Extremely Hypothetical Question

If an extra-terrestrial life form discovered earth, and this life form had a rational capacity and intelligence that far exceeded our own (to the level that a human's exceeds a dolphin's for example), would that species have the moral right to enslave and/or exterminate us?

Post 1

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 1:48am

Any species with a rational capacity and intelligence that far exceeded our own would obviously have a 100% Objectivist culture, and not want to enslave us :-)

Post 2

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 2:55am

Ah Matthew, brilliant response. Well said, {what else should I expect from a lawyer! :-) }
However, I'm afraid that - based on Objectivist philososphy as understood by most Objectivists now - (not me), unless they were able to understand our behaviour, (and language, music art etc are part of our behaviour) they would have to come to the conclusion that we were "not rational" and therefor had no rights, and thus would have no compunction about destroying us - especially if they found us particularly tasty with a good red! :-).
I believe that, if they were so much ahead of us, they would understand and accept the principles which demonstrate that;
(1) they would have to acknowledge we each have "life" - the presence of which owes nothing to them or their interventions in any way.
(2) thus there is no way they could claim "ownership" of each of our lives, therefor
(3) each of us owns our own life;
(4) we have enough consciousness and sentience to demonstrate that we value the life we own, that thus
(5) their own concept of "rights" had nothing to say about our ownership of that value, and thus
(6) they would have to refrain from destroying us.
Cass

Post 3

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 11:53am

Pete, Matthew, Cass,

There is first a mistake in the question. The difference between a dolphin's consciousness (which does not have any "reasoning" ability at all) and a humans is not a difference of degree, but a difference of kind. Reason is not possible without volition, and volition and instinct are incompatible. It is not possible for a pre-programmed pattern of behavior (instinct) and volition (all behavior must be chosen) to both exist in the same consciousness. It is one or the other. The dolphin's is instinct; very complex instinct, capable of learning (read being programmed) to a very high degree, but rationality is impossible to the dolphin.

While there are obvious differences in the mental abilities of human beings, the ability to reason either is or isn't. Some people are able to perform some kinds of mental functions faster or more completely than others, or more easily, but even a fairly dumb person can learn the rules of logic and apply them to whatever they reason about. We often make the mistake of equating certain mental abilities with better reason, like the ability to perform certain mathematical operations, or having a good memory, or imagination, or a particular talent for writing, or music, for example. These are not abilities to reason.

A superior race might have hugely advanced stores of knowledge and may have developed unimaginable techniques for understanding and dealing with the physical world, but as for the ability to reason, they will either be able to do it, or they won't.

As for the moral question, if they can reason, it means they are volitional creatures. Another mistake we all commonly make is the tacit assumption morality pertains primarily to how beings treat each other; but the fact is, morality pertains primarily to our own behavior. It is immoral for a volitional being to seek the unearned and undeserved; his very nature is against it and gaining what his own effort and choices do not entitle him to is against his own nature, and that nature will make him feel guilt for attempting it. It is unlikely a race that has not discovered these moral principles would survive long enough to develop the technology to reach this planet--they would long before that use that technology to destroy themselves; a principle many on this planet are working very hard to demonstrate is true.

Obviously, there is no moral "right" to enslave or exterminate other moral beings, that is, other volitional beings. Neither superiority or inferiority change the nature of rights. The one question I have is why would any race, observing human behavior, conclude we are rational beings?

One caveat: the ability to reason, no matter how "great," is no guarantee it will be used correctly or morally. See human history.

Regi

Post 4

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 12:09pm

Reginald Firehammer wrote:"A superior race might have hugely advanced stores of knowledge and may have developed unimaginable techniques for understanding and dealing with the physical world, but as for the ability to reason, they will either be able to do it, or they won't."

Interesting. How would they develop those 'unimaginable techniques' without having the ability to reason? [In fact, the term 'develop' in itself implies an underlying ability to make logical deductions, I think.]

Matthew Humphreys wrote:"Any species with a rational capacity and intelligence that far exceeded our own would obviously have a 100% Objectivist culture..."

Not necessarily. What if the form is some sort of an 'integrated consciousness' [I know, that is a loose term], like the 'Gaia' of Asimov's "Second Foundation?" There is no individuality, that is.

[Assuming that such a form is physically possible. Since this is a 'hypothetical question, let's make that assumption for the time being.]

coaltontrail
(Edited by coalton trail on 9/10, 12:11pm)

Post 5

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 6:25am

That is, of course, assuming they're individualists. They could be Borg-like and eat us all with "a good red."

