Hmm…I’m not so sure of that. Because life then, does not necessarily imply consciousness.
So in your definition, a plant is not “living”?
I was going to say, duh, life does not presuppose consciousness. Living *as an animal* presupposes consciousness (I think–I don’t remember my biology well enough, but maybe sponges and hydrae and so forth are animals and I’m misremembering). Life as a HUMAN presupposes a *conceptual* consciousness. A comatose person sustained by machinery is alive qua vegetable or primitive animal (assuming I’m wrong about the sponges), but they are not alive qua human.
But it’s silly to imagine that the conditions necessary for human life are subsumed under the total concept “life” and must apply to all living creatures just as it would be silly to say that all chocolates must have a filling because filled chocolates have a filling, or that all tables must have shelves because end tables have shelves.
And also, someone who intents to preserve his “life” could then theoretically end up foregoing the future existence of his consciousness, since that is not really a priority, since consciousness is not the identity of a life.
But that is not living “life” as a man and living life as a man is the only rational way a man can live life.
So in your definition, a plant is not “living”?
Not really. At least not in the sense that I would subconsciously think when hearing thinks like “the tree lives”. I think sentences like those cause all these kindergarten-fantasies of talking trees as in “Lord of the Rings”, the Toad in “Super Mario”, and especially, enables a lot of preservationists to fool us into imagining that the trees in the rain forest are feeling pain for being burned.
Well, but OK, I can stick to the official definition of life then in my further posts.
Hmm…I’m not so sure of that. Because life then, does not necessarily imply consciousness. I would say that even as a child, I would see that consciousness ought to be involved in a living being in order to call it “living”, otherwise it would just be a machine. That’s how, as a baby on a road, a child might think that it is safe, since the car’s can “see” her, and therefore make sure it will give way to the child, if necessary. It somehow thinks that the car is conscious. I think the presence of consciousness in a thing must somehow be implicit in a concept of life, otherwise we could reduce that thing to a machine.
I’m afraid I don’t see the argument as to why we could reduce the tree to a machine any more than that we could reduce a dog to a tree (that’s moving around), if only we disregard its essence. We could, of course, do both if we decided to arbitrarily group concretes together into abstractions. That would be the nominalist approach.
However, if we categorized the tree as a machine, we would loose what the tree has, but no other machine does: a tree’s actions are generated by the tree itself and are directed toward a single goal, the survival of the tree. We would also loose what the essence of a machine(well, tool) is: it serves the purpose of a man.
If you told someone that they need to operate a machine, they would say: What does that mean? Most machines can’t be operated: look at trees, everything they do is self-generated, I can’t generate an action that they will then do, you’re being ridiculous.
Or you could say that a tree is a machine, so a conscious mind invented it, and it servers that mind’s purpose, like all machines. But that would be a stretch, even for a nominalist.
In Objectivism, when we choose a category, we don’t pick a random characteristic and just lump everything that holds that characteristic together. We identify the essential characteristic of the units, and specify the wider category of existens from which they were selected. Here’s how it is determined what is the essential characteristic, objectively:
The rule of fundamentality: When a given group of existents has more than one characteristic distinguishing it from other existents, man must observe the relationships among these various characteristics and discover the one on which all the others (or the greatest number of others) depend, i.e., the fundamental characteristic without which the others would not be possible. This fundamental characteristic is the essential distinguishing characteristic of the existents involved, and the proper defining characteristic of the concept.(Ayn Rand, "An Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology")
In the case of tools, the fundamental characteristics are that they were created and serve the purposes of a conceptual mind: without those two none of the units we call tools could exist.
Now if we were to define a specific group of tools, called machines, we would have to specify that we are selecting those tools which: transforms energy or the direction and magnitude of force. And that’s about it, I believe. (I don’t think a computer counts as a machine)
In case of the definition of a living entity , by them we mean those processes, which have in common: self-generated action capable of sustaining the process. These are the fundamental characteristics of all living entities, because without these characteristics no living entity could exist, the Earth would just be a ball of dust.
And also, someone who intents to preserve his “life” could then theoretically end up foregoing the future existence of his consciousness, since that is not really a priority, since consciousness is not the identity of a life.
How so?
