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Not intelligent design, if thats what you were thinking. Simply put, that function developed by the natural evolution of the planet's unique environment.

And that's exactly what I was thinking. You are contradicting yourself when you say on the one hand that it was a product of natural evolution and on the other hand you call it a technology. Technology is all that which men develop using their rational faculty, above and beyond what nature has given them.

The Na'vi did not seem to be using their rational faculty for anything, and frankly, they did not show many signs of even having any.

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The Na'vi did not seem to be using their rational faculty for anything, and frankly, they did not show many signs of even having any.

Hyperbole. If even infant humans can be recognized to have a rational faculty, certainly the speaking and tool making Na'vi have a rational faculty.

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Hyperbole. If even infant humans can be recognized to have a rational faculty, certainly the speaking and tool making Na'vi have a rational faculty.

I already addressed the issue of language and the same thing applies to the tools. And even if they had a rational faculty, that does not change the fact that they refused to use it.

---

Let me ask a question to all those saying that the Na'vi had rights: In what way were the Na'vi different from the Indian tribes inhabiting the American continent?

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Their rational faculty was in use or there would be no evidence for concluding they had one.

The Indians as individuals had rights, and the Indian tribes were recognized as political units capable of negotiating treaties. The property claims of the Indian tribes in North America were not justified by any use or improvement of the vast majority of the land they claimed. The difference compared to the fictional Na'vi is that the Na'vi had a justified claim to the land they were occupying based upon their use and improvement.

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The Na'vi did not seem to be using their rational faculty for anything, and frankly, they did not show many signs of even having any.

Explain, then, how they could figure out how to reinforce their bows with naturally occurring carbon fibers?

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In what way did they improve it?

The Na'vi improved their hometree in the following ways: clearing access to it, carving an interior stairway in the trunk, slinging hammocks in the branches, feeding their dead to the roots, using it for storage, hanging various decorations and ornaments about it.

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Suppose a corporation wants to build a bridge over a river but a number of people object because it would mean displacing a colony of beavers who have built a dam at the proposed site. They argue that the beavers have a rightful claim on that section of the river because they have improved it by constructing the dam, and the fact that they were able to build a dam is evidence that they possess a rational faculty. Is this a valid argument?

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Suppose a corporation wants to build a bridge over a river but a number of people object because it would mean displacing a colony of beavers who have built a dam at the proposed site. They argue that the beavers have a rightful claim on that section of the river because they have improved it by constructing the dam, and the fact that they were able to build a dam is evidence that they possess a rational faculty. Is this a valid argument?

That's not much of an analogy.

It's self-evident from the movie that the Na'vi had rational capacity. They had language, self-awareness, they manufactured tools to promote their own survival, they used the land they lived on as they saw fit.

There are a lot of valid reasons to simply loathe this movie - but trying to portray the Na'vi as being on the same intellectual level as beavers isn't one of them.

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Greebo, analogies are not meant to be exact parallels.

Yes but they should also not run off at angles greater than 45 degrees either.

Grames drew a comparative analogy to the Indians in the context of the discussion of rightful ownership. You're equating the Na'vi to beavers in the same context.

Edited by Greebo
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Suppose a corporation wants to build a bridge over a river but a number of people object because it would mean displacing a colony of beavers who have built a dam at the proposed site. They argue that the beavers have a rightful claim on that section of the river because they have improved it by constructing the dam, and the fact that they were able to build a dam is evidence that they possess a rational faculty. Is this a valid argument?

No. The behavior of animals is given to them as part of their identity not as a reasoned response to the environment. The Na'vi are shown to exist in several different tribes in different parts of their world learning to live in different environments by coming up with different solutions to the problems of survival. But even if Pandora was a jungle planet and the entire world was the same there would be ample evidence to conclude the Na'vi survival skills are the product of thinking, learning, and teaching and not some form of innate knowledge or genetically based patterned behavior.

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No. The behavior of animals is given to them as part of their identity not as a reasoned response to the environment. The Na'vi are shown to exist in several different tribes in different parts of their world learning to live in different environments by coming up with different solutions to the problems of survival. But even if Pandora was a jungle planet and the entire world was the same there would be ample evidence to conclude the Na'vi survival skills are the product of thinking, learning, and teaching and not some form of innate knowledge or genetically based patterned behavior.