Post 6

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 3:00pm

Assuming another being was able to freely travel the universe and discover earth, I believe it's possible that this same life form could have a cognitive capacity so exceeding human reason that we might not even be able to comprehend it's nature (the way a dog, for example, can't comprehend human reason).

I would argue that such a life form would have the moral right to utilize us for its purposes, the same way we have a right to use cows for milk, rats for experiments etc. Just the same, it would also be our right to try to escape and/or fight back, just as a tuna has the "right" to try and escape our nets.

Post 7

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 4:28pm

coalton,

Reginald Firehammer wrote:"A superior race might have hugely advanced stores of knowledge and may have developed unimaginable techniques for understanding and dealing with the physical world, but as for the ability to reason, they will either be able to do it, or they won't."

Interesting. How would they develop those 'unimaginable techniques' without having the ability to reason? [In fact, the term 'develop' in itself implies an underlying ability to make logical deductions, I think.]

Yes, of course. I didn't mean they could have developed anything if they could not reason, but obviously wrote as though that were a possibility. I should have been more careful. I do not think human beings have a greater reasoning capacity than they did 2 or 3000 years ago, but we have a great deal more knowledge than we had even a few hundred years ago. A greater amount of knowledge and technical ability does not mean superior reasoning ability.

Sorry for the confusion.

Regi

Post 8

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 4:29pm

Humans don�t derive rights because we�re the �most intelligent� creature on the planet, nor do we lose them if we were to hypothetically lose that status. We derive rights from our nature as beings of volitional consciousness. We would remain beings of volitional consciousness in this hypothetical situation. So we wouldn�t take on the political status of animals.

This is crazy stuff. Tuna don�t exercise any rights. They�re not conscious of �rights� � they�re just acting on instinct. The same could not be said of man no matter how far �advanced� hypothetical aliens were ahead of us. There�s no conflict of properly defined rights. If an alien has the �right� to enslave you, you don�t have the right to fight back. If you have the right to resist, it�s because they don�t have the right to enslave you.

I mean, hell. What if by some Stolyarovian twist of logic, you came up with a �yes� to your question? If it were to happen, you�re just gonna roll over and say, �Yep, well, I�ve done the math, and it turns out you do have the moral right to enslave me. Well, that�s Objectivism for you. What are you gonna do?� J

Let�s worry about the monsters trying to enslave us on this planet before we worry about monsters from other ones, okay?

Post 9

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 6:46pm

I can assure you that there is no "worry" on my end about the above scenario. I had simply gotten to thinking about the subject upon reading a recent blurb in the news.

Encountering life of any sort outside earth would be immensely fascinating - even more so if there were other intelligent life comparable to or beyond humans. It would create interesting questions to consider.

Glen is most correct, however, when he points out that the real threats to us being enslaved are already staring us in the face.

Post 10

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 7:03pm

Glenn,
How did you get the "smile" icon on???
Cass

Post 11

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 8:08pm

Pete: Glad to hear it! J

Cass: I compose all my comments in Microsoft Word. If you type a : followed immediately by a ) in Word, you get a J. If you copy and paste straight from Word into the comment box, it conveniently carries through all the formatting, including bold, italics, etc. Yet another user-friendly SOLOHQ feature! J

Post 12

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 8:51pm

Cass, Glenn,

If you don't want to use Word to compose your responses, simply select the J in glenn's post, do a cntl-c (or right-mouse-button copy) and cntl-v (right-mouse-button paste) in your post like this: J

If you past it in a reply then type the alphabet (lower case followed by upper case) immediately afterward you get this: Jabcdefghijklmnopqrstuve
wxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.

You can copy all of this (or any portion) and paste it into Word file. Then when you want to use one of these, just open the file and copy and paste it where you want it. e.g.M

(You can just copy the one's above if you like.)

[Put these into the text after everything else is done. If you forget, be sure to select Serif or Sans-Serif to restore normal fonts.]

Regi

Post 13

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 8:54pm

Glen Lamont wrote:"This is crazy stuff. Tuna don�t exercise any rights. They�re not conscious of �rights� � they�re just acting on instinct. The same could not be said of man no matter how far �advanced� hypothetical aliens were ahead of us. There�s no conflict of properly defined rights."

Man may be [okay, is] a volitional being. But what if we can't communicate it to the ETs? How are they going to know that we have a consciousness and that we are volitional? You may say, by taking a look at our technological achievements. But then, if they are advanced far enough, they could look at our technology in the same fashion as we look at the nests of birds. Couldn't they? If so, what would prevent them from arguing that we are acting on our instincts?