In case of the definition of a living entity , by them we mean those processes, which have in common: self-generated action capable of sustaining the process. These are the fundamental characteristics of all living entities, because without these characteristics no living entity could exist, the Earth would just be a ball of dust.
How so?
Because he could, for example, aim at making this body function independent of his consciousness, to automate the processes that sustain a human body. In other words, he could aim at transforming himself into a plant. If preservation of consciousness does not play an important role in what he wants to achieve, then there is no guarantee that it will stay. And if you say, he should preserve his life as a rational animal, that would imply consciousness, of course, you are then saying his nature is such, that he must choose to preserve his life.
Well, but that nature of his would be just the one he was born in, through transformation he could still change into something like a plant, something without consciousness. Then other rules of self-preservation would apply.
But how is it, however, that our nature IS such that we can choose to live? Why would this be that which we identify as our nature? Do we know that just from various observations of biological function or is there some axiomatic evidence of this?
Do we know that just from various observations of biological function or is there some axiomatic evidence of this?
Both–observations of reality (which include biological processes) ARE axiomatic evidence.
Both–observations of reality (which include biological processes) ARE axiomatic evidence.
Hmm…doesn’t “axiomatic evidence” mean that it is derived directly from the three axioms? I’d say that biological functions are not. Or how would denying our nature according to Objectivism be self-defeating? When dealing with biological function, all we have is quantitative data that SUGGESTS something about our nature. But it is not conclusive in the way that some error within the likeliness of 0.xxx percent could be totally excluded. So this is different than, for example, the axiom of consciousness, which is REALLY axiomatic.
Hmm…doesn’t “axiomatic evidence” mean that it is derived directly from the three axioms? I’d say that biological functions are not. Or how would denying our nature according to Objectivism be self-defeating? When dealing with biological function, all we have is quantitative data that SUGGESTS something about our nature. But it is not conclusive in the way that some error within the likeliness of 0.xxx percent could be totally excluded. So this is different than, for example, the axiom of consciousness, which is REALLY axiomatic.
You asked how do we know that we are able to choose to live. Jennifer answered that it is from observation. (the idea that consciousness observes reality is the axiom, so in that sense axiomatically)
But it’s not quantitative data which suggests that humans have a choice to live or die: it’s direct observation of some people choosing to live, others choosing to die. (Though I am curious what quantitative data you are referring to. This is fun, you tend come up with very intriguing thoughts. )
Also, I believe we can directly observe the fact that we are capable of choosing between life and death through something called introspection. (but that’s a long story-I’m just mentioning it for the record.)
Because he could, for example, aim at making this body function independent of his consciousness, to automate the processes that sustain a human body. In other words, he could aim at transforming himself into a plant. If preservation of consciousness does not play an important role in what he wants to achieve, then there is no guarantee that it will stay.
And if you say, he should preserve his life as a rational animal, that would imply consciousness, of course, you are then saying his nature is such, that he must choose to preserve his life.
Well, but that nature of his would be just the one he was born in, through transformation he could still change into something like a plant, something without consciousness. Then other rules of self-preservation would apply.
Oh, ok, I got it now.
However, for one, this entity would not be a human ( because a human is more than just a body, a human is body + human consciousness), so a human wouldn’t be aiming to preserve his life by becoming something else. He would just be choosing what happens to his body after he (the human being with this given identity) is dead.
Second, this entity you are describing wouldn’t be a plant (or any other living entity), because it would not fit the definition of a living entity. (it would not be self-generated action that keeps it-this process alive, but a separate machine-generated action)
Hi,
this question might seem odd to many, but I’m sure some of you will understand its significance and basic importance.
I have learned that objectivism is a philosophy dedicated to man’s life. Everything about objectivism is about man’s life, about achieving it.
And of course, such a philosophy can only be justified on one basis:
We (human beings) are things whose nature is to preserve our own existence. Everything we are capable of enjoying refers - somehow - to our survival.
This seems to be the common presumption among objectivists. But this their basic “fact”, which they seem to have accepted, doesn’t really feel trivial to me.
You are absolutely right - it is NOT self evident. In fact, to reach this conclusion requires a lot of observation of living organisms - man in particular. You have to look at all the fundamental aspects of man and explain how they serve his survival. Nothing can be further away from the obvious than this.
