| | I wrote, "Yet they can be said to pursue values in the sense that their existence requires them to initiate and sustain certain actions upon which their continued survival depends." Aaron replied, So an immortal cannot have values, but even a plant can? I'd hate to think about immortal plants. An immortal, indestructible being cannot have values and goals, because these arise only in the context of living organisms as a means of sustaining their lives. Let's not confuse immortal in this sense with immortal in the sense of not aging or growing old. Even if we discover how to halt the aging process, we are still capable of dying by other means. An indestructible plant would have no values, because it would have no goals to seek. There would no reason for it to generate action; its roots would not need water, nor its leaves, sunlight. In fact, an indestructible plant wouldn't even be a living organism, so it wouldn't be a plant.
I wrote, "But an indestructible robot that has no goals, other than those of its creator; it has nothing to gain or lose by its actions, although its creator may, if it fails to perform the actions for which he or she designed it. So the robot cannot be said to pursue its own values; it can be said only to pursue the values of its creator." A robot has programming regardless whether it's immortal - so there's always an argument to be made that programming really means it's pursuing the values of its creator. Why would mortality change this though? Of course, but that's not what Rand is talking about; she's talking about the entity pursuing its own values; she's talking about its having values. A programmed robot doesn't have values, even if what it is doing serves the values of its programmer.
I wrote, "Pleasure is possible only within a biological context in which it serves as an incentive to sustain the animal's or human being's life." ? There's a high correlation which arguably makes sense from evolution, but certainly not 'only'. Sex regardless the risks, cocaine, meth, direct electrical stimulation of the pleasure center of the brain - there's plenty possible now that causes pleasure but is not toward sustenance of life. No, but the potential for pleasure is a function of the animal's need for survival. The fact that these pleasure centers can be stimulated artificially is irrelevant. The capacity for pleasure wouldn't exist, if it weren't for the animal's survival requirements. [Bill really being immortal, and what that would mean for him ever having values, happiness or suffering] This is an unrealistic example. If I were immortal in the sense of being indestructible, I wouldn't be who I am; I wouldn't be a human being whose self-preservation depends on a certain course of action, and whose capacity for pleasure and pain, happiness and suffering serves to facilitate his survival. We were talking about immortal robots, but now the idea of an immortal human raises concern about realism? :) Again, an indestructible human being raises questions about realism. A human being is a living organism, and living organisms are, by definition, capable of dying. An indestructible being wouldn't be a living organism of any kind, let alone an animal or a human being. The point is, even to the extent that mortality could influence values, whether you truly are is irrelevant, it would have to all boil down to whether you think you are mortal. I wouldn't think or feel at all, if I weren't capable of dying. This isn't some primacy-of-consciousness argument, just a reflection of the fact that immortality must be unknowable (undecidable), so they only thing left is the human's assumption of mortality that shapes the values. An immortal human who never realized it would live life as if pursuing survival; it would seem quite bizarre to say he had no values due to the (unknowable) trait that he wasn't mortal. It has to be a psychological question, not a metaphysical one. You're missing the point. If a person were truly indestructible, he wouldn't bear any resemblance to a human being. He wouldn't bleed if cut; he wouldn't break any bones if involved in an accident; he wouldn't suffer any harm if hacked to pieces with a machete or blown up by a bomb; his brain wouldn't be damaged if his head were crushed; he wouldn't suffocate if deprived of oxygen; he could step into a blast furnace and not be incinerated, etc. You are proposing a completely unrealistic and impossible-to-imagine counter-example.
- Bill
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