In this essay, I assume arguendo that there is an existential trap and inquire into whether the trap is escapable. I provide arguments for and against the claim that the predicament is escapable via suicide. These opposing cases highlight the relevance of the termination thesis (TT), the truth of which I question. I preface the arguments with a discussion of life’s meaning and a description of the trap: the former frames the existential features of the latter. I also reflect on some axiological implications of the trap and close by presenting a problem for further study. Which is more plausible: eternalism or the TT?
Life’s Meaning
The topic of life’s meaning is multifaceted – a philosophical gem. There are questions about transcendent purpose. Is there one? If so, what is it? What’s the point of it all? Perhaps human life has no point. If this is the case, what’s the value of ascribing meaning, forming purposes, and pursuing projects from within one’s life?1placeholder Regarding value, is human life worth living? There are different ways of life. Is one better than another? Are they open to axiological ranking? If so, perhaps meaning is a matter of degree: some lives can be more and others less meaningful; maybe we can choose to live in ways that increase or decrease such significance.
We ask about order and intelligibility. How does human existence fit into the broader world? What’s our place in the cosmic context? Does it make sense to speak of place? We seek knowability. Are such questions coherent? Can we obtain epistemically certain answers to them?2placeholder If so, there might be useful guidance to discover regarding practical deliberations such as what subjects to study, what career to pursue, whether to marry, have children, etc. We wonder if these matters are objective or merely subjective. Perhaps aspects of both? If we are discussing matters of objective significance, then it seems we can be right or wrong about our positions on them and that these are not cases of mere feeling or preference.
We think about the worth of our lives as wholes and of parts of our lives – such as a fruitful or fruitless period of weeks or months.3placeholder We want our lives to count. We proceed deliberately as if making a difference, taking our aspirations and accomplishments seriously. We assume, explicitly or implicitly, that human existence matters. Yet we are capable of wondering whether we, or anything else, are of ultimate consequence in an objective sense. Some might worry that the answer is negative.4placeholder Suppose that nothing matters in a non-subjective sense: a farrago of desires drives our behavior; those urges eventually end, as do we; the world sub specie aeternitatis, ever indifferent to us and our interests, proceeds sans sorrow regarding the absence.
And more: suppose that human agency is an illusion; everything we do is causally determined by a combination of the laws of physics and the history of the universe prior to our doings such that they are wholly passive – better termed ‘happenings’ than ‘acts.’ We don’t act based on reasons or purposes; we are acted upon by the purposeless events of the natural world. On this way of thinking, we are not telic agents in the world but mere instruments of it. Even our interests and projects are forced upon us by a deterministic universe that itself has no purpose. Is human meaning diminished if we lack agency, autonomy, or free will?
In Ward No. 6, Chekhov has Andrey Yefimitch describe an existential trap in a way that raises some of these concerns:
“Life is a vexatious trap; when a thinking man reaches maturity and attains to full consciousness he cannot help feeling that he is in a trap from which there is no escape. Indeed, he is summoned without his choice by fortuitous circumstances from non-existence into life . . . what for? He tries to find out the meaning and object of his existence; he is told nothing, or he is told absurdities; he knocks and it is not opened to him; death comes to him — also without his choice.”5placeholder
For the sake of investigation, let us assume the reality and vexatious quality of Chekhov’s snare.
The Trap: An Elaboration
The situation is this: we enter the world at birth; this entry is not something we choose. For those with a philosophical cast of mind, it is common to wonder why one exists. Granted, contingent causal explanations are available. My parents came together at a time to produce me. But why did that union of those persons occur at that moment?6placeholder Why that particular sperm and egg? Why didn’t the union produce someone else? After all, in general, one’s parents seek to have a child, i.e., some child or other – assuming they are procreational planners.7placeholder But plausibly, though my parents planned for a child in general, they didn’t plan to beget me in particular. They did not have precisely me in mind. How could they, since they were not yet acquainted with me? Arguably, there was no me with which to be acquainted. It seems that nobody intended that I exist. Is there a point to my existence? If so, one cannot know it with certainty.8placeholder If not, it seems that we are cast into the cage by chance – or so goes Yefimitch’s concern.
