I saw someone interviewed who had set the criteria of being able to enjoy some ice cream with his children and grandchildren at the regular family dinner on Sunday late afternoons.
He said that alone made life worth living, for him and them, but once any deteriorating conditions rendered him permanently unable to participate in this weekly activity then he felt it was time to go.
Maybe having a pre-set condition like this is less arbitrary, and also allows everyone involved to understand as the time comes closer.
I think this is a fair measure of any life -- are there enough positives to offset the negatives? And that includes the cost (and the benefit) of your suicide on others. No one but you should be able to make that call. All that remains then, legally, is to ensure you are well informed about the de/merits of your choice and sane enough to make the call.
Of course, even if you lack legal permission, suicide doesn't strictly _require_ legal or medical assistance. An autonomous exit is always an option, though generally less painless than assisted.
I prefer the state table, with columns for states, this forces you to consider every possible transition of every state and this means the definition is unambiguous and exhaustive.
Additionally, you can easily define what output conditions are for every output in every state.
Where more than one possible to state transition exists, then you put multiple columns (one for each possible transition destination) and it is a matter of first solved wins, I usually go left to right, top to bottom.
I have developed a PyQt desktop application that allows building such tables, simulating them one scan at a time and generates code and documentation. Also, it allows for hierarchal state machines so you can build up very complex systems. I initially used it to develop Burner Management System compliant to IEC61511.
you will have abstractions - black boxing, interface overviews etc, humans can only hold so much detail in current context memory, some say 7 items on average.
Of course, but even those blackoxes are not empty, they've got a vague picture inside them based on prior experience. I have been doing this for a while so most things are just various flavours of the same stuff, especially in enterprise software.
The important thing in this context is that I know it's all there, I don't have to grep the codebase to fill up my context, and my understanding of the holistic project does not change each time I am booted up.
The skill of breaking down the system to smaller constituant parts was formerly the domain of the Systems Analyst - an occupation now almost extinct by formal title, as the coders reached up into this role.
Presumably this occured because the Systems Analyst was virtually archtecture agnostic, but a computer person could consider both the problem breakdown and the optimal architecture to fit, juggling each a little to optimise that interface between requirements and implementation. This personage then claimed the title of "Architect".
However, I am seeing, in certain areas, a deep lack of specification skills and wonder the Systems Analyst might not partially have a resurgence as a profession.
The concept works better for somewhat regulated environments, I have used it for functional safety.
For industrial controller software, esp distributed systems, there is a precedent of the standard IEC 61499.
One of the key components is the concept of an "Executable Specification", which may sound like unachievable BS, but if you are mainly doing state based systems, can be achieved by using state machines and working within a certain methodology/Activity framework.
I even wrote my own desktop application in PyQt specifically to satisfy requirements of 61508/61511 and the local burner code AS3814. The combustion and process engineers used this to specify (and verify by simulation, all within the tool) the exact exhaustive and unambiguous behavior for the machines (burner systems). As well for every state and transition condition attach a narrative about why it was like it was, with references, diagrams, attachments of manuals and datasheets etc.
Once all was decided, press the button, makes code, makes a documentation specification and compendium, and gives a level of traceability that is suitable for SIL 3, better accuracy, the systems guy (programmer) did not have to be a combustion engineer as well, because usually the crappy narrative type spec is always inadequate.
For certain types of code, this is the way of the future, and for things like rail and other super critical safety functionality, allows easy translation for application of formal methods to verify no unreachable conditions etc etc etc.
I had many colleagues that were initially in disbelief of the complexity but certainty of arbitrary functionality that was able to be specified with various hierarchal structures of state machines, as an executable specification
Yeah I said it was dhit when my ex-wife said she was going to do it, but it definitely did something.
And I am well aware of the placebo effect.
But just because something is not provable or falsifiable under current scientific knowledge, it does not mean it is neccesarily quackery, there's a Venn diagram there where some things may be effective.
Automatically discarding something that even occasionally gets results, because it doesn't fit current "knowledge" is the height of arrogance.
> But just because something is not provable or falsifiable under current scientific knowledge
Do you mean unproven instead of "not provable or falsifiable"?
Something not being falsifiable would mean that we can't detect if it's doing anything even if we tried, which doesn't bode well for its effectiveness.
Unfortunate, the whole landscape on this is littered with mines and finding truly knowledgeable help is difficult, most seem to just push their favourite flavour, regardless of the patient.
Any successful form of trauma treatment will first make it worse, because you open the can of worms and begin to go deep. Unfortunately, many therapists are not very good at explaining that up front. If you only have a few sessions, it is basically guaranteed to make matters worse. That's a sign that it is working (but maybe a sign to switch therapist if it wasn't explained well and cautioned about; making sure the environment and person is ready for it should happen first...).
He said that alone made life worth living, for him and them, but once any deteriorating conditions rendered him permanently unable to participate in this weekly activity then he felt it was time to go.
Maybe having a pre-set condition like this is less arbitrary, and also allows everyone involved to understand as the time comes closer.