Existence brings pains as well as pleasures, non-existence is a lack of pains and pleasures. While pain is bad...

>I'm pretty sure it just makes no sense to talk about whether it's bad or not for non-existent 'things' to ""stay"" not existing or come into existence
This is a valid question to raise, but I think it still does make sense.
Specifically I think it makes sense because most everyone recognizes there is some value in putting to sleep pets who are suffering from chronic illness like cancer. I think even for those who wouldn't choose to put their own pet to sleep in this situation (and I don't actually think all that many pet owning people exist who wouldn't do that, but let's say there is a minority out there who wouldn't for the sake of argument) they would still at a minimum recognize how the euthanasia others practice is an act of compassion to alleviate suffering rather than an act of coldblooded murder.
Now coming from this point where you recognize euthanasia is generally an act of good for these pets, what you end up with is the notion that the absence of suffering is good even when the subject of that suffering has passed away. The fact the dog who was put to sleep doesn't exist anymore doesn't make the absence of suffering less good. It's a good thing because it stopped the alternative of the dog continuing to exist and to experience severe pain / discomfort.
Similarly, you can do the same thing in the opposite direction and compare the scenario where you prevent a life from coming into existence because you knew it was destined to chronic illness and a painful death due to the would be parents' genetic screening test results. The hypothetical person wouldn't exist, but it would still be a good thing to prevent that suffering because now the alternative where he does exist and does suffering greatly has been eliminated.
(might continue in another post)

(Continued)
I think there's a temptation at this point to try to argue this means you can say the same thing for pleasure. I would disagree with that though because pleasure isn't really just some opposite good to the evil of suffering but is instead itself relief from a somewhat non-good condition of being subject to craving.
If you had no craving for pleasure to begin with, the absence of pleasure wouldn't be a bad thing. This general sense of what pleasure is about is a lot like the relief from heroin addiction that comes from shooting up. In one sense it might feel good, but in another arguably more important sense it would have been better for the subject to not have gotten caught up in an addiction like this in the first place.
Similarly, even people who are 100% life affirming and believe having children is a moral good and a "gift of life" you're giving to them don't typically feel remorse over all the countless many potential lives they've deprived of pleasure each day by not actualizing it with insemination i.e. no one I'm aware of looks down at a tissue they've just masturbated into and mourns all the loss of potential life.
So I think it's absolutely correct that there's a significant asymmetry in how pleasure and suffering work and that there's more of an argument for sparing others from suffering than there is an argument for ensuring others get to experience pleasure.

You will alwaus "be" in some sense. This is inescapable, as indicated by the dread Parmenides and explained by the Twin Philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. So, the question is based on a metaphysical misunderstanding. Rejoice in your eternal existence.

>This is inescapable, as indicated by
Post your own argument, don't just point to famous philosophers like that means it's a foregone conclusion. You could just as easily point to famous philosophers who hold a contrary position on whether existence is eternal. And there are many untrue positions ancient philosophers held which can be pretty definitively debunked with the benefit of historical hindsight and modern science. So for multiple reasons it's not a very good argument to just cite some historical intellectual's stance on a topic as proof that stance is correct and contrary stances are mistaken.

Don't be so eager to be a cunt. I list the philosophers to make my meaning clearer and alert those who know. If you disagree with what I'm saying, or wish to hear more, you need only ask. There is zero need for you to shit the bed.

Fundamentally speaking, there is the principle "being is". Unless someone will further posit that being can be created or destroyed, and then successfully carry that point, then I remain on firm ground.

I'm not being a cunt, I'm just explaining why you haven't made an argument yet.
>Fundamentally speaking, there is the principle "being is".
I don't see how the phrase "being is" says anything at all.
This is going back to the same problem I brought up initially, which is that you're just referencing a philosopher instead of explaining in your own words why you believe your conclusion makes sense. If you tell some random person on the street "being is," they will rightfully have no idea what you're getting at. Pretend you're explaining what you're trying to get at to a random person on the street and use plain English. You might be surprised to discover when doing that work of explaining what you believe in that there are some assumptions you're glossing over as given by skipping to the philosopher reference which actually aren't all that given or definite at all.

>implying pleasure=good
>implying pain=bad
nigga u srs?

Go swing by a bugcatching party and contract HIV if pain is good. You'll get plenty of that sweet pain dying from AIDS.

>Existence brings pains as well as pleasures
There is no pleasure without pain, but there is pain without pleasure. Therefore, to avoid suffering, one must stop existing.

Are you schizophrenic or just very stupid?

>pain isn't bad but I don't want pain because it's bad
Great job, user. You really made a stellar non-point there.

>I don't want pain because it's bad
Where did I say this?

You were being cunt, because you got up in arms when I didn't provide a supporting essay with my observation, despite the fact that nobody had actually raised any issue with my observation at that time.

"Being is" is the most fundamental metaphysical axiom possible. You could rephrase it as "there is", or "is", or "existence" or whatever other phrasing you prefer.

