Does the "fact that life will end imbues life with vitality and meaning"

[Brant Gaede]

Michael D.: Please be more careful of your quotes. A sloppy reader might get the impression you quoted me three times, instead of just once.

Thanks,

--Brant

Edited May 15, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Matus1976]

Michael D.: Please be more careful of your quotes. A sloppy reader might get the impression you quoted me three times, instead of just once.

Thanks,

--Brant

My apologies Brant, I did not intend to imply that, edited the post for clarity.

[Dodger]

Matus;

You need to explain your position better because the constant digressions (whether purposely enacted or not) are causing your arguement to become blurred.

I believe your arguement is, for a shorter life expectancy, carelessness is inspired, but in a life that is expected to be almost eternal, extreme caution is taken in one's actions.

Am I right? Because clearly, you arent talking about an immortal being that cannot die, but merely a being whose life may last forever as long as that being treats his life with care.

[bmacwilliam]

"or you can't know how good comfort is until you are tortured, all of these, however, require you to subjectively be able to experience both states and then to compare the two. "

This is false and you know it! Whether or not we can actually experience death is irrelevant, we hypothetically compare it to life anyway and conclude that life is better. Does every person that's rich need to experience poverty to value money? Of course not, but they need to think about the possibility of being poor, for wealth to have meaning. There's no difference.

Your argument is worthless, you know it is, and you want to quit now rather than concede an unsupportable position.

So, everything ELSE other than life's value is directly related to scarcity, but life isn't? You call ME retarded, yet you argue against fundamental economic and value concepts.

You are better off quitting of course, but I am getting amused at how far your denial will go.

Bob

[Matus1976]

Just because Rand wrote that all values must be directly related the perpetuating life does not prove that pursuing a particular kind of life, a 'good' life, is without value. Rand can be forgiven for not making this explicit statement this oversight as indefinite life spans were simply not worth rational discussion at that time, and the importance of recognize life as a standard of value was so undervalued that the argument was far more important to make and the qualifiers not worth noting. But now you and most objectivists have taken a conceptual simplification and turned it into a gospel like commandment. Is Life your highest Value? is life your *only* value? How does loving your partner contribute to your literal mechanistic process of life? Perhaps they will help you when you are sick, and vice versa, but is that really why you love your partner? What does arguing on this forum do to perpetuate your literal mechanistic process of life? Sure you may rationalize and pyschologize and attempt to trace every one of your actions back to supporting the literal mechanistic process of life, but you miss Rand’s point entirely.

If Life, the literal mechanistic process of life, was your only and necessarily your highest value, you would be more than ready and willing to give up things which make your life *good* (selling out your family, friends, and loved ones) in order to merely perpetuate your breathing and eating. Life, in the literal mechanistic sense, is not what Rand meant by one's highest value, and this is obvious and explicitly demonstrated by Galt's willingness to commit suicide in order to prevent Dagny from being tortured, it is a particular *kind* of life, a *good* life, that is and ought to be your highest value. It is redundant to need to point this out, “life” in Objectivism implies a good life, but many people seem to miss that point.

Life means a particular kind of life, a good life, it does not just mean existing, and consequently a perpetual existence will not automatically rob you of pursuing values in accordance with a *good* life. So indeed, one can be immortal (even in the metaphysically impossible sense) and yet still seek to have a ‘good’ life, and not merely base all actions and motivations on perpetuating their mechanical existence (which none of you are doing anyway, otherwise you would be spending every waking moment attempting to defeat aging and disease, yet you remain on this forum arguing) But regardless, that type of immortality will never exist, it will only ever be something we approach asymptotically. So in your mind, at what point does your life cease to be worth living because your safety and existence is more likely to continue perpetually? Some day we may defeat aging and disease, your average life expectancy would then be some 5,000 years, since an accident will get you eventually. But soon you will wear comfortable and protective advanced technology clothing, and your body may be filled with nanotechnological robots capable of instantly repairing massive damage, lets say your average life expectancy may now be 50,000 years, is your life not worth living now? Or even farther down the line, you may slowly replace your neurons over time with electronic equivalents and then distribute your consciousness over multiple storage points simultaneously, now your average life expectancy is 5 million years, your literal mechanistic existence is virtually guaranteed, yet you must always choose to continue to exist, you must always continue to want to exist. Is your life not worth living now because the chance of death is so remote? Yet in all of these you can still pursue what you deem to be a *good* life. When the literal mechanistic process of existence is virtually guaranteed, you are free to focus on the *good* part of the *good life* and not merely the *life* part of it.