Furthermore, I think you have a great approach questioning everything, and not accept things that are not fully clear to you. Dismissing complex things as “self evident” is anti-reason. So don’t think for a moment that somehow because you don’t find these questions trivial that you are inferior to those to who claim it is “self evident”. If anything, it is the other way around.
Second point I would like to make however, is that not “everything we are capable of enjoying refers to our survival” - at least, it depends what you mean by “everything”. If by “everything” you mean the fundamental nature of man, what kind of entity he is, then the answer is yes. But if you look at a cognitively developed human being, then people can even bring themselves to enjoy pain which is obviously anti-life. So you have to be careful about defining your terms here.
So, I am asking again: How do we know that our goal is to maintain our own existence?
Here again you have to be careful by what you mean by “goal”. Do you mean a chosen goal, or some metaphysical goal (the same way a plant is built to achieve a “goal” through its automatic functions)?
In any case, here is the explanation I would give to your question:
How do we know that metaphysically, we (as other living organisms) are built to maintain our existence? Well, we look at the way we are built. What does a man consist of?
First let’s look at the body - every function and organ in a man’s body is designed to achieve one of two goals - either to serve our survival, or to serve our reproductiveness.
To give some examples: blood circulation, heart, brain, legs, etc’ etc’ (you can think of the rest) they all work to keep the organism alive. some things like reproductive organs with all of man’s sexual functions serve the goal of reproduction, but for now you can put this aside (ultimately, reproduction is what allows life, but since this is more complex, better not focus on that).
Then let’s look at our mind: We have senses, giving us information from the environment vital to our survival (for instance, we could have had the nice sonar system of dolphins, but since on land this does not serve our survival, we humans do not have it). What else? We have the ability to think in concepts: that allows us to deal with huge amount of concretes quickly and efficiently. We have the ability to automatize certain frequently used functions, like walking (obviously serves our survival by saving time). We have emotions: that give us quick estimation of how the environment serves our values (or is against them). Fear allows us to run away from danger quickly. Love motivates us to stick around someone whom we judge to be good, which means pro-our-values. Anger motivates us to rise against injustice and thus defend our values. And so on.
So every fundamental aspect about how we humans are built ultimately serves our survival. (Now if all of this is self evident to someone then I bow down, it took me a long time to observe and understand all of this).
You can go on and on analyzing the fundamental nature of man, but I think what you will find is that all of it ultimately serves our survival. One of the things that serve our survival is our emotions. Much like the pain-pleasure mechanism, our emotions “reward” us when we act toward maintaining our existence (without destroying the kind of entity that we are, since that will ultimately destroy our chances of survival). Therefore, the result of acting correctly to maintain our long-term existence as man is happiness (in all its forms). (which connects back to your first point “Everything we are capable of enjoying refers - somehow - to our survival”).
Not really. At least not in the sense that I would subconsciously think when hearing thinks like “the tree lives”. I think sentences like those cause all these kindergarten-fantasies of talking trees as in “Lord of the Rings”, the Toad in “Super Mario”, and especially, enables a lot of preservationists to fool us into imagining that the trees in the rain forest are feeling pain for being burned.
Well, but OK, I can stick to the official definition of life then in my further posts.
Are you serious? :dough:
Are you serious? :dough:
I think he has a good point. At a small age, kids understand “life” not in the biological sense of metabolism, but in a sense of how animals act (that they feel hunger, etc’). So at a small age, if you’re telling a child that trees are alive, it’s much harder to explain how. It is natural for a child to assume, if you tell him that trees are alive, that they feel pain and hunger.
Are you serious? :dough:
I think he has a good point
His point, however good on its own merit, is not really relevant to the issue. The question was, are plants “living” according to his definition? Although he offers that unrelated point, he appears to concede to the proper definition in the last sentence of the post.
So in your mind, does a plant represent something that is “alive”? Is there “life” in a plant? IF the answer is yes then “life” does not require consciousness. Rather, as has been argued, while “man’s life” does require consciousness, the broader concept of “life” does not.
In case I’ve missed something, how does a child’s conceptualization of “living” have anything to do with solving the issues discussed in this thread? I"m hopeful that this discussion is more focused on what “life” really is, even if the concept is more complex that a child’s ability to comprehend it.
