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Harvey Meale

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About Harvey Meale

  • Birthday 01/06/1995

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    I have a particular affinity for the metaphysics of death.
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    Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
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    Harvey M.
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    Philosophy student from Australia. My focus area is the metaphysics of death.
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    Harvey Meale
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    University of Queensland
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  1. Thank you very much! Great to be here. This is more like the discussion I was hoping for! Story checks out. Now we finally have some metaphysical discussion on the topic of death! For those still confused, this is what I'm alluding to. In the metaphysics of death, there are two opposing views: the Epicurean view and what we will call the Epicurean dilemma. You support the Epicurean dilemma perspective, as someone (as most people do) who sees death as bad. The problem with your argument is how this badness manifests. For something bad to occur, one has to experience it as bad, correct? For experience to ensue, existence is predicated. Of course, if you are dead, you no longer exist. In the same way that once you're dead, the notion of "your fellows" also no longer exists, as "your" fails to reference anything at all. Absolutely. Is it a fact though? Or is this perhaps an example of her Esthetics? Am I doing it right? Thanks for dropping in! Hope to converse further with you in the time to come. That would be a horribly misguided assumption. I am very interested in Objectivism but don't yet know much about it. I realise there may be a difference between metaphysics in general and metaphysics through the guise of Objectivism and I'm simply not familiar yet with the extent of that differentiation. I don't know why you chose to include this in your post? It is an ideology... Absolutely! Anyone who prides themselves in their ability implement reason and logic in argument are the only people I want to discuss these ideas with. And who better than Objectivists? I sincerely apologise if you feel as though I've implied that I'm above Objectivism or don't agree with it or that it is just another fruitless ideology. That was not my intention at all. And I welcome it, just as long as it doesn't preclude an in-depth analysis of the issue. And I don't see why it would either! You have mistaken me. Okay, then I'm referring to metaphysics in the regular non-Objectivist sense. I don't know why we are all getting so caught up on terminology. I explained in an above post what the non-Objectivist interpretation of metaphysics with relevance to death is. And I have no idea why that view and the Objectivist view seem incompatible. It has the same meaning regardless of whether you look at it through the lens of Objectivism or otherwise. But for now let's ignore the use of the word "metaphysics" then for it seems as though people here are incapable of distinguishing between its Objectivist meaning and non-Objectivist meaning. Let's simply refer to it as "the nature of death" or "Is A's death bad for A?", to put it more simply. I'm not interested in discussing the ethics of death. This thread is about the metaphysics of death. Note there is a difference between "badness" in a metaphysical sense and "moral/justifiable" in an ethical sense.
  2. 100% Right, and I suspect people would be more inclined to avoid death in the latter case than the former one. Though I think it's logically unwarranted.
  3. Also, I'm asking this question in a general broader philosophical sense and I realise I'm going to get answers coming through the lens of objectivism here but I think we can have this discussion while removed from the ideology of objectivism. That said, I do certainly welcome objectivist opinions, of course.
  4. I know perfectly well what these terms mean. If you take a look at the synopsis of the book titled "The Metaphysics of Death" (Stanford University Press), a book which deals strictly with the metaphysics of death and not ethics, you'll read the following: In another book, Death, by professor Shelly Kagan of Yale, who is famous for his philosophical work on death and offers a free university course on death through Open Yale Courses agrees that metaphysics discusses the badness of death. Maybe I need to rephrase it for your liking. Would you prefer "nature of mortality" or instead of metaphysics of death?
  5. I'm referring to society/people in general. Still not really getting the gist of what you're trying to say. I feel like you used the word "good" too many times in a discussion that I'd planned would be more about the "bad". Also not sure what you mean by seeking/pursuing one's death or its relevance. In the context of the discussion of death, metaphysics is about whether death can be (is) bad and how the badness manifests. Note we're not referring to good/bad in the ethical sense here, but strictly what death means for the person who died. Ethics in death refers to topics including suicide, euthanasia, murder, etc which deals with another sort of good/bad in respect to morality. What are you talking about? Obviously. This is hardly a satisfying metaphysical analysis, though.
  6. I don't quite see how this is so. Could you elaborate please? I think we do act to avoid death but I'm not convinced that we necessarily should. In relation to death, the metaphysics looks at whether death is bad for us and if it is, how it is bad. Imagine you knew for a fact that you got an infinite series of lives. Imagine, in addition to this fact, you knew as fact, that death itself was peaceful and harmless. Once you die, you'd seemingly immediately be birthed into a new life. How would you choose to live your life/lives? Now imagine you knew you only got one shot at life. And that once you died, that's it. You're locked up in a great black box for the rest of eternity. How would you tiptoe around this life? And what would you do differently to the above instance? I think if we can learn a bit about how death works and the significance of our experience/lives, we can learn how to better lead our lives.
  7. This negates the solipsist argument. One could, with equal weight, argue the exact opposite. From a utilitarian perspective, the fact that the rock will fall again is "true enough". In what possible context could denying that fact be useful?
  8. Right, so it would seem indeed that death can neither be good nor bad, or anywhere in between. It cannot have attributes that exist on such a scale, correct? Well, of course. And of course you'd agree this doesn't make death itself bad. Dying, however, surely can be bad.
  9. This is a particularly intriguing field for me and I'm curious as to what other people think about it. Is death bad for us or not? If it is bad, just how is it so? On one hand, we have Epicurus and Lucretius saying death is not a bad thing since experience terminates at death. Other scholars submit death is bad because it deprives us of continued good (i.e. life). What are your thoughts on this?
  10. Evening all! I'll be honest and say I don't have much experience with objectivism specifically but, as a philosophy student, I am very eager to learn more about this. The area which particularly interests me, philosophically, I'd have to say is metaphysics with regard to death. I expect to contribute quite a bit to the philosophical discussions on this site and hope to find myself deep in some cool discussions/debates! See you 'round!
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