Is there a telos to human existence as such? Is it a purposeless development of physics, chemistry, and biology? A random result of the Big Bang? How can we know? Religious, philosophical, literary, cinematic, and mythical answers about life’s meaning are available. The sciences provide content for consideration. Metaphors about meaning abound. These answers might be more or less plausible, more or less comforting, more or less interesting; they do not provide certainty or compel belief. We are free to believe them, free to doubt them, and free to wonder why we lack precision about such questions.9placeholder
Further, on Chekhov’s characterization of the problem, one cannot (choose to) escape existence. In this sense, it seems, one lacks autonomy concerning one’s terms of being: we can’t opt in and can’t opt out. Death might remove one from ontic entrapment, but death comes “without choice.” The state of affairs seems absurd, which might – let us postulate – be distressing for the one who construes it as such. Why postulate such a person? Some are susceptible to the “metaphysical tedium vitæ peculiar to reflecting men” and the “Weltschmerz bred of reflection.”10placeholder Such persons might desire freedom from what they take to be a vexing predicament. And if human life is on balance bad (i.e., axiologically negative) or believed to be so, it seems reasonable to hold that some would seek to escape it if such an escape were possible.
Here again is the central question of this article. Suppose that there is an existential trap. Is it escapable? To escape it, one must first be put in it (i.e., exist without choosing to exist) and then, by decision, do something to get out of it (i.e., decide not to exist and then carry out that choice). Can we escape? There is reason to believe so. Although we do not consent to enter the world – which would seem impossible, since such consent would require already being in the world – and death often comes without choice, pace Yefimitch, one can decide to die. One can select suicide as the (supposed) solution. One might, as Shakespeare put it, “take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.” One might seek “quietus with a bare bodkin.”11placeholder Hence, arguably, suicide is a means of escape. If so, death’s sting12placeholder is the trap’s unlocking.
Is the Trap Truly Escapable?
The question bears repeating because the proposed decamping might be illusory. Does suicide enable a release, or merely seem to do so? We are not asking here the normative question about whether it is nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to end them in self-killing. Nor are we asking if, given the trap, it is morally permissible to exit by suicide. Rather, we are inquiring about the logically prior question: is it possible to depart existence in this way? Our question is a version of Schopenhauer’s (1913) inquiry: What change will death produce in a man’s existence? The affirmative case articulated in the previous paragraph presupposes the termination thesis (TT), which holds that one’s existence terminates at death; in other words, death produces an end to one’s existential career.13placeholder To expire is to retire. The TT thus underpins the affirmative answer to our question. Is the TT true? Are there reasons to deny it?
One reason to reject the TT is that there are plausible arguments for eternalism, and eternalism entails the falsity of the TT. According to the eternalist thesis (ET), all times are real. Every point in time exists simpliciter, as do every event and entity therein. For instance, Plato and his writing of Republic, the drafting of the U. S. Constitution and its drafters, the present activity of the POTUS, tomorrow’s eating of lunch, and the generation of Americans born in 2050 exist simpliciter. The present moment and its constituents exist now, but all moments are real, forever fixed at their respective places on the eternalist’s timeline. No point in time is ontologically privileged.
Time is comparable to space: all points in space exist, though not all are here. From the perspective of where I write, only one spatial point is here; the rest are there. Yet here is not ontically special; it is subjectively significant: a point in space from my perspective. Similarly, all points in time exist: only one is now; the rest are then. And now is not privileged; it is a point in time from my perspective. Such temporal indexicals refer to real times, as spatial indexicals point to actual places. Hence, whatever is on the timeline remains there despite death. As Story (2022, p. 199) puts it, on eternalism, “there is a real sense in which if one is ever in the world, one is in it for good.” Death does not delete one’s existence. Plato exists in time, residing at his respective temporal locations despite his death in 347 BCE. Therefore, the TT is false.
The Termination Thesis and the Eternalist Thesis
We face a tension between the TT and ET. Let us outline the problem by considering the following triad:
- If the TT is true, one can escape the trap via suicide.
- The TT is true.
- One cannot escape the trap via suicide.
Each of these propositions is defensible, and yet they cannot all be true. If any two are true, the third is false. (1) is true by definition: the TT is defined such that death entails nonexistence. Consequently, (1) seems beyond reasonable doubt.