It absolutely is being stated by me, though, and is not reliant on the reader being familiar with various philosophical works. Ask questions if you need clarification, but if you are ultimately incapable of understanding it, then you are literally incapable of philosophy.

Once I have made this point, which I have, I am done and may rest. My point is proven. Without a further axiom successfully posited that allows for the destruction of being, there should be no talk of some sort of actual "not being".

That sort of reasoning rests on the assumption that the two were somehow qualitatively comparable but that is not necessarily the case. If we change the premise, and argue that a moment of pleasure is worth a lot more than a moment of pain. Not to mention that pain, even momentarily painful, might as well turn out to be an experience to learn from and thus gain something positive out of it, then we reach the conclusion that non-existence is most definitely worse than existence.

>Being is
Are you trying to imply everything is all the same unified thing and calling this unified thing "being," or are you just saying things that exist do exist?
I don't think the former is necessarily true. For one thing I would make a big distinction between the sort of being that physical objects have vs. the sort of being that processes have e.g. we generally differentiate between hardware and software since programs aren't physical things themselves but instead abstract concepts supported by physical hardware.
And generally speaking I think the more common interpretation of what we are as "beings" is closer to software than to hardware i.e. it's more the ongoing process of mental activity that we identify as a person rather than the physical jelly in their skull that allows that process to take place.
>destruction of being
Physical objects might not get destroyed in an absolute sense since even if you burn something its material still exists in some form as ash and smoke, and even if you shatter a glass this doesn't make it disappear from existence so much as change into a bunch of separate smaller pieces.
Abstract processes though don't work that same way. When an abstract process ends, it doesn't continue on in some other form. It just ends. If you incinerate a computer with a spreadsheet saved on it, the physical parts of the computer will continue in an altered burnt form but the spreadsheet it supported will simply cease to exist.
Similarly, you can differentiate between objects vs. the pattern of objects arranged in different ways either spatially or in sequence over time. These sorts of patterns can exist and they can also cease to exist. A storm is a good example of how this works in reality. The physical components that underlie a storm might not ever blink out of existence, but the pattern of the storm that emerges from those components does have an ending.

I'm not saying that there is only one, no; I agree that the monad gives birth to the dyad, that there is division. This is a further step, though; the point is that all that can be spoken of is contained in being.

So, the real point is how do you get non-existence, which is what the OP spoke of as the alternative to being alive. Nothing in the axioms we've laid down allow for such a thing. You say that an abstract thing can end, but I don't know what you mean by that. You presumably acknowledge that it still exists, because you haven't posited anything other than being.

>You presumably acknowledge that it still exists
I don't. A spreadsheet on your computer doesn't still exist if you break that computer. The physical components of the computer still exist, but the spreadsheet was never physical itself and is instead a pattern of activity that no longer exists.
Also even if this weren't true it's pretty irrelevant to the topic of this thread since you can just replace "existence" with "living" and get the same idea out of it. You don't need to prove nonexistence is possible if you're instead just talking about non-life, and I don't think anyone would argue against the claim there exist both living things and nonliving things.

If it doesn't exist, how do you keep talking about it? You haven't posited anything outside of being, and you haven't posited that being can be created or destroyed. Until you do that, you can only reorganise; everything still exists, proven by the fact that you are still able to speak about everything that you claim is gone.

If you're not going to posit any escape from being, then you have to account for ALL the constituent parts of the living creature when it dies. If you don't know what happens to the mind, that's fine. Yet, if that's the limit of your knowledge, then it's a bridge too far to claim that death is the end of pain or pleasure.

All that has been shown is each of our constituent parts persist eternally, we persist eternally as an idea and as potential, and given sufficient time we will live again and have this exact same conversation.

Which brings me back to my original point, which is that the OP is based on metaphysical ignorance and a misconception of what is possible.

>If it doesn't exist, how do you keep talking about it?
Because it did exist in the past.
>you can only reorganise
Sure, for *physical objects*. Not so for patterns or processes. In fact the "reorganization" you're bringing up is exactly that distinction of things vs. patterns of things. The things might get reorganized, but the original organization of those things doesn't get reorganized. It simply ceases. Your heart doesn't disappear when you die of cardiac arrest but the pattern of your heart beat does come to an end.
>If you don't know what happens to the mind, that's fine. Yet, if that's the limit of your knowledge, then it's a bridge too far to claim that death is the end of pain or pleasure.
Mind is a process the brain generates, and when the brain dies that process stops.
>we persist eternally as an idea and as potential, and given sufficient time we will live again and have this exact same conversation.
Recurrence isn't actually guaranteed just because you have an infinite amount of time:
>Even if there were exceedingly few things in a finite space in an infinite time, they would not have to repeat in the same configurations. Suppose there were three wheels of equal size, rotating on the same axis, one point marked on the circumference of each wheel, and these three points lined up in one straight line. If the second wheel rotated twice as fast as the first, and if the speed of the third wheel was 1/π of the speed of the first, the initial line-up would never recur.