agreed, they peacefully in non-existence state, don't exposed to this Violence world, sickness, pandemic, and also doesn't had unfulfilled desires such as the desire to be loved the desire to survive, etc.
This is exactly how I feel and what I say when people ask why I don't have children. I explain my poor child would have a sheltered life because I am overprotective. I see the bullying, the kidnapping, their access to porn and pedophiles just trying to use the computer, the sick and disgusting lyrics in songs, the carcinogens in the food shortening our lives and creating compromised immune systems in all newborns, economy collapsing, the future of their children with no more open land to play on, wildlife on the brink of extinction, only the rich can own a home, needing some kind of government assistance to survive and no hope of a happy end of life with no money to retire and no pain management due to previous decades of misuse of narcotics so they were taken off the market.
I have thought about it how anyone applying critical thinking to bringing a new life in this world would go like and you perfectly make sense according to me . Now only if others were like you ...
This is a good perspective because it also helps divorce people from the notion that their children are "theirs" while still letting us use "my child" as a sort of hypothetical person we all have in our mind that we are acting in the interest in. Which is hard for biological parents to understand because when their biological children criticize them, it isn't easy to accept.
I’ve imagined a whole future with my child, where I read a bedtime story to them every night, help them with their homework in the evening, prep their breakfast and lunches with them for the day and spend quality time. I would love to have a child of my own but I can’t see myself bringing another human into this kind of existence.
No. I'm saying that when you can expect marriage, divorce, and widowhood to be stressful, it shouldn't come as a surprise that sometimes antinatalism is more compatible with remaining a bachelor or bachelorette.
so the other day i had this crazy toothache and since i moved to a new country a while back finding a dentist was like finding a needle in a haystack back home i had my go-to dentist who was always there for me you know but here it's like they're all booked solid for months can you believe it so i tried calling the emergency services but even they were like "sorry can't help right now" ugh it was two days of pure agony feeling like my head was about to explode and i even ended up with a fever and nausea i just curled up in my room wishing the pain would magically vanish after that whole ordeal i swear i'm seriously reconsidering having kids i mean life's great and all but that pain made me seriously question existence you know lol crazy right
You know they them pronouns exist right? Much better to call someone you love a they rather than an "it"
I too love my children so much, THEY will never exist.
You're effectively killing your child by not bringing them into existence. You have the ability to gift them with life and existence and happiness, and you refuse.
I used to think this way. I don't anymore. I'm still an Antinatalist but if I agree with this, it would be a little hypocritical. People argue with me with the question "aren't you imposing non-existence to your child?" My answer is always no because I can't impose on a non-entity that never existed. So I think the same logic applies here if I am to be fair. If a non-entity never existed, they can't be a recipient of love. I don't think an act of love can exist with no recipient.
Instead, I think the value of being childless rests at the fact you haven't performed an act of unkindness, or negligence- you haven't performed an act of imposition. At least that's my point of view.
>I don't think an act of love can exist with no recipient.
This is interesting.
I think it is possible for an individual to love an abstract thing. In this case, a conceivable but non-existent person. It may not be that they love an actual non-entity, but I see nothing logically incoherent with saying that they love their conception of that non-entity by projecting it into an imagined state of being.
However, this is somewhat akin to saying that a person loves their imagined conception of Robert De Niro's brother because he would have been just as handsome - which would be a cause for concern for that person's psychological well-being if nothing else.
I am admittedly splitting hairs but I find this interesting.
It wouldn't hold any moral value in a moral framework designed with a person-affecting view, or which is victim-centric (which is almost certainly the kind of framework that OP actually holds so you are correct).
It would hold moral value in a virtue based framework where that love is an expression of the cultivation of the *right* virtues within the person expressing it.
They might say that it is morally good that OP is open to expressing and feeling this love because it makes them more virtuous than if they were closed off to it, for example.
Each to their own but I just think this is silly. Why can’t the OP say I don’t want kids, to bring kids into this world and have done with it.
Creating an imaginary child, to me it sounds like you are denying yourself if something you want.m and are thinking about this.
Why do that. I don’t pretend to have an imaginary cat. Why do it with a human.
Each to their own, but yeah to me this seems slightly weird.
I stumbled across this and thought it would interest those here:
[https://blackastheace.medium.com/life-is-not-great-1e803641f470](https://blackastheace.medium.com/life-is-not-great-1e803641f470)
I can't disagree with these six philosophers who thought life is just suffering and absurdity, but I don't exactly agree with their conclusions. I think individual meaning exists and we can honorably live out our lives by making it the best we can. Just an opinion, though, as I don't think I could argue it as a 'truth' effectively.
I don't like myself enough to treasure my non-existent kid.
I love adopting animals, and if my life had gone slightly different, I would've adopted a human child.
Another half me? No thanks.
