A useful neologism for me, anyway, is bioexodos. Formed from the Greek roots βίος (“life”) and ἔξοδος (“departure, marching out”) it means any action undertaken to put an end to one’s current existence, which might or might not lead to a possible future existence that is not so filled with suffering as this one. As such it could include such undertakings as
- Suicide;
- Something short of outright suicide, but perhaps placing oneself in a situation where death is highly likely, perhaps with the intent of somehow benefiting others directly or indirectly through one’s own extinction;
- Putting oneself into cryonic or some other form of (putative?) preservation of one’s personhood not after one’s legal death but when one is still alive, probably with conditional instructions that one is only to be revived if the world has changed in significant ways such that whatever existence one might have after revival will not include so much suffering;
- Participation in some sort of very dangerous scientific undertaking which is likely to result in one’s death but, in the unlikely event that it succeeds, will fundamentally transform one into a different kind of being that does not suffer so much.
Bioexodos is thus a complex concept. I wonder if people who contemplate it will be treated with any more decency than people who just contemplate suicide.
In a footnote, it appears that one of the dictionary definitions of ἔξοδος is “the end of a tragedy.” How very fitting!