Question about the value of life from another forum

[SocratesJr]

I ran across the following question in a discussion I was having somewhere else: Why is life a value in an atheist universe?

I don't have an answer. Do any of you?

 

[StrictlyLogical]

45 minutes ago, SocratesJr said:

I ran across the following question in a discussion I was having somewhere else: Why is life a value in an atheist universe?

I don't have an answer. Do any of you?

 

Are you familiar with Rand's answer to such a question?

[Boydstun]

1 hour ago, SocratesJr said:

I ran across the following question in a discussion I was having somewhere else: Why is life a value in an atheist universe?

I don't have an answer. Do any of you?

 

Life is the residence of all value. And the value of all value.

Notice the analogical projection of life into nature of an immaterial god-mind by Plato, Philo, Pseudo-Dionysus, Boethius, Anselm, Avicenna, Albert, Aquinas, and Luther. The apostle Paul writes of “the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein” (Acts 14:15; also Deut. 32:40 and Psalm 18:46). Consider too the breaths of life from God to men (Genesis 2:7 and Psalm 104:30). Aristotle on God’s mind and ours: “And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality” (Metaph. 1072b26–27; also 1022a32 and Top. 136b3–7). 

Why do all these impute life to God? Because of a suspicion that life is the source of all value, and God has no value without life. (Full disclosure: if something is alive, it is mortal. So, if God is immortal, It is not living.)

Until life enters the universe, there is no such thing as value (or questions or solutions).

 

Edited April 26, 2024 by Boydstun

[tadmjones]

How does Aristotle use ‘life’ ? As being , as the recognizable actions of being or the less sinew-y and more fundamental ground of experience of being? 
 

It seems the the actuality of thought being life, would place life in awareness as such.

[SocratesJr]

Aristotle believed that God (the Prime Mover or Unmoved Mover) was the sum-total of all actualization, perfect actualization. For Aristotle, life is a potential for actualization, with the Prime Mover equated, as it were, with life's ultimate actualized being, although it transcends all mortal life. The Prime Mover is immortal. That's a philosophical determination, not a biological one. Much of philosophy consists of positing such ideas.

His statement “And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality” seems circular.

While it's a truism that the question of value depends on living things to do the valuing, it doesn't follow that life is the source of value. Things can be beautiful without requiring a human to judge their beauty. That's why beauty could be a universal form or concept existing independently of human perception and cognition; it is not necessary, however, for it to be a Platonic Form. The Golden Ratio is a natural mathematical pattern that, while linked to our perception of beauty, is not dependent upon human consciousness for its existence.

[SocratesJr]

2 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

Are you familiar with Rand's answer to such a question?

Pretty much.

What's yours? I assume you're an atheist but I don't know.

[StrictlyLogical]

13 hours ago, SocratesJr said:

Why is life a value in an atheist universe?

My personal answer is, of a certainty my life has infinite value to me, and I suspect the universe values nothing, but that is of no consequence.

[Boydstun]

12 hours ago, SocratesJr said:

. . . The Golden Ratio is a natural mathematical pattern that, while linked to our perception of beauty, is not dependent upon human consciousness for its existence.

Ratios are in the magnitude structure of the world, independently of discernment by intelligent consciousness (with its devised measurement scales, coordinate systems, and so forth). However, there is no such thing as the proportionate in a world not faced by the organizations that are living beings.* Where there are no needs, nothing is proportionate or disproportionate. Where there is no life, there are no needs. 

Additionally, where there is life, there are needs. Aristotle did not understand this, it seems, given the way he went around projecting teleological causation beyond its proper bounds, which is life (including vegetative life) we know on earth. He projected teleological causes even onto the celestial sphere he and his predecessors thought carried the fixed stars over the night sky, and he projected life and intelligence onto the Primary Mover even while thinking the fixed stars and Prime Mover eternal and not susceptible to corruption or decline, hence without needs.

