People like being alive. They show this by their actions. Very few people kill themselves.
Both David Hume and Arthur Schopenhauer—LessWrong-aligned philosophers from the 18th and 19th centuries respectively—wrote of suicide favorably, and asserted that ordinary people did not live net-positive lives. Hume, for his part, proposed that the reason why people did not commit suicide was because they feared death itself, the offense it would bring to God, and could not bring themselves the courage to do it at any one instant. From his essay, Of Suicide,
The superstitious man, says Tully[1], is miserable in every scene, in every incident of life. Even sleep itself, which banishes all other cares of unhappy mortals, affords to him matter of new terror; while he examines his dreams, and finds in those visions of the night, prognostications of future calamities. I may add, that, tho’ death alone can put a full period to his misery, he dares not fly to this refuge, but still prolongs a miserable existence, from a vain fear, lest he offend his maker, by using the power, with which that beneficent being has endowed him...
So great is our horror of death, that when it presents itself under any form, besides that to which a man has endeavoured to reconcile his imagination, it acquires new terrors, and overcomes his feeble courage. But when the menaces of superstition are joined to this natural timidity, no wonder it quite deprives men of all power over their lives; since even many pleasures and enjoyments, to which we are carried by a strong propensity, are torn from us by this inhuman tyrant.
Schopenhauer cites many philosophers since ancient times who viewed suicide favorably, including Pliny the Elder who wrote,
Not even to God are all things possible; for he could not compass his own death, if he willed to die, and yet in all the miseries of our earthly life, this is the best of his gifts to man.
I am personally emotionally drawn to a passage from one of Hume’s posthumous works, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, in which the character Philo tries to convince others that God cannot be benevolent, since the misery and discontent in life exceeds the happiness we find in it. Hume’s writing is engaging and poetic; a summary would not suffice, and therefore I will quote it in full. He writes,
The whole earth, believe me, Philo, is cursed and polluted. A perpetual war is kindled amongst all living creatures. Necessity, hunger, want, stimulate the strong and courageous: Fear, anxiety, terror, agitate the weak and infirm. The first entrance into life gives anguish to the new-born infant and to its wretched parent: Weakness, impotence, distress, attend each stage of that life: and ’tis at last finished in agony and horror...
Man alone, said Demea, seems to be, in part, an exception to this rule. For by combination in society, he can easily master lions, tygers, and bears, whose greater strength and agility naturally enable them to prey upon him.
On the contrary, it is here chiefly, cried Philo, that the uniform and equal maxims of Nature are most apparent. Man, it is true, can, by combination, surmount all his real enemies, and become master of the whole animal creation: but does he not immediately raise up to himself imaginary enemies, the dæmons of his fancy, who haunt him with superstitious terrors, and blast every enjoyment of life? His pleasure, as he imagines, becomes, in their eyes, a crime: his food and repose give them umbrage and offence: his very sleep and dreams furnish new materials to anxious fear: and even death, his refuge from every other ill, presents only the dread of endless and innumerable woes. Nor does the wolf molest more the timid flock, than superstition does the anxious breast of wretched mortals.
Besides, consider, Demea; this very society, by which we surmount those wild beasts, our natural enemies; what new enemies does it not raise to us? What woe and misery does it not occasion? Man is the greatest enemy of man. Oppression, injustice, contempt, contumely, violence, sedition, war, calumny, treachery, fraud; by these they mutually torment each other: and they would soon dissolve that society which they had formed, were it not for the dread of still greater ills, which must attend their separation.
But though these external insults, said Demea, from animals, from men, from all the elements, which assault us, form a frightful catalogue of woes, they are nothing in comparison of those, which arise within ourselves, from the distempered condition of our mind and body. How many lie under the lingering torment of diseases? Hear the pathetic enumeration of the great poet.
Intestine stone and ulcer, colic-pangs, Dæmoniac frenzy, moping melancholy, And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy, Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence. Dire was the tossing, deep the groans: DESPAIR Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch. And over them triumphant DEATH his dart Shook: but delay’d to strike, tho’ oft invok’d With vows, as their chief good and final hope.
