Regarding the typical mind fallacy … I’m not sure about this. The OP didn’t specify that you were talking to someone unusual beyond their professing a desire to die, so my assumption that they are a neurotypical human seems valid. OTOH, it is presumably possible to construct a situation where human CEV or whatever would still want them to die, so I guess it depends on how “terminally want” is defined. For the record, I didn’t mean that humans could never prefer death, but merely that we do not desire it.
Regarding the noncentral fallacy, I certainly didn’t mean violent suicides—if that connotation crept in I apologize. Note the OP implied a nonviolent death.
For the record, I didn’t mean that humans could never prefer death, but merely that we do not desire it.
I think I see the problem now. The quoted sentence only makes sense if by “we do not desire it” you mean “on average, it’s not part of a human’s terminal values”. Much of the disagreement, I think, stems from the computer science crowd automatically checking such a broad assertion (“we do not desire it / are human values suicidal”) against the extreme cases, then, having found cases for which it doesn’t hold, return “This is a false statement”.
Similar to a reductio ad absurdum, you just need one counter example to falsify such a blanket statement.
I’d advise you, on this forum specifically, to avoid such confusion by saying e.g. “Do you believe neurotypical (current culture/time frame) human terminal values are suicidal?” In that case, a charge of “typical mind fallacy” would be baseless since, well, you are only talking about “typical” humans (whatever that may be).
You won’t find much disagreement that most currently living humans do not value suicide for its own sake.
Then again, most currently living humans do not value certain kinds of liquor. Same thing.
Good points. For various reasons, I tend to use “human” to mean neurotypical human, at least when considering minds. I need to be more careful to correct that.
But this is kind of the point of my question. If someone decides they want to die (when they’re not terminally ill and in great pain so it’s not immediately obvious why) do we assume that this is evidence that they’re NOT neurotypical and immediately start treating their desires as weird brain fluctuations and trying to save them from themselves? Or do we let them do what they want even if this is an indication of mental illness? Or is there a line in the middle somewhere?
If we suppose there is a small batch of humans that profess the desire to die as a thing to do does a transhumanist immortalist jump in and try to save that batch or leave them alone?
Well, some would argue that if they’re not neurotypical (as opposed to neurotypical and stupid misguided) then we should respect their terminal values.
Thanks for the explanation.
Regarding the typical mind fallacy … I’m not sure about this. The OP didn’t specify that you were talking to someone unusual beyond their professing a desire to die, so my assumption that they are a neurotypical human seems valid. OTOH, it is presumably possible to construct a situation where human CEV or whatever would still want them to die, so I guess it depends on how “terminally want” is defined. For the record, I didn’t mean that humans could never prefer death, but merely that we do not desire it.
Regarding the noncentral fallacy, I certainly didn’t mean violent suicides—if that connotation crept in I apologize. Note the OP implied a nonviolent death.
You’re welcome.
I think I see the problem now. The quoted sentence only makes sense if by “we do not desire it” you mean “on average, it’s not part of a human’s terminal values”. Much of the disagreement, I think, stems from the computer science crowd automatically checking such a broad assertion (“we do not desire it / are human values suicidal”) against the extreme cases, then, having found cases for which it doesn’t hold, return “This is a false statement”.
Similar to a reductio ad absurdum, you just need one counter example to falsify such a blanket statement.
I’d advise you, on this forum specifically, to avoid such confusion by saying e.g. “Do you believe neurotypical (current culture/time frame) human terminal values are suicidal?” In that case, a charge of “typical mind fallacy” would be baseless since, well, you are only talking about “typical” humans (whatever that may be).
You won’t find much disagreement that most currently living humans do not value suicide for its own sake.
Then again, most currently living humans do not value certain kinds of liquor. Same thing.
Good points. For various reasons, I tend to use “human” to mean neurotypical human, at least when considering minds. I need to be more careful to correct that.
But this is kind of the point of my question. If someone decides they want to die (when they’re not terminally ill and in great pain so it’s not immediately obvious why) do we assume that this is evidence that they’re NOT neurotypical and immediately start treating their desires as weird brain fluctuations and trying to save them from themselves? Or do we let them do what they want even if this is an indication of mental illness? Or is there a line in the middle somewhere?
If we suppose there is a small batch of humans that profess the desire to die as a thing to do does a transhumanist immortalist jump in and try to save that batch or leave them alone?
Well, some would argue that if they’re not neurotypical (as opposed to neurotypical and stupid misguided) then we should respect their terminal values.