Stop appealing simplifications and out of context quotes to 'prove' an immortal life is valueless. Life is not the standard of value and morality, a *good* life is the standard, I should think this qualifier should be redundant to readers of Rand, yet it seems many people here fail to grasp this. As such, being guaranteed the literal mechanistic perpetuation of existence (if you choose it, being forced to be immortal is definitely not a metaphysically relevant scenario) does not rob you of value, but frees you to focus on the *good* part of life and not merely on existing.

[Matus1976]

Matus;

I believe your arguement is, for a shorter life expectancy, carelessness is inspired, but in a life that is expected to be almost eternal, extreme caution is taken in one's actions.

Am I right? Because clearly, you arent talking about an immortal being that cannot die, but merely a being whose life may last forever as long as that being treats his life with care.

Yes in cases where death is guranteed, people will be more likely to act carelessly. In a life which could be nearly eternal with care, people would be more cautious (on average, no doubt Bob Mac's and such will kill themselves)

Generally I am not talking about a metaphysically immortal being, something that is an impossiblity, but the point being made in this thread by Victor's original post and others that an immortal being would have no basis for values is still false (yes even though Rand used an analogy of an immortal robot, read my previous post on the distinction) even if it is an irrelevant discussion, I still do not agree that a metaphysically immortal being would have no values. Regardless, such immortality is not possible, and too often people use the indestructable robot analogy in order to oppose general life extension, asserting that any significantly unnaturally long life would be without value as well. *That* is rediculous

[Matus1976]

"or you can't know how good comfort is until you are tortured, all of these, however, require you to subjectively be able to experience both states and then to compare the two. "

This is false and you know it! Whether or not we can actually experience death is irrelevant, we hypothetically compare it to life anyway and conclude that life is better. Does every person that's rich need to experience poverty to value money? Of course not, but they need to think about the possibility of being poor, for wealth to have meaning. There's no difference.

Bob, you are agreeing with me here, this is what I have been saying all along. The people who suggest you must die in order to value life gloss over that in all the other cases where we think we need to lose something in order to truly value it we remain able to subjectively compare these experiences, but you can not subjectively experience death. Intelligent rational beings do not need to be tortured to know they don't want to be tortured and they do not need to die in order to know they value life. As I said in MY VERY FIRST POST

First of all, intelligent rational people can emulate these scenerios to enough of a degree to know they prefer them not to occur, I do not literally need to be imprisoned to value freedom

To which you responded in your first post that the possibility of losing things, and the difficulty in acquiring them, is what gives things value. A very twisted definition for values.

Your argument is worthless, you know it is, and you want to quit now rather than concede an unsupportable position.

Your argument is worthless, Bob. And you know it is. You want to quit now rather than concede an unsupportable position.

So, everything ELSE other than life's value is directly related to scarcity, but life isn't? You call ME retarded, yet you argue against fundamental economic and value concepts.

Scarcity, demand, supply, etc, decide the value of an object to another person within a free economy of trade. Would my killing everyone else make you feel like your life is more valuable? Well maybe, but only because it is forcing you to really think about the issue, your life isnt actually more valuable because you are the only life. The worth of an object or service within a society of material entities which must exist through material means is decided by their supply, cost, demand, etc. The value of a life, of *your own* life, is irrelevant to how many *other* people have life. I value my fingers and eyes because I have them, and I use them to further my efforts at a *good life*, not because few other animals can see so many colors so vividly and because no other animals have the dexterity of my hands and fingers, I could not care less what the relative scarcity or supply of opposable thumbs is when I judge the value of my own, similiarly I dont care whether their are 1 million other people or 100 billion other people in the galaxy, I still value my own life just the same.

Again, you have some very twisted conceptions of values.

You are better off quitting of course, but I am getting amused at how far your denial will go.

Bob

Bob, you are better of quitting, but I am getting amused at how far your denial will go.

[Danneskjold]

Seasonal milkshakes at Burgerville, limited time only, I'm'a go get one. They cost a lot though.

That did have a point.

Edited May 16, 2007 by Jeff Kremer

[bmacwilliam]

So much foolishness, first things first...