You seem to be granting the Na'vi a lot more than the director did. :P Cameron made it a point to portray the Na'vi as guided by their emotions and their mystical beliefs and living "in harmony with nature." They were meant to represent everything that was un-rational. They were a concretization of how man could be and should be--according to the viros. The few feeble signs of reason that they showed were the minimum set required for the plot, and--as I have already explained and already referred back to once--could only exist in reality as vestiges of an earlier age when the species was still relying on its rational faculty as its primary means of survival. As soon as a species reaches the (hypothetical) ecological nirvana and "learns to live in harmony with nature," it has no more use for new knowledge gained by reason (which would only break the "harmony") and only uses words as a means of transfering the little already-existing knowledge involved in their existence (arrows, etc.) from one generation to the next.

Rationality and stagnation are antithetical, and the Na'vi were, as intended by the movie's director, the epitome of stagnation.

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Also, you mentioned that the Indians had rights as individuals, with the implication being, I trust, that they did not have rights as a collective. Now tell me: which individual among the Na'vi was the owner of the home tree, and how did he earn his claim?

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You seem to be granting the Na'vi a lot more than the director did. :P Cameron made it a point to portray the Na'vi as guided by their emotions and their mystical beliefs and living "in harmony with nature."

So? Actual persons are doing that right now all over the world, that does not turn them into a different species of subhumans.

Also, you mentioned that the Indians had rights as individuals, with the implication being, I trust, that they did not have rights as a collective. Now tell me: which individual among the Na'vi was the owner of the home tree, and how did he earn his claim?

It is not necessary to sort that out to arrive at the conclusion that blowing up the whole tree and driving all of the Na'vi away would violate that Na'vi's rights.

Edited by Grames
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Also, you mentioned that the Indians had rights as individuals, with the implication being, I trust, that they did not have rights as a collective. Now tell me: which individual among the Na'vi was the owner of the home tree, and how did he earn his claim?

"They did not have rights as a collective"?

So because they lived in the tree collectively they had no rights? So IBM doesn't own its own building? IBM is a business owned by a collective of individual stock owners, after all. IBM doesn't have rights because IBM is a collective, right?

My wife and I *BOTH* own our house. We're a collective of two. Since I don't own the house as an individual, since she owns it too, does that mean that WE don't have a right to OUR house?

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"They did not have rights as a collective"?

So because they lived in the tree collectively they had no rights? So IBM doesn't own its own building? IBM is a business owned by a collective of individual stock owners, after all. IBM doesn't have rights because IBM is a collective, right?

My wife and I *BOTH* own our house. We're a collective of two. Since I don't own the house as an individual, since she owns it too, does that mean that WE don't have a right to OUR house?

Obviously, using his logic, you are a collective and therefore irrational. He is then justified inblowing up your house and taking the minerals in your yard because he wants them. ;)

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Also, you mentioned that the Indians had rights as individuals, with the implication being, I trust, that they did not have rights as a collective. Now tell me: which individual among the Na'vi was the owner of the home tree, and how did he earn his claim?

The Home Tree was analogous to a village, town or small city. I do not own my city, does that give you the right to blow it up and take the minerals?

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No. The behavior of animals is given to them as part of their identity not as a reasoned response to the environment. The Na'vi are shown to exist in several different tribes in different parts of their world learning to live in different environments by coming up with different solutions to the problems of survival. But even if Pandora was a jungle planet and the entire world was the same there would be ample evidence to conclude the Na'vi survival skills are the product of thinking, learning, and teaching and not some form of innate knowledge or genetically based patterned behavior.

You seem to be granting the Na'vi a lot more than the director did. ;) Cameron made it a point to portray the Na'vi as guided by their emotions and their mystical beliefs and living "in harmony with nature."

So?

So they are not rational animals. As I have already explained and already referred back to twice.

Also, you mentioned that the Indians had rights as individuals, with the implication being, I trust, that they did not have rights as a collective. Now tell me: which individual among the Na'vi was the owner of the home tree, and how did he earn his claim?

It is not necessary to sort that out to arrive at the conclusion that blowing up the whole tree and driving all of the Na'vi away would violate that Na'vi's rights.

But you still have to show that such a Na'vi exists. (Or alternatively, show that a nonexistent entity can have rights...)