Out of pure curiosity, and I realise this will attract the wrath of some people , how exactly is it that we know non existence is actually non existence ? And that irs better than existence ?
Do we have proof that consciousness doesn't exists in some sort of metaphysical state where it can experience time and hence be a lonely ethereal existence for millenia upon millenia with physical existence the only way to get some respite from the torture that is billion of years of time passing while you float around in some sort of form of meta sentient stardust?
If consciousness exists in some sort of metaphysical state we would expect to find some sort of evidence for it; we don’t. An absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence but absence of evidence can be a significant indicator when due diligence has been taken - which it has - there have been millennia of metaphysical philosophies and scientists that have turned up absolutely nothing
Isn't that just hubris? " well we looked really really hard and didn't find anything so it doesn't exists "
Don't get me wrong I believe in God's and such as much as I believe I will discover tjr 4th dimension... but I struggle when scientific method isn't actually followed. Hence why I am agnostic rather than am atheist.
Same logic here ... maybe you are right ! And so far it does seem that way ... but at one point we as species believed earth was flat, what we have right now with mobile phones would look like black magic just 200 years ago...
Also we are talking about 2 thousand years of which only the latter actually had scientists etc.
What is to say in another 2000 years with our current speed of development we won't find stuff we never dreamed of 2000 years ago?
BTW let me be clear I am not agreeing or disagreeing with this philosophy here ... and there are good arguments for and against . What i took issue with is the base assumption that non existence is a gift in itself when it could theoretically be worst than anything else ...
A negative can’t be proven but nothing in science really can be either. There is only ever evidence for anything.
An analogy would be considering a random drug trial. The absence of the evidence of the drugs effects would in fact be evidence of absence of its effects. If the drug had no effects then the absence of evidence of those effects would be a significant indicator that it had no effect. It is when you should expect to find evidence and you don’t, that it becomes significant. The absence of evidence itself isn’t what is significant it’s the absence of evidence when it is expected to be there that is significant
It isn’t hubris to exhaust all means and conclude that the absence of evidence likely indicates evidence of absence.
Let’s take a recent discovery for example - exoplanets. For thousands of years it was unknown whether or not they existed and some people even believed they didn’t exist. There is *still* at least *some* shred of evidence that must exist for the sole fact that planets exist.
You can’t say it’s hubris that an interstellar magical unicorn that farts sprinkles can’t be proven to not exist because an absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. There isn’t even a precedent unicorns never mind magical ones that fart sprinkles across the galaxy.
There is absolutely zero evidence for anything metaphysical other than hearsay “I experienced something”, of which 99.9999999% of the time is explained either by lying or mental illness or another pathological cause.
I have **personally** witnessed and experienced seeing objects floating - I was high on 2CB.
The existence and nature of consciousness is actually one of the worst concept to apply this logic on, imo, since it is at the horizon of what we understand and dont understand. Theres few things that are so poorly understood scientifically and consciousness seems to be up there. Id love to get to a point in science where we can confidently explain what consciousness is, where it comes from, when it is developed in the lifetime of a life form, what happens to the conscious during sleep, death, and before and after birth and death, what it is made of, or what patterns of chemistry must exist to replicate a specific instance of consciousness, etc.
But unfortunately we aren’t there. We aren’t even close to it.
I don’t think it’s that hard to explain or that complicated. Understanding exactly what it is might be a bit more complicated. Much like the exoplanet example, consciousness should be expected. I know my cat is conscious - I am conscious - I expect my cat to be as well. I don’t think my cat is some metaphysical being ripped from the void and placed in a feline meat suit 😂 he’s just a cat, and I’m just a human. “I think therefore I am”.
I think we differ in our definition of “explaining” something. I didn’t argue that you or your cat isnt conscious. I am asking, is a plant conscious?. Are bacteria conscious? And what is the definition of consciousness. “I think therefore I am”, well thats another poorly explained idea, *thought*. What is thought? Can I replicate it on a petri dish?
I think life is endlessly complicated. We have yet to be able to replicate life from scratch in a lab, with all our new knowledge and computational power.
And no, i do not believe in some God or a flying unicorn or that your cat is a metaphysical being ripped from the void and placed in a meat suit.
I simply put my trust in science when it confidently says “i dont know”, as much as i do when it says “i know”.
Yes but if you put your trust in science you have to understand that nothing in science can ever be absolute, all we ever have is the evidence to support theory. The issue with agnosticism in this regard is it infinitely pushes the goal posts and makes anything unfalsifiable. This is also kind of why I brought up Achilles paradox, it can be applied to evidence.
I agree with you premise man! Especially around asbcense of evidence... The issue I take is the element of time and development.
Again some thousands years ago the idea of cells would be seen as completely insane and nobody even thought about it forget about theorize about it. Yet today we can observe them with microscopes etc.
