Want to suicide, but afraid

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I'm not saying it is impossible. I'm saying I have no reason as yet to believe it is possible.

What do you mean by "mainstream"? I certainly don't have any faith in the regular press, who'll mine any research for sake of a story and often pronounce all manner of nonsense. A fun game to play is to look at all the foods that newspapers declare cause cancer, and all the foods that apparently cure/prevent/minimise it. Many items will, over time, appear on both lists.

No, I won't believe any of this research unless it's done properly. A lot of it isn't. The advantage of mainstream science journals is that they (usually) apply rigorous testing to these experiments. Are they blinded? Is the sample size decent? Is the sample unbiased (eg. "98% of hospital patients are pregnant" would be a shock result unless you're only checking the maternity ward)?

And I trust government experiments as far as I can throw them. The US and USSR were both investigating psychic warfare some decades ago. Funnily enough, it never got anywhere. They tested hundreds of people, if not thousands, and then took those with the highest scores and tested them some more. And suddenly, their scores dropped to normal. Did they lose their psychic powers? No, they never had any. The initial results were just luck - if you test enough people, a number of them WILL score highly just by guesswork.

My favourite statistic here is the one that states 87% of the children of Israeli fighter pilots are girls. I don't know where or when this figure was obtained or how accurate it is, but that's not the point - the human brain immediately asks the wrong question. "Why are Israeli fighter pilots producing more girls?" is the wrong question. "Why Israelli fighter pilots?" is the right question. We pick up on the freak result because it is freaky, not because there's a genuine cause.



We don't know how the brain works. Well, we do, but we can't model it. There are three reasons:
(1) It's enormously complex. No computer on the planet can emulate the number of neurons in the brain to any useful speed.
(2) It's unique to every person. A model of my brain would be largely useless for modelling yours, because they're wired differently.
(3) The brain is not a static thing. It responds to stimuli. In other words, it's not enough to simulate the brain - you need to simulate the world around it too.

Consciousness is an emergent property of this complexity. It's not caused by some metaphysical entity haunting our physical form - that's a ridiculous and childish notion. It's a desperate attempt to avoid the unpleasant concept of death. If our thoughts and personality, the stuff that is us, is separate to the brain - why do we have a brain?



Time doesn't exist as a physical substance. This is a very weak analogy. You'd have been better off with something like love or beauty or mercy or happiness. Actually, I'm pretty convinced that time is something many people don't understand. Including, I'm sad to say, some physicists.



I understand both my consciousness and the universe fairly well. Not completely, but enough to work with both of them.



Conspiracy theorist, huh? That explains a lot.

Is this a pre-occupation with death, or actually planning your own? When I considered suicide it was an overwhelming emotion... it's not something that I could sustain for days.

Lol do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound. "EVEN THE UHMERIKAN GOVERNMETN HAS DONE IT".

Lucid dreams have nothing to do with the after life. They're dreams. In which you're conscious.

Out of body experiences are all in your head. Do a google scholar search. No respectable scientist would even suggest that it's anything more than a hallucination or dream at best.

Yeah, you do need a physical brain to be conscious. If anything was happening outside the brain you would not be aware of it.

I don't listen to the mainstream media btw, but I know for a fact 'time' exists. We came up with it. We use it as a measurement everyday... it works... it exists. It's just a measurement holy crap. (you're right though, you maniac. we can't put time in a jar).

Here is why I believe that we need a brain to be conscious. We've got the 5 senses. Touch, hearing, whatever. When we sense something, those sensors send signals to the brain. The brain receives the signals and we get our visual system. The brain stores someof this information as memories. To access memories we need a certain part of our brain... I haven't got a clue what it's called. Maybe the hippocampus. Anyway. You destroy the part of the brain that deals with short term memory and surprise, guess what? You lose your short term memory. Try having an outer-body experience without the part of the brain that processes memory. Or emotion. Good luck.

To suggest that consciousness doesn't require a brain... the brain determines our entire way of thinking. If we took the limitations of the brain away as you suggest, any mental illnesses or even differences ought to be rendered obsolete. E.g. depression is associated with a serotonin imbalance. Without the brain, you don't have an imbalance and you ought to be no longer depressed. s**t doesn't work that way.. If there is an after life it requires an identical brain. Any less and you're not really yourself.

EDIT: If you have a link to reliable academic articles I would like to see them.

No point trying to talk to this one, Perfect Storm. He's sent me a rather pretty love letter:

Ah, the rapier wit! The clearly formulated arguments, the crafted rebuttals!

