There Is No Value Higher Than Your Own Life

[RCSaunders]

I'm just trying to get a grasp on what you are saying.

No you're not. You know perfectly well what I'm saying (unless you are a moron). It couldn't be simpler.

For example, Henry (from a discussion I had with him a while back) seems to adamantly think that death is better than living in slavery. Therefore he seems to place freedom or liberty as being the highest value (at least higher than life). However, from the sounds of it, you seem to be saying that living in slavery would be preferable to death (should it ever come down to such a choice).

How Henry or anyone else chooses to live their life is first, no one else's business, and second, not a basis for determine any principle. Henry's life is his to live as he chooses and only he can determine what is in the best interest of his life and what living it means. I happen to agree with Henry that one cannot live successfully as a human being if they are not free to choose how they live. Living is not a matter of perpetuating protoplasm, but of doing, achieveing, and being what one chooses to be.

Now you're just getting ridiculous. There doesn't seem to be much point in asking for further clarification so I'll leave you to your prejudices.

Heh, heh! So wanting every individual to live a fully satisfying life of joy and achievement is a prejudice. I can certainly live with that.

[RCSaunders]

If you did not exist, nothing would matter.

You are given life and the means to preserve and maintain it, but survival is not given. It is the same for all living organisms. Life is given with the means to living, but an organism must sustain its own life by its own action and behavior.

Given?? by who?

The individual human[s] are an emergent from all-there-is to serve the "purpose" [as inferred] of the species, i.e. to sustain and maintain the preservation of the human species.

From the beginning, the 'inferred' life purpose of humans are merely to 'f_ck' produce and sustain the next generation till they are able f_ck' produce babies.

But the reality is catastrophic threats like those that exterminated the dinosaurs and other had and been there and are ever present and possible to exterminate any living species on Earth.

Naturally, the propensity for higher consciousness and greater intelligence, wisdom and other functions emerge in time to enable to the humans to realize the reality of such real dangerous threats and to think of how to deal with such threats.
This is to the extent, humans are exploring on various strategies on how to deflect or destroy any very large rogue asteroid/meteors that appear out of the blue and heading toward Earth.
With the increased competences in various functions, humans are had already dealt with and exploring to deal with other potential threats to the human species.

But with increased intelligence and other competences, there is also a threat to humanity itself, thus the emergence of the moral function to manage whatever evil propensity that will arise to balance and maintain optimal productivity.

For all organisms the issue is always, "to be or not to be," but unlike all other organisms, you must discover or learn how live and choose to do it.

If you fail to live your life successfully, you have lost all there is worth having.

All humans are programmed to serve the purpose of the human species even when humans are endowed with the emergence of self-consciousness where despite the freedom to think for one self selfishly, the ultimate ulterior end of self-conscious is to serve the species.

What each individual must discover and learn is to understand how one is merely a spoke in the wheel of the human species and from there live life optimally* within the constraints the individual and groups are endowed with naturally.
* optimality is critical for the individual and the collective.

If you fail to live your life successfully, you have lost all there is worth having.

With human life, it is always a win-lose game without any ultimate success in term of 'living'.

Thus human life emerges within reality [all there is] and with the endowment of self-consciousness and other competences, the individual must strive to understand the whole gamut of what is life and flow with it smoothly and optimally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

What's your point? What do you think is more valuable than your own life?

[Gary Childress]

No you're not. You know perfectly well what I'm saying (unless you are a moron). It couldn't be simpler.

How Henry or anyone else chooses to live their life is first, no one else's business, and second, not a basis for determine any principle. Henry's life is his to live as he chooses and only he can determine what is in the best interest of his life and what living it means. I happen to agree with Henry that one cannot live successfully as a human being if they are not free to choose how they live. Living is not a matter of perpetuating protoplasm, but of doing, achieveing, and being what one chooses to be.

Now you're just getting ridiculous. There doesn't seem to be much point in asking for further clarification so I'll leave you to your prejudices.