"To which you responded in your first post that the possibility of losing things, and the difficulty in acquiring them, is what gives things value. A very twisted definition for values. "

My basic point is that scarcity is undeniably intrinsically connected to value. You call this twisted. Very interesting.

Economic texts often use water or air as an example of various theories of value. This is interesting because both or either of these commodities are a very convenient and meaningful proxy for life. Simply, both are necessary for life.

So, let's look a little deeper. What happens to the value of water when we're surrounded by an enormous excess supply compared to when we're thirsty and in the desert? Of course, the answer is clear. Is there some intrinsic value to water? Sure there is, because it sustains life. Just like life has intrinsic value too, for other reasons perhaps, but that's not relevent. I don't dispute that life has intrinsic value. However, while you must admit that the value of water is inversely proportional to supply (and happens to be directly required for life and therefore is a good proxy), you magically assert that the relation of value of life to the supply of life is just the opposite?

This is not logical.

The truth is that life becomes less valuable and approaches zero as a lifespan approaches infinity. Basic, simple logic.

Bob

P.S. An even better proxy is time (perhaps this is one and the same because after all life is time). How valuable is your time when its limited compared to unlimited?

You're going to die in a month, and want to spend time with loved ones. Is the price for someone who wants to buy your time gonna go up or down? Remember, the price you sell your time for is the agreed upon value for both parties.

Edited May 16, 2007 by Bob_Mac

[Brant Gaede]

Value is not intrinsic. It is entirely subjective. It comes from the valuing agent The fact that more than one person might value the same thing the same amount doesn't change that.

--Brant

[bmacwilliam]

Value is not intrinsic. It is entirely subjective. It comes from the valuing agent The fact that more than one person might value the same thing the same amount doesn't change that.

--Brant

Yeah, I agree. Intrinsic wasn't what I meant. "Almost universally accepted non-zero value" is what I meant. Is there a word for that?

Bob

[Johnny]

Hey Bob Mac why don't you kill yourself now since that will undoubtedly give your life more value according to your logic?

Life is not a traded commodity unless I missed something? To say life is more valuable if there is less of it is sick. Is life more valuable if you die at the age of 25 instead of 60? How about dying at 6 months old? Is life more valuable if there are a million people on this planet instead of 1 billion? So I guess Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot were just doing us a favor by killing millions of people because it just gave life more meaning? To even value anything requires a consciousness to recognize the meaning of value. A living human being is a presupposition to the formulation and attainment of values in the first place. To say then the negation of a human being's existence gives value is undercutting the very meaning of the word "value" and is a contradiction. To then equivocate how we value water with how we value life is truly astoundingly stupid. I can't even believe anyone is seriously even entertaining such a notion?

Edited May 17, 2007 by Johnny

[Matus1976]

Seasonal milkshakes at Burgerville, limited time only, I'm'a go get one. They cost a lot though.

...

That did have a point.

Nice... Amazingly, Jeff, that Milkshake, that particular arrangement of atoms, mixture of flavors, plastic container and straw, all those particular things exist in that particular pattern NO WHERE ELSE IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE!!!! Talk about Scarce! Can one even being to fathom the value of such a rare and precious gem? A trillion dollars? A trillion trillion dollars? Amazing! Look closely folks, you will never see another milkshake like this one even if you were immortal. If value is derived from scarcity, than this milkshake (oh, and actually everything else) is the most valuable thing in the universe.

[bmacwilliam]

Hey Bob Mac why don't you kill yourself now since that will undoubtedly give your life more value according to your logic?

Life is not a traded commodity unless I missed something? To say life is more valuable if there is less of it is sick. Is life more valuable if you die at the age of 25 instead of 60? How about dying at 6 months old? Is life more valuable if there are a million people on this planet instead of 1 billion? So I guess Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot were just doing us a favor by killing millions of people because it just gave life more meaning? To even value anything requires a consciousness to recognize the meaning of value. A living human being is a presupposition to the formulation and attainment of values in the first place. To say then the negation of a human being's existence gives value is undercutting the very meaning of the word "value" and is a contradiction. To then equivocate how we value water with how we value life is truly astoundingly stupid. I can't even believe anyone is seriously even entertaining such a notion?

"Life is not a traded commodity unless I missed something?"