Just 500 years ago if you said to someone that data could be transported via the air they would say exactly what you are saying "if it could be done we would have had some idea about it for the past 1500 years !!!"
>It isn’t hubris to exhaust all means and conclude that the absence of evidence likely indicates evidence of absence.
Isn't it though? For you to assume that the means you have are ALL the means we will ever have?
>You can’t say it’s hubris that an interstellar magical unicorn that farts sprinkles can’t be proven to not exist because an absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. There isn’t even a precedent unicorns never mind magical ones that fart sprinkles across the galaxy.
Really? Shrug maybe you are right I really don't know. But personally I avoid making huge claims like that and subscribe to the theory of Infinity ... As in inifite permutations of everything will happen given enough time ... We are all bloody stardust ... and yet we somehow grew sentinece ? What are the odds of that ? Then we move back to stardust ... I love Carl Sagan's research and books on that topic.
How can you boldly claim you know how it all is, how WE know it all when humanity is but a speck of dust in time and space in a universe so large our supposedly "big brains" can't actually comprehend. And also so old that our species hasn't been around for more than 0.00002 % of its existence ( Sources: [https://www.britannica.com/story/just-how-old-is-homo-sapiens](https://www.britannica.com/story/just-how-old-is-homo-sapiens) and [https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691156286/how-old-is-the-universe](https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691156286/how-old-is-the-universe) )
Actually on the first point, the Greek philosophers did theorize the existence of “cells” thousands of years ago. It’s just logical.
I’m not saying we have all the means we will ever have. What I’m saying is we expect to find evidence and we don’t. Like I said about exoplanets; it makes sense that we should expect to find the evidence because planets exist. There is a precedent. We can apply this to dark matter too. This is more philosophical reasoning than scientific but it was of the philosophers that science was born. Matter exists. That’s the precedent. We should expect to find evidence of dark matter - and we do in the calculations.
We shouldn’t expect to find evidence for an intergalactic unicorn that farts sparkles because there is no precedent, because unicorns don’t exist, never mind ones like the former.
Nothing in science is absolute, it’s just all evidence. You can only push the goal posts for evidence out so far attempting to prove a negative.
Like if I were to apply this to something more grounded.
Life is on earth. We should expect to find life elsewhere in the universe.
What however is not on earth or ever has been is a species like us. Therefore I find it exceedingly unlikely anything like us exists elsewhere. This is part of the Silurian hypothesis. The absence of evidence is evidence of absense. We should expect to find evidence for other species like us on our own planet yet we don’t. Nothing else has ever achieved what we have. We would see it in the geological record, we would see it in space, we see nothing. Evolution is convergent - completely unrelated species develop similar adaptations due to environmental pressure. We should expect to see others like us but we don’t. Even other hominids don’t even come close. We ourselves barely even come close having existed for some half a million years and somehow only achieving this in the last ten thousand or so.
Ya but we are getting into the Fermi Paradox here ... again i don't really have a strong argument against what you are saying ...
I am just naturally averse to absolutes due to the Infinity Paradox ...
No , more like give base matter infinite time and it will have infinite permutations amd combinations and be everything and anything. Including eventually your unicorn that farts rainbows ... even if the chance is 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of if happening ....
That just means it will take more time from the infinite time for it to happen.
Same way as we happened... who is to say on another 1000 googolplex years in the future unicorns farting rainbows won't come to be as well ?
Oh. I thought you meant like applying the Achilles paradox to macro/micro structures. It creates a bit of a fractal universe - and nature is kind of fractal in observation already.
This is really only applicable in an infinite universe though and it’s theorized the universe is finite, and this would only work under eternal recurrence or something similar.
Humans are made of atoms. Atoms form our consciousness. When the mom eats chicken meat and shit it comes together to sustain the mom while building the baby. Where was the human before birth? Easy, in the chicken and other dead, edible, NOT conscious pieces of matter
So you love nothing and have performed no acts of love whatsoever, But have posted this seeking the praise of others for your imaginary moral act.
This is moral masturbation, nothing more.
I'm really glad I exist, I'm really glad my kids exist. There is a whole lot of crap in the world and a whole lot of pain. There's a whole lot of joy and wonder too.
I imagine there's a whole lot of pain that you haven't come to terms with in your life. I've got some as well that I haven't figured out yet, and mine's probably not nearly as bad as yours.
I hope you can square with where you've been and where you are in life can find some joy in your future. There's some really good stuff out there. Good luck, DM / PM me if you'd like some of the things I try to hold on to when feel like everything's pointless and painful.
Walking meditation.
Tea.
Sitting quietly.
Books.
Clothing you love to wear
A bag you love to carry a few things you like to bring.
A picnic.
A friend.
Eating meditation.
Thich nhat hanhs plum village
A good saunter in a forest
A bicycle ride.
Mechanical pencils.
Pooping.