Heh, heh! So wanting every individual to live a fully satisfying life of joy and achievement is a prejudice. I can certainly live with that.

No. Calling people "morons" who are trying to understand your views is a prejudice. But if it floats your boat, whatever.

[Immanuel Can]

If you are thoroughly enjoying your life, loving and cherishing every moment of it, without regret, fear, or guilt, and know you have done all you can to be and achieve all you are able to as a human being you are living successfully.

That could as easily be the description of somebody who's only smug. He lives up to whatever values he holds himself to...so if he holds himself to low or unworthy standards, then so long as he's self-satisfied, he's "living successfully"?

That doesn't sound right.

It isn't right. It comes from you own view...

It comes from the implications of what you said. I'm just wanting you to clarify, RC.

What really gals you...

Heh. You have no idea what galls me. This ain't it.

Those who live by standards so high they do not care what anyone else thinks or says about them, because they know what they are and what they have made of themselves, and do not need the agreement or approval of anyone else.

This is the problem. You're saying that these people live by their own standards, that those standards are "high" (though you deny there is any objective away of telling they're high), and that "they do not need the agreement or approval of anyone else." So it's ONLY their own personal feelings that they are "successful," entirely unanchored to any other thing but their own impression.

So you have to be denying that such people even CAN be deluded. However, it seems obvious that this collocation of descriptors could just as easily describe an egoist, a narcissist, a solipsist, or even a psychopath...because they don't have any sense of wrongdoing either. No doubt they always "succeed" in hitting their own standards.

Isn't it sometimes the case that people live their lives with entire self-satisfaction, but for what we would still regard as unworthy values?

I don't think so.

Wow. Just...wow.

[RCSaunders]

Now you're just getting ridiculous. There doesn't seem to be much point in asking for further clarification so I'll leave you to your prejudices.

Heh, heh! So wanting every individual to live a fully satisfying life of joy and achievement is a prejudice. I can certainly live with that.

No. Calling people "morons" who are trying to understand your views is a prejudice. But if it floats your boat, whatever.

I'm sorry if what I said annoyed you. You wrote:

I'm just trying to get a grasp on what you are saying.

I still don't believe you, which is why I wrote:

No you're not. You know perfectly well what I'm saying (unless you are a moron). It couldn't be simpler.

It's because you are obviously not a moron, and have no excuse for not understanding what I wrote, that I do not believe you. If you want to insist you don't understand, what do you want me to think?

There Is No Value Higher Than Your Own Life

It is not possible to make it simpler than that. You certainly do not have to agree with it. You may certainly believe something else is more valuable than your own life, but I cannot believe you do not understand it.

[RCSaunders]

That could as easily be the description of somebody who's only smug. He lives up to whatever values he holds himself to...so if he holds himself to low or unworthy standards, then so long as he's self-satisfied, he's "living successfully"?
That doesn't sound right.

It isn't right. It comes from you own view...

It comes from the implications of what you said. I'm just wanting you to clarify, RC.

Sorry, I have no intention of clarifying your misrepresentation of what I said, which you dishonestly left out.

Those who live by standards so high they do not care what anyone else thinks or says about them, because they know what they are and what they have made of themselves, and do not need the agreement or approval of anyone else.

This is the problem. You're saying that these people live by their own standards, ...

More dishonesty. I said, "live by standards," not, "live by their own standards," as though they just made them up (which is what you are implying) Everyone lives by, "their own standards," if you mean the standards they choose to live by, including you. But if you mean by, "their own standards," standards they just made up, that is just a lie. The standards by which one must live if they are live successfully as a human being must be discovered and are determined by reality--the real nature of the world one lives in and one's own real nature as a human being, and they are as objective and absolute as the standards of chemistry a chemist must follow if his chemical processes are to be successful.

... that those standards are "high" (though you deny there is any objective away of telling they're high), and that "they do not need the agreement or approval of anyone else."