(2) enjoys support. Feldman (2000, pp. 103 – 112) examines several cases for the TT. For example, he discusses the argument that the capacities for rationality, intentionality, self-consciousness, etc., are necessary conditions for personhood. For any person, that person’s quietus ends his rationality, etc. Since death destroys these capacities, the person who dies ceases to be a person and, therefore, ceases to exist. Feldman also addresses the case that living things possess the essential property of being alive. To lose this property is to stop existing. Since death involves the loss of this property, death ends the existence of whatever dies.14placeholder In sum, the terminator has access to reasons in support of the TT and, therefore, can defend suicide as a means of escape.
And (3) is plausible. Recall that eternalism entails the falsity of the TT. Moreover, if eternalism is true, (3) is true: one cannot escape via suicide since death does not delete one’s existence. One might accept the ET because it explains why we can make true claims about the past and future. Presentism has trouble grounding such claims, but eternalism handles them smoothly – or so one might contend. For instance, it is true that Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo in June of 1815. Since eternalism offers ontic grounds for the truth of such propositions (e.g., the Battle of Waterloo exists in time and, as such, stands as a temporal fact, a state of affairs which is independent of the present moment and its ontological situation; this temporal fact grounds the italicized statement about Napoleon), eternalism is preferable to presentism, which struggles to support the statement.15placeholder
In addition, as Power (2018, p. 134) contends, presentism does not adequately account for the reality of what we perceive. On presentism, either what we perceive is not real yet exists at some spatial distance from us, or what we perceive is not at a distance yet is real. Neither option is appealing. The former seems contradictory and the latter implausible. Eternalism offers a better explanation (though it faces problems of its own). Further, eternalism is more consistent with contemporary physics. (p. 230). Lastly, for those holding that, at least in some cases, death is bad for the dead after they die, such a claim seems to require that the dead exist. As Bradley (2010, p. 273) puts it, “We must be eternalists if we want to say that death is bad for its victims at times after they die.”
Other things might also be bad for the dead when they are dead: broken promises made to them, lies about them, misuse of their legacies, and a lack of appreciation for what they accomplished while alive. Koheleth notes that at death, we leave our valuable projects to those who live after us. But those who live after us might foolishly destroy what we have carefully built. (Ecclesiastes 2:18-19) In short, the eternalist can construct a reasonable defense of (3). Affirming the ET entails denying that we can flee the existential trap.
Avoiding Awareness
If one finds the case for (3) more substantial than that for (2), one has reason to reject (2). Moreover, one who denies the TT cannot consistently affirm suicide as a liberation from our tangle because suicide, like any form of death, does not cancel one’s existence. It seems Chekhov is right: we are stuck. Perhaps dead men tell no tales, but if the ET is true, they exist nonetheless. The anti-terminator can grant that suicide enables one to avoid the awareness of one’s stuck situation. But he cannot coherently take suicide to provide a full flight. At death, one remains in the world, even if non-conscious at all postmortem temporal points, since (assuming eternalism) once in, one is in for good.16placeholder The dead are ontologically indelible.
Perhaps it is prudent not to think about the problem. Why dwell on bad news one cannot change? Epictetus (Enchiridion 1) is relevant here: “Some things are in our control and others not…if it concerns anything not in our control, be prepared to say that it is nothing to you.” Now, if suicide merely guarantees the avoidance of one’s consciousness of the trap, why choose suicide if there are other means of avoidance? What reason supports suicide if it is nothing more than an instrument to end one’s pondering of the problem? Epictetus might advise us not to worry about the matter since it is beyond our control. Distraction might help. As Pascal (Pensées, 139) noted, various forms of diversion can distract us from the human condition: “We do not seek that easy and peaceful lot which permits us to think of our unhappy condition, … but the bustle which averts these thoughts of ours and amuses us.”
