Life as the ultimate value

Raiden,

Are they derived from the value of life?

I'd say that they are derived from human nature, and that they serve or transmit the value of human life. Take knowledge. For life forms other than humans -- such as plants and insects -- knowledge is not of great value. A plant doesn't need to know that it will be competing with other plants for sunlight -- and therefore it would be good to grow tall in order to thrive. Instead of relying on knowledge, the plant "relies on" genetic information. In this way, genes coding for tall plant growth "survive" and are passed on to progeny.

The tallest tree gets the most sunlight in order to perform the most photosynthesis (it thrives more).

Insects are another example. If a moth is looking for a mate, one method of finding a mate is to mentally catalogue where female moths hang-out (think of "at the moth mall" or something). The male moth would take mental notes and cruise all the hot-spots looking for "chicks." But, instead of relying on knowledge, the moth just relies on instincts regarding the sensing of pheromones -- which can signal the presence of a female moth that is more than 500-ft away! -- and he just always follows the signal. Knowledge is not an important value for a moth.

But for humans, knowledge is an indispensable value.

Think about trying to go about your life without any knowledge. Just trying to cross a busy street would become terrifyingly paralyzing. Think about if no one ever had any knowledge. It's just you in the jungle and you hear growling behind a bush and you are scared but can only react to the stimuli-of-the-moment and only to that stimuli that is right in front of your nose. That lion is very likely going to eat you, though you may try both fighting and fleeing. There is no way out of that conundrum, except for the vital human capacity to accrue knowledge. In this case, knowledge to make weapons, armor, and shelter.

This makes knowledge a universal value for all humans, everywhere.

Now, some humans may not "value" (act to gain or keep) knowledge to the extent that it is objectively valuable to them. Rand's novelette, Anthem, describes a whole ("futuristic") society which turned its back on knowledge. Some primitive tribes may view knowledge as some kind of black magic, and they may not value it enough. So the value of knowledge is the same for all humans, but the humans themselves may fail to get themselves in-line with reality (make themselves more "fit" for reality), and those folks will not thrive like they could have.

Their (bad) philosophy will limit their ability to be happy as a human being. So, even though there are objective values, most philosophies fail to recognize this and, therefore, most philosophies are "bad" for mankind, at least ultimately. It may be good to go through a phase and try out some bad philosophies in your life, in order to get the kind of "experiences" which lead you to the good ones.

Ed

Post 21

Friday, July 15, 2011 - 2:41am

Teresa,

You'll see intrinsicism everywhere in popular culture, and I think its important to identify it when you can.

Why is such an irrational belief so common in our culture?

Ed,

I'd say that they are derived from human nature, and that they serve or transmit the value of human life.

What exactly is human nature? Is there some clear definition?

Post 22

Friday, July 15, 2011 - 4:03am

Intrinsicism serves as a great tool for the demagogues to control the masses. It suspends both rational thought and egoistic ethics concurrently. So it comes as no surprise that its long history of infliction through power structures has taken much time to erode and still pervades our world today.

Ayn Rand draws on Aristotle's distinction of human nature from animal nature. Both call man "the rational animal." Rationality, i.e. a conceptual consciousness capable of reasoning abstractly to identify reality symbolically, separates man from the other animals. That distinction describes human nature in a nutshell.

Post 23

Friday, July 15, 2011 - 10:41am

Raiden:

Why is such an irrational belief (intrinsicism) so common in our culture?

Intrinsicism was the very first belief for humans.

When forces of nature "acted" (tidal wave, thunderstorm, etc.), humans ascribed 'unseen intentionality' as the cause. They could not see who it was who intended to cause the tidal wave or the thunderstorm, but they figured that someone was behind it all, nonetheless. Early religions (i.e., mythologies) started like that, and different gods were invented by man to be believed as the cause for things. Lightning, in Greek mythology, was something understood as being caused by Zeus -- when he got mad, he threw lightning bolts down to Earth.

Some folks along the way understood that gods as such don't really exist, but if you can keep folks believing in gods, then you can collect some of their money (about 10% of it) utilizing Day-of-Sabbath (Saturday or Sunday) tithes. This caused the belief in intrinsicism to grow.

