"Well what would you do in my situation?"
"Hm. I guess I could do heroin, acquire a sniper rifle, climb Everest, and still be unsatisfied"
"...why?"
"Because why not?"
"What would satisfy you enough?"
"Well, I suppose if in your situation there would just be so many things that I wanted to do, it would be really hard to try them in just one day and be satisfied with the outcome. For instance, I would want to transcend space and time. Surely this wouldn't be possible in 24 hours. Unless you transcended space and time of course..."
"But science has already proven that its impossible. So its not like you're ever going to get that anyway. What else would you want to do?"
"Well, I'd want to solve the skeptic's problem. You know, the one which asks whether our world actually exists or whether we're just brains in vats in some neuroscience lab on Alpha Centauri."
"You're crazy"
"Given our situations, I'd evaluate myself to be the saner one, actually."
"You're the one who wants to smoke crack and do heroin."
"Yes, but thats less crazy than what you want to do tomorrow."
"Would you ever actually consider putting yourself in my situation?"
"Well, its conceivable. Let if possible, it be the case that I want to commit suicide tomorrow. Now, there are certain experiences that I would want to have before dying. This doesn't mean that they are all feasible, or even possible, but I would still want to try. So if I wanted to figure out the unified theory of physics before killing myself, in all probability I would die of natural causes before I did. If I wanted to be the President of a country, that endavor would take a while. If I wanted to get married, and have kids, that would take some time as well. There are so many things that I would want to do before dying that it would delay my suicidal desires till well after my actual lifespan."
"You can't just rationalize it away like that. This is real life. Its different than all...all your bullshit philosophical theories."
"But they're not theories; that is actually what I would do. There's no way of proving this to you since I'm not suicidal, so I suppose you have me there. But, hopefully you have many things that you would want to do before dying also, which would get you out of your situation."
"So wanting to kill myself is just another situation to you?"
"Isn't everything in life a situation?"
"Fine."
"From your expression I can guess that if there's one thing you want to do before dying, it is to win an argument with me."
"Who said I lost any?"
"Good. Lets say that you do kill yourself. Then you will win the argument by showing me that my theory did not apply to you. However, that will be after you die, so ... it doesn't actually serve the purpose of winning an argument with me before dying. And if you don't kill yourself because of our conversation this fine evening, then it would only prove my point."
"I hate you."
"Well, if its a choice between hating me and killing yourself, I'd much prefer the former."
"You're just going to argue like there's no tomorrow."
"Actually, that was the original situtation -- what if there was no tomorrow for you? or me?"
February 27, 2009
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