You missed something. When you trade time for money (called a job) you rent your life. You give up control over your life to another. Much like renting a tool. Within certain guidelines (like using the tool within it's limits) you rent your life in exactly the same way. The value of the rental is directly related (among other things) to the lifetime of the tool. If the tool wears out quickly, you will pay more. If it lasts a long time and doesn't wear out, the price will drop. C'mon, rocket surgery this ain't.

"To say then the negation of a human being's existence gives value is undercutting the very meaning of the word "value" and is a contradiction. "

We measure the value of life everyday when you go to work. Denying this is just denying reality. You'd probably like to believe your life has infinite value to you - it doesn't. If it did, your price to rent it would be infinite as well. You probably would like to believe that someone's else's life isn't more valuable than yours - wrong again.

You can throw around nonsensical emotional appeals to some primacy of life's value crap, but the reality is staring you right in the face every day when you rent your life (or sell parts of it).

"To then equivocate how we value water with how we value life is truly astoundingly stupid. I can't even believe anyone is seriously even entertaining such a notion?"

Not entertaining the notion when it's hitting you over the head every day of your life is what is "astoundingly stupid".

Bob

[bmacwilliam]

Seasonal milkshakes at Burgerville, limited time only, I'm'a go get one. They cost a lot though.

...

That did have a point.

Nice... Amazingly, Jeff, that Milkshake, that particular arrangement of atoms, mixture of flavors, plastic container and straw, all those particular things exist in that particular pattern NO WHERE ELSE IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE!!!! Talk about Scarce! Can one even being to fathom the value of such a rare and precious gem? A trillion dollars? A trillion trillion dollars? Amazing! Look closely folks, you will never see another milkshake like this one even if you were immortal. If value is derived from scarcity, than this milkshake (oh, and actually everything else) is the most valuable thing in the universe.

What's this about? Trying to deny the value/scarcity connection?

In fact, this is why people pay money for it. If it's good (rare) and it's limited time (also a scarcity contributor) then indeed it will be worth more. Continue, please... argue against yourself some more....

Bob

[Wolf DeVoon]

forced to conciously recognize [life's] value at that very moment because of the threat of it being taken away from you

I pulled this quote because I began to wonder if anyone here has been threatened with death, as I have, repeatedly. It is debilitating, draining one's desire to live, however energetically one strives to survive the threat of being killed. Assault does not imbue the victim's life with greater enthusaism for anything.

On the question of living longer and healthier thanks to medical technology, surely this pertains only to the rich. As Scott Fitzgerald said, they're different than you and I, and vastly different than the 1 billion poor savages who will never join the modern world in any meaningful way.

I don't think it matters how long we live, but rather what a man hopes to achieve in his life.

W.

[Dodger]

So why aren't we all going insane and doing completely reckless and otherwise illogical things as of now?

Why would you treat a longer life with any more care than a shorter one?

Since the life is SHORTER, it would be LOGICAL to value the time spent in that short period of time, but if it were LONGER, it would be LOGICAL to take time for granted because there is so much of it available.

Supply and demand.

If my conclusion is not valid, then tell me why I'm not going out taking part in 'risky' behavoiur.

[bmacwilliam]

So why aren't we all going insane and doing completely reckless and otherwise illogical things as of now?

Why would you treat a longer life with any more care than a shorter one?

Since the life is SHORTER, it would be LOGICAL to value the time spent in that short period of time, but if it were LONGER, it would be LOGICAL to take time for granted because there is so much of it available.

Supply and demand.

If my conclusion is not valid, then tell me why I'm not going out taking part in 'risky' behavoiur.

Supply and demand do indeed apply to life as well as most everything else that humans want or need.

Risky behaviour though is a little more complex. We see a much greater incidence of risky behaviour in young males. Something like 80% or more spinal injuries are males under 25. Why is this?

The best way to explain this is through evolution. Until a male has ensured that his genes will continue to the next generation, he has very little to lose (in an evolutionary sense) and will engage in risky behaviour to impress potential mates and discourage rivals. When a man has a wife, children, and home to protect (ie ensuring genes make it to the next generation) he has more to protect and risk behaviour dramatically drops off. This makes perfect sense.

People like to whine and protest that we can easily overcome our genetic predispositions because of our huge intellect. Well, it ain't that easy and evolution has shaped and explains much more behaviour than most people might think it does.