Also, the Dark Ages saw more intrinsicism to help folks cope with hard times. If you are starving but you believe in God, then things aren't really as bad as they seem. Actually, the intrinsicism caused the Dark Ages, but was used as medicine during the Dark Ages (the condition was treated with more of the poison that caused it).

Also, the Enlightenment Age was just about to bring man out of intrinsicism when Immanuel Kant went ahead and created an elaborate formal proof of intrinsicism -- a "castle-in-the-sky" philosophy with terrible ramifications for mankind. Ayn Rand is the pre-eminent philosophical anti-dote to Immanuel Kant, but anti-dotes take time to work -- and there are still more folks who know about Kant than there are who know about Rand.

That is the reason that there is "such an irrational belief (intrinsicism) so common in our culture."

What exactly is human nature? Is there some clear definition?

Luke gave a good answer. For more, click on this link:
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/man.html

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 7/15, 11:32am)

Post 24

Friday, July 15, 2011 - 3:53pm

Hi again, Raiden -

Why is such an irrational belief so common in our culture?

I wish I knew for sure, but I can't disagree with Ed or Luke. Its a frustrating problem, because Reason is obviously so much better in so many ways, and practically so self evident as such that I have to wonder if evolution holds any influence or responsibility. Other Objectivist friends and I have argued that perhaps there's a part of the brain that hasn't evolved yet to control irrational fears that fall prey to mysticism.

What it does speak to is the serious fragility of any developing intellect. Some of the smartest people in the world are also moral mystics.

Post 25

Sunday, July 17, 2011 - 9:25am

Some reasons why people are still religious today:

- There are good benefits to being a part of religious groups that have not been replaced by any modern philosophical lifestyle system. Examples that come to mind include: Weekly get togethers to talk about current events in the world and in member's families, singing together, and then prayers that recite what is important. Prayers are an excellent way to highlight problems, goals, and improve bonding.

- Many people are not able to reason out their own conclusions on complex issues, so they leave it to emotion and the community that they feel a closest tie to to tell them what is true. Not able to because... its not that important to them, they do not have the time, they have traumatic past experiences that make it very difficult for them to think about questioning or thinking about religion, or maybe just they do not think they are smart enough to figure it out themselves so they leave it up to another they feel they can trust.

- For some, without a God that gives them a moral purpose to their life they cannot find a purpose for themselves. Maybe even they have a lot of terrible things going on in their lives and they don't even find life worthwhile, they just stick it out because their religion considers suicide as bad... and because our brains are made to latch onto any goals they can find in order to continue living. Without God giving them purpose, many people may feel like they would have committed suicide, which creates a strong emotional barrier for them to even consider thinking about whether God is true.

Post 26

Sunday, July 17, 2011 - 6:53pm

Dean,

Insightful post.

Ed

Post 27

Wednesday, October 12, 2011 - 4:11am

Welcome to RoR Raiden.

Post 28

Monday, November 21, 2011 - 7:33pm

First of all, I would like to apologize for resurrecting a somewhat dead thread. That always seemed impolite to me.

Second, I would like to apologize for showing up, receiving a bunch of excellent answers and warm welcomes, and then just leaving for half a year. I decided to myself, "Gee, these people talk about this "Atlas Shrugged" book like it's good or something. Maybe I should actually read it instead of just reading these Objectivist websites." So I went and attained a copy of that thousand-page behemoth. I read it, and pondered, and questioned, and thought.

Now that my understanding of Objectivism has somewhat matured (I don't think it's fully grown yet though, it's in those terrible teen years) I now have a better understanding of why life is the ultimate value. My understanding is in there, intuitive, but I've had trouble putting it in a rational, logical articulation.

