Philosophical Thought Experiment Pt.1.
For a moment I would like to paint a picture in your head. The situation is quite simple, but it is not as simple and easy to answer. But let us for the sake of the discusion exclude all of the religions out of the question.
The universe is forcing you to make one of the following two choices:
You are presented with an option to die right now from a heart attack...
Not exactly what you expected is it? However, I want us to indulge into the depths of our mind and take a little mental trip.
The second choice you are presented with is as follows:
Entire world population dies but you, only you get to live the end of your days.
My take on this:
If you would be one to sacrifice yourself for the entirety of the world and save humanity, well that would be but a natural path to take. And your loss would not go to vain. But, you are dead. What does it matter to you? Looking things from this perspective it seems like for you, once the life escaped your body, everything you held dear has lost its meaning. If the reality as we perceive it lays behind our individual conscious minds, and yours disappears the moment you die, what does it matter to you if you die now, or 60 years later when everyone else is dead. I would like to go even deeper from this point. If we for a moment pay attention to the way animals live their lives by feeding and reproducing, we can come to a conclusion that from a perspective of an animal, the point of life is to stay alive long enough to reproduce as many times as you can,to ensure your species lives on. Meaning once the fate of the entire species depends on your choice or in this case, choice of some animal, we should all just pick our deaths instead, right? But would we? Or more important, the thing that I'm trying to point out here, would the animal, if it had the understanding of what is at the stake, pick its death to save the species?
I know this seems like one of those "would you rather" questions but I would like to connect with some powerful minds on this site and get involved in deeper questions and thematics. Think about it and present your answer in the comment section. I'm going to do way more of these in the future.
Help me by contributing with new and interesting themes/questions and Resteeming.
By: The Great Avi
I kinda feel like I've been dying my whole life for humanity already.. Though.. In the end.. I don't think I could live with myself if everyone else died from something I could prevent, it would be like I caused their death.. So.. I would most likely sacrifice myself for them, even though many if not most of them don't deserve the sacrifice.
I applaud your efforts to bring deeper conversation to more people, and good luck! You earned another follower.
I enjoy this more than I should have. Thanks for the follow.
From the subjective point of view within my parallel universe, if I die, so does everyone else.
If I live, but the whole world dies, then what is left? It's just me alone.
"The good of the many outweighs the needs of the few, or the one."
My life, while important to me, just isn't that important in the grand scheme of things. I am one being of star stuff, and a planet of one isn't life at all, it's just death ....... of ...........loneliness.
That is like "choosing between Black death and Cholera" as we say in Germany.
… I started to think of a future scenario for the second choice … and after two minutes I gave up.
There's just nothing to imagine. I would simply die without other humans.
So I would die of a heart attack hoping to be reborn with at least some memory:-)