Ayn Rand's Immortal Indestructible Robot

[DavidOdden]

The point is not that pleasure and pain cannot be felt, rather that they are meaningless and interchangeable from the moment that they *have no consequence*.

That's clearly false. Here's a way that you can see for yourself. Make love to a beautiful woman. Remember the moment of "fruition". That's called pleasure. Now put your hand on an anvil, and smash it with a ball peen hammer. That's called pain. They are not interchangeable.

[mrocktor]

That's clearly false. Here's a way that you can see for yourself. Make love to a beautiful woman. Remember the moment of "fruition". That's called pleasure. Now put your hand on an anvil, and smash it with a ball peen hammer. That's called pain. They are not interchangeable.

Not to me, since I'm not immortal nor indestructible. If I were, I'd be glad to do exactly your test. I might be mildly curious as to how one sensation compares to the other, I might like the woman today, but after a few decades of that, I might decide that the anvil is actually cool. As you see, there is no point to pleasure or pain, no clear distiction of why one should be pursued and the other avoided if there is no consequence to the chioce.

mrocktor

[RationalBiker]

Both of you miss the point. Assume for the moment that you are immortal and indestructible. You have a pleasure/pain mechanism and how it evolved is not really relevant. Now, from the moment you are granted immortality and indestructibility, what keeps you from stepping on rusty nails - just to know what it feels like? Why not cut off your arm just to know what *that* feels like, if it will grow back?

The point is not that pleasure and pain cannot be felt, rather that they are meaningless and interchangeable from the moment that they *have no consequence*.

mrocktor

Your premise of "immortal and indestructible" assumes a model of regenerative ability, that if you cut you arm off it will grow back. It may only be that if you cut your arm off, you continue living, and your newly seperated arm continues living on as well. Neither have been destroyed, merely seperated. Would you wish to continue cutting limbs off if that were the case? Suppose cutting yourself with a rusty nail doesn't heal back, it merely just doesn't further your destruction. You continue living on, but now with a rusty nail hole in your foot.

However, that you could cut off your arm is evidence of destructibility, at least if only temporarily, if it could grow back. With this regenerative ability, what prevents your newly seperated arm from growing a full you back again as well, making two of you now? Sigh, the problem of dealing with impossible hypotheticals.

Your argument so far is that if one is "immortal and idestructible", is that the difference in the pleasure / pain sensations would be immaterial. I don't think just stating that is enough to make that case, even if something would just heal and grow back. What is your evidence that the difference between the two sensations would NECESSARILY be moot?

In your later post you said you would be glad to test the pleasure / pain principle if you were "immortal and indestructible". How do you know NOW that you would be GLAD to do that if those circumstances exist?

[JMeganSnow]

What on earth does this have to do with anything?

[RationalBiker]

In re-reading back through this thread, I realize that I have allowed myself to be side-tracked. The use of the immortal, indestructible robot example was never intended to be a model for determining pleasure / pain differences. It was used to illustrate how values are tied to our mortality, our life.

For purposes of public record, I'll leave my last post as is, recognizing that it actually has no relevance to what the thread was originally discussing. (other than pointing out the somewhat dubious usefulness of considering impossible examples)

Edited October 8, 2005 by RationalCop

[hunterrose]

Of course we need to ask why he has that particular value. Why does he need red objects? What possible value can he derive from having red objects? He can't die if he does not collect red objects, whatever "feelings" he has over red objects are irrelevant. If you are immortal, what difference is there between pleasure and pain? Both are sensations, but they have no more meaning.

Basically you assumed exactly what we are trying to discuss.

I'm not so sure of that. If the assumption is that "hoarding red objects" has to be a need to a higher value, I tried to convey the opposite.

As for the whole pleasure/pain argument, IMO it's a lot like saying a millionaire who chooses to work can't/won't care how much he's paid... simply because the money he makes isn't "needed."

What on earth does this have to do with anything?

Depends on what you mean.

If you mean the pain argument, it was a bit sidetracking perhaps, but, in its defense, it was made with the intention of defending the Immortal Robot, whether or not it was adequate.

If you mean the Immortal Robot example is irrelevant, I'd disagree. Its underlying claim is that only living (as in mortal) beings can have values. But we can't make such a metaphysical/metaethical statement merely by observing that the only existents we know that have values are mortal beings. To borrow from another topic, such an reasoning would be invalid, because it doesn't give why being not-mortal would make it impossible to have values.

Rand wasn't making the statement that contextually only mortal beings can have values. She was saying absolutely that only mortal beings can have values... if I understand correctly. At least in the same sense that primacy of existence isn't a contextual statement, but an absolute one.

I agree with some other posters that the Immortal Robot does pose... problems, but I think such a question is highly beneficial, if not necessary.

[JMeganSnow]

The contextual nature of knowledge in no way alters its status as absolute. The primacy if existence, even, is contextual: it depends on the fact of existence! Without existence, there could be no primacy of it, or anything else, for that matter.