After quite a bit of thinking, I have come up with the following "proof":

I�m going to use the definition of value as �A statement that one seeks to make true.� So if I value statement X then I will act to make statement X true. However, some values take priority over others. Therefore, if statement X and Y contradict each other, and I value X more, then I shall forego Y for the sake of X. As humans, it is inevitable that we will value something. It is impossible not to. Even if one tries not to value something, he is trying to make the statement �I have no values� true. Therefore, the individual is in a state of valuing. Valuing is action, because it means one is acting to make a statement true. After making a statement true, we must then act to make another statement true, because we are constantly in a state of valuing. Therefore we are constantly in a process of continually valuing. As I said before, humans always value. In order to value, we must be capable of valuing. Since we automatically value, the rational thing to do in order to meet our values is to make the statement �I am capable of valuing� true. In making that statement true, we are valuing it. Therefore, we are valuing the act of valuing. Valuing is action, which must be performed by oneself. If someone else acts to make a statement true, one did not value it because valuing requires one to act, not allow others to act. Therefore, valuing is self generated, self continuing action. If we value our valuing, then we value in order to value in order to value etc in a continual process. Therefore, we act in order to act in order to act etc in a continual process. Since this action is self generated and self continuing, it is a process of self generated, self continuing action, or life. Therefore, if one values (and we all do) then one must value their valuing in a process. Therefore, if one values, then one must value life. I said near the beginning that we can forgo lesser values for the sake of stronger ones. Life is the prerequisite to valuing, because one must be capable of valuing in order to value. Therefore, life is always the more important value, or the ultimate value. We must let go of a value if it interferes with the value of life. If one chooses the weaker value, one loses one�s value of valuing, and therefore becomes incapable of valuing. This individual is, in a sense, dead, because all living creatures value. Life is the ultimate value. We must value life because of the existence of the other values, but the value of life allows the other values to even exist, because it allows us to be able to value. By valuing one�s life, one also values one�s values, one�s self, and perhaps everything else. It�s beautiful.

Any constructive criticisms of it will help. I'd like to use it to spread Objectivism around here a bit (although I live in the bible belt).

Post 29

Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - 3:51am

Raiden Worley, No need to apologize.

===============

I know that Ed Thompson disagrees with me on this subject. :P

"Even if one tries not to value something, he is trying to make the statement �I have no values� true."

Sorry, can't give you that one. If you do not value anything, you are not "trying", you are not "acting". I'd define a value as "A process or state which an entity acts to gain or keep". Similar to in your definition: act = seek.

"Therefore, if one values, then one must value life. I said near the beginning that we can forgo lesser values for the sake of stronger ones. Life is the prerequisite to valuing, because one must be capable of valuing in order to value. Therefore, life is always the more important value, or the ultimate value."

You say "Therefore, life is always the more important value". I can't give you this either. Just because it is logically true that in order for one to continue valuing, one must continue to live... this logical truth does not imply a should. "more important": that is a value judgement, and you can't derive more important values from lesser ones, you can only derive less important values from more important ones given an understanding of reality.

You are free to propose to people that they consider making their own life their greatest value, but there is no way to prove that it should be an entity's greatest value. FYI I may contradict Ayn Rand on this... if so she was wrong. :)

I'd propose that living up to two oaths, similar, but modified from the Galt's Gulch Oath: 1. Oath for Other's Justice: I will not deprive from others of what I didn't earn by consensual agreement with them. 2. Oath of Self Justice: I will not let others gain from depriving me of what they didn't earn by consensual agreement with me.

Oath #1 is no problem. Oath #2 is fighting words, which is a difficult thing vs today's everyone-must-be-a-pacifist-and-only-the-moral-majority-can-use-force-and-the-majority-does-not-take-Oath-#1.

===============

A strong Christian will most likely have a strong opposition to this, because they are very strongly taught that their love for God and doing what God wants them to do should be their greatest value. They will have trouble even considering the possibility of God's will not being their greatest value, because to do such a thing is taught quite strongly to be considered as "Living in the world instead of living for God", which their bibles and preachers call out as evil.

Even if you did establish with a Christian that their own life should be their greatest value... you are still faced with that they have a completely different "world view". They think that there are angels and demons, heaven and hell. They think we are part spirits that will eternally experience pleasantries or torture after this human bodily form dies. So given this world view, making God's will your highest value is the best thing to do... cause eternal pleasantries is great, and eternal torture sounds really terrible.