Are you serious? :dough:
I think he has a good point. At a small age, kids understand “life” not in the biological sense of metabolism, but in a sense of how animals act (that they feel hunger, etc’). So at a small age, if you’re telling a child that trees are alive, it’s much harder to explain how. It is natural for a child to assume, if you tell him that trees are alive, that they feel pain and hunger.
Kids, maybe. But I’ve been around some pretty smart kids around the age of 5-7 who seem to have NO problem grasping that trees are alive (and yet different from animals). But, the issue isn’t that children may not understand life as it relates to plants or trees…it is, apparently, the poster who doesn’t understand life as it relates to plants or trees. :lol:
From this, we are to assume he is a small child or failed (terribly) biology in school.
His point, however good on its own merit, is not really relevant to the issue.
It is relevant to the discussion because to some extent, he has a different concept of life than most of us here. And as long as you’re talking to him, his concepts matter.
Second point is that: If someone was not exposed to biology much, I can understand how he can rationally hold such a concept of life (that excludes plants). And because of that, he does not deserve a response of smashing-head-against-wall-can’t-believe-how-stupid-you-are-for-not-getting-this. That’s what I was trying to say and probably should have said in these words from the start if I thought of it better before posting.
I agree with Ifat, at least with the part that “Is a plant life or not?” is a valid question unless you have plant biology integrated. Since more people don’t than do, it’s not an obvious fact that a tree is alive. (unless one thinks we should just take whatever we were told in school for granted)
:dough: would only be warranted if someone were to refuse to consider our attempts to define life. JuleBrenner clearly did not.
Hmm…doesn’t “axiomatic evidence” mean that it is derived directly from the three axioms? I’d say that biological functions are not. Or how would denying our nature according to Objectivism be self-defeating? When dealing with biological function, all we have is quantitative data that SUGGESTS something about our nature. But it is not conclusive in the way that some error within the likeliness of 0.xxx percent could be totally excluded. So this is different than, for example, the axiom of consciousness, which is REALLY axiomatic.
Hmmm. Let’s get this straight.
Existence exists. Existence is identity. Consciousness is identification. But nothing we identify can be relied upon as evidence.
Then how do we know these axioms are valid, and what is the use of these axioms?
No, you don’t actually fully understand or accept the axioms.
No, you don’t actually fully understand or accept the axioms.
Which is why he’s asking the questions.
You asked how do we know that we are able to choose to live. Jennifer answered that it is from observation. (the idea that consciousness observes reality is the axiom, so in that sense axiomatically)
But it’s not quantitative data which suggests that humans have a choice to live or die: it’s direct observation of some people choosing to live, others choosing to die. (Though I am curious what quantitative data you are referring to. This is fun, you tend come up with very intriguing thoughts. )
Also, I believe we can directly observe the fact that we are capable of choosing between life and death through something called introspection. (but that’s a long story-I’m just mentioning it for the record.)
Nono, I’m sorry, but you are reducing my question to something easy to answer. Everybody knows that we are “able” to choose to live. Because this is easy to know, as you and Jennifer pointed out.
However, it is a different question to ask: How do we know that this is our NATURE? Our metaphysical goal? That which we are ultimately all about? Why THIS, as opposed to, let’s say “choose to destroy all the mango trees in the world or choose not to do so”? The latter alternative is just an example to depict the relative arbitrarity, not a serious consideration of a candidate for truism. And of course, that alternative would be just true for some, which would lead to the conclusion that human nature couldn’t be generalized, not even fundamentally, since then the next man’s nature could be to “choose to coat all the bee hives with chocolate or not choose to do so”. I think it is clear that non of these two alternatives for a man’s nature would really be rooted in the choice to live, that choice would merely be implicit.
If anything a man does, cannot lead to a feeling of unfrustrated satisfaction without a specific element of fulfillment involved, then that element of fulfillment must be considered a metaphysical goal, a sine qua non, and must be used as a descriptor of that man’s nature. If a man is forever frustrated without destroying all the mango trees in the world, then one must say, it is his nature to choose to do so. And this needn’t neccesitate the fulfilment of the goal of living, rather the goal of living would in this case be a means to achieving the other, ultimate, goal.
So still, the only explanation as to why our nature is to choose between life and death would be the “quantitative data” approach. And then still, after accepting the metaphysical goal that data suggests and trying to act on it, if all this still leads to a frustrated state, there would be reason to believe otherwise.
