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    The asymmetry in our attitudes toward prenatal and posthu... — Carmelics
    Home/Afterlife & Death
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    The asymmetry in our attitudes toward prenatal and posthumous nonexistence shows that we are more concerned about the indefinite continuation of our lives than about their indefinite extension.

    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.We want to die later, or not at all, because it is a way of extending life.
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    • 2.We do not want to have been born earlier (we do not want to have always existed), even though that is also a way to extend life.
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    • 3.We would prefer a life stretching indefinitely into the future rather than one stretching indefinitely into the past.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The asymmetry in attitudes toward prenatal and posthumous nonexistence is better explained by our forward-looking psychology than by any metaphysical preference for continuation over extension.
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    • 2.Parfit's work on psychological connectedness shows that our concern for the future self is grounded in anticipated experience, not in the mere temporal direction of a life's span.
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    • 3.Therefore, the asymmetry tracks the structure of desire and anticipation, not a deep preference for continuation, undermining the claim's inference from attitude to underlying concern.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Lucretius's symmetry argument, rehabilitated by Rosenbaum and others, holds that rational agents should be indifferent to both prenatal and posthumous nonexistence equally.
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    • 2.If the asymmetry in our attitudes is a product of evolutionary bias toward future-directed concern rather than rational evaluation, it cannot ground a genuine metaphysical preference for continuation over extension.
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    • 3.A preference shaped by irrational evolutionary contingency provides no philosophical justification for concluding that continuation is what we are more deeply concerned with.
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    Topics

    Afterlife & Death

    Key Terms

    Indefinite continuation(Refers to living for as long as possible into the future without knowing when life will end.)
    Something lasting for an unlimited or unknown amount of time into the future, without a set endpoint.
    Indefinite extension(Refers to how far back into the past (before birth) one's nonexistence extended.)
    Stretching backward in time for an unlimited or unknown amount of time, without knowing how far back it goes.
    Nonexistence(The statement compares our feelings about not existing before birth with not existing after death.)
    The state of not existing or not being alive.
    Posthumous(Refers to nonexistence after a person dies.)
    Occurring or existing after someone's death.
    Prenatal(Refers to nonexistence before you were conceived or born.)
    The period before a person is born; anything relating to the time before birth.
    asymmetry(Modal logic frame semantics)
    A frame property expressible in hybrid logic by the formula c→□¬◇c, meaning if world x accesses world y, then y does not access x.

    Related

    A preference shaped by irrational evolutionary contingency provides no philosoph...If the asymmetry in our attitudes is a product of evolutionary bias toward futur...Lucretius's symmetry argument, rehabilitated by Rosenbaum and others, holds that...Parfit's work on psychological connectedness shows that our concern for the futu...
    +5 moreShow less
    The asymmetry in attitudes toward prenatal and posthumous nonexistence is better...

    Source

    AI-extracted
    SEP: death

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    Therefore, the asymmetry tracks the structure of desire and anticipation, not a ...
    We do not want to have been born earlier (we do not want to have always existed)...
    We want to die later, or not at all, because it is a way of extending life.
    We would prefer a life stretching indefinitely into the future rather than one s...

    Similar

    Our pre-vital nonexistence and our posthumous nonexistence are symmetr...84%Our attitude about future life should match our attitude about past li...79%The argument that our attitude about future life should match our atti...79%It is not surprising to find ourselves with no desire to extend life i...78%