The disorders of the mind, continued Demea, though more secret, are not perhaps less dismal and vexatious. Remorse, shame, anguish, rage, disappointment, anxiety, fear, dejection, despair; who has ever passed through life without cruel inroads from these tormentors? How many have scarcely ever felt any better sensations? Labour and poverty, so abhorred by every one, are the certain lot of the far greater number: and those few privileged persons, who enjoy ease and opulence, never reach contentment or true felicity. All the goods of life united would not make a very happy man: but all the ills united would make a wretch indeed; and any one of them almost (and who can be free from every one) nay often the absence of one good (and who can possess all) is sufficient to render life ineligible.
Were a stranger to drop, on a sudden, into this world, I would show him, as a specimen of its ills, an hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with malefactors and debtors, a field of battle strowed with carcasses, a fleet foundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under tyranny, famine, or pestilence. To turn the gay side of life to him, and give him a notion of its pleasures; whither should I conduct him? to a ball, to an opera, to court? He might justly think, that I was only showing him a diversity of distress and sorrow.
There is no evading such striking instances, said Philo, but by apologies, which still farther aggravate the charge. Why have all men, I ask, in all ages, complained incessantly of the miseries of life? - - - - They have no just reason, says one: these complaints proceed only from their discontented, repining, anxious disposition. - - - And can there possibly, I reply, be a more certain foundation of misery, than such a wretched temper?
But if they were really as unhappy as they pretend, says my antagonist, why do they remain in life? - - -
Not satisfied with life, afraid of death.
This is the secret chain, say I, that holds us. We are terrified, not bribed to the continuance of our existence.
You are giving examples of people telling that other people’s lives are not worth living. That doesn’t mean those other people agreed with them.
Imagine today a very rich person saying “if you are not a millionaire, you should kill yourself, because your life is too miserable”. Would you accept it as evidence that lives of non-millionaires are worse than death?
Imagine today a very rich person saying “if you are not a millionaire, you should kill yourself, because your life is too miserable”. Would you accept it as evidence that lives of non-millionaires are worse than death?
It’s some evidence, although I agree very weak. I think the evidence I gave was importantly different in two ways, making this type of citation relevant. One, these are accomplished philosophers who gave extensive reasoning to back up their theses. Two, unlike today where you can literally just read what ordinary people have to say about this issue, few ordinary people in the 18th century were literate and wrote that type of thing down. Therefore, we need to rely on reports from other people who could write things down, who happened to disproportionately be the wealthy elite.
Now I hear the Life of Brian playing in my head: “Always look on the bright side of life! De-duh, de-duh de-duh de-duh!”
Hume didn’t always take his own rhetoric or ideas too seriously. He said he couldn’t prove that his friends even existed, but when he played billiards with them, these doubts vanished.
Here’s another thought experiment for those convinced by this gloomy view… suppose you find a large red switch marked “Universe: on/off”. Flipping it will cause the immediate painless non-existence of everyone everywhere. Do you flip it? Think how much suffering you’ll save! This suggests an alternative perspective for AI alignment research: we need to bring forward the arrival of the Paperclip Maker, to put us all out of our misery.
this is an interesting take, that death (or the uncertainty of it) might be worse than life and also both together worse than non-existence for a person. then a further question: if we take complete lack of experience to be neutral (sleep, in Hume’s example), and we had a magic device that could grant each individual the opportunity to cease experience from this moment to their naturally occurring death (i.e. to become a zombie), 1) how many people who claim their life has negative value would follow through by using this device and 2) is this meaningfully different from choosing death directly? from the experiential point of view it’s identical. from the experience of those around you, not as much, though in the zombie case you’re being dishonest with those around you and that brings its own baggage.
also interesting is that even in the friendliest of utilitarian views the repugnant conclusion usually ends with “a plethora of near-0-value lives” or “a single maximally high-value life”. less discussed is a plethora of willful negative existences required to enable a counteracting positive existence (for example, a miserable father who slaves away so his children may lead better lives). yet that arrangement is arguably more relatable to the typical individual, who may frequently embrace negative states in order to obtain later positive ones (e.g. as simple as setting an early alarm clock so that you can admire the sun rise).
the saving grace to all this, for me, is that i find it incredibly unlikely that any of these distasteful utilitarian hypotheticals actually represent the global maximum. or even significant local maxima for that matter. no matter if it’s the sum or the mean, negative experience immediately adjacent to positive experience doesn’t seem to be so stable. most human relationships are co-beneficial, for example. many people gain more than they lose when they give (charity/philanthropy/etc).