So one must battle against that world view too. Show that the Christian world view is based on the words of reality contradicting priests, and the words of past priests written in a big self contradicting and reality contradicting book. Reality contradicting in all of the cases where they say one thing, but using the scientific method and archeological/historical evidence consistently say something else. Show that faith is a terrible thing, that a benevolent God would never want you to believe by faith due to that when you accept things by faith you can accept all sorts of invalid things, that reason and the scientific method are the only good ways to accept information.

And then... we need to create a community and culture that makes life fun and feels worth living for all of these people to join. Or maybe their children-- because old people don't like to change. :)

Cheers,
Dean

Post 30

Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - 10:07am

I see some problems, starting with your definition of value as �[a] statement that one seeks to make true.� This would appear to restrict valuing to beings capable of forming and understanding sentences and of acting on the information they impart. That rules out plants, most animals and pre-language children, all of which indisputably do have values. For those beings that have this capability, the definition restricts values to consciously held, consciously pursued goals, which are only one kind of value.

Another problem with the definition is that it gets the genus wrong. Values are not a kind of sentence. Sentences contain words, end with punctuation marks and are capable of translation into another language; none of this holds for values. Health, wealth and (as Noel Coward observed) good plumbing are values, but they aren't sentences.

You could amend the original claim to say that all values are statable as sentences. This is true, but only some sentences, not all, are value statements. If you know which are and which aren't, then you already have an understanding of value. The definition is then circular.

I doubt that we consciously value being valuers, except maybe incidentally. If we were logically obligated to this, then in turn we'd value the fact that we value being valuers, and so on into infinite regress. We could never get the process started. Nor do I think we choose to be valuers. We just are, with no choice about it, as you say yourself earlier in the post.

This leads into a topic I'm not very clear on myself, and I'm not sure Rand was sufficiently clear on it either - the difference between values as conscious pursuits and values as explanations. For example, philosophers have claimed that a certain argument in Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics I:2) and, much later, in Rand ("The Objectivist Ethics"), is fallacious. Every ends-means series must come to a stopping-point is true, and we need it . A and R conclude from this that there is a stopping point that they all must reach. This is no more true than that everybody loves somebody entails that there is somebody whom everybody loves. If you identify ends (or values) with conscious goals, I think you'll get into trouble with this. Fred Miller pointed out that the argument is a much better one if you understand the conclusion to mean that life is as far as you can go in such a chain; it's not a means to some further value. In situations of mortal danger (which is how this thread got started) we might explicitly consider that life is a value, but if we're lucky we go through our entire lives without its value ever coming up in our deliberations and tradeoffs. Just the same, it's always the ultimate value explanatorily.

Post 31

Wednesday, November 23, 2011 - 7:25am

Dean,

"Sorry, can't give you that one. If you do not value anything, you are not "trying", you are not "acting". I'd define a value as "A process or state which an entity acts to gain or keep". Similar to in your definition: act = seek."

What I really meant was that we are constantly valuing, no matter what. I was just trying to show that even if one makes a conscious effort to have no values, one is valuing having no values. The only way not to value anything is to be dead.

"You say "Therefore, life is always the more important value". I can't give you this either. Just because it is logically true that in order for one to continue valuing, one must continue to live... this logical truth does not imply a should. "more important": that is a value judgement, and you can't derive more important values from lesser ones, you can only derive less important values from more important ones given an understanding of reality."

All "shoulds" must come with an "if." For example, if you want a car to move, then you should press the gas. So in terms of values, if you want to achieve a value (which you do, as is the nature of values), then you should live. Life is the more important value as living is achieving one's values. You must achieve your values in order to achieve your values. One may view life as a means to other values, but life is the ultimate value in that it is a means to all values. Life becomes and "end" value when you recognize that in order to achieve any value, you must live. Therefore, any value conflicting with life must be dropped, and new ones must be conceived and given priority.

Peter,

"I see some problems, starting with your definition of value as �[a] statement that one seeks to make true.� This would appear to restrict valuing to beings capable of forming and understanding sentences and of acting on the information they impart. That rules out plants, most animals and pre-language children, all of which indisputably do have values. For those beings that have this capability, the definition restricts values to consciously held, consciously pursued goals, which are only one kind of value."

