Is wanting to exist irrational?

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What, pray, is your evidence [positive, please, not lack of evidence to the contrary] that death is merely non-existence?

When was your last death?

Fantasizing about your wishful thinking with absolutely no evidence to support your supposition is futile and somewhat silly. Of course you will immediately reply that this is just as true for total post-death extinction but the latter seems more logical to me. And that's certainly not wishful thinking.

I do wish you could make it clear to those who might misunderstand when you are speaking from positive evidence and when you are stating the outcomes of your logic.

By the way, to continue my series of pop-culture probes, are you up on the Last Battle dwarves?

On the original question, I think neither inertia nor wariness of the unknown can have much to do with reason.

If you're a dwarf I don't see how that affects your view of an afterlife..

Okay:

It does not solve the question, but it does narrow things down

Option A: Such references skim over your head [see that other post]

Option B: For doubtless good reasons you choose not to engage points so presented.

Which gives me guidance on how to proceed. If I want to communicate I will avoid any such references and most metaphor and go bald literal.

If I have just a smidge of frustration I may through out such a reference, which you will either not get or be bound to ignore.

More comfortably than the Spartan boy, I hope.

That seems reasonable. Are you a Spartan dwarf?

Well, self awareness or awareness in general is a pretty awesome experience, and the thought of not existing at all can be a real downer. I think our brains just organize the basis of consciousness though into human forms of thought though, so when we die, I don't think were completely absent. I think we continue to exist in some rudimentary, non-self aware (yet still conscious) form. I think its more than just some behavior gene driving us to want to live. I think its a consequence from the very phenomenon of self awareness and sentience. If people really enjoy existing, they want to keep living. If people aren't having a good time, they want to end it, even if that possibly means passing into nonexistence completely.

sorry i forgot i posted in this thread and i did not reply.

(i was going to leave it at that, but i now have thought of a few more words)

the opposite of peace is life. life is busy and life requires attendance. "peace" in my mind is equal to"rest", and no one alive can truly "rest".

even if the only obligation you have is to breathe, then breathing must be done, and that is not total rest. it is close but there is no cigar (that would make breathing more of a chore).

complete and total rest is when you are not there. you are absent from any form of existence when you are in infinite rest.

when people go to sleep after they are tired, they take a holiday from consciousness.

to not "be" will surely slake the desire to escape from obligations.

not existing is not feeling anything, and it is like complete excusal from being any way at all.

to "be" is an "effort", and even though the effort may be minimal, it still is an effort.

one can not "feel" peace. the act of "feeling" is a removal from true infinite rest because it is an action.

i can certainly say that i felt no angst before my life began, and i "slept" through eternity before i woke into the chore of life.

after my life is gone, so will the chore of "being" be gone.

i know that "being" is conferred upon me, and not something i fabricate with effort, but "being" is fraught with chores that must be performed, and if one is infinitely lazy, then one is dead.

i do not know. i am a m***et talking to a giant and you probably can not hear me from way up there.

but to be too lofty in thought precludes one from seeing the dirt from which their thoughts sprang, and the dirt they and will return to.

i was saying in my earlier post that the life instinct is to pander to life's desires, and desires are a displacement from peace.

desires are a displacement from satisfaction, and once all desires are nullified, and when one has no further desires, one will be dead.

No one dead can rest either. Resting is a sense of relaxation for live things.

Sex is a highly pleasurable experience, why I think? nature programmed it that way to optimize our drive to pass on our genes effectively. That is an extremely powerful survival instinct as far as our species is concerned.

Very few humans have a real purpose that justifies their existence.

what a feeble response. is it because you can not condescend that far to me because you are so busy in the PPR section with the smart people, or is it because you have nothing instrumental to say beyond your reply?

there is a saying "rest in peace", and i have always understood it.

when i am dead i will certainly not have the ardors of life to sort out.

i think you replied in a hurried way to me because you think i am not worth wasting too much of your time on.

whatever. it is probably for the best because no one can make me see things differently than i see them in my own world, no matter how much they try to instill in me a different point of view.

swing elsewhere sweet chariot, 'cause i do not want your wheels to hit my head.

you are a smart person sand. but you only exhibit your smartness in arena's where you can gain some fashionable advantage.

thanks for your reply anyway.

I frequently pass a McDonald's (I am a vegetarian) and see all those dead hamburgers but they never give me the feeling they are at peace, whatever the religious mumblings were made as they passed from their lives. Unfortunately a good many live people behave not much more sentient than those poor creatures interred between buns.

yeah another nothing response from you. do not bother talking to me because you seem to dumb yourself down or something when you talk to me.

go back to your castle and spruik to the elite there and forget what i said. i will also be relieved of the obligation of a reply so it is a win-win situation.
i am sorry i replied to you because it creates the chore of replying to your response

There is no "messing". We have evolved with such inclinations and urges because doing so produces more reproductive success for our species. Nature selects on the basis of reproductive success. Nature works blindly; it has not intention or purpose.

ruveyn