If you want death, will you ever get what you want?
For this question, I am assuming there is no life after death.
If I want to die and I do die, I will not be there to get what I wanted. There will be no me to have his wish fulfilled so it must be impossible for me ever to get what I want. I will die wanting to die and never experience any more than that desire.
On the other hand, one might say that you do not have to exist to get what you want. That getting what you want is simply what you wanted to happen happening. Once that thing happens, whether you know or don't, whether you exist or don't, you got what you wanted.
A similar question would be "If I wanted to be cremated after death and I was cremated, have I gotten what I wanted? Did I get what I wanted?"
So once again, if I want to die and I do die, did I get what I want by dying? Or will I never get what I want because it is impossible for me ever to experience death?
If I want to die and I do die, I will not be there to get what I wanted. There will be no me to have his wish fulfilled so it must be impossible for me ever to get what I want. I will die wanting to die and never experience any more than that desire.
On the other hand, one might say that you do not have to exist to get what you want. That getting what you want is simply what you wanted to happen happening. Once that thing happens, whether you know or don't, whether you exist or don't, you got what you wanted.
A similar question would be "If I wanted to be cremated after death and I was cremated, have I gotten what I wanted? Did I get what I wanted?"
So once again, if I want to die and I do die, did I get what I want by dying? Or will I never get what I want because it is impossible for me ever to experience death?
Comments (3)
If you get stuck like this again, try and use a very simple analogy. Say a girl wants to have sex with this guy she likes but in the nightclub she drinks too much and as they go home together, she passes out just before the penile penetration begins. She wakes up after in a wet bed with a satisfied man on top of her breathing heavily. Now, did she get what she wanted? Not quite, because she was after the experience of sex and not just the knowing that it happened without a memory of it. But if she woke up in the middle of the sex and said she didn't want it and then she passed out again. Did she get what she wanted by the sex stopping only because of her inability to experience it? Obviously she wasn't aware of it happening and therefore was in agreement with her not 'wanting to experience it'. So as soon as she passes out, her wish is fulfilled (even though her desire was for it not to happen PERIOD and not just her experience of it). So in the same, if you will to die... it necessarily entails that you will yourself to die up till the point your experience is over (assuming it is over in death). There doesn't need someone on the other side to say "oh hey, i'm glad i did that, i got what i wanted".
When you say you want to die, do you mean you want to experience dying or do you mean that you want to be dead?
If the former then you may get what you want, although you will never (assuming for the sake of the argument no afterlife, of course) experience the moment when you cease to be.
If the latter, then you will never get what you want, but what you want will come to pass. So, assuming that you will die, and that there will be no afterlife, and you want it to be the case that you will at some time in the future be dead; then you have already gotten what you wanted, you have gotten your future death, but you will never get your present death, in any case, even if there is an afterlife. However, on the other hand,if there is an afterlife you may experience your passing from this world to the next, and then being in the next, in which case you will be dead to this world, and if you count that as being dead, then you will get what you want in both of the senses I distinguished above..