Bob

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Wolf,

Having been close to death several times, my own experience is the same as yours. I did not find life more fulfilling because I almost died. I, too, found the experiences as enormous drains and spiritually exhausting.

I had to learn to value my life from another premise. Achievement had a lot to do with it. I had to cultivate self-esteem and pride by positive productive acts and doing things I know are right.

Michael

[Wolf DeVoon]

If my conclusion is not valid, then tell me why I'm not going out taking part in 'risky' behavoiur.

Folks who use terms like 'conclusion' and 'valid' are awake to the meaning of risky behavior. Not everyone is so diligent in using their noodle. Some want to court disaster as an ego thang. On the other hand, the Sons of Liberty did a lot of risky property destruction, which nudged along the American Revolution, not for personal celebrity but to overthrow colonial British government.

W.

Edited May 17, 2007 by Wolf DeVoon

[Dodger]

So why aren't we all going insane and doing completely reckless and otherwise illogical things as of now?

Why would you treat a longer life with any more care than a shorter one?

Since the life is SHORTER, it would be LOGICAL to value the time spent in that short period of time, but if it were LONGER, it would be LOGICAL to take time for granted because there is so much of it available.

Supply and demand.

If my conclusion is not valid, then tell me why I'm not going out taking part in 'risky' behavoiur.

Supply and demand do indeed apply to life as well as most everything else that humans want or need.

Risky behaviour though is a little more complex. We see a much greater incidence of risky behaviour in young males. Something like 80% or more spinal injuries are males under 25. Why is this?

The best way to explain this is through evolution. Until a male has ensured that his genes will continue to the next generation, he has very little to lose (in an evolutionary sense) and will engage in risky behaviour to impress potential mates and discourage rivals. When a man has a wife, children, and home to protect (ie ensuring genes make it to the next generation) he has more to protect and risk behaviour dramatically drops off. This makes perfect sense.

People like to whine and protest that we can easily overcome our genetic predispositions because of our huge intellect. Well, it ain't that easy and evolution has shaped and explains much more behaviour than most people might think it does.

Bob

I disagree. I believe the best way to explain risky behaviour in males under the age of 25 is to understand that, in most cases, the younger they are, the less defined their values are.

Not only that, but society molds those weaker minded youth's to such a degree that they no longer value life, it seems.

[Danneskjold]

I'm with Dodger on this one. Also, the younger the less they realize that they're not immortal. As for my milkshake, it's there for a limited time so I'm going to go get one with more urgency. If it was there forever I might get more over a longer period time, but I wouldn't be urgent about it. The fact that it's not there long makes me want to not waste time getting to it.

[Guyau]

I wanted to let participants on this thread know that there are two fun essays on the topic in Objectivity, which are available at www.objectivity-archive.com.

These are:

"Would Immortality Be Worth It?" by Stephen Hicks. Click on Volume 1, Number 4.

"Can Art Exist without Death?" by Kathleen Touchstone. Click on Volume 1, Number 5.

[Matus1976]

I wanted to let participants on this thread know that there are two fun essays on the topic in Objectivity, which are available at www.objectivity-archive.com.

These are:

"Would Immortality Be Worth It?" by Stephen Hicks. Click on Volume 1, Number 4.

"Can Art Exist without Death?" by Kathleen Touchstone. Click on Volume 1, Number 5.

My comments on the Stephen Hicks Essay:

“Life is too valuable to sit around and just watch it slip by”

So if it is so valuable, and too valuable enough to just watch it slip by, why is it not valuable enough to choose to continue living indefinitely?

“Of course, immortality could be great – not because it would make life worth living, rather because it would give us more time to do more or get more or enjoy more of those things that do make life worth living”

My sentiments exactly, and by immortality of course I am referring to an indefinite life span, not metaphysical indestructibility. The author emphasizes this when they call it a “conditional immortality”

“It would be a conditional immortality, conditional upon your continuing to fulfill all the normal requirements for human life, including eating, sleeping, keeping warm, and so on”

The author writes

“I think values are possible only if one faces, in some form, a life and death alternative; so if one is unconditionally immortal, then no values would be possible”

I still disagree with this sentiment, even though it is conceptually a metaphysical impossibility, because it is not mere life that is our standard of value and basis for morality, but a particular kind of life, a good life that is enjoyable to us. One may rationalize every action to be indirectly related only to our literal mechanistic existence, but I think this is disingenuous, we highly value life because it is a necessary component of living a “good” life, a life can not be good without being alive, but it is the particular kind of life that we strive for, not just mere existence. That particular kind of life can still exist when the threat of destruction is reduced to such a degree as to be almost irrelevant.

