human, as well as many a mammal, puts his progeny before himself. Only worms with human forms do not have higher values they live and will die for.

Honor or no honor, rather than human or animal. A much more significant distinction.

This largely depends upon what one identifies himself as. Survival of what exactly?

And as soon as it is legalized, it gets additional subtle, secretive psychological and medical promotion for specific races. That is the whole point in promoting its legalization. It is just still part of the race game.

The OP didn’t come about due to political gaming so I’m not following your comments JSS.

You never do … #-o
:wink:

The low brow edition for yours truly…pretty please!

Oh geeesss… [size=75](in trouble now)[/size]

Some people, unlike “animals”, conceive of themselves as their “spirit”, their general behavior pattern, their kind of person, rather than merely the body in which their spirit reigns. To those people, the body dying doesn’t mean that the person has died because the person is the spirit. It’s possible that the spirit will also die, but that is another issue. The spirit, the behavior of that kind of person, can continue on long past the death of the animal body. That is largely the purpose of having children.

If you inspired millions of people to think and behave as you do, when your animal body died, your “spirit” would live on, even if you had no biological children. And thus “YOU” would not die.

Well said.
Id say it differently but this is well said nonetheless.

:text-threadjacked: :orcs-whip: The romanticism of men should be in its own thread. Sorry JSS, back on topic. :evilfun:

:icon-rolleyes:

“Romanticism of men” is nature itself. Woman can also live up to this, by say protecting children with her life.

Is it really that hard to see?

It’s true not all people would put their children before themselves, but evidently, the ones that don’t are just byproducts of evolution. It’s logically impossible for that trait to become dominant.

I just realized, all societies that purely let their children do their fighting, decay.
Iran/Syria is the most prominent example, number one kiddie suiciderbombers in the world.
See how that works for them.
Europe is very bad as well, since WWI, it has thrown so many children away for its own survival that it has lost its edge.
Nations with a lot of adults in combat that fight for their children would be the most powerful.
Demographically its also the most sensible thing to do, and experienced men would really fare better on the battlefield.

Yes, it is.

That romanticism, that wish to be eternal through heroic contributions, belongs in its own dedicated thread. Stop taking your survival into a completely different context. Stop it I say! I get what you’re advocating for Jakob and I have not disagreed with you.

Survive in what way? Survival of what?

Your self, MA, in part or whole, the physical, mental, spiritual. :chores-utensils: :chores-utensils: The forks are on stand-by for your be specific routine.

I just now noticed this thread.

Yes, JSS got it right. Survival of what? Usually when we say survival, we mean survival of a particular organism, immediate biological survival. Another form of survival would be the survival of your biological offspring, also biological but more long-term. In this sense, no, I would not do anything to survive, or to ensure the survival of my offspring.

I propose a following thought experiment against the idea that biological survival matters the most: Say a war happens and your group is enslaved by the enemy group. You survive and not only are you permitted to reproduce, but the enemy uses you as a breeder to make as many children as possible because the group that captured you needs slaves. So you survive and make lots of children, and these children continue to propagate your genetic material and make a lot of children too, but they are all slaves. They have no freedom to do what they want to do and live life. And they are never set free or in a position to free themselves.

So no, I do not consider life at all costs as worth living, and I would not do anything to survive.

But the other extreme, that of making absolutely no concessions and to not be willing to do anything contrary to your most idealistic principles in order to survive is no good either.

Now let’s think of survival beyond the biological.
As JSS said, survival is a matter of identity, what is it that one identifies with and wants to survive? Even in animals there are known examples when a close “friend” of their dies, either another animal or a human, the animal can get visibly depressed and stop eating, ceasing to care about its own survival. Of course, this is only the case in more intelligent mammals, I doubt a snake or an insect can mourn anything. So if I identify strongly with X, then if X is no longer, it would be as if a part of myself died and there is not much left to fight and struggle for. This X doesn’t necessarily have to be another organism, it can also be a principle. Say one is an aware human who knows what things like pedophilia and beastiality are, and what they entail, and the kind of psychological scarring that results from engaging in such behaviors. Such a human may then strongly identify with being a non-pedophile and non-zoophile. So to engage in beastiality or child rape in order to survive on a base, biological level would go contrary to the survival of his identity/self as a non-zoophile and non-pedophile on a rational, higher level. Then it comes down to what kind of survival one values more. I suppose this is why it’s sometimes said that people who do the most abhorrent things to survive and have no principles aside from survival are “dead inside”, that there is “nothing human” left in them, because indeed they reduce themselves to something lower than human.

A lowly animal that has no sense of self except the base, instinctive, and biological, will know nothing else.
More evolved animals, like dogs, can think a little beyond that.
Humans then go even further.