X-Message-Number: 12996
From: "George Smith" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: #12992  Keith Dugue's Death Advantage Fallacy (DAF)
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 1999 12:16:15 -0800

In message #12992, Keith Dugue wrote in part:

> There are two unstated premises in the argument for escaping suffering
through death.
> They are, one that an afterlife exists and, two, that this afterlife is
one without equivalent suffering.

I find one element missing in your suggestion: the active experience of
suffering itself.

If I place you in a condition of intense and continuous pain, such as by
simply bending your fingers backwards against the joints in a common jujutsu
lock, there will come a point in time where you will very likely be willing
to do just about anything to escape the pain whether it is in your best
interest or not, short or long term.  This is why torture works.  With
sufficient intensity and duration pain will overwhelm everything except the
frantic need to escape the pain.

This can also be demonstrated quickly with breathing as well.  If your face
is pushed under water, well within two minutes you will usually do anything
you can to breathe, even if you know that the air is filled with a poisonous
nerve gas which will kill you in seconds.

A fallacy in DAF is the belief that human beings even generally tend to make
their decisions based upon cool reason in the heat of passion, anger, fear,
pain or other strong sensations.  That is why it is considered so remarkable
for the rare person who will not "break" under torture and why we view as
rare the truly "heroic" act of a person who will pursue a goal despite pain.
It happens but is so rare that such events are lionized by the vast majority
of lesser mortals who know that pain can easily overcome reason.

I would submit that this is not a neurosis (as you suggested) but an issue
of hard-wired hierarchies built into the human nervous system.  Like the
fight-or-flight response where blood is directed away from digestion to the
voluntary muscles, pain is set to overcome other, lesser survival issues -
including higher cognition which can generate hypotheses such as DAF.

Those who have been in the presence of truly painful deaths, such as can be
generated by several common cancers, are seldom opposed to euthanasia
thereafter.  Chronic intense pain robs the human being of "higher" faculties
almost without exception.  It is only when someone is not in severe pain
that they can calmly discuss why death is an irrational choice.

DAF is used a great deal by those who rationalize their resistence to
cryonics when presented with the option.  Then, when their lives are made
miserable by poor health, it is further reinforced.  However, most human
beings will do anything to escape a sufficiently intense pain.  They are not
"DAF"ed.  They just can't stand the pain.

George Smith
www.cryonics.com

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