Pascal might be surprised at today’s options for diversion. Manifold activities are available to contemporary persons to divert attention from reflecting on ourselves, our existence, and the human condition: games, toys, careers, money, pleasure, drugs, entertainment, social media, etc. Why execute the suicidal act if one can accomplish a relevant diversion via a series of sensual experiences: eating, drinking, smoking, listening to music, and catching reruns of Friends? Imagine an experience machine that enables one to become engrossed in a lifelong series of manufactured experiences, the engrossment power of which is sufficient to forestall thought about philosophical problems. If one fills one’s life with amusing activities, veridical or not, one likely will not become aware of one’s caged condition. As Pascal put it: “However full of sadness a man may be, he is happy for the time, if you can prevail upon him to enter into some amusement; … with amusement there is no sadness.” (Pensées, 139) Assuming the intrinsic disvalue of death, one might contend that other means of avoiding awareness of the trap are preferable to suicide as long as they do not have as much disvalue. Moreover, assuming the Kantian position on the dignity of personhood, perhaps one ought not engage in suicide, but instead find a way to avoid thinking about the trap.17placeholder
First Axiological Reflection: Satisfied Sensualism or Dissatisfied Socrates?
If the trap is ineludible, distraction seems a viable device for avoiding awareness of the problem, especially if one cannot follow the Stoics and regard the matter as nothing of concern. Diversion thus has instrumental value. Is diversion intrinsically worthwhile? Recall that the difficulty is for the thinking person. Such a person is inclined to ask: is the unexamined life (e.g., the life of diversion) worth living? Is it superior to the examined life of the thinking person who, though aware of the trap, chooses to engage in Socratic investigation? In other words, assuming the two ways of life are axiologically comparable, is it better to live as a satisfied sensualist or a dissatisfied Socrates if both are caught in the cage?
One way to investigate this question is to consider the debate between axiological hedonism and non-hedonism. The former is a version of axiological monism, which holds that there is only one intrinsic value. For the hedonist, the sole value is pleasure; if one finds it, nothing else objectively matters, though perhaps some pleasures (e.g., those of the mind) are better than others (such as bodily pleasures). The latter might be a different form of monism, such as areteism (i.e., the view that virtue or excellence is the only intrinsic value for humans), or a form of axiological pluralism, which holds that although pleasure qua pleasure is intrinsically valuable, there are other intrinsic values: persons, virtue, knowledge, reasonable belief, rational inquiry, freedom, creativity, aesthetic experience, friendship, etc. In short, a consideration of the following questions should help one to progress toward understanding whether the life of dissatisfied reason is preferable to that of satisfied sensualism:
(a) Is there one intrinsic value, or are there many?
(b) What is (are) the intrinsic value(s)?
Suppose a discontented wise person seeks reasonable belief about life’s meaning. Isn’t such an examined life valuable, even if the person is locked in the cage? The hedonist might say that the examined life is worthwhile, but only if it results in pleasure. If bustle and distraction deal more delight, then that lifestyle would be the hedonist’s preferred option. The areteist might also opt for examined living, since it constitutes virtuous flourishing. The pluralist might agree, pointing to the inherent values of rational inquiry and understanding. I cannot pursue the strengths and weaknesses of hedonism, areteism, and pluralism here. Perhaps readers will look further into these topics.
Second Axiological Reflection: Is the Trap Bad?
Suppose the trap is inescapable. Would this fact prevent or eliminate life’s meaning? Arguably not, and for at least three reasons. First, existence is a necessary condition for possessing meaning and value, not an obstacle to them. If we are stuck in existence, there isn’t anything we can do about it. The same holds true for everything that exists. And yet, plausibly, some things have intrinsic value and thus do not lack worth because of the snare. It seems right to say that one shouldn’t worry about what is beyond one’s control. Second, if there is a God, a perfect being of ultimate value who exists in all possible worlds, if any, then God cannot not exist. And yet, we generally would not conclude that divine existence is meaningless or valueless because of its modal necessity, which indicates that the mere inability to avoid existence is insufficient to prevent or eliminate meaning.18placeholder Third, if eternalism is true, then the TT is false. Death does not cancel our existence. Similarly, death does not end or prevent one’s value and meaning. If one’s existence has value and meaning, then that axiological combination exists simpliciter. Even if one’s worth does not reside at the points on the timeline after one dies, death does not delete any dignity one had because that value continues to be at its temporal points.19placeholder Perhaps Yefimitch’s concern is over the top. If there is a trap, it might not be bad, though the goodness or badness of living in it might have something to do with how one lives one’s life.