A millionaire that chooses to work can care quite a lot about how much he is paid! Suppose he wants to buy a large house in Hawaii, something that may cost quite a bit more than a million dollars! He can still care about achieving values even after he supposedly has "enough" to ensure, say, base subsistence for a lengthy span of time; since the moments you have are finite, the quality of those moments becomes of great importance indeed.

If you were immortal (which implies indestructible), though, even questions of subsistence do not apply to you. No questions apply to you! Your existence is non-conditional. The quality of your . . . blank out . . . what you possess is not life . . . is of no importance. Nothing can make any difference to you whatsoever.

As RationalCop pointed out: immortal, indestructible, yet intelligent entities are an impossibility anyway. The example was merely illustrative, not conclusive, it is up to YOU to grasp it.

Frankly, since you disagree with every aspect of Objectivism, I wonder why you are even on this forum.

[hunterrose]

The contextual nature of knowledge in no way alters its status as absolute. The primacy if existence, even, is contextual: it depends on the fact of existence! Without existence, there could be no primacy of it, or anything else, for that matter.

POE is contextual as in depending on existence, yes. But its veracity is not something that can be disproved by subsequent contexts of knowledge; POE isn't supposed to be true merely within a context of knowledge - it's fundamentally true... just as "only mortal beings can have values" is supposed to be.

I'm not questioning POE here

A millionaire that chooses to work can care quite a lot about how much he is paid! Suppose he wants to buy a large house in Hawaii, something that may cost quite a bit more than a million dollars! He can still care about achieving values even after he supposedly has "enough" to ensure, say, base subsistence for a lengthy span of time; since the moments you have are finite, the quality of those moments becomes of great importance indeed.

But I agree. I was saying that the pain argument is similar to such a millionaire argument. You don't even have to assume that the millionaire wants something he can't afford; he may just like to work, and not want to give his employer the wages that are rightfully his. Regardless, we both agree (I think ) that the pain argument isn't sufficient.

If you were immortal (which implies indestructible), though, even questions of subsistence do not apply to you. No questions apply to you! Your existence is non-conditional. The quality of your . . . blank out . . . what you possess is not life . . . is of no importance. Nothing can make any difference to you whatsoever.

As RationalCop pointed out: immortal, indestructible, yet intelligent entities are an impossibility anyway. The example was merely illustrative, not conclusive, it is up to YOU to grasp it.

Immortal doesn't necessarily mean indestructible.

There's a difference between saying "only mortal entities can have values" definitively and saying it only contextually. The latter allows the possibility that some non-mortal entity might have the capacity for values. If it is the case that immortal beings are impossible (not merely arbitrary,) I simply haven't seen that argument before.

Frankly, since you disagree with every aspect of Objectivism, I wonder why you are even on this forum.

Well, that's a rather extreme exaggeration! I actually agree with most, and seek elucidation on the rest of Objectivist aspects. If I were forced to defend myself in terms of my stance on this, I'd say I agree that valuing entities must have ultimate values, and that as far as an entity desires to act, it must be alive (able to act.) I just don't see how those and mortality are necessarily tied together.

*sigh*

the rebukes I must bear from my love

[JMeganSnow]

Immortal does mean indestructible, as has been mentioned elsewhere: if you CAN die, you just (say) don't deteriorate, sooner or later something is going to come along and kill you, in which case you didn't live "forever", hence no immortality.

I mean, even if you were completely "immune" to aging, you could still be run over by a truck and killed; in order to be alive there has to be some kind of process going on, and processes are subject to being interrupted.

[softwareNerd]

Strikes me that Rand's example of an indestructible robot is an old idea, with modern dress. It is anticipated by any philosophy that lauds renunciation (e.g Buddhism or the Gita, and -- to a lesser extent -- some aspects of Stoicism and Epicureanism). 

 

Rand says: "try to 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 to lose; it could not regard anything as for or against it, as serving or threatening its welfare, as fulfilling or frustrating its interests. It could have no interests and no goals." (Essay "Objectivist Ethics", in VoS)

 

To the Buddhist or a follower of the Gita who lauds renunciation of this world as a highest goal, the robot is the ideal. Of course, being human, the person is destructible, so he lauds the next best option: make it so that the destruction does not matter. Need the bare minimum, want and desire nothing, spend time in meditating on nothingness. The less you need, want and value, the less you stand to lose.

 

[Aside: Obviously, nobody can renounce every value. And, renouncing most is no fun. So, modern Buddhists and followers of the Gita often sound closer to full-fledged Stoics or Epicureans, or even a mix of both.]

 

[second aside: I realize a lot of this thread has been about robots, while Rand was not really trying to make a point about robots at all, but simply using them to illustrate a point about men.]

Edited September 14, 2014 by softwareNerd