Genius Around

Today I came across an article that caught my attention; first of all because of its sensationalist title:
Epic suicide note a masterful work of philosophy

Apparently someone had shot himself in front of a church which in itself is unfortunate but it happens. The more intriguing part however is, that the guy, by the name of Mitchell Heisman, had sent a “suicide note” of 1,905 pages to around 400 people. The article mentions that:

Suicide Note is a masterpiece of modern philosophy and a brilliant application of socio-biological theory to politics. I have read 400 pages of it so far, and have been unable to put it down.

The desert grows

Hmm, sounds interesting. So I tried to find the paper which is licensed under CC so I thought it would be easy. Nope, it took me a while to access the whole paper as a PDF.(Download: Mitchell-Heisman-Suicide-Note ) I started reading and even though I have only read 42 pages I feel that I need to share some first thoughts about this whole thing.

First of all, I have come across some articles talking about the suicide event but most of them seem more intrigued by the sensationalist event than by the actual “thing as such”. What do I mean by that? Well to me the suicide seems not only connected to his writing but I got the impression that they cannot be separated. In order to explain myself more clearly I would like to quote Heisman from his chapter on “An experiment in Nihilism”:

The problem of philosophy is that the paradoxes of nihilism may constitute the most universal condition or “highest principle” that rational thought has “progressed”. At the very pinnacle of rational Western thought lays the proposition that life is meaningless. Is this the most comprehensive insight that human reason is capable? Is this the fundamental conclusion that every experience, all knowledge, and every moment of living existence must come to terms with?

If the rational life leads to the nihilistic life, what are the consequences of a living intelligence whose highest organizing “principle” is this hypothetical nothingness? What would it mean, in concrete terms, to live a rational life according the insight of the nihilistic? What would be the ultimate consequence of applying the hypothesis of un-meaning to every belief, every thought, every action, every emotion, every purpose, and every goal? To nausea, to fear, to love, to terror?
Can one live a philosophy of the nihilistic, reconciling meaninglessness with every thought and emotion at every moment? If active unbelief were the highest organizing principle of a life, would the consequence be rational self-destruction? Could suicide represent the pinnacle of the rational life realized?

How far I can draw the implications of nihilism to life? To actively answer this question would constitute an experiment in nihilism: nihilism as a foundational premise for life. Nihilism as the highest organizing principle of a life.

In fact Heisman proposes that rational thinking leads to nihilism because all rational thought starts with the a priori assumption that life is superior to death. Self conservation is always the rational choice. From there he goes to offer that philosophy starts taking life and death as equal and that we should start questioning the premise that life is more valuable than death. He offers an experiment in nihilism and writes:

Challenging every living value by willing death is how I will test this question and how I will test this question is the experiment in nihilism.

By now I have concentrated on what he has written but does it seem far fetched that his suicide in front of a church might be an integral part of his philosophy of nihilism?

I am not far enough into it to give detailed explanations but so far the writing suggests that Heisman was too intelligent to just kill himself for the publicity. It makes far more sense to look into his philosophy and take it seriously in order to understand this whole phenomenon.

Anyone that is interested in philosophy, I highly suggest reading at least the first chapters in order to get an idea about it. It might not be your cup of tea but so far from my perspective it seems worth looking into it as it might really be a “masterpiece of modern philosophy”

Further readings:

My follow up post

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