Since no one has died and come back to tell about it, (except that one guy who couldn’t bothered to write the details down himself :)) you can’t say.
Natural selection is not a person, a creature, or in any way a conscious entity. It does not mean (in the sense of intending) anything.
In this context, I’d allow it. (S)he’s getting at the role that suffering played in our evolutionary history, and it can be difficult to phrase that in an intent-exclusive way.
They use similar language on science programmes and even in textbooks.
To answer the point, I don’t think that suicide is that big a mystery. It tends to happen when people are so depressed that they are out of the game anyway. And it’s not like evolution gave us a “press here to exit” button; we have to use our ingenuity to terminate ourselves – an ability that maybe only came in late in the day.
A bigger mystery for me is depression itself – it’s the achilles heel of the human mind. Once you’re depressed you’ll tend to engage in behaviours that will increase your depression. And while happiness tends to be fleeting; our brains seem able to wallow in despair indefinitely.
I like to think that since we’re here the idea is to live to our potential. In health that means being fit emotionally, physically, spiritually and mentally. Suffering is the direct opposite of any of those states developed to their fullest.
Death, on the other hand, is a natural process, not to be feared or avoided but realistically adjusted to as an expectation. With luck and good habits it will come to us after a life which has been lived to the fullest.
When one has exhausted all possibilty of dealing with human pain, both emotional and physical, with a healthy attitude, psychological technique and medical intervention the result is suffering.
Little is more puzzling and soul-killing than that condition and death seems preferable at that point.
Mild-to-moderate suffering is much better than mild-to-moderate death.
I appreciate the intent behind not putting an elaborate hypothetical in the OP, but this is really just impossible to answer without any specifics.
Yes, I shall watch my grammar from here on out. Is it shall, will or should? I don’t remember.
Either way, natural selection does have a goal and suffering exists to achieve a goal, encourage behaviors that lead to survival. Suffering encourages survival because it discourages behavior that threatens the integrity of structures we are dependent on (biological structures, social structures, interpersonal structures, intrapersonal structures).
Which is again odd because why would pain (which is designed to keep us alive) be so severe it makes us want to die?
Yep; and why are we so prone to headaches and toothache? We can almost never do anything about either, prior to medicine.
I always assumed it was just a negative side effect of the benefits of pain. Maybe we can avoid 80% of the events that cause pain but not the other 20%. So we just have to put up with it. People can avoid dangerous activities, fights, etc. but can’t avoid appendicitis. So the benefits outweigh the drawbacks from an evolutionary perspective. The pain you can avoid is more important than the pain you can’t.
The rates of depression are a lot higher than other mental illnesses like schizophrenia, bipolar, antisocial personality disorder, autism, etc. Because of that some evolutionary psychologists claim depression serves a useful function, if not it would have rates closer to the 1-4% of the population other mental illnesses have instead of the 10-30% rates depression has. Perhaps it makes us reflect, propels us to change our lives, etc.
I don’t know though. I think it may also just be an unpleasant side effect of higher cognition (lots of depression seems to come from contemplating how your life or life in general fails to live up to an external ideal). Knee pain and back pain are common, but they serve no useful benefit. THey are just unhappy side effects of walking and standing upright which are relatively recent in evolution. Higher cognition is relatively recent too and maybe depression is just a negative side effect of that. Perhaps in another 50 million years it would generally go away.
Point is I don’t personally know if depression serves a useful function or if it is just an unpleasant side effects of other useful functions (like higher cognition). I’d assume the latter though.
If this is a serious question, then you’ve never had a loved one in deep, deep suffering.
Joe
Death. It lasts forever.
Suffering does not. It is very temporary in the end.
I work in a hospital.
Years ago, an elderly patient told me she prayed every night that God would take her soon, preferably in her sleep. I was kind of shocked to hear this, as I was young enough that I hadn’t put much thought into death and dying.
There are different types of pain. I believe, from what I have seen and been told, that when it’s our time (in a medical setting), most of us know it and either welcome, or stoically accept, the release.
I saw a film, years ago, “Whose Life Is It, Anyway?” starring British actor Ian McShane
(I believe the play was run on Broadway later, with Mary Tyler Moore in the starring role).
In the play, an artist is in an accident and rendered quadraplegic; he spends his time trying to convince the authorities to let him die, because he doesn’t want to live dependent and unable to create his art. The character talks about his pain and his frustration. He has a telling line, “I don’t want to live as a medical achievement!”
Me, neither. I had a chat with my kids, so they wouldn’t have to ask themselves, “What would Mum want?” It’s ok to die.
an seanchai
Death is worse. Even if I’m suffering, as long as I’m alive there’s hope that it will stop. Death doesn’t ever stop.
Think of abhorrent criminals, which do you wish on them? Death or suffering?
Our laws allow us to kill them, but most people express it’s ‘not enough’ like sentiments. I think suffering is worse than death.
I choose cake. Wait wait, no; I choose the comfy chair!
As has been said, it depends on the suffering. If it’s a terminal case that will kill you eventually and make you suffer before death then death but if it’s just short to mid term suffering then suffering is preferable.
I was hit by sciatica a few years ago. Before I had a microdiscectomy I had REALLY bad constant leg pain for months. They were agony filled months that pain killers didn’t make much easier. The only true relief was sleep so I doped myself up on legal and illegal drugs and slept a lot. I would not wish that on anyone but it eventually went away. I’m now left with occasional pain but it’s not constant and not as bad. A few months suffering was better than death though.