Is it possible to establish a 'properly defined' set of rights if the concerned parties can't communicate with each other?

coaltontrail

Post 14

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 9:09pm

Reginald Firehammer wrote:"I do not think human beings have a greater reasoning capacity than they did 2 or 3000 years ago, but we have a great deal more knowledge than we had even a few hundred years ago. A greater amount of knowledge and technical ability does not mean superior reasoning ability."

I tend to agree with you on this. I think it is also important that we know what we *don't have* to know. In other words, knowledge allows us to be selective: to cite an example, today you don't have to know how to use a logarithm table to do calculations. I think it allows us to quickly discover unnecessary trails to follow and discard them. As a result, our searches are narrower. I think this is what is effectively appearing as improved reasoning ability.

coaltontrail

Post 15

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 9:22pm

Coalton trail wrote:

Man may be [okay, is] a volitional being. But what if we can't communicate it to the ETs? How are they going to know that we have a consciousness and that we are volitional? You may say, by taking a look at our technological achievements. But then, if they are advanced far enough, they could look at our technology in the same fashion as we look at the nests of birds. Couldn't they? If so, what would prevent them from arguing that we are acting on our instincts?

Is it possible to establish a 'properly defined' set of rights if the concerned parties can't communicate with each other?

Communication is achieved through language. And language is a tool of cognition. It�s not because we can�t understand a bird�s �language� that they�re incomprehensible, it�s because they�re not using a language. Their tweets don�t represent abstractions or conceptual thought. Humans have a language because we are conceptual. If these so-called aliens are as advanced as being presented, there�s no reason they wouldn�t recognize this.

When I said �properly defined rights� I didn�t mean as negotiated by parties. I meant in the context of this philosophical discussion.

Post 16

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 9:54pm

"Communication is achieved through language. And language is a tool of cognition. It�s not because we can�t understand a bird�s �language� that they�re incomprehensible, it�s because they�re not using a language. Their tweets don�t represent abstractions or conceptual thought. "

That is, from a scientific point of view, an unsupported assertion. How do you conclude that they are not using a language? A lack of recognizable patterns? Their sounds may not represent advanced abstractions, say a philosophical discussion like this, but it may convey the concept of, say, 'danger.' So is it not in the levels of abstraction that their tweets differ from English? I could write, say Gegenbaur's addition theorem for Legendre polynomials, and unless you are into that branch of mathematics, it may look 'incomprehensible' to you. But does that make the notations that I used in writing down the theorem any less a language? (I could use English to explain the idea to you and then you may recognize the 'language' of the theorem; but that requires another medium. What if I were from Congo and didn't know Engish?)

I am not saying that their 'tweets' form a language; but that there is insufficient data to conclude that they don't (or do) represent abstractions.

Or have I missed your point?

coaltontrail

Post 17

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 11:21pm

coalton trail,

Glenn is right. The difference between man and animal is understood by examining the difference between signs and signals (between designators and signals).

Human can use designative signs to name things. In fact, we're so good at this, that we can even name things that aren't even available to our perception; such as we do when we talk about "justice," or describe imagined "mermaids" - for that matter.

Animals in the wild don't ever communicate with each other via designative signs; they only use signals. Most signals either warn other animals to adopt a certain behavior, or signal the type of behavior that other animals can expect from the signal-initiating animal.

Animals don't ever talk about the good ole' days (at least not any more), or about what the world is coming to, or about their plans to break out of their instinctual mode and adopt the behavior of another species - a species they thought had more "mojo" than they did.

Instead, their "talk" is similar to a traffic light with little more than the "Big 3" options: fight (either for play, or for real), flee (either for play, or for real), or f#@& - censored for "common decency" (which is another thing animals don't lose sleep about).

Ed

Post 18

Saturday, September 11, 2004 - 12:50am

Not all "language" (if by language you mean, human speaking) involves concepts. "theres food at macs" doesn't. "Watch out," doesnt. "Me want sex "doesn't. There are many humans for whom this is the most of language they manage. The bird sounds of the Australian magpie have been extensively studied. Not only do they vary with tribes, they change over time. And birds have been observed to make behavioural changes after receiving a call from another bird they cannot even see, so the sound conveyed a meaning the human listener could not understand.
The problem with lots of Objectivists, I suspect, is that they are not the sort of people who have ever closely studied animals, their behaviours especially. Those who have are increasingly learning of complexities which were once completely unknown and unsuspected leading to the conclusion - quite scientifically - that the "higher order" animals have awareness, ie consciousness unlike that of humans, but present, nonetheless.
Cass.

Post 19

Saturday, September 11, 2004 - 1:04am