They are absolutely objective, because they are not determined by anyone's feelings, sentiments, whims, irrational beliefs, or consensus, but by the facts of reality just as the principles of chemistry are not determined by anyone's feelings, sentiments, whims, irrational beliefs, or consensus, but by the facts of reality. They are the highest possible standards because they are based on reality and have as their objective the highest possible value, an individual human life.

... So it's ONLY their own personal feelings that they are "successful," entirely unanchored to any other thing but their own impression.

Feelings and impressions are totally irrelevant. One knows their life is successful because the objective of the their life is fulfilled in exactly the same way the chemist knows the formula was successful because it achieved the objective. Rational objective value exclude subjectivity.

So you have to be denying that such people even CAN be deluded. However, it seems obvious that this collocation of descriptors could just as easily describe an egoist, a narcissist, a solipsist, or even a psychopath...because they don't have any sense of wrongdoing either. No doubt they always "succeed" in hitting their own standards.

I have no idea if the kind of people you are talking about that you made up and pretended are what I'm talking about can be deluded or not.

Isn't it sometimes the case that people live their lives with entire self-satisfaction, but for what we would still regard as unworthy values?

I don't think so.

Wow. Just...wow.

You ought to shocked, and ashamed, for taking what I said out of its context to misconstrue what I said.

What I said was:

I don't think so. There is no shortage of people who are self-deluded about most things, but I would not call it, "self-satified," even if they and you would.

I said they are, "self-deluded," and since you apparently think that kind of life can be truly satisfying, you are deluded to.

[Immanuel Can]

It isn't right. It comes from you own view...

It comes from the implications of what you said. I'm just wanting you to clarify, RC.

Sorry, I have no intention of clarifying your misrepresentation of what I said, which you dishonestly left out.

Now, now, RC...be nice. I didn't deliberately "misrepresent" you; I just don't understand what you said, and want clarification.

Those who live by standards so high they do not care what anyone else thinks or says about them, because they know what they are and what they have made of themselves, and do not need the agreement or approval of anyone else.

This is the problem. You're saying that these people live by their own standards, ...

More dishonesty. I said, "live by standards," not, "live by their own standards," as though they just made them up (which is what you are implying)

No, you didn't merely "imply" it: you stated bluntly, did you not, "Those who live by standards so high they do not care what anyone else thinks or says about them, because they know what they are and what they have made of themselves, and do not need the agreement or approval of anyone else." Were those not your words?

Well, then they did indeed "make up" their own standards. You yourself say that nobody else does it. That is, unless you're secretly trying to slip the word "high" by us, as in "their standards are objectively high." But why should we think they are? Where do you get the scale upon which we all agree these values are "high"?

The standards by which one must live if they are live successfully as a human being must be discovered and are determined by reality

If so, they are grounded in reality. But that's objective. Are you now a believer in objective morality?

Well, then, what I want to know now is what aspect of reality helps them "discover and determine" what the "high" or right values are.

... that those standards are "high" (though you deny there is any objective away of telling they're high), and that "they do not need the agreement or approval of anyone else."

They are absolutely objective, because they are not determined by anyone's feelings, sentiments, whims, irrational beliefs, or consensus, but by the facts of reality just as the principles of chemistry are not determined by anyone's feelings, sentiments, whims, irrational beliefs, or consensus, but by the facts of reality. They are the highest possible standards because they are based on reality and have as their objective the highest possible value, an individual human life.

Unpack that for me in specific, okay? Show an aspect of reality, and then tell me what value it argues for, and I'll believe you have something there.

So you have to be denying that such people even CAN be deluded. However, it seems obvious that this collocation of descriptors could just as easily describe an egoist, a narcissist, a solipsist, or even a psychopath...because they don't have any sense of wrongdoing either. No doubt they always "succeed" in hitting their own standards.

I have no idea if the kind of people you are talking about...

Sure you do. A psychopath has no empathy, no awareness of the sensation of wrongness in anything he does. He can calmly describe slitting a throat...successfully. And history is full of such people. How about Epstein? He was a narcissist for sure, and very "successful" at doing exactly what he did to all those young women. Or Jimmy Saville.