What I mean by my definition isn't that one must consciously recognize the sentence. One can act to make a sentence true without knowing the actual linguistic construction. Sentences are merely symbols for ideas. Animals, for instance, may act to make the sentences "I am breathing" or "My cells are performing respiration" true. They don't know these sentences, but nevertheless they act to make them true. You're probably right though that I could just say that values are statable as sentences.

"I doubt that we consciously value being valuers, except maybe incidentally. If we were logically obligated to this, then in turn we'd value the fact that we value being valuers, and so on into infinite regress. We could never get the process started. Nor do I think we choose to be valuers. We just are, with no choice about it, as you say yourself earlier in the post."

Yeah you're right that I meant we have no choice about it. Derived from that, I think that we have no choice but to value life. I think it's human nature, or the nature of any organism, to do so. The difference is whether one consciously recognizes this and acts rationally upon it or not.

Post 32

Sunday, November 27, 2011 - 12:27pm

Dean,

Just because it is logically true that in order for one to continue valuing, one must continue to live... this logical truth does not imply a should.

Maybe not, but what does imply the "should" ... is the existence and identity of the human life form -- a form of life that can live happily, or not. Having this human-specific, fundamental alternative of happy living provides the link between metaphysics and ethics (between "is" and "ought"). Because man is one specific way, and not others, he should act in some specific ways, and not in others. Actions have consequences and consequences -- when applied to beings capable of happy living -- are morally evaluated in reference to that happy living as the ultimate standard of all of one's values.

Because you are a "human", you cannot be happy without first taking "happy living" as your value standard, and then also adopting the requisite (rational) values. Here are some quotes from The Virtue of Selfishness in support of this:

VOS, 22:
He cannot achieve his survival by arbitrary means nor by random motions nor by blind urges nor by chance nor by whim. That which his survival requires is set by his nature and is not open to his choice. What is open to his choice is only whether he will discover it or not, whether he will choose the right goals and values or not.

VOS, 27:
In psychological terms, the issue of man�s survival does not confront his consciousness as an issue of "life or death," but as an issue of "happiness or suffering." Happiness is the successful state of life, suffering is the warning signal of failure, of death.

VOS, 28:
But if a man values destruction, like a sadist�or self-torture, like a masochist�or life beyond the grave, like a mystic�or mindless "kicks," like the driver of a hotrod car�his alleged happiness is the measure of his success in the service of his own destruction. It must be added that the emotional state of all those irrationalists cannot be properly designated as happiness or even as pleasure: it is merely a moment�s relief from their chronic state of terror.

VOS, 29:
Existentially, the activity of pursuing rational goals is the activity of maintaining one�s life; psychologically, its result, reward and concomitant is an emotional state of happiness. It is by experiencing happiness that one lives one�s life, in any hour, year or the whole of it. ...

But the relationship of cause to effect cannot be reversed. It is only by accepting "man�s life" as one�s primary and by pursuing the rational values it requires that one can achieve happiness�not by taking "happiness" as some undefined, irreducible primary and then attempting to live by its guidance. If you achieve that which is the good by a rational standard of value, it will necessarily make you happy; but that which makes you happy, by some undefined emotional standard, is not necessarily the good.

So when Raiden said:

Life is the prerequisite to valuing, because one must be capable of valuing in order to value. Therefore, life is always the more important value, or the ultimate value.

You can make his statement true by modifying it to this:

"Life is the prerequisite to valuing and, for beings capable of happiness, happiness is the final goal of all valuing -- because one must be capable of valuing in order to value, and humans face the extra, fundamental alternative of being happy or not. Therefore, for beings capable of happy life, such a life is always the more important value, or the ultimate value."

This logical truth implies a "should."

You are free to propose to people that they consider making their own life their greatest value, but there is no way to prove that it should be an entity's greatest value.

See above.

I'd propose that living up to two oaths, ...

Hold on. You are stealing a concept here. Why would you even think to propose anything to another human being, unless you shared a common nature with that other being -- a nature which inherently limits the kinds of choices one ought to make in order to achieve the kind of results that, when integrated with the restrictions of one's nature (of what kinds of things can possibly make a human happy), results that would or could be successful?

Ed

Post 33

Monday, November 28, 2011 - 3:18pm