It is better to have never been

Thanks Pro. I. Preface Fortunately, Pro has wasted much of her last round, so I will add a few more arguments to the mix. First I will deal with rebuttals, beginning with the easy stuff. II. Irrelevant Arguments Overpopulation: Pro made two contentions completely irrelevant to the resolution, namely the current state of the human population and the effects of overpopulation (the 'real' impact', and and the fact that life is imposed. Neither of these demonstrate the resolution whatsoever. On human overpopulation, the best that it could possibly demonstrate is that the human population is currently at a state where additional children impinge on the well being of everyone else. This may well be true. But at best it demonstrates that the current population is 'too large' and not that it 'should have never been'. If we imagine that the Earth's population was reduced to just 100 million, then it clearly follows that the system would be at saturation and additional people would not impinge on the well being of the existing population. This is well supported by science too, since we as a social species, survive better when part of a large, social system, which debunks the implied notion that 'more is always less'.[1] Also it's very easily argued that two people with almost maximal well being is a more satisfactory choice than one with maximal well being. This argument simply doesn't demonstrate the resolution on any level. Life is imposed: So what? This argument presupposes that life is generally 'bad', and doesn't make any headway on proving the resolution. Moreover if life really is miserable then they always have the option of ending theirs, to put it bluntly. III. Evolution & Unintelligent Design: While I granted God, Cosmology and Evolution, Pro performs a sleight of hand attempting to slip in the fact that we are not built to care about pleasure/hurting. That or our cognitive faculties are not wired, or capable of being wired to appreciate this. That we are purposeless altogether, since we are just chemistry. There are several things wrong with this leap which draws parallels to Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism, which asserts our cognitive faculties should be deemed unreliable because evolution doesn't care about truth. These are quite simply patently false. It's hardly logical to make the leap from one's origins and what one possesses today, a computer can be intelligently designed, yet perform it's role of a computer poorly, similarly a biological organism can be unintelligently designed, yet possess sophisticated traits and functions, which include our cognitive faculties. It simply doesn't matter now WHAT our origins were, it only matters what we now have, and what our faculties will do, and be capable of doing. Given that we are capable of linguistics, logic, reason and advanced social behaviour, it follows that we need to consider these on their own if we are to consider our current and potential states. But first let's apply this exact same reasoning to Pro's position, since she has done all the hard work for me. IF we are completely purposeless, functional chemistry from barbaric origins which somehow imply we are barbaric and sufferable today, then why would we accept Pro's assertion that these imply that we are 'better to have never been'. After all according to Pro there nothing telic to life, so there is nothing to be gained by it's annihilation. If Pro argues that our purposeless origins and current states imply that life is better to have never been then it appears her antinatalist asserts are simply a case of special pleading, as the logic works both ways. IV. Comfort/Discomfort This is quite simply a failed contention, and relies on the equivocation on the meanings of the words "comfort" and "discomfort". First let's deal with Pro's new P1. Reformed Argument: P1. Life perpetually produces discomfort Which leads to the following: P1. Life perpetually produces discomfort P2. Discomfort is not preferable to comfort C1. Life perpetually produces something not preferable to comfort This conclusion is simply not good enough to get Pro to her conclusion that non-existence is preferable. She needs to now positively assert that 'Discomfort is bad', yet as I have and will show, she has only justified that comfort is preferable to discomfort, nothing more. Recall the definitions which Pro has put forth: Comfort- The 'relieving' of discomfort Discomfort- A 'wanting' or desire, deprivation What needs to assessed closely is what it means to have 'comfort', Pro asserts that it's logically equivalent to the annihilation that state of discomfort. Scratching an itch annihilates the discomfort you were in before, nothing more, nothing less. But. As I argued in the previous round, this is very much oversimplistic, and in fact runs into social norms. Also the most crucial equivocation is that a state of discomfort is worse than not having that state of discomfort in huge first place. While this might be true for some things that may be labelled 'States of discomforts', such as severe injury, or illness, it is not readily true for other types of "discomfort", such as career, sexual or prospective drives. It is true that we desire for those things, and could semantically be put under the umbrella of 'discomfort', but it doesn't follow that the 'relieving' of such (by getting a good job, having intercourse etc.) is equivalent to never having that drive, or state of discomfort in the first place. While both acts do remove that state of discomfort, the latter route imbues one with their positive feedback mechanisms in their brain, and also memories of the accomplishment. Both of which are outside of the comfort/discomfort false dichotomy, and are clearly valued. Also, let's assume that annihilation of the discomfort is equivalent to 'fulfilling' the discomfort. It would follow then that people generally would not voluntarily put themselves into states of discomfort just to have that given state of discomfort 'relieved', since there is no net gain. One excellent example are painful massages, which endow the participants with agony for which the participants will overall feel better after the process. Another example is going to the cinema in ignorance of what films are on. Clearly there is no 'desire' to see a specific film, and once a film is noticed, it would create a state of 'discomfort' according to Pro's logic, and in fact many states of discomfort as they would also see many other appealing available films which they will not watch, which will only be relieved according to Pro once the film is seen. I can briefly formulate as such: P1) If discomfort was 'bad', then discomfort would not be voluntarily created P2) Discomfort is voluntarily created C) Discomfort is not 'bad' Please note the definitions I am working with: Good: An overall positive experience/state Bad: An overall negative experience/state Pro makes many rhetorical questions about why people want to escape discomfort, and hardly any of them actually demonstrate this, they only show at best that comfort is more desirable than discomfort. I freely grant there are some things which Pro would regard as 'severe discomfort' as generally 'bad', but I have absolutely no reason to accept that ALL states of discomfort are bad, and their annihilation would be preferable. I also would be willing to grant for sake of argument if life overall was 'bad', then it is probably not worth living, but Pro has only affirmed that discomfort is less desirable than 'comfort', and relied on an equivocation of what 'comfort' means to achieve her conclusion. Note that my satisfaction/dissatisfaction alternative argument is based off of the same/similarly plausible premises and ended up with the opposite conclusion. The problem of both is they are demonstrably overly simplistic. V. Nihilistic Existentialism is a more accurate descriptor of life Pro has gone out of her way to negate life's intrinsic value and purpose, however this pretty much just affirms nihilistic existentialism, which states as I have argued, that one cannot argue either way that life inherently has meaning, or purpose. What it does say though is that meaning, purpose, values etc can be, and is, subjectively given by the sentient beings involved, such as ourselves or other beings.[2] Moreover, it seems cogent that there are 'good' and 'bad' things in life, as well as neutral things, and a life lived with many more 'good' things to have happened is preferable to a life lived with far fewer, or none. This is very much because we have memories, and knowledge of our past accomplishments and failings. The fact there is a distinction between 'good' and 'bad' stuff in life has a large degree of scientific merit, since the reward and pain/displeasure mechanisms are well studied, especially in food sciences.[3] In existential nihilism, 'neutral' states would be logical, a neutral state is a state where a person would not experience any significant or extant dissatisfaction, pain, or resentment of life. An athlete may have an extremely strong desire for an Olympic gold, and has trained for it, yet their desires for such would not be a constant 'deprivation' such as what Pro's philosophy entails. It doesn't automatically follow that one's desire for something is equivalent to being in new state of discomfort, or an overall decrease in the quality of one's life. So, while it is very much prima facie plausible, it also solves a lot of evidential issues that Pro's philosophy runs into. VII. References 1. http://dieoff.org... 2. http://plato.stanford.edu... 3. http://neuroscience.mssm.edu...