Letters to the Editor
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Why not kill yourself?
The more scientific evidence that comes in, the more likely it seems that there is no permanent self or soul - all the wonderful things I love about my husband could be destroyed by Alzheimer's, any quality I've worked hard to cultivate in myself could be destroyed in a car accident.
I desperately (probably like most people) want to believe not necessarily that there's a specific higher power, but that there's something transcendant about the world we live in.
A certain set of scientists (and I admire their logic) unerringly find the "hiding" place for that stubborn transcendant wish (quantum physics, the "substrate consciousness") and relentlessly argue that it's all just a pretty fairy tale. We're electric meat. Nothing endures.
I mean this question seriously: for those of you comfortable believing this, isn't it true at the very least that there's no reason _not_ to kill yourself? Your "self" has no inherent meaning anyway. Sure your husband and your cats would "miss" you, but that's just a cascade of chemical reactions. Who cares? You feel a strong sense of duty towards those who are less fortunate and would like to stick around to try to make the world a better place - but why try to alter other pieces of electric meat? It can't really matter if you're here or not, since "you" is a fictional construct. How can it be wrong to "check out?"