I did. Indeed, water is the worst drug ever: all crimes ever committed happen within about a three or four day period of ingestion.
Also, it’s the most addictive substance known to man; withdrawal symptoms after just three or four days are death. In fact, if you look at addiction rates, it is practically at least a hundred times more addictive than any other drug; literally [b]everyone[/b] on the planet is addicted to it!
Water is only slightly more harmful of a drug than food; a terrible dup, indeed.
It (distilled water) would dilute the minerals in your system, causing problems, so, yes it would be bad for you, if drunk.
…or do you mean, where would you get it (pure H2O)?
I mean this: once it is poured in your cup, it has touched either metal, or plastic, or glass. It has taken an incredibly small number of particles from the thing you’re drinking from. Therefore, it contains some impurities.
Life is need. To stay alive you NEED things, and if you don’t get what you NEED, then you will die. The necessity for life is your NEED for things. If you didn’t get what you NEED you would die. Therefore, life is need.
And need is suffering, because suffering is a result of need. Need is a restriction. Restrictions, naturally, restrict you from rising above, so they cause you to suffer and put you down. Therefore, need causes you to suffer.
Since life is need, and need is suffering, then life is suffering and furthering one’s life would be furthering your suffering.
But I really don’t agree with my prior point, I’m just practicing my debate skills.
So, you said, basically, that when you say you need something, you mean that without it you’ll die. You need it to avoid death. So when you say “I need water”, you’re saying “I need water or else I’ll die”.
I agree with that.
But “The necessity for life is your need for things”. That’s unclear. Lemme see, do you mean “As long as you live there’s the possibility of dying, and so you will continue to need stuff to avoid death.” If so, then I agree with that too. It’s not that life is need, but that where there is life there is need.
Your connection between suffering and need is insufficient. You need to define rising above, and you need to show why rising above is good, and how the absence of rising above is suffering.
Anyway, getting past that, let’s say that need is suffering. Even if need is suffering, I refute your conclusion on the premise that suffering, or pain, arises out of fear of death, or is our body’s physical and psychological reaction to something bringing us closer to death. Pain is a survival mechanism, to keep us from dying, so killing ourselves to escape suffering defeats the purpose.
Actually, I’ll just refute it more simply by saying that death, the result of the alternative to water, the absence of water, is worse than suffering.
All that life is is a need to relieve needs, and thus keep yourself alive. If you didn’t have need, then life would be ecstacy. Therefore, just to set it up as an initial dependent, need detracts from the overall pleasure, or joy, of life and so we can therefore see need as “bad.”
Now, on to the actuality of life equaling need. To repeat myself, all that life is is an attempt to relieve your needs for as long as possible. Eventually, you stop juggling the balls, they tumble, and the game is over. Needs are restraints. If you didn’t have to juggle the balls, then there would be no need and there would, thus, be no discomfort and no “end” to the game. However, all we’re doing inside of our lives is balancing these balls; no matter how hard we try, however, they will all eventually fall.
Since they will all eventually fall, there is no pleasure in the end. Since there is no pleasure there, the pleasure, if there was any, would have to consist entirely within the juggling. However, where is it? Juggling the balls is the only point of life, and there are far too many things to juggle. It seems the only pleasure we get out of life is the pride of having juggled so many balls. So the point of life is simply to take pride in having lived up to the median (juggling), in which countless billions have taken pleasure? But no, even that is taken away because you can’t percieve the game after the game is over; you die. There is no joy in life, only relieving of the juggling. Therefore, there is no joy in life. (I don’t agree with myself, but I like to argue, and get outargued, so this is fun for me)
Since there is no joy in life, there is no reason for it’s existence. There is only suffering. If you view pleasure as a sliding scale, this is what it looks like:
Sadness- - - - - - - - - - - - - - Point Zero (Dead) - - - - - - - - - - - - - Pleasure
Since life is all the way to the left, or “the bad,” then to make yourself happier, or less sad, death is an upward movement. Therefore anything that helps you to die is technically making you happier.
For the one that abhors suffering and is unwilling to pay it as the unavoidable price for existing, the conclusion makes sense.
Water is bad because it prolongs suffering, even if it alleviates the momentary Need for hydration?
Only if you despise existence and the accompanying Need.
The Need for an escape from suffering is no less a Need that results in suffering.
And so Schopenhauer and some of the eastern philosophies avoid participation in a world that can only result in more suffering.
They adhere to a regimented existence where repetition and ascetic discipline either avoids or denies Need or it makes one more comfortable, through habituation, with it.
Suffering, after all, is a measurement of degree and of tolerance.
A weak muscle suffers with 5 pounds of weight whereas a strong muscle does not. The strong muscle, having grown through its past habituation with stress (suffering) requires a higher degree of Need to experience the discomfort of suffering.
And so suffering can also be a measurement of experience with Need.
The fragile, weak, naïve, decadent, pampered mind and body will suffer at the slightest increase in stress or need.
Its avoidance or inexperience with Need will make it more susceptible to it.