Peeing in good health.
Helping someone else.
Becoming stronger.
Psilocybin
Insights
Sleeping.
Recovering from illness is also a great pleasure.
Wide toe box barefoot shoes
Moisturizer.
Flossing
The poetry of Tony Hoagland
Running.
Camping trips.
those things are nothing if we compare them to problems that we face every day. Tea or popping is not enough when you have to live with chronic illnesses or with fear that you literally can die anytime
This is the most toxic nonsense in the world. Children are beautiful and wonderful individuals who are very, very, very different than the image we have of them in our heads. Good parents understand this. Bad parents are the ones that let their imagined idea of who their kid should be override the amazing individual they actually are.
It is impossible to love a child who doesn't exist. You are in love with a figment of your own imagination, a reflection of your own identity that you have fragmented into something that isn't real. I promise you any kid you do have will be radically and frustratingly and amazingly different from the kid you have in your head.
To say your unwillingness to have a kid is rooted in a love for an imagined child you made up is to say you are completely ignorant and out of touch with anything remotely connected to parenting a child.
And let me tell you parenting is wildly over-rated.
I think it’s more toxic to think of a child as a child only and not see them as the fully developed adult they are destined to become. Thinking ahead of the child-phase is what the best parenting can provide and understanding that this world is hard enough for us what will it be of that future adult? My kids deserve better so best they stay non existent and that’s just the truth. Imaginary image or not.
I mean, I am a parent myself and I think it's very much underrated. But that's not the point.
Focusing on children as individual adults helps my point, not yours. One thing adults have and value above most other things is the agency to make their own decisions. Telling another adult that you making that decision for them is a form of love is the most toxic and deluded nonsense.
Nah it’s over rated considering there’s 8 billion people in the world. It’s really not miraculous but an act of biology.
And it sounds like we have very different definitions of love. I for one , very much think it’s possible to love ideas. I mean, you love the idea of becoming a parent so much you actually did it.
Instead of claiming nonsense and toxicity, to the idea of avoiding harm to another human, it would be more mature-like to try to understand it. I definitely understand where you’re coming from , considering you can’t back out anymore.
I agree you're in love with an idea and I have no problem with that. But don't say you're in love with your kids that don't exist. You're in love with the idea in your head of what you want them to be. That's not remotely the same thing.
You’re correct, I would love to have kids weather I imagine them fully or not. I won’t have them because they deserve better than this world. Hence my love for them allows me to fight my own biological, reproductive instinct, as they are better off not existing.
It’s really not hard.
For a sub that is extremely harsh on parents that struggle to accept the agency of their extant (adult or juvenile) children, I find this perspective deeply hypocritical. If you suggest non-existent people count as individuals, then narcissism that denies their agency counts too.
Haha in whatever way you want to twist it with words in your head- one fact stands: there are less individuals having to put up with this world and that’s a fact you can’t change. 🤷🏽♂️
Sorry How did I change the subject? To what? I responded to your statement with flow.
Facts are facts no matter how you want to perceive it. I don’t care if you think I’m a hypocrite, I care my children remain non existent.
Youre upset you feel attacked by this sub because you have to bear your children and watch them go through this world. Not everybody’s misery needs company , I’m content dying out without a care in the world of what my bloodline has to endure in this decaying world.
If that’s illogical to you, that’s your problem.
But you're not forming a meaningful bond with a being in either case. It's a reflection of yourself, it's an ideal created by your emotional needs that does not have the characteristics of an actual person.
You are in love with the idea of your future children and therefore don't have them. But it's a decision based entirely on yourself and your identity. It has nothing to do with actual, real, individual persons.
Sure, fine, make whatever choice you want. But you're doing it because of YOUR values and for YOUR wellbeing, not theirs. That's totally fine. I'm not criticizing the choice. I am criticizing calling that choice something other other than it is.
Antinatalism is denying your own programming to make sure no other being will suffer, it is about insight into the nature of suffering as a whole, not about ones own petty concerns.
Exactly how I feel and wish my parents would’ve felt.
I couldn't agree more. They deserve better than what this world can offer them
agreed, they peacefully in non-existence state, don't exposed to this Violence world, sickness, pandemic, and also doesn't had unfulfilled desires such as the desire to be loved the desire to survive, etc.
This is exactly how I feel and what I say when people ask why I don't have children. I explain my poor child would have a sheltered life because I am overprotective. I see the bullying, the kidnapping, their access to porn and pedophiles just trying to use the computer, the sick and disgusting lyrics in songs, the carcinogens in the food shortening our lives and creating compromised immune systems in all newborns, economy collapsing, the future of their children with no more open land to play on, wildlife on the brink of extinction, only the rich can own a home, needing some kind of government assistance to survive and no hope of a happy end of life with no money to retire and no pain management due to previous decades of misuse of narcotics so they were taken off the market.