These are not "made up" folks. The objection is a real problem for your view. You need to find grounds to exclude them from those who are "so high they do not care what anyone else thinks or says about them, because they know what they are and what they have made of themselves, and do not need the agreement or approval of anyone else." (Your words, of course).

[Gary Childress]

Heh, heh! So wanting every individual to live a fully satisfying life of joy and achievement is a prejudice. I can certainly live with that.

No. Calling people "morons" who are trying to understand your views is a prejudice. But if it floats your boat, whatever.

I'm sorry if what I said annoyed you. You wrote:

I'm just trying to get a grasp on what you are saying.

I still don't believe you, which is why I wrote:

No you're not. You know perfectly well what I'm saying (unless you are a moron). It couldn't be simpler.

It's because you are obviously not a moron, and have no excuse for not understanding what I wrote, that I do not believe you. If you want to insist you don't understand, what do you want me to think?

There Is No Value Higher Than Your Own Life

It is not possible to make it simpler than that. You certainly do not have to agree with it. You may certainly believe something else is more valuable than your own life, but I cannot believe you do not understand it.

OK. Maybe I'm over complicating things, then. But I was looking for some sort of imperative in it, like it's the essence of all morality or something. Which could certainly be true, but I can think of people who gave their lives, even sacrificed them for other things they seemed to care more deeply about or seemed to give higher value to than their own lives. I hesitate to call those people mistaken or under some sort of false illusion. That's where I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the assertion that there is no higher value than your own life.

Yes, it's a simple assertion but it seems to me to have ramifications that maybe don't align with all cases of what I would call heroic or noble people who deserve to be called "moral" or "good" in the highest sense.

I realize that Ayn Rand turned such beliefs on their head, accusing those who admire heroism and sacrifice of expecting others to sacrifice for them, however, I don't subscribe much to Rand's way of thinking. I think there are people who I am genuinely indebted to, not because those people just sat there and enjoyed their own lives to the fullest, doing nothing for me, but because they did great things (sometimes at great sacrifice) to make my life and that of others better. While I don't necessarily call people who don't do that "immoral" I do ascribe the highest moral value to such people and feel like I should honor them, perhaps even emulate them if I can muster the courage.

[Sculptor]

If you did not exist, nothing would matter.

But mattering would not matter. So the second part of your sentence does not even mean anyting.
Nothing can follow from "if you did not exist".

In American idiom, "if," does not mean, "so," but, "hypothetically." It's like your boss saying, "if you did not work here it would not matter what you wore," but since you do work there, you are expected to conform to the dress code.

The problem here is not about work, but about death: nothingness.

You are given life and the means to preserve and maintain it, but survival is not given. It is the same for all living organisms. Life is given with the means to living, but an organism must sustain its own life by its own action and behavior.

You emerge. You are not "given".

Speak for yourself. I was, "born," with life I did not have to do anything to have. You do have a problem with idiomatic language.

Maybe you are just being deliberately obtuse.
Or maybe you are just thick
Who was the "giver" then?

For all organisms the issue is always, "to be or not to be," but unlike all other organisms, you must discover or learn how live and choose to do it.

If you fail to live your life successfully, you have lost all there is worth having.

During life we build meaning and value from our experience, and many people discover that through their own understanding of their relationship with the universe they can easily learn to value other things way beyond their own life, and would gladly give it up in the preservation of a loved one.

Not if they are dead.

NO I get it you really are thick

[Veritas Aequitas]

If you did not exist, nothing would matter.

You are given life and the means to preserve and maintain it, but survival is not given. It is the same for all living organisms. Life is given with the means to living, but an organism must sustain its own life by its own action and behavior.

Given?? by who?

The individual human[s] are an emergent from all-there-is to serve the "purpose" [as inferred] of the species, i.e. to sustain and maintain the preservation of the human species.

From the beginning, the 'inferred' life purpose of humans are merely to 'f_ck' produce and sustain the next generation till they are able f_ck' produce babies.

But the reality is catastrophic threats like those that exterminated the dinosaurs and other had and been there and are ever present and possible to exterminate any living species on Earth.

