Creative said

Bump for reminder.

Thu 10/29/09 07:50 PM

check marked for later

Hello smiless!

Sorry, I missed your reply.

You haven’t specified any reason or circumstances for the suicide, so I’ll just have to take a guess.

Now first of all, don’t forget that “increasing survival potential” necessarily includes the corollary of “decreasing contra-survival potential”. In other words, because both “increase” and “decrease” are relative, which phraseology you use is only a matter of perspective. An example of this would be the “flight” mechanism where one is in an situation that one considers to be contra-survival. In such case one could describe the action of “flight” it as either an attempt to “decrease the contra-survival potential” by running away from danger or an attempt to “increase the pro-survival potential” by running toward safety. So in the type of suicide situation I think you mean, the “survival goal” is to remove oneself from an untenable situation – i.e. decrease the contra-survival potential.

And one should also consider how “cause and effect” relate to survival.

Basically, being “cause” is pro-survival and being “effect” is contra-survival.

So in this case, the person may have reached the conclusion that they are completely the effect of their environment, with no prospect of becoming cause over it. So the only causative action they are left with is suicide.

Or it may be looked at from the opposite, “negative gain” perspective. He may have concluded that “non-existence” would remove any possibility of being the effect of his environment, thus moving him from a “negative” survival state to a “zero” survival state. The “zero” state is “higher” than the “negative” state, so the result is a relative increase.

Or he could consider that some group he belonged to would survive better without him and that there was no other way to remove himself from the group other than suicide.

But as I said, you didn’t specify any circumstances or reasons, so this is just a few examples of how it could fit.

I’m not sure how to answer that other than “whoever or whatever is making the attempt is whoever or whatever is making the attempt.” In the example you provided, it would be the atheist. And in general it would be “a person”. (Or "an entity" in the most general terms.)

Hello! I see the same group of people hanging out at the same round oak table discussing philosophy and science as usual. It is good that everyone lets me have a seat in the corner to listen like a good student.

I will order the next round of drinks as soon as the sexy waitress walks by.