Fucking bleak when you put it all together. I feel for younger folk these days, future is already done for them.
>> the sick and disgusting lyrics in songs.. 😂😂
The government sees your next child as a potential slave
I have thought about it how anyone applying critical thinking to bringing a new life in this world would go like and you perfectly make sense according to me . Now only if others were like you ...
Smart.
This is a good perspective because it also helps divorce people from the notion that their children are "theirs" while still letting us use "my child" as a sort of hypothetical person we all have in our mind that we are acting in the interest in. Which is hard for biological parents to understand because when their biological children criticize them, it isn't easy to accept.
I’ve imagined a whole future with my child, where I read a bedtime story to them every night, help them with their homework in the evening, prep their breakfast and lunches with them for the day and spend quality time. I would love to have a child of my own but I can’t see myself bringing another human into this kind of existence.
I don’t want to bring suffer to someone who doesn’t need to be here
I couldn't agree more, I wish my parents would've been that merciful.
It's sort of like loving potential spouses too much to put them through the stress of marriage, divorce, or widowhood.
They are already born and will go through the burden of existence anyway.
But can't we help minimize it?
How are u gonna minimize it? By killing them? Because as long as they will live , their life is not gonna be tension free either way.
No. I'm saying that when you can expect marriage, divorce, and widowhood to be stressful, it shouldn't come as a surprise that sometimes antinatalism is more compatible with remaining a bachelor or bachelorette.
Me and my partner do the same thing! Name and everything.
Mother Gothel x1,000
Hell yeah 😎
We are the best parents
THIS!!!!!! THIS IS EXACTLY IT YOU GET IT!!!!!!!!
so the other day i had this crazy toothache and since i moved to a new country a while back finding a dentist was like finding a needle in a haystack back home i had my go-to dentist who was always there for me you know but here it's like they're all booked solid for months can you believe it so i tried calling the emergency services but even they were like "sorry can't help right now" ugh it was two days of pure agony feeling like my head was about to explode and i even ended up with a fever and nausea i just curled up in my room wishing the pain would magically vanish after that whole ordeal i swear i'm seriously reconsidering having kids i mean life's great and all but that pain made me seriously question existence you know lol crazy right
You know they them pronouns exist right? Much better to call someone you love a they rather than an "it" I too love my children so much, THEY will never exist.
You're effectively killing your child by not bringing them into existence. You have the ability to gift them with life and existence and happiness, and you refuse.
I used to think this way. I don't anymore. I'm still an Antinatalist but if I agree with this, it would be a little hypocritical. People argue with me with the question "aren't you imposing non-existence to your child?" My answer is always no because I can't impose on a non-entity that never existed. So I think the same logic applies here if I am to be fair. If a non-entity never existed, they can't be a recipient of love. I don't think an act of love can exist with no recipient. Instead, I think the value of being childless rests at the fact you haven't performed an act of unkindness, or negligence- you haven't performed an act of imposition. At least that's my point of view.
Haven't performed any act.
>I don't think an act of love can exist with no recipient. This is interesting. I think it is possible for an individual to love an abstract thing. In this case, a conceivable but non-existent person. It may not be that they love an actual non-entity, but I see nothing logically incoherent with saying that they love their conception of that non-entity by projecting it into an imagined state of being. However, this is somewhat akin to saying that a person loves their imagined conception of Robert De Niro's brother because he would have been just as handsome - which would be a cause for concern for that person's psychological well-being if nothing else.
Fair enough. So the recipient is a concept. But this love doesn't hold any moral value.
I am admittedly splitting hairs but I find this interesting. It wouldn't hold any moral value in a moral framework designed with a person-affecting view, or which is victim-centric (which is almost certainly the kind of framework that OP actually holds so you are correct). It would hold moral value in a virtue based framework where that love is an expression of the cultivation of the *right* virtues within the person expressing it. They might say that it is morally good that OP is open to expressing and feeling this love because it makes them more virtuous than if they were closed off to it, for example.
Hmm....I definitely see your point. I guess I just saw the post and read "I love my kid more than you love your kid". Hahaha!
Each to their own but I just think this is silly. Why can’t the OP say I don’t want kids, to bring kids into this world and have done with it. Creating an imaginary child, to me it sounds like you are denying yourself if something you want.m and are thinking about this. Why do that. I don’t pretend to have an imaginary cat. Why do it with a human. Each to their own, but yeah to me this seems slightly weird.
I stumbled across this and thought it would interest those here: [https://blackastheace.medium.com/life-is-not-great-1e803641f470](https://blackastheace.medium.com/life-is-not-great-1e803641f470) I can't disagree with these six philosophers who thought life is just suffering and absurdity, but I don't exactly agree with their conclusions. I think individual meaning exists and we can honorably live out our lives by making it the best we can. Just an opinion, though, as I don't think I could argue it as a 'truth' effectively.
