it is better to have never been/exist

This debate is about "It is better to have never been". This I do not refute, but my reasoning for saying "the main purpose of this debate, is whether people who exist would rather not exist" is not flawed. Keep in mind that the word better is included in "It is better to have never been" and my opponent gave the definition that "better= more preferable", a definition that I accepted. For something to be preferable, it needs to be preferred. Non-existers cannot prefer to exist, but they also cannot prefer to not exist. Non-exister cannot prefer to be happy or have knowledge, but they also cannot prefer to have a lack of pain. Non-existers cannot prefer anything, thus nothing is preferable to a Non-existers. According to my opponent's definition of better, a non-exister cannot have any situation to be better to them. Thus to a non-exister, "it is better to have never been" is false since nothing is better to an non-exister. By this reasoning, the statement this debate is about "It is better to have never been" is only about whether people who exist would prefer to never have existed. I personally don't see how this reasoning is a misunderstanding since it based on the definitions agreed upon. Next my opponent claimed that "...at no point in this debate have I suggested that those who already exist should kill themselves thus ceasing to exist...". While my opponent never claimed for people to commit suicide directly, he has given a quote that infers it. In my opponent's opening argument he gave the quote "Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all" - Heinrich Heine. In this quote, death is stated to be better than sleep. Now if my opponent finds nothing wrong with people going to sleep, he shouldn't find anything wrong with people being killed. Now my opponent claims that he doesn't support people killing themselves because "(obviously this would cause immense suffering which is what I am trying to avoid)". I find that my opponents supposed reasoning for not wanting people to kill themselves is flawed by his standards. If a person was to be destroyed or vaporized faster than their nerve could send signals of pain, then their death would be painless for the time that they exist. Now unless my opponent believes in an afterlife(highly doubt he does), he would find certain manners of death to be without suffering and have no problem with them. I am fairly confident that he would support everyone on this planet being instantaneously vaporized by nukes. Now the next contradiction in my opponent's argument follows: __________"We have another misunderstanding with " he was also saying that it would be better if the entire universe didn't __________exist" this is not at all what I meant the universe still exists but conscious beings do not exist which is also a __________condition we agreed upon before we begun the debate with "been= existence/ have objective reality or being" __________and "I think for arguments sake we should agree that existence occurs when one develops a consciousness". Now __________my point being that whilst comets and rabies may be a problem they are only a problem to the someone who exist __________but to a non 'exister' they are not a problem, thus it is better to have never been." I find this to be in contradiction with: __________"I can only see this as a step back for my opponent it would certainly be more preferable for these matters such as __________the "asteroid" and "rabies" to not exist and obviously to the non 'exister' these problems do not exist." __________If you read carefully, you will notice that he states that it would be "more preferable for these matters such as the __________"asteroid" and "rabies" to not exist" then he says "and obviously to the non 'exister' these problems do not exist.". Now if you look at the use of 'and' it shows that he is stating two different claims. He claims it would be better if 'asteroids' didn't exist, and he also claims that " to the non 'exister' these problems do not exist.". Later in the debate he claims to only have made the point that " to the non 'exister' these problems do not exist.". He clearly is either ignoring or doesn't realize that he made the claim "be more preferable for these matters such as the "asteroid" and "rabies" to not exist". Now with my opponent's argument about the 'Pollyanna principle', I have decided to type into Google "which are easier to remember, bad or good memories" surprisingly I had a hard time finding information to support my opponents argument. I actually found the opposite. I kept on finding sources that claim that bad memories stick better than good(2,3,4). Now I was able to find one source to that claimed "pleasant emotions appear to fade more slowly from our memory than unpleasant emotions" and "among those with mild depression, unpleasant and pleasant emotions tend to fade evenly" (5). Unfortunately for my opponent, if you thoroughly read through the paper, you would find: __________The effect of mood __________Another aspect of emotion is mood - your emotional state at the time of encoding or retrieving. There has been __________quite a lot of research on the effect of mood on memory. It is clear that mood affects what is noticed and encoded. __________This is reflected in two (similar but subtly different) effects: __________mood congruence: whereby we remember events that match our current mood (thus, when we're depressed, we __________tend to remember negative events), and __________mood dependence: which refers to the fact that remembering is easier when your mood at retrieval matches your __________mood at encoding (thus, your chances of remembering an event or fact are greater if you evoke the emotional __________state you were in at the time of experiencing the event or learning the fact). Now according to this, a happy person has an easier time remembering happy events, and a sad person has an easier time to remember sad events. The fact that happy memories fade for slowly is because the person is generally happy. This seems to also explain why "among those with mild depression, unpleasant and pleasant emotions tend to fade evenly". A generally neutral person would have memories fade at the same rate since his mood is generally neutral. So in conclusion this article shows that we aren't programmed to remember good events because of some biological adaption for preventing suicide, but because we generally are happy. Now my opponent tries to explain the supposed 'Pollyanna principle' by saying that: __________Also adaption (the process of change by which an organism or species becomes better suited to its environment) __________and habituation (make or become accustomed or used to something) could be biological reasons for this illusion. __________ __________The above psychological phenomenon are unsurprising from an evolutionary perspective. they militate against __________suicide and favour reproduction. If our lives are quite as bad as I have argued they are and If people were prone to __________see this true quality of their lives for what it is, then they might be much more inclined to kill themselves or at least __________stop reproducing. My view whilst still true tends not to be naturally selected." The problem with this statement is that it is opposite of what is observed in nature. In nature, it is detrimental to be happier than what the environment is. If you are surrounded by predators, it is better to be more fearful than of the predators than their actual threat level. If you are limited on food, it is better to be scared of starving more than you need to be. If you end up being less scared of the predators than needed, you will be much more likely to be eaten. If you are less worried about starving than needed, you would be more likely to starve. If a person sees their life as better than it really is, then they would be more vulnerable and less likely to survive than a person who thinks the opposite. Since my opponent's claim runs counter what happens in nature, it should be discarded if he doesn't give evidence of it in round 5. Now for my final arguments. If I were to give a survey to people and ask them if they would have preferred to never have been conceived, majority of people would say no. My opponent gave the definition of better as more preferable. Since non-existers cannot prefer, clearly the statement "It is better to have never exist" cannot apply to them. Since it cannot apply to non-existers, it would have to apply to existers. Now since majority of people do not prefer to never have been conceived, by my opponent definition of better, not existing is not "better" for the majority of people. My opponent will claim that anyone who thinks it is better to exist than not, is a delusional 'Pollyanna' and that what is better for them should be discarded even though they are the majority. But earlier in this argument I have shown that most people are not delusional 'Pollyanna' that see their life as better than it really is. I shown with a source that at first glance, would have supported my opponents claim, but when read thoroughly shows the opposite. I have also shown several sources that show that traumatic memories are far stronger than good ones. In conclusion existence is something that most existers prefer, thus the statement "It is better to have never been/exist" is incorrect. Thank you for this debate, I look forward to seeing how the final round plays out. References (1)http://www.prb.org... (2) http://www.livescience.com... (3)http://science.howstuffworks.com... (4)http://www.sciencedaily.com... (5)http://www.memory-key.com...