How often is it asked if “War” is “good” or “bad”?
I believe it is high time that someone asked a different question. Huxlian in spirit…
Is being born good or bad?
And before someone speaks of the supremacy of being over non-being, let me just say that since we only know it from the being side of the house, it is still undecided what non-being is really like.
But beyond that, we do not need to enter into the house of philosophy. My inquiry is social, external, public.
For example:
Millions of african children die yearly from starvation, diease and even war. Would it not have been better for them not to have been born? Nations send relief to them…why not send them condoms?
When the elephant population becomes too large for their area to support them, they are systematically killed…why not do the same to human population?
There is a condition where babies are born without skin and they live a horrific life before they find the sweet comfort of death. Would they be better off not being born again?
To answer this/your question we need to define ‘they’ and that’s a terribly hard thing to do.
Your question implies that there is a constant ‘something’ that continues from whatever… into life when someone is born, and would that something be better off not being born. Because if there isn’t that something… then there is no good or bad to being… there just is. No questions. For example if you don’t believe in souls or whatever… then you wouldn’t be better or worse off dead because you simply wouldn’t be.
But lets pretend that there is that something… a soul if you will. Then would that soul be better off not living? Well let’s look at what you get in the life package… and this is purely speculative:
Emotion, physical sensation (pain, pleasure) and maybe perspective… at least in a more visual/audio/touch sort of way
Now for me… and this is mearly my opinion, but I see death/predeath as a collective pool… where every possibility for the universe is actualized… our souls are this essence, in the back of our minds we know everything and everything. To actualize this from our point of view would be a sort of emotionless, unfeeling voyeuristic dream that you cannot awaken from… so for me I see living as a good thing, no matter what. Under my system the baby without skin still wins because they existed in the physical world, they felt something. Think about it… for someone who has never seen anything in his life… and then is suddenly granted sight… and his first sight is of… some sweaty fat guy naked in a beanbag chair eating cheesies as fast as he can, then for that guy… the sight is neither appalling or joyous… it simply is.
Your question implies that there is a constant ‘something’ that continues from whatever… into life when someone is born, and would that something be better off not being born.
O- Before we get sucked up into “souls” and other metaphysical intractables, let’s scale back and say that those “they”, are not some unquantifiable or unqualifiable or unobjectifiable entity, or part of our beings, but simply a woman’s egg. Thus the question is rephrased:"Is it better for an unfertilized egg to remain unfertilized and be discarted during the menstrual period?–rather than being born without skin? Or more contemporarly:If you found, during some scan of the fertilized egg, let’s even suppose that this is your “kid”, and it is found in the test that your future baby will be born without skin or some other condition from which you understand he/she will suffer tremendously, would you prefer an abortion of the fertilized egg rather than a pregnancy carried to it’s term?
Try not to resort to what I may mean by “they” or “suffer”. I am trying to discuss this outside the house of philosophy–that is why I am asking the question here instead of the philosophy forum. Can it be discussed thus, or if the nature of the question itself inpregnated with philosophy? I don’t know. As I am asking it, the question is rather political. It deals with a pro-abortion/choice argument.
More than that, sometimes an older woman is counseled not to try to get pregnant because of the higher risks of birth defects.
An answer might include assumptions about what is the “good” life etc, but i am inviting the answer to be charged so. I prefer that to a sterile, reductive, mathematical response.
We agree that “if you don’t believe in souls or whatever… then you wouldn’t be better or worse off dead because you simply wouldn’t be.”
Whether we have souls or not, we do know that human beings, as a species, suffer, can feel pain, we feel hunger, and knowing that as I do (and I think you too), from that view is whence I ask the question. I admit my ignorance of non-being, but my knowledge of pain is the pain of all the species, as we reason from the particular to the general. From this assumption, that hunger or lack of skin, causes suffering in human beings, we can ask if the alternative, non-being, and therefore, non-suffering is preferable, not because we agree on what that non-being is like, but in the agreement we have on what suffering is like.
Now for me… and this is mearly my opinion, but I see death/predeath as a collective pool… where every possibility for the universe is actualized… our souls are this essence, in the back of our minds we know everything and everything.
O- No. It is not that we know everything, but that what we do presume to know is to us everything.
To actualize this from our point of view would be a sort of emotionless, unfeeling voyeuristic dream that you cannot awaken from… so for me I see living as a good thing, no matter what.
O- Other than by being assited by your reason, you have probably not felt the sting of hunger in your life or the lack of sking around your body. I will say this; our consciousness can endure hunger and skinlessness through meaning, through the illusion of a higher power, a higher purpose, a brighter future. If they were to loose these, and fail at creating others, they would end up in suicide. The irrationality of our suffering must be made reasonable—the individual, the particular must be returned into the general. My wretched existence must be found in a map, as you have done.
Under my system the baby without skin still wins because they existed in the physical world, they felt something. Think about it… for someone who has never seen anything in his life… and then is suddenly granted sight… and his first sight is of… some sweaty fat guy naked in a beanbag chair eating cheesies as fast as he can, then for that guy… the sight is neither appalling or joyous… it simply is.
O- So let’s get back at our question: If you knew that your baby was going to be born with some birth defect—suppose that you knew that this was going to be the case due to blood studies on you and your wife
→ that is that even before you and her conceive you already would know the chances at suffering for your baby-- would you risk the pregnancy nonetheless? If we could isolate the gene for MDA or something as skinlessness, would you remove it, so that that your child would be free from pain, or do you consider, still, that each baby wins, that seeing is worthy of despite of what you see?
They usually will not use them. National Geographic conducted some research into this. The husbands are away for months working, have sex with an infected prostitue, and will not wear a condom when having sex with their wives. What do do??