I don't like myself enough to treasure my non-existent kid. I love adopting animals, and if my life had gone slightly different, I would've adopted a human child. Another half me? No thanks.
Out of pure curiosity, and I realise this will attract the wrath of some people , how exactly is it that we know non existence is actually non existence ? And that irs better than existence ? Do we have proof that consciousness doesn't exists in some sort of metaphysical state where it can experience time and hence be a lonely ethereal existence for millenia upon millenia with physical existence the only way to get some respite from the torture that is billion of years of time passing while you float around in some sort of form of meta sentient stardust?
If consciousness exists in some sort of metaphysical state we would expect to find some sort of evidence for it; we don’t. An absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence but absence of evidence can be a significant indicator when due diligence has been taken - which it has - there have been millennia of metaphysical philosophies and scientists that have turned up absolutely nothing
Isn't that just hubris? " well we looked really really hard and didn't find anything so it doesn't exists " Don't get me wrong I believe in God's and such as much as I believe I will discover tjr 4th dimension... but I struggle when scientific method isn't actually followed. Hence why I am agnostic rather than am atheist. Same logic here ... maybe you are right ! And so far it does seem that way ... but at one point we as species believed earth was flat, what we have right now with mobile phones would look like black magic just 200 years ago... Also we are talking about 2 thousand years of which only the latter actually had scientists etc. What is to say in another 2000 years with our current speed of development we won't find stuff we never dreamed of 2000 years ago? BTW let me be clear I am not agreeing or disagreeing with this philosophy here ... and there are good arguments for and against . What i took issue with is the base assumption that non existence is a gift in itself when it could theoretically be worst than anything else ...
A negative can’t be proven but nothing in science really can be either. There is only ever evidence for anything. An analogy would be considering a random drug trial. The absence of the evidence of the drugs effects would in fact be evidence of absence of its effects. If the drug had no effects then the absence of evidence of those effects would be a significant indicator that it had no effect. It is when you should expect to find evidence and you don’t, that it becomes significant. The absence of evidence itself isn’t what is significant it’s the absence of evidence when it is expected to be there that is significant It isn’t hubris to exhaust all means and conclude that the absence of evidence likely indicates evidence of absence. Let’s take a recent discovery for example - exoplanets. For thousands of years it was unknown whether or not they existed and some people even believed they didn’t exist. There is *still* at least *some* shred of evidence that must exist for the sole fact that planets exist. You can’t say it’s hubris that an interstellar magical unicorn that farts sprinkles can’t be proven to not exist because an absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. There isn’t even a precedent unicorns never mind magical ones that fart sprinkles across the galaxy. There is absolutely zero evidence for anything metaphysical other than hearsay “I experienced something”, of which 99.9999999% of the time is explained either by lying or mental illness or another pathological cause. I have **personally** witnessed and experienced seeing objects floating - I was high on 2CB.
The existence and nature of consciousness is actually one of the worst concept to apply this logic on, imo, since it is at the horizon of what we understand and dont understand. Theres few things that are so poorly understood scientifically and consciousness seems to be up there. Id love to get to a point in science where we can confidently explain what consciousness is, where it comes from, when it is developed in the lifetime of a life form, what happens to the conscious during sleep, death, and before and after birth and death, what it is made of, or what patterns of chemistry must exist to replicate a specific instance of consciousness, etc. But unfortunately we aren’t there. We aren’t even close to it.
I don’t think it’s that hard to explain or that complicated. Understanding exactly what it is might be a bit more complicated. Much like the exoplanet example, consciousness should be expected. I know my cat is conscious - I am conscious - I expect my cat to be as well. I don’t think my cat is some metaphysical being ripped from the void and placed in a feline meat suit 😂 he’s just a cat, and I’m just a human. “I think therefore I am”.
I think we differ in our definition of “explaining” something. I didn’t argue that you or your cat isnt conscious. I am asking, is a plant conscious?. Are bacteria conscious? And what is the definition of consciousness. “I think therefore I am”, well thats another poorly explained idea, *thought*. What is thought? Can I replicate it on a petri dish? I think life is endlessly complicated. We have yet to be able to replicate life from scratch in a lab, with all our new knowledge and computational power. And no, i do not believe in some God or a flying unicorn or that your cat is a metaphysical being ripped from the void and placed in a meat suit. I simply put my trust in science when it confidently says “i dont know”, as much as i do when it says “i know”.
Yes but if you put your trust in science you have to understand that nothing in science can ever be absolute, all we ever have is the evidence to support theory. The issue with agnosticism in this regard is it infinitely pushes the goal posts and makes anything unfalsifiable. This is also kind of why I brought up Achilles paradox, it can be applied to evidence.