Conclusion
Camus (1991, p. 3) wrote that suicide is the only serious philosophical problem. His claim is an interesting bit of hyperbole. Moreover, as Aronson (2021) notes, “suicide is neither a ‘problem’ nor a ‘question,’ but an act.” Nevertheless, Camus astutely reminds us that there are serious philosophical questions about this act. In this article, I have posed one: if there is an existential trap, can we escape it via suicide? This question raises several dimensions of the topic of life’s meaning.
I have tried to show that the efficacy of such an escape presupposes the TT and that there are reasons to doubt this thesis. If the TT is true, suicide enables a flight from being. But if the TT is not true, such an extrication fails, thus undermining whatever instrumental value suicide might otherwise have had. The reflection now presents us with the task of comparatively evaluating the ET and TT. Which is more plausible and why? In addition, I have raised inquiries about the value of diversion compared to examination and whether the trap should concern us. I leave the reader to ponder these questions.
Works Cited
Aristotle. 350 B.C.E. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by W.D. Ross. Available at https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html
Ronald Aronson. 2021. “Albert Camus.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at https://plato.stanford.edu/Entries/camus/
Ben Bradley. 2010. “Eternalism and Death’s Badness.” In Time and Identity. Eds. Campbell, O’Rourke, Silverstein. Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Albert Camus. 1991. “The Myth of Sisyphus.” In The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Translated by Justin O’Brien. New York: Vintage International.
Anton Chekhov. 1892. Ward No. 6. Translated by Constance Garnett. Available at https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ward_No._6
Epictetus. 135 C.E. Enchiridion. Translated by Elizabeth Carter. Available at https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html
Fred Feldman. 2000. “The Termination Thesis.” In Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume XXIV. Available at https://people.umass.edu/ffeldman/TT.pdf
William James. 1896. Is Life Worth Living? Available at https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Is_Life_Worth_Living%3F_(James)
Blaise Pascal. 1669. Pensées. Available at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18269/18269-h/18269-h.htm
Sean Power. 2018. Philosophy of Time and Perceptual Experience. New York: Routledge.
Arthur Schopenhauer. 1913. “On Suicide.” In Studies in Pessimism. Available at https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Studies_in_Pessimism/On_Suicide
William Shakespeare. 1603. Hamlet. Available at https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/hamlet/read/
Daniel Story. 2022. “Life and Death Without the Present.” In Journal of Ethics, Volume 26, Issue 2.
One might argue that a transcendent purpose must be sufficiently valuable and morally acceptable. In the Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man” (Season 3, ep. 24), non-human persons from another planet have a purpose for human life, namely, to use human bodies for food. That purpose is transcendent in the sense that the aliens’ power and technology transcend ours. But the purpose is morally impermissible: for one thing, it involves treating persons as mere means. Moreover, one could ask “What is the purpose of those creatures and their actions?” Hence, a transcendent purpose must be sufficiently transcendent. When we speak of ‘transcendent purpose,’ we might mean something like definition 1c at merriam-webster.com: “to be prior to, beyond, and above (the universe or material existence).” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transcend The references to “prior to, beyond, and above” might be taken not in terms of space and time, but in terms of explanation and value. A transcendent purpose might be thought to be explanatorily prior to the universe or axiologically above it.
One might have subjective certainty or high confidence about such answers. For example, in the television show Vikings, Floki the boatbuilder is wholly confident that his purpose is to serve the Norse deities. But he is not epistemically or objectively certain, even if he believes he cannot be mistaken. He does not know that his purpose is to serve Thor and the other gods, even though he wholeheartedly believes it.
Arguably, parts of lives matter. But, given Moore’s principle of organic unities, the value of a whole human life is not merely the sum of the values of its parts. There is more to a valuable life than adding up its valuable segments.