Both David Hume and Arthur Schopenhauer—LessWrong-aligned philosophers from the 18th and 19th centuries respectively—wrote of suicide favorably, and asserted that ordinary people did not live net-positive lives. Hume, for his part, proposed that the reason why people did not commit suicide was because they feared death itself, the offense it would bring to God, and could not bring themselves the courage to do it at any one instant. From his essay, Of Suicide,
Schopenhauer cites many philosophers since ancient times who viewed suicide favorably, including Pliny the Elder who wrote,
I am personally emotionally drawn to a passage from one of Hume’s posthumous works, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, in which the character Philo tries to convince others that God cannot be benevolent, since the misery and discontent in life exceeds the happiness we find in it. Hume’s writing is engaging and poetic; a summary would not suffice, and therefore I will quote it in full. He writes,
You are giving examples of people telling that other people’s lives are not worth living. That doesn’t mean those other people agreed with them.
Imagine today a very rich person saying “if you are not a millionaire, you should kill yourself, because your life is too miserable”. Would you accept it as evidence that lives of non-millionaires are worse than death?
It’s some evidence, although I agree very weak. I think the evidence I gave was importantly different in two ways, making this type of citation relevant. One, these are accomplished philosophers who gave extensive reasoning to back up their theses. Two, unlike today where you can literally just read what ordinary people have to say about this issue, few ordinary people in the 18th century were literate and wrote that type of thing down. Therefore, we need to rely on reports from other people who could write things down, who happened to disproportionately be the wealthy elite.
Now I hear the Life of Brian playing in my head: “Always look on the bright side of life! De-duh, de-duh de-duh de-duh!”
Hume didn’t always take his own rhetoric or ideas too seriously. He said he couldn’t prove that his friends even existed, but when he played billiards with them, these doubts vanished.
Here’s another thought experiment for those convinced by this gloomy view… suppose you find a large red switch marked “Universe: on/off”. Flipping it will cause the immediate painless non-existence of everyone everywhere. Do you flip it? Think how much suffering you’ll save! This suggests an alternative perspective for AI alignment research: we need to bring forward the arrival of the Paperclip Maker, to put us all out of our misery.
this is an interesting take, that death (or the uncertainty of it) might be worse than life and also both together worse than non-existence for a person. then a further question: if we take complete lack of experience to be neutral (sleep, in Hume’s example), and we had a magic device that could grant each individual the opportunity to cease experience from this moment to their naturally occurring death (i.e. to become a zombie), 1) how many people who claim their life has negative value would follow through by using this device and 2) is this meaningfully different from choosing death directly? from the experiential point of view it’s identical. from the experience of those around you, not as much, though in the zombie case you’re being dishonest with those around you and that brings its own baggage.
also interesting is that even in the friendliest of utilitarian views the repugnant conclusion usually ends with “a plethora of near-0-value lives” or “a single maximally high-value life”. less discussed is a plethora of willful negative existences required to enable a counteracting positive existence (for example, a miserable father who slaves away so his children may lead better lives). yet that arrangement is arguably more relatable to the typical individual, who may frequently embrace negative states in order to obtain later positive ones (e.g. as simple as setting an early alarm clock so that you can admire the sun rise).
the saving grace to all this, for me, is that i find it incredibly unlikely that any of these distasteful utilitarian hypotheticals actually represent the global maximum. or even significant local maxima for that matter. no matter if it’s the sum or the mean, negative experience immediately adjacent to positive experience doesn’t seem to be so stable. most human relationships are co-beneficial, for example. many people gain more than they lose when they give (charity/philanthropy/etc).