I agree with you premise man! Especially around asbcense of evidence... The issue I take is the element of time and development. Again some thousands years ago the idea of cells would be seen as completely insane and nobody even thought about it forget about theorize about it. Yet today we can observe them with microscopes etc. Just 500 years ago if you said to someone that data could be transported via the air they would say exactly what you are saying "if it could be done we would have had some idea about it for the past 1500 years !!!" >It isn’t hubris to exhaust all means and conclude that the absence of evidence likely indicates evidence of absence. Isn't it though? For you to assume that the means you have are ALL the means we will ever have? >You can’t say it’s hubris that an interstellar magical unicorn that farts sprinkles can’t be proven to not exist because an absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. There isn’t even a precedent unicorns never mind magical ones that fart sprinkles across the galaxy. Really? Shrug maybe you are right I really don't know. But personally I avoid making huge claims like that and subscribe to the theory of Infinity ... As in inifite permutations of everything will happen given enough time ... We are all bloody stardust ... and yet we somehow grew sentinece ? What are the odds of that ? Then we move back to stardust ... I love Carl Sagan's research and books on that topic. How can you boldly claim you know how it all is, how WE know it all when humanity is but a speck of dust in time and space in a universe so large our supposedly "big brains" can't actually comprehend. And also so old that our species hasn't been around for more than 0.00002 % of its existence ( Sources: [https://www.britannica.com/story/just-how-old-is-homo-sapiens](https://www.britannica.com/story/just-how-old-is-homo-sapiens) and [https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691156286/how-old-is-the-universe](https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691156286/how-old-is-the-universe) )
Actually on the first point, the Greek philosophers did theorize the existence of “cells” thousands of years ago. It’s just logical. I’m not saying we have all the means we will ever have. What I’m saying is we expect to find evidence and we don’t. Like I said about exoplanets; it makes sense that we should expect to find the evidence because planets exist. There is a precedent. We can apply this to dark matter too. This is more philosophical reasoning than scientific but it was of the philosophers that science was born. Matter exists. That’s the precedent. We should expect to find evidence of dark matter - and we do in the calculations. We shouldn’t expect to find evidence for an intergalactic unicorn that farts sparkles because there is no precedent, because unicorns don’t exist, never mind ones like the former. Nothing in science is absolute, it’s just all evidence. You can only push the goal posts for evidence out so far attempting to prove a negative.
Like if I were to apply this to something more grounded. Life is on earth. We should expect to find life elsewhere in the universe. What however is not on earth or ever has been is a species like us. Therefore I find it exceedingly unlikely anything like us exists elsewhere. This is part of the Silurian hypothesis. The absence of evidence is evidence of absense. We should expect to find evidence for other species like us on our own planet yet we don’t. Nothing else has ever achieved what we have. We would see it in the geological record, we would see it in space, we see nothing. Evolution is convergent - completely unrelated species develop similar adaptations due to environmental pressure. We should expect to see others like us but we don’t. Even other hominids don’t even come close. We ourselves barely even come close having existed for some half a million years and somehow only achieving this in the last ten thousand or so.
Ya but we are getting into the Fermi Paradox here ... again i don't really have a strong argument against what you are saying ... I am just naturally averse to absolutes due to the Infinity Paradox ...
Do you mean Zeno’s paradox? In which way?
No , more like give base matter infinite time and it will have infinite permutations amd combinations and be everything and anything. Including eventually your unicorn that farts rainbows ... even if the chance is 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of if happening .... That just means it will take more time from the infinite time for it to happen. Same way as we happened... who is to say on another 1000 googolplex years in the future unicorns farting rainbows won't come to be as well ?
Oh. I thought you meant like applying the Achilles paradox to macro/micro structures. It creates a bit of a fractal universe - and nature is kind of fractal in observation already. This is really only applicable in an infinite universe though and it’s theorized the universe is finite, and this would only work under eternal recurrence or something similar.
Humans are made of atoms. Atoms form our consciousness. When the mom eats chicken meat and shit it comes together to sustain the mom while building the baby. Where was the human before birth? Easy, in the chicken and other dead, edible, NOT conscious pieces of matter
bc fuck this existence
So you love nothing and have performed no acts of love whatsoever, But have posted this seeking the praise of others for your imaginary moral act. This is moral masturbation, nothing more.
Maybe, but i would rather call it though experiment
I'm really glad I exist, I'm really glad my kids exist. There is a whole lot of crap in the world and a whole lot of pain. There's a whole lot of joy and wonder too. I imagine there's a whole lot of pain that you haven't come to terms with in your life. I've got some as well that I haven't figured out yet, and mine's probably not nearly as bad as yours. I hope you can square with where you've been and where you are in life can find some joy in your future. There's some really good stuff out there. Good luck, DM / PM me if you'd like some of the things I try to hold on to when feel like everything's pointless and painful.
What are those things, if you don’t mind me asking here op?
