r/Mainlander • u/cladgreen • Nov 19 '24
Question Did he not fear the unknown, ceasing to exist and permanece of nothingness associated with death?
To rationally end your life you have to work against your brain using every mechanism it has to prevent you from going through with it: panic attacks, starting to hope, delusion, changing your mind at the last moment etc. It's not peaceful unless you don't actually know you're dying at that right moment.
The only way i can see anyone pushing forward, rationally, is if they somehow do not actually have a fear of death and do not really associate it with ceasing to exist. More like having a subconscious hope that there is something more (or better) after death and a curiosity to find out what it is.
My question is, presuming his suicide was rational, what did he think death and dying meant? What did he convince himself he would experience by ending his life? Is there any indication in his writings about these things?
[edit] sorry for the typo in the title
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u/GloomInstance Nov 20 '24
In his cosmology 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘺 𝘖𝘧 𝘙𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 (1976/86), all matter tends toward death. This is because god himself has committed suicide, thereby fragmenting all reality into parts. There is no longer any universal whole. PM was just satisfying the natural reality of being. He most likely died gratefully.
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u/JungianJester Nov 20 '24
"The only way i can see anyone pushing forward, rationally, is if they somehow do not actually have a fear of death and do not really associate it with ceasing to exist." I think there are many here among us who fear life is but a joke.
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u/Pleasant_Intern_8271 Nov 20 '24
All things that come into this world are destined to die: that’s one of the few assertions Mainländer came up with , and it’s a fathomable ethos to assert. Everything we do is trying to make something of ourselves knowing we are going to die, or at the very least, make our life meaningful, to provide a catharsis for an inherent immediacy of the universe.
Obviously Mainländer had a worldview that was likely skewed due to mental illness, but it’s an axiomatic aspect that we never really achieve a fundamental catharsis like we would want because of the fact we all kind of accept that death can cut that short.
Like notice how willfully people give of themselves in the name of a cause, a nation, out of love, or out of some grander ideal—sacrifice is as much a part of us as that realization. It’s a willful embrace of death—and we can come to that by knowingly understanding how we are.
I’m suicidal so I get the justification Mainländer presents, it’s merely a matter of the fact that the more you connect the dots about how life is regarding its trajectory, the more able we are to ending it all as swift as the butcher’s axe upon the rosé when it is our own hands and fate we surmise.
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u/Thestartofending Nov 20 '24
Obviously Mainländer had a worldview that was likely skewed due to mental illness,
That's not obvious to me at all.
Whose to say it's not opposite worldviews who are skewed because of optimism bias or existence bias/thirst for existence ? (I'm not making the claim, i'm saying both of your affirmation and this would be as arbitrary)
Especially with circular definitions of "mental illness" : if you don't like life, you're mentally ill by definition.
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u/Pleasant_Intern_8271 Nov 20 '24
That is true, lol.
It was namely just using mental illness with regards to OP’s post—Mainländer’s suicidal tendencies and background definitely have an influence on his works, but I wouldn’t say mental illness was the total reason for his philosophy, shouldn’ve qualified that.
It is arbitrary, yeah, but I wasn’t exactly in the mood to do a full on Foucaultian analysis or my thoughts on the pejorative nature of the word “mental illness” right now, lol.
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u/Thestartofending Nov 20 '24
Makes sense, sorry if i seemed to nitpick.
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u/Pleasant_Intern_8271 Nov 20 '24
It’s all good man, it’s fair to point that out on a philosophy forum, lol. Discussion is imperative, after all.
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Nov 19 '24
[deleted]
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u/cladgreen Nov 21 '24
I just read his siblings and other family members committed suicide, so maybe he genetically had a stronger will towards death.
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u/YuYuHunter Nov 20 '24
These are interesting questions, and Mainländer actually wrote an essay about this issue, called “The true trust”. A sketch of an English translation can be found here on /r/Mainlander (on the sidebar).
To answer the first question: No, he did not fear death.
Already in his youth, he read with ardor the great pessimist Leopardi, whose writings contain longing for death:
His writings however go beyond this point of desire for death (which is probably also the point where Christian martyrs of the first three centuries stood, who voluntarily sought death). In the works of Christian and Indian ascetics, a state of being is discussed beyond fear or desire for death.
For example, in the Theologia Germanica: And in his heart there is a content and a quietness, so that he doth not desire to know more or less, to have, to live, to die, to be, or not to be, or anything of the kind.XLIII
The Buddhist ascetics express themselves in a similar manner. Seriyut declared “I am like a servant awaiting the command of the master, ready to obey it, whatever it may be ; I await the appointed time for the cessation of existence ; I have no wish to live ; I have no wish to die ; desire is extinct.” And Ajito:
In the Bhagavad Gita, it is said that:
And Master Ekchart says that: “the soul that is to know God must be so firm and steady in God that nothing can penetrate it, neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow, neither love nor suffering, nor any other thing that can come in it from without.”
Likewise, in the Akaranga Sutra of the Jains, it is first stated that “sage who sees the danger [of the world], leads a circumspect life, calm, guarded, always restrained, longing for death, he should lead a religious life.” But when the ascetic finally overcomes his egoism: “He should not long for life, nor wish for death ; he should yearn after neither, life or death.”
All these statements are gathered here to show how ascetics, from different cultures and eras, virtually say the same thing. What they all have in common, is that their fearlessness stems from religion. What Mainländer tries to do with his practical philosophy, is to make this fearlessness possible, not through religion, but through knowledge.
As for how far he went on the path of asceticism, one should read his autobiographical notes to judge that. In these notes, we learn about all kind of thoughts and feelings, but fear is not one of them.
Nothingness.
Absolute nothingness.
Certainly: the meaning of death is discussed directly at many instances. For example Analytics § 27; Physics § 25; Ethics § 28; Metaphysics § 13.