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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Epicurus's symmetry argument entails that our rational indifference to prenatal non-existence should extend to any preference about the magnitude of past experience.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Past experiences can constitute our identity and narrative; their absence directly diminishes who we are in ways prenatal non-existence cannot.
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    • 2.We can rationally prefer richer past lives because such preferences track real asymmetries in personal flourishing, not mere experiential access.
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    • 3.The symmetry argument conflates 'not experiencing X' with 'X having no rational significance,' which are distinct propositions.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.If prenatal non-existence is not bad because we cannot experience its badness, symmetry requires past experiences' absence also cannot be bad for us.
      ?

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    • 2.Both prenatal and postnatal non-existence are equally inaccessible to our current conscious perspective, making them relevantly similar.
      ?

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    • 3.Rational indifference should apply uniformly to all temporal directions when the underlying justification (experiential access) is identical.
      ?

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