BTW, I think Ifat has given a pretty good sample of the “quantitative data” you were so curious about in the second part of her first post 
Oh, ok, I got it now.
However, for one, this entity would not be a human ( because a human is more than just a body, a human is body + human consciousness), so a human wouldn’t be aiming to preserve his life by becoming something else. He would just be choosing what happens to his body after he (the human being with this given identity) is dead.
Well, that’s true. If one is particular about the kind of life, i.e. life as a human, then preservation of both mind and body is ensured.
Second, this entity you are describing wouldn’t be a plant (or any other living entity), because it would not fit the definition of a living entity. (it would not be self-generated action that keeps it-this process alive, but a separate machine-generated action)
What I was talking about IS precisely a transformation into a plant, by whatever means future technology allows us to do this. But anyway, this isn’t too important now.
You are absolutely right - it is NOT self evident. In fact, to reach this conclusion requires a lot of observation of living organisms - man in particular. You have to look at all the fundamental aspects of man and explain how they serve his survival. Nothing can be further away from the obvious than this.
Exactly.
Second point I would like to make however, is that not “everything we are capable of enjoying refers to our survival” - at least, it depends what you mean by “everything”. If by “everything” you mean the fundamental nature of man, what kind of entity he is, then the answer is yes. But if you look at a cognitively developed human being, then people can even bring themselves to enjoy pain which is obviously anti-life. So you have to be careful about defining your terms here.
Which gives rise to the question as to when one would call something “the fundamental nature” of a thing.
Here again you have to be careful by what you mean by “goal”. Do you mean a chosen goal, or some metaphysical goal (the same way a plant is built to achieve a “goal” through its automatic functions)?
I mean a metaphysical goal.
How do we know that metaphysically, we (as other living organisms) are built to maintain our existence? Well, we look at the way we are built. What does a man consist of?
First let’s look at the body - every function and organ in a man’s body is designed to achieve one of two goals - either to serve our survival, or to serve our reproductiveness.
To give some examples: blood circulation, heart, brain, legs, etc’ etc’ (you can think of the rest) they all work to keep the organism alive. some things like reproductive organs with all of man’s sexual functions serve the goal of reproduction, but for now you can put this aside (ultimately, reproduction is what allows life, but since this is more complex, better not focus on that).
Then let’s look at our mind: We have senses, giving us information from the environment vital to our survival (for instance, we could have had the nice sonar system of dolphins, but since on land this does not serve our survival, we humans do not have it). What else? We have the ability to think in concepts: that allows us to deal with huge amount of concretes quickly and efficiently. We have the ability to automatize certain frequently used functions, like walking (obviously serves our survival by saving time). We have emotions: that give us quick estimation of how the environment serves our values (or is against them). Fear allows us to run away from danger quickly. Love motivates us to stick around someone whom we judge to be good, which means pro-our-values. Anger motivates us to rise against injustice and thus defend our values. And so on.
So every fundamental aspect about how we humans are built ultimately serves our survival. (Now if all of this is self evident to someone then I bow down, it took me a long time to observe and understand all of this).
You can go on and on analyzing the fundamental nature of man, but I think what you will find is that all of it ultimately serves our survival. One of the things that serve our survival is our emotions. Much like the pain-pleasure mechanism, our emotions “reward” us when we act toward maintaining our existence (without destroying the kind of entity that we are, since that will ultimately destroy our chances of survival). Therefore, the result of acting correctly to maintain our long-term existence as man is happiness (in all its forms). (which connects back to your first point “Everything we are capable of enjoying refers - somehow - to our survival”).
Yes, these are, of course, pretty good reasons. And I also see it that way, that it is not without such observations that one could ever conclude Objectivism’s claims about man’s nature. Which raises the question: How can Objectivists ethics be independent of such a thorough biological study? Isn’t Philosophy supposed to give answers way more indepenent of natural sciences?
Are you serious?
Are you serious about your apparent ignorance of basic childhood phantasies? Have you never watched any Disney movie as a child?
it is, apparently, the poster who doesn’t understand life as it relates to plants or trees.
From this, we are to assume he is a small child or failed (terribly) biology in school.
