As the famous Camus once said “the only serious philosophical question is whether or not to committ suicide”. In other words, what’s the point of living if you’re going to die anyway?
So my question is, does death devalue life? Or does death necessarilly support life? How would you know you were alive unless you had once been dead? We can take it even further, does relativity of events devalue them? Does it make them any less meaningfull? Or perhaps there’s a mixture of relativity and universal principals… =/
The very fact that we do die gives life meaning. We are are only here temporarily so we might as well make the best of it. (Heidegger made a similar statement to that).
Apparently, some scientists now rekon they will in the future be able to make a human being live for up to 900 years. These scientists really miss the point when it comes to what actually constitutes being human. Imagine living for 900 and suffering chronic depression for most of that time.
But to answer your question, torrentfields, death doesn’t devalue life, it gives it meaning. It forces us to carry out and fulfill tasks in the temporary time that we are here. It forces us to strive and make achievements while we are physically and mentally capable of doing so. If we never died, hardly any one would bother doing anything, the humam will would become weary, and Camus’s question on suicide would then really become one to contemplate.
The illusion of life being pointless comes with the illusion that life is long.
Whenever I am faced with this I always pretend I have come down with cancer and that I only have 3 months to live. When you only have 3 months to live your perception of life being pointless does a complete 180.
Or look at this way:
You do not know when you will die. For all you know you will wake up tomorrow, brush your teeth, walk outside to get your mail, and get hit by a car. Did you live a life worth living? Or did you waste it, like a fool, thinking too much?
Death, in my opinion, is one of the major factors that (sub-consciously) helps prevent us from completely wasting our life doing stupid things…
If we knew we would never have to die, I humbly believe that humanity would “corrupt” itself with laziness…
Eventually, we’d end-up getting so bored with life that death would be something we’d attempt to create, if you catch my drift.
The knowledge of one’s impending death keeps us active. It makes us desire to gain knowledge and to continue learning things about death, life, and the world around us. It makes us loyal and close to those who we love.
Death could be said to be a key factors in the advancement of man’s “evolution”. It moves human-history along a continual path. With each new generation, more and more advancements are being made in every field imaginable. It motivates us.
Therefore, I view death as a factor that makes life meaningfull.
well, I belive that you should commit suicide if you are in an impossible situation. If life is livable, enjoy!! Anywayz, I believe that death is sweet nothingness…no perception whatsoever… Thus it does not matter if you die or not. What prevents most people from commiting suicide is pain. Pain, according me, is used by the universe to prevent us all from just going around killing ourselves. This is to keep the system on earth constant, meaning to keep life here. We are a two-way system. We are kept alive via rewards like sex and good food and swimming pools and funky music so that the world can in turn be kept alive. That is sort of fair, isn’t it?
