[…] I do not see why you would not consider the process.
We were talking about saying to a person that they should have never existed or saying to them that they should be better off dying. A person that already lives has already experienced suffering. However, from the current moment onward, there is still a lot of suffering left. Preventing the suffering before somebody’s birth or while they are already alive would be equivalent. Maintaining/returning to the ground state only matters for the future, what happened already happened. So essentially: allow the person to suffer in the future or not? That choice is equivalent for a nonexistent being and a living being.
So yes, I understand that nonexistence and death are not the same in every context, but in our discussion, it is equivalent. The past doesn’t matter because you can’t prevent suffering that already happened. You can only prevent current and future suffering.
This is an entirely different scenario. By denying food, you impose suffering (hunger) on an already existing being.
Well it’s difficult to make an analogy that is entirely correct… Your moral dilemma assumed the act to be immoral to begin with…
How is it the peak of meaning “for the rock”? If we agree that the rock is not sentient, cannot experience, and is not morally considerable, how can we conclude that it is the peak for the rock? The meaning is entirely external to the rock, and I don’t see how the absence of this external meaning matters if there is no subject to experience it.
Excuse my English, I am not a native speaker. With “for” I more so meant that the meaning is given to the rock, and with meaning I more so meant a ‘broader meaning’ to the universe. Again, not a perfect analogy…
I do not understand your argument here. This sounds very much like an appeal to nature. Are you making the point that all ethical conclusions must be in alignment with nature? Rape, cannibalism, and infanticide are all natural and are observed across multiple species. The universe doesn’t care about these things. Why should we care about any of them? I do not see how something being natural makes it obligatory.
No no no not at all what I’m saying. The things you mentioned are phenomena from nature that are not required to exist. Trees don’t rape each other. I meant the fundamental ‘law’ of natural selection. That’s almost like a physical/mathematical/statistical rule of nature. Anything that is not sufficiently able to survive or procreate will go extinct, meaning only the things that are sufficiently capable of those things will remain. Trying to ‘beat’ natural selection is not possible, so in the grander scheme of things, the only thing you are accomplishing with not procreating is your bloodline ending and other beings that are capable of procreation taking your place. In short: it doesn’t really matter in the long run, the ‘suffering’ you’re trying to prevent will just keep on going, just not with your DNA in the gene pool.
I am noticing that this discussion has derailed quite a lot and I think we won’t see eye on eye on this issue. Some fundamentally different world views. And kind of getting stuck in the same arguments. Let’s leave it at this.
We were talking about saying to a person that they should have never existed or saying to them that they should be better off dying. A person that already lives has already experienced suffering. However, from the current moment onward, there is still a lot of suffering left. Preventing the suffering before somebody’s birth or while they are already alive would be equivalent. Maintaining/returning to the ground state only matters for the future, what happened already happened. So essentially: allow the person to suffer in the future or not? That choice is equivalent for a nonexistent being and a living being.
So yes, I understand that nonexistence and death are not the same in every context, but in our discussion, it is equivalent. The past doesn’t matter because you can’t prevent suffering that already happened. You can only prevent current and future suffering.
Well it’s difficult to make an analogy that is entirely correct… Your moral dilemma assumed the act to be immoral to begin with…
Excuse my English, I am not a native speaker. With “for” I more so meant that the meaning is given to the rock, and with meaning I more so meant a ‘broader meaning’ to the universe. Again, not a perfect analogy…
No no no not at all what I’m saying. The things you mentioned are phenomena from nature that are not required to exist. Trees don’t rape each other. I meant the fundamental ‘law’ of natural selection. That’s almost like a physical/mathematical/statistical rule of nature. Anything that is not sufficiently able to survive or procreate will go extinct, meaning only the things that are sufficiently capable of those things will remain. Trying to ‘beat’ natural selection is not possible, so in the grander scheme of things, the only thing you are accomplishing with not procreating is your bloodline ending and other beings that are capable of procreation taking your place. In short: it doesn’t really matter in the long run, the ‘suffering’ you’re trying to prevent will just keep on going, just not with your DNA in the gene pool.
I am noticing that this discussion has derailed quite a lot and I think we won’t see eye on eye on this issue. Some fundamentally different world views. And kind of getting stuck in the same arguments. Let’s leave it at this.