I think we've accidentally derailed the thread a little bit.

Riverso + Lampost you still out there? (Sorry!)

I hate and despise the way so-called normal people often---usually---reject and freeze out those who are different, for any reason. At the same time, I do sometimes like people, really, not just their quirkiness, but different things about them, sometimes when I'm in a flowing mood, everything about them. And I definitely do want to make the world a better place.

I am acquiring additional social skills in my 40s. Shouldn't be necessary, but I am. Should be accepted as I am. Plus, I have high hopes for the coming Autism Spectrum Rights Movement (please hurry). 'We are all on the Spectrum!' Probably too high hopes. Oh, yeah, probably will have all the standard set-backs and in-fighting, but also, unexpected successes.

At least the future will play out different. And a shedload of luck involved in all this!

I've tried to fit in, but the odds are unsurmountable. I just always get crushed, not knowing why. It's an incredibly frustrating exitsence, knowing you have so much to give, but not being able to express it, to then be able to achieve it. I've got Asperger Syndrome, but out in the big wide world, people are tough, time waits for no one, and we are left behind.

Last edited by riverso on 13 Sep 2011, 11:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

Instead of writing down all the reasons why you are worthless, you need to write down all the reasons why your life sucks, and then correct them one by one, eventually giving you the perfect life

It's no big deal.

^

You sure about that? A minute ago you were telling us you're miserable.

If you're unhappy you've got to try and do something about it. Don't act like it's not a big deal or nothings going to change.

Hmmm... is everyone mad on this page?
Oh! that's right... wrong meeting.
Byyyeeeeeee!! !! !! !

I think what riverso might object to, as I do, is this kind of Protestant work ethic, that if only we tried harder (!) (!) (!) Believe me, please believe me, I do try hard. Most of the time, I try much harder than so-called 'normal' people. In fact, a lot of times I think I actually end up trying too hard. So, I am learning to go at things more obliquely, more of a low-key kind approach. I am in favor of being open to new skills.

What I object to is pat answers.

I spent years in what has been called passive suicide.
for a while I more or less killed my soul (spiritual not religious)
Thing is life got a lot better as I grew up and got over a lot of turned out to be
warped thinking and expectations on my part. Of course I didn't really start to grow up until I was 39

Waiting that long is not a requirement.

Sometimes you need to wake up in the morning and not to think about negative things. If you think the positive things about life, you will bring positive energy in your life. Please don't kill yourself, because i want to see you alive and prospering well.

I once read on a messageboard a really helpful thing about suicide.

Something like "I think instead of suicide, if my life got really bad, I'd just move to Africa or something like that and start fresh." Which really wowed me. It's true really. It is possible to just "start fresh" in another country. You can not tell anyone at all and just go. It'd be like killing yourself, but without killing yourself. Leave everything behind and just go and start a new life.

If that's not feasible, try a different town or state. Even that can help loads. Like I hate Connecticut, but feel completely at peace in Vermont. Also, I can say from personal experience, moving just a few towns away from my old high school helped me loads. Sometimes places just get "cursed" and you can't be in them any longer, regardless of how good they are on paper.

As for the afterlife, I'm Christian. I honestly don't know how God will judge everyone. I more prescribe to the purgatory doctrine, and even see lots of scriptures in support of it (especially the way the Old Testament speaks of Sheol.) That said, you know, God could have so much planned for you if you just trust him. There's always time while you're alive to turn your life around, and God will help you with it if you just ask.

i wanna see your list if possible, can i talk to you by mail or what you prefer?

your possibilities are endless, you can't destroy such a beautiful creation as you are.

i've stood on the live/death side more then once myself, they tried to lock me up in a hospital but i ran away and turned my life over myself, you have the possibility to do that to.

i wanna recommend you a movie: The Pursuit of Happyness with Will Smith, this movie changed my life.

[img][800:768]http://www.movies-wallpapers.net/Movies/The%20Pursuit%20Of%20Happyness/The%20Pursuit%20Of%20Happyness-01.jpg[/img]


also watch this video, the highest ranking comments are mine if you wanna see what powers it had on me.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5nVqeVhgQE&lc=vL0OD28Y7C0kOs1wQW8f7ayiNpLLzcDkABOY6r3IZ7w&feature=inbox[/youtube]

please don't give up, let me help you.. i believe that i could even stop Adolf Hitler from being such a ***** .
helping you won't be that hard for me.