Edited April 26, 2024 by Boydstun

[SocratesJr]

6 hours ago, Boydstun said:

Additionally, where there is life, there are needs. Aristotle did not understand this,

Aristotle didn't believe that where there is life there are needs?

[Boydstun]

1 hour ago, SocratesJr said:

Aristotle didn't believe that where there is life there are needs?

Print my whole statement. No, nevermind. I'll not bother with you further. 

[SocratesJr]

4 minutes ago, Boydstun said:

Print my whole statement. No, nevermind. I'll not bother with you further. 

Values aren't possible without life. Therefore, life has intrinsic value.

[SocratesJr]

8 hours ago, Boydstun said:

Ratios are in the magnitude structure of the world, independently of discernment by intelligent consciousness (with its devised measurement scales, coordinate systems, and so forth). However, there is no such thing as the proportionate in a world not faced by the organizations that are living beings.* Where there are no needs, nothing is proportionate or disproportionate. Where there is no life, there are no needs. 

So Kant was right.

[StrictlyLogical]

19 hours ago, SocratesJr said:

Values aren't possible without life. Therefore, life has intrinsic value.

No. 

Not if you mean by "intrinsic value" a so-called value which is wholly independent of any and all valuers.

 

Proposing "life" as holding a place as "value" (which seems reasonable), is OK, however only "life" can value anything, so only by virtue of being valued as a value by a valuer can "life" be a value... which is not independent of all valuers

Edited April 27, 2024 by StrictlyLogical

[tadmjones]

In Oism a value is that which one acts to gain or keep. Colloquially value is understood as intrinsically beneficial , Oism claims a system of discernment of choice is needed to avoid obtaining ‘dis-value(s)’.

[SocratesJr]

41 minutes ago, tadmjones said:

In Oism a value is that which one acts to gain or keep. Colloquially value is understood as intrinsically beneficial , Oism claims a system of discernment of choice is needed to avoid obtaining ‘dis-value(s)’.

Thank you! That was very well put!

 

In Oism, what's the difference between an instrumental value and a moral value?

[tadmjones]

45 minutes ago, SocratesJr said:

Thank you! That was very well put!

 

In Oism, what's the difference between an instrumental value and a moral value?

First what is the colloquial, or non O’ist difference?, assuming there is a well established ‘one’ to point to or notion you have in mind.

[SocratesJr]

52 minutes ago, tadmjones said:

First what is the colloquial, or non O’ist difference?, assuming there is a well established ‘one’ to point to or notion you have in mind.

There is no colloquial (street-wise) distinction that I've heard of. Asking the average person on the street would likely get you nowhere.

All of the online dictionaries and philosophy sites (Stanford, Oxford...) have an entry on the difference.

For example:

An instrumental value is something that is valued not for its own sake, but because it serves as a means to achieve some other end or goal.

A moral value, on the other hand, is an intrinsic principle or belief that guides ethical behavior and decision-making.

How does Oism distinguish between instrumental and moral values?

Edited April 27, 2024 by SocratesJr

[tadmjones]

Not sure where to point for exposition but I'm sure there are descriptions of the concept of the hierarchy of value(s). "Proper" value seeking in O'ism doesn't necessarily distinguish between values, all values being moral, as 'kinds' more like 'degrees'.

[Boydstun]

On 4/26/2024 at 6:52 PM, SocratesJr said:

So Kant was right.

 

On 4/29/2024 at 7:10 AM, Boydstun said:

I had recently written:

“Ratios are in the magnitude structure of the world, independently of discernment by intelligent consciousness (with its devised measurement scales, coordinate systems, and so forth). However, there is no such thing as the proportionate in a world not faced by the organizations that are living beings."*

To which SJ responded: “So Kant was right.”*

Wrong. How disappointing to Kant were he to hear such a report of his view on space, after all his argumentation and reiterations that the magnitude structure of the world (i.e. Euclidean geometry) is not independent of intelligent consciousness.