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But you still have to show that such a Na'vi exists. (Or alternatively, show that a nonexistent entity can have rights...)

No, we have to show that the Na'vi were capable of rationality. We do not have to know the finer points of their mutually agreed upon social terms to conclude that, as rationally capable beings, they had rights.

Given the portrayal of the Na'vi in the movie, it is self evident that the Na'vi were capable of rationality.

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So because they lived in the tree collectively they had no rights?

Greebo, there is no such thing as a collective. You cannot "live in a tree collectively" ; all you can do is be an individual and live in the tree with a number of other individuals. And you certainly cannot have collective rights--there are only individual rights.

The Na'vi, if they had been rational beings, would have had rights as individuals. But they still would have no basis to say, "This tree belongs to all Na'vi tribes, not to the humans." One of them, or a group of them, could say, "This is my tree," or "This tree is jointly owned by me and my wife and my uncle Joe." But no such claims were attempted in the movie; their supposed moral claim to it was precisely that they lived as one big collective that included the Na'vi tribes, the plants and animals, and the whole planet.

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The Home Tree was analogous to a village, town or small city. I do not own my city, does that give you the right to blow it up and take the minerals?

You own your house, don't you? The reason I cannot blow up the city is because the city is made up of houses and the houses are owned by individuals.

Edited by Capitalism Forever
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Greebo, there is no such thing as a collective. You cannot "live in a tree collectively" ; all you can do is be an individual and live in the tree with a number of other individuals. And you certainly cannot have collective rights--there are only individual rights.

Stop.

I said they lived there collectively, not that they had collective rights.

You are making things up. You are now declaring that collectives do not exist.

Main Entry: 1col·lec·tive

Pronunciation: \kə-ˈlek-tiv\

Function: adjective

Date: 15th century

1 : denoting a number of persons or things considered as one group or whole <flock is a collective word>

2 a : formed by collecting : aggregated b of a fruit : multiple

3 a : of, relating to, or being a group of individuals b : involving all members of a group as distinct from its individuals <a collective action>

4 : marked by similarity among or with the members of a group

5 : collectivized or characterized by collectivism

6 : shared or assumed by all members of the group <collective responsibility>

All of those concepts are real things. A collective can not have any more rights than any individual within the group, but because that is true, that group holds that right collectively because every individual within that group holds that right. As Rand put it, "A group can have no rights other than the rights of its individual members."

The Na'vi, if they had been rational beings,

On what basis presented in the movie do you claim that the Na'vi were not beings capable of volitional rationality?

You are confusing the fact that they did not always apply their rational capacity and taking that to mean that they were not capable of reason, but to maintain that claim, you must willfully disregard all other evidence that shows their ability to reason. You are committing a blank-out, diminishing your own credibility.

their supposed moral claim to it was precisely that they lived as one big collective that included the Na'vi tribes, the plants and animals, and the whole planet

It was the tree that was attacked. The tree is where they lived. That the movie did not detail out the individual stake of ownership in the tree does not mean it did not exist. When you have a group of sentient beings living in a location, whether you know the particulars of their particular method of managing property rights is unimportant - they live there, they're using it, the proper assumption barring any other evidence is that they own it. You don't go to a friends house and ask him to prove his claim to the property - or delineate exactly how the ownership of that house works between him, his wife, his brother and sis-in-law who also live there as owners (a big house) and the 12 kids - before you accept that its HIS house.

Edited by Greebo
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On what basis presented in the movie do you claim that the Na'vi were not beings capable of volitional rationality?

You are confusing the fact that they did not always apply their rational capacity and taking that to mean that they were not capable of reason, but to maintain that claim, you must willfully disregard all other evidence that shows their ability to reason. You are committing a blank-out, diminishing your own credibility.

You might be interested in this post of mine. And in case you missed them, I referred back to and elaborated on it in these three posts.

When you have a group of sentient beings living in a location, whether you know the particulars of their particular method of managing property rights is unimportant - they live there, they're using it, the proper assumption barring any other evidence is that they own it.

(bold mine)

A rather broad interpretation of the concept of ownership, but okay, I'll go along, in a sense the beavers can be said to "own" their dam. But I still don't see why it is in the corporation owner's rational self-interest to stop building the bridge just because the beavers are there.

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