It is important to note that human life does not need to possess perfect or ultimate value to have value or meaning. Otherwise, it seems, only a perfect or ultimate being would have a meaningful life. We are discussing the meaning of human life, not of divine life. Montesquieu wrote: “Le mieux est le mortel ennemi du bien.” The best is the mortal enemy of the good. (Pensees). It would seem to be an error of evaluation to think that perfection is a necessary condition for being valuable. A soccer analogy might reinforce the point. Sometimes the proper move in a game is the adequate pass or trap to keep possession for the team, building up to a goal seconds later. Not every move has to be – or even can be – one that makes the highlight reel. Otherwise, the reel would be the entire game, with all its moves and plays. The best players perform many ordinary moves, though they also perform exceptional ones when the game calls for it. The best games are a combination of a few great plays and the many good ones which make the match flow. Both points indicate that the best is consistent with the good and not necessarily its enemy. However, an attitude of accepting nothing less than the best can be at enmity with the good. After years of watching youth soccer as a father, I have seen this lesson play out many times. The flow of a youth match often breaks down because a player decides to attempt an infeasible superstar move at a moment when the situation calls for a simpler and satisfactory move. His teammates might call out: “Keep it simple!” In other words, don’t let the supreme be the enemy of the satisfactory! Excellence can involve aspects of the adequate. Sometimes, we do well to satisfice.
See Section VI of Ward No. 6. It is interesting to note that Chekhov might have anticipated Heidegger’s thesis of thrownness.
The same question can be asked about my parents’ parents, and their parents, and so on.
Some parents don’t plan to be parents.
I do not want to suggest that we must have infallible knowledge of all things for our lives to be meaningful. Nor am I saying that our probabilistic beliefs about such matters are unworthy of attention. However, one might reasonably wonder if the fact that we lack precise and unmistakable knowledge about such an important topic (i.e., the meaning and value of life) is itself an existential problem.
If we cannot obtain certain answers to such questions, this fact would not mean that they are unworthy of our attention, nor would it mean that the answers are worthless because uncertain. It seems the topics of this essay do not admit of the kind of precision and certainty available in mathematics and deductive logic. Still, we might tailor our expectations in the way Aristotle suggests, valuing our answers according to the degree of precision inherently available in them, and being willing to satisfice if needed: “Our discussion will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of, for precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions, any more than in all the products of the crafts… for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs.” (Nicomachean Ethics, Book I)
James (1896, Ch. 2).
Hamlet, Act III, Scene I.
I borrow this term from Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:55.
See Feldman (2000, p. 98), who articulates the TT as follows: “The Termination Thesis (or “TT”) is the view that people go out of existence when they die.”
Feldman (2000) evaluates these and several other arguments for the TT. He also argues against the TT.
Presentism is the position that only the present and its constituents exist. In other words, whatever exists (in time) is now. The past no longer is and the future is yet to be. Yet time “flows” in the sense that what is future runs toward the present and what is present recedes into the past. (This language is metaphorical; on presentism, the future does not exist and thus does not really flow into the present, and the past does not exist and so present things do not recede into it.) Growing block theory (GBT) can also provide grounds for statements about the past, though not for ones about the future. GBT is the position that the present and past exist but the future does not. The present thus recedes into a real past which exists in the non-frontal parts of the block of time. The past is thus ever-growing. For the sake of simplicity, I will set aside GBT.
For the sake of dialectical manageability, I am bracketing the idea of conscious life after death. This important idea deserves its own article. I cannot do justice to it here.
Although one might argue that to avoid thinking about such problems is itself a violation of one’s own rational nature, especially if the means of avoidance are detrimental to one’s personhood.
Divine existence differs from human existence insofar as ours is contingent. We don’t have to exist, even if given eternalism we cannot exit existence once we come into it. But if there is a God, God is a necessary being who exists a se. Theists, atheists, and agnostics can agree that if there is a God, God is a necessary being. In other words, God is either necessary or impossible. And if God exists necessarily, he cannot fail to exist; yet his life presumably would be valuable and meaningful despite not being able to exit existence. One might argue that God’s necessity gives his life more meaning and value precisely because it is better to be necessary than to be contingent, especially if the necessary being possess all the divine attributes.
This point is not about future persons remembering us or our streak, to use a term from minerology. (A streak is the residual powder left after a stone is dragged across a surface.) Nor is this point about having children so that one’s genetic line continues. Rather, regardless of whether one is remembered, and regardless of whether one has children, one’s value continues to exist because it remains forever fixed at its points on the timeline (assuming eternalism is true). In a sense, humans are impermanent: we don’t exist at every point on the timeline after our death. But in another sense, we (and all existing things) have some kind of permanence: we are always at the temporal points we occupy during our lives.