“Now suppose we asked Steinbeck and Brecht whether immortality would be worth it. Their response would no doubt be: Are you kidding us? We do not see why any amount of life is worth living, let alone an infinite amount of it. Life is pain, depression, and horror”

Readers of this thread who object to conditional immortality as a threat to values and as a mechanism by which life is rendered meaningless should take this comment to heart, your lack of valuing indefinite existence is born of your philosophy, which is not a rational life loving one, but a pessimistic malevolent universe one.

A point this author hints at when they write

“The values to be achieved certainly need not be limited to any one range of items: they can include increasing your knowledge, enriching your friendships, experience art, developing your career, and so on.”

Also, when the author writes:

“An infinite amount of time would only give you more time to do more of those things that make life worth living in the first place. But that is to say that life *is* worth living in the first place, that life has value independently of the amount of time available to live”

And the authors conclusion:

“Whether your life is to be seventy-five years long, or two hundred years, or several millennia, the principle is still the same: time considerations are at the very least of secondary import if not irrelevant to the value of life”

That is, life is not meaningless because it is too short, or too long, a life is as meaning full as one makes it.

Ultimately, the author concludes (rather short sightedly) that an immortal life (indefinite life span, not indestructible) would eventually become a burden, simply because it would become boring. Once growth and change become impossible, the author argues, life is no longer worthwhile. The author rests this argument on the infinite life span in a finite universe and that ultimately all experiences will become repeats of past experiences.

For starters, there are in fact in infinite variation of experiences possible, even in a finite universe, experiencing something you have all ready experienced with a new information set will market he experience new as well, that is, the fact that you experienced it *now* instead of *back then* makes the experience intrinsically unique.

In short, the author does not make a sufficient case that growth and change are impossible perpetually. Even so, this is an argument against a life span that stretches *billions* of years, where one has visited hundreds of galaxies and millions of planets, and read every book and seen every piece of art work and heard every song, etc. This is not an argument against life extension, or even radical life extension, but only a problem, even at the authors admission, that would arise only after billions of years. As such, I would hardly take this to be a rational objections to radical life extension, and actually something that argues strongly in favor of it, as “Any amount of life is preferable to none at all, that human life is the most precious thing in the world” (and I would add, as before, a very long life is preferable to a short one)

Michael

[Matus1976]

I wanted to let participants on this thread know that there are two fun essays on the topic in Objectivity, which are available at www.objectivity-archive.com.

These are:

"Would Immortality Be Worth It?" by Stephen Hicks. Click on Volume 1, Number 4.

"Can Art Exist without Death?" by Kathleen Touchstone. Click on Volume 1, Number 5.

My comments on the Kathleen Touchstone essay.

“Imagine an immortal, indestructible robot, an entity which moves and acts, but which cannot be affected by anything, which cannot be changed in any respect, which cannot be damaged, injured or destroyed. Such an entity would not be able to have any values, it would have nothing to gain or lose; it could not regard anything as for or against it, as serving or threatening its welfare, as fulfilling or frustrating it’s interests. It could have no interests and no goals.” - Ayn Rand

I think commenters in this thread haven’t read this full passage recently, note Rand does not simply say “Imagine an indestructible robot… it could have no interests or goals (thus values)” but explicitly asks us to imagine not only an indestructible robot, but a robot which can not change in *any* respect.

Why that qualifier? Because change and growth are closely related to having values and goals, if this robot, or the immortal beings in “Tuck Everlasting” could not change in *any* respect, than they could not even form new memories, they could not have new experiences, they could not grow and pursue a ‘good’ life.

As elaborated in the “Can Art Exist without Death” article by Kathleen Touchstone, linked by Stephen Boydstun, Piekoff developed this idea further, and added the further qualifiers that this robot could not even feel anything, it could not have pains or pleasures. Indeed, such an entity, which perpetually exists, is indestructible, and unchangeable, and can not feel anything (can it even think?) would certainly have no values, it is hardly indistinguishable from a sub atomic particle, no living entity, no conscious, sentient entity could be described in such a way.