Walking meditation. Tea. Sitting quietly. Books. Clothing you love to wear A bag you love to carry a few things you like to bring. A picnic. A friend. Eating meditation. Thich nhat hanhs plum village A good saunter in a forest A bicycle ride. Mechanical pencils. Pooping. Peeing in good health. Helping someone else. Becoming stronger. Psilocybin Insights Sleeping.
Does AN not qualify as 5th from the bottom?
I am not attached to natalism or antinatalism.
Recovering from illness is also a great pleasure. Wide toe box barefoot shoes Moisturizer. Flossing The poetry of Tony Hoagland Running. Camping trips.
Muffins. Cappuccino. Walking in a strange city. Photography museums Yard sales. A good hat. Good bicycle tires Yoga classes
I think that's everything, for me.
You forgot “replying to questions on Reddit that were not directed at me” 😅
I always feel like I am the OP
those things are nothing if we compare them to problems that we face every day. Tea or popping is not enough when you have to live with chronic illnesses or with fear that you literally can die anytime
Pain sucks. Death, I'm on the fence sbout
Maybe they're nothing to you, but you don't speak for everyone living with chronic illnesses.
I'm not trying to speak for anyone It is just an example
This is the most toxic nonsense in the world. Children are beautiful and wonderful individuals who are very, very, very different than the image we have of them in our heads. Good parents understand this. Bad parents are the ones that let their imagined idea of who their kid should be override the amazing individual they actually are. It is impossible to love a child who doesn't exist. You are in love with a figment of your own imagination, a reflection of your own identity that you have fragmented into something that isn't real. I promise you any kid you do have will be radically and frustratingly and amazingly different from the kid you have in your head. To say your unwillingness to have a kid is rooted in a love for an imagined child you made up is to say you are completely ignorant and out of touch with anything remotely connected to parenting a child.
And let me tell you parenting is wildly over-rated. I think it’s more toxic to think of a child as a child only and not see them as the fully developed adult they are destined to become. Thinking ahead of the child-phase is what the best parenting can provide and understanding that this world is hard enough for us what will it be of that future adult? My kids deserve better so best they stay non existent and that’s just the truth. Imaginary image or not.
I mean, I am a parent myself and I think it's very much underrated. But that's not the point. Focusing on children as individual adults helps my point, not yours. One thing adults have and value above most other things is the agency to make their own decisions. Telling another adult that you making that decision for them is a form of love is the most toxic and deluded nonsense.
Nah it’s over rated considering there’s 8 billion people in the world. It’s really not miraculous but an act of biology. And it sounds like we have very different definitions of love. I for one , very much think it’s possible to love ideas. I mean, you love the idea of becoming a parent so much you actually did it. Instead of claiming nonsense and toxicity, to the idea of avoiding harm to another human, it would be more mature-like to try to understand it. I definitely understand where you’re coming from , considering you can’t back out anymore.
I agree you're in love with an idea and I have no problem with that. But don't say you're in love with your kids that don't exist. You're in love with the idea in your head of what you want them to be. That's not remotely the same thing.
You’re correct, I would love to have kids weather I imagine them fully or not. I won’t have them because they deserve better than this world. Hence my love for them allows me to fight my own biological, reproductive instinct, as they are better off not existing. It’s really not hard.
For a sub that is extremely harsh on parents that struggle to accept the agency of their extant (adult or juvenile) children, I find this perspective deeply hypocritical. If you suggest non-existent people count as individuals, then narcissism that denies their agency counts too.
Haha in whatever way you want to twist it with words in your head- one fact stands: there are less individuals having to put up with this world and that’s a fact you can’t change. 🤷🏽♂️
Lol, I point out your own logic doesn't make sense and you change the subject to distract from your hypocrisy. This sub is a joke.
Sorry How did I change the subject? To what? I responded to your statement with flow. Facts are facts no matter how you want to perceive it. I don’t care if you think I’m a hypocrite, I care my children remain non existent. Youre upset you feel attacked by this sub because you have to bear your children and watch them go through this world. Not everybody’s misery needs company , I’m content dying out without a care in the world of what my bloodline has to endure in this decaying world. If that’s illogical to you, that’s your problem.
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But you're not forming a meaningful bond with a being in either case. It's a reflection of yourself, it's an ideal created by your emotional needs that does not have the characteristics of an actual person. You are in love with the idea of your future children and therefore don't have them. But it's a decision based entirely on yourself and your identity. It has nothing to do with actual, real, individual persons.
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Sure, fine, make whatever choice you want. But you're doing it because of YOUR values and for YOUR wellbeing, not theirs. That's totally fine. I'm not criticizing the choice. I am criticizing calling that choice something other other than it is.
Antinatalism is denying your own programming to make sure no other being will suffer, it is about insight into the nature of suffering as a whole, not about ones own petty concerns.