Come on, this doesn’t really go without saying. There is no reason to believe, that a biology teacher will make the efford to define life. Life is mostly talked about in biology classes as a given term or concept with no further need of definition or explanation. It is simply assumed that the concept of life is present, though nobody will verbally pin it down to a “process of self-generated and self-sustaining action”. It is usually left for the pupil to understand its meaning intuitively. Which gives a lot of room for clouded interpretations.
So I don’t really see the point for such arrogant and provocative remarks.
But anyway, this is all irrelevant, since I have decided to be using the newly aquired definition of life, so this sub-topic can be closed.
Hmmm. Let’s get this straight.
Existence exists. Existence is identity. Consciousness is identification. But nothing we identify can be relied upon as evidence.
Then how do we know these axioms are valid, and what is the use of these axioms?
No, you don’t actually fully understand or accept the axioms.
I cannot confirm that. Rather, this seems to be a common misperception of people who are unhappy with the interpretations provided - or at least with the sense of triviality in which these interpretations are being made.
One has to distinguish between the identification of facts and the interpretation of these facts.
To question some INTERPRETATION of the facts given is NOT to question the facts as such.
So, the FACTS are that certain biological processes are going on, as long as man chooses to keep it that way. And I am not questioning those facts.
The INTERPRETATION is that these facts constitute man’s unaccompanied ultimate metaphysical goal. Which is a pretty fair point to make for many, given the facts. But not a point to make to remain forever true for eternity by guarentee, even if man exists for eternity.
Becaise to say that something is “THE” ultimate metaphysical goal, is not only to make the irrefutable conclusion that man has a goal-directed property, but it is also to exclude ANY other goal directed property of man, serving some other ultimate metaphysical goal, from existing. An exclusion that cannot be made, IMO:
If a human being can observe additional facts in the course of his life through his own experience, facts like certain permanent and constantly recurring and unforgiving urges of his MIND that he cannot integrate into the concept of self-sustainance, then one can, at least for THIS man, observe another obvious metaphysical goal NOT rooted in and distinct from the other one.
Which gives rise to the question as to when one would call something “the fundamental nature” of a thing.
That which is fundamental about a thing is so because it causes the other aspects of its nature.
Yes, these are, of course, pretty good reasons. And I also see it that way, that it is not without such observations that one could ever conclude Objectivism’s claims about man’s nature. Which raises the question: How can Objectivists ethics be independent of such a thorough biological study? Isn’t Philosophy supposed to give answers way more indepenent of natural sciences?
Philosophy must rely on observation. To think that there are two kinds of truth, those that must be true because they are axiomatic and those that are only true because we observe them, is a philosophical falsehood. There is only one kind of truth because there is only one kind of reality. The axioms of Objectivism are axiomatic because they are unavoidable, but that is not what makes them true. The axioms are true because of demonstration by means of the evidence of the senses, the same standard as for every other truth.
Furthermore, it is not enough to merely know the axioms. The axioms are about metaphysics but this is of limited application when considering a specifically human existence and ethics. The “metaphysical nature of man” is the set of observations required to make ethics possible. Since you have access to Peikoff’s Objectivism: Philosophy of Ayn Rand (OPAR), the argument presented in chapter 6 appears to be about the same topic as this thread.
So, the FACTS are that certain biological processes are going on, as long as man chooses to keep it that way. And I am not questioning those facts.
The INTERPRETATION is that these facts constitute man’s unaccompanied ultimate metaphysical goal. Which is a pretty fair point to make for many, given the facts. But not a point to make to remain forever true for eternity by guarentee, even if man exists for eternity.
Becaise to say that something is “THE” ultimate metaphysical goal, is not only to make the irrefutable conclusion that man has a goal-directed property, but it is also to exclude ANY other goal directed property of man, serving some other ultimate metaphysical goal, from existing. An exclusion that cannot be made, IMO:
If a human being can observe additional facts in the course of his life through his own experience, facts like certain permanent and constantly recurring and unforgiving urges of his MIND that he cannot integrate into the concept of self-sustainance, then one can, at least for THIS man, observe another obvious metaphysical goal NOT rooted in and distinct from the other one.
What would be metaphysical about such an urge? Again, that which is fundamental about a thing is so because it causes the other aspects of its nature. This causation is what makes it possible to be objective about which “interpretation” is correct.