This essay mentions Charles King assessment:

“King argues that it is not necessary to have an ultimate value in a system of values; that it is by virtue of having values (what one values) that life is valuable, not the other way around. Life is an instrumental, not an ultimate value”

I would have said, of course, that ‘life’ (the mere mechanistic process) is not our ultimate highest value, but a particular kind of life, the *good* life we aspire to attain, essentially what Kind is saying, though I do identify and argue of a particular highest value, and life is the instrument to pursue it.

Readers arguing that the scarce commodity of time in life is what brings it value ought to read the second essay, which examines that claim in some detail. Interestingly, Touchstone’s essay adds this point, countering the “boring” argument in Hicks essay essentially the same way I did; “If one effectively has forever, it may follow that these kinds of opportunities will arise again and again. But, in some sense, each experience is unique. Regardless of how similar, no two are exactly alike”

Let’s look at Touchstone’s elaboration on Piekoffs elaboration of Rand’s Indestructible Robot Analogy. Touchstone writes:

“Suppose that, for an immortal being, eating food would no longer be necessary to sustain life. The senses of taste and smell would no longer be required. The evolutionary tendency is for anything that is not used to be eventually lost. However, it could be argued that even if immortals did not need to eat, they might enjoy it, and the pleasure of doing so would be sufficient to retain the capability. Procreation, except under very unusual assumptions, would be illogical, however. There would be no need to procreate, physical pain would not be needed to warn the organism of physical danger. Sensation for heat flow need no longer exist to preserve life.”

What follows is a lot of rationalizations which seek to make the source of every single action of rational sentient human beings merely actions to sustain literal mechanical existence (the joy from mental exercise prepares us for complex situations, the joy from competition sports refines our reflexes and perceptual abilities, etc) This is the same materialistic crap that is so prevalent in Skeptic circles, which basically abdicate any human volitional capabilities which come from choices and values in favor of mind numbed automatons bent on sex and survival. Such is a sad view to hold of one’s own existence.

Now, lets make Touchstone’s vision of an ‘immortal’ sentient being a little more realistic. Literal indestructibility is non-sensical to discuss, it is a metaphysical impossibility. The real ‘immortal’ being would have a small, yet still finite change of being destroyed. Thus, the sense of taste and smell would be extremely heightened, smell because dangers to existence which can be revealed through those senses would be more easily avoided (an explosive gas accidentally venting inside a space station, for instance) taste to detect poisons or other dangers to one’s existence, even in minute quantities. Some being might choose to retain many of our biological systems and functions, including the necessity to eat, or they might choose to retain the joy of it, and implant a nano-scale fusion reactor just in case food becomes too scarce. Physical threats to ones existence would be heightened, not diminished, to ensure longer perpetual survival (read about the Puppeteers in Larry Niven’s "Ring World" for a fictionalized example of this) Certainly sensations for Heat flow would be heightened to a great degree, since extreme temperatures will probably always be a threat to ones existence.

Procreation would be illogical?? Here is the disgusting embodiment of that philosophical materialism notion that humans only have children in order to procreate, I don’t even feel this point worth rebutting it is so disgusting.

Additionally, evolution by natural selection is for beings undergoing external selective pressures, and occurs because the 95% not containing the right mutations die brutal deaths. Humans of course no longer are undergoing any kind of evolutionary pressures to any significant degree, and the ability to manipulate our own genetic code and that of our off springs renders the idea that ‘things we don’t need, like the sense of taste, would disappear’ in-applicable, never mind that they would be irrelevant given the fact that in order to ensure a longer life we would need to be more aware and more cautious of threats to our existence. A being who expected to live tens of thousands of years would need to start worrying about asteroid impacts, getting struck by lighting, space craft crashes, landslides, random severe mechanical failures, etc etc.

Ultimately, Touchstone refashions Rand’s immortal robot, giving it feelings and senses, and abstract reasoning, but retains it’s indestructible nature. She glosses over the aspect of change, and of the ability to pursue the value of a *good* life, and instead focuses on the literal indestructibility and so asserts values are not possible and Art would not exist, in any meaningful sense.

Why so much time is spent discussing a metaphysically impossible scenario is beyond me.

Edited May 22, 2007 by Matus1976