Naturally, the propensity for higher consciousness and greater intelligence, wisdom and other functions emerge in time to enable to the humans to realize the reality of such real dangerous threats and to think of how to deal with such threats.
This is to the extent, humans are exploring on various strategies on how to deflect or destroy any very large rogue asteroid/meteors that appear out of the blue and heading toward Earth.
With the increased competences in various functions, humans are had already dealt with and exploring to deal with other potential threats to the human species.

But with increased intelligence and other competences, there is also a threat to humanity itself, thus the emergence of the moral function to manage whatever evil propensity that will arise to balance and maintain optimal productivity.

For all organisms the issue is always, "to be or not to be," but unlike all other organisms, you must discover or learn how live and choose to do it.

If you fail to live your life successfully, you have lost all there is worth having.

All humans are programmed to serve the purpose of the human species even when humans are endowed with the emergence of self-consciousness where despite the freedom to think for one self selfishly, the ultimate ulterior end of self-conscious is to serve the species.

What each individual must discover and learn is to understand how one is merely a spoke in the wheel of the human species and from there live life optimally* within the constraints the individual and groups are endowed with naturally.
* optimality is critical for the individual and the collective.

If you fail to live your life successfully, you have lost all there is worth having.

With human life, it is always a win-lose game without any ultimate success in term of 'living'.

Thus human life emerges within reality [all there is] and with the endowment of self-consciousness and other competences, the individual must strive to understand the whole gamut of what is life and flow with it smoothly and optimally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

What's your point? What do you think is more valuable than your own life?

Obviously the individual is "programmed" to feel that nothing is more valuable than his own life.
But the above attitude while has it pros also has its corresponding cons when such egoism is not in alignment with the flow of reality.

The greater truth is the individual is merely a pawn or a puppet in the scheme of life to achieve the 'purpose' [as inferred] of the human species, i.e. to survive and preserve itself. The other alternative view is that of the Selfish Gene - I am not going into that.

For an individual to think that his life is more valuable than anything else is sub-optimizing thus leading one living a life that is not optimal.

Therefore it is optimal for an individual not to think his life is more valuable than others but rather belief all other human lives at the basics are on par with his and that he is a team member of TEAM-HUMANITY.

[Peter Holmes]

Claim: there is no value higher than your life.

Point of order: life isn't a value. Nor is clean water. To value something doesn't make that thing a value. (And anyway, the abstract noun value isn't the name of a thing of some kind. Talk about things being - or our having - values can be confusing.)

So the claim seems to be: of all the things you can value, your life is the most important.

This is a matter of opinion, and by no means a fact.

[Age]

Age, I will answer all your questions, either here or perhaps another thread, but will let you know. Until I have done that I'll answer your last question:



If you are thoroughly enjoying your life, loving and cherishing every moment of it, without regret, fear, or guilt, and know you have done all you can to be and achieve all you are able to as a human being you are living successfully.

So, are you living successfully and thus have always lived 'successfully', or have you failed, and thus you have lost ALL there is worth, supposedly, having?

Well. it looks like we both make a mistake. I thought you were asking serious philosophical questions. You wanted to turn the discussion into some kind of personal thing.

Since it was only a mistake on both our parts, no harm done.

If you choose to be less than you can be, if you choose to suffer and die, while I cannot be pleased by anyone else's suffering, I would never interfere in how you choose to live your life.

I have absolutely NO idea WHY you said this, NOR, WHAT you are saying this for.

I just asked you some very simple, clarifying questions, which you said you were going to answer. But, maybe you found answering them Honestly just far to hard and/or difficult so you chose NOT to, and thus wrote this instead? Or, maybe you have some other legitimate reason/s for writing this?

We will just have to WAIT, and SEE, correct?

[surreptitious57]

If you are thoroughly enjoying your life loving and cherishing every moment of it without regret fear or guilt and
know you have done all you can to be and achieve all you are able to as a human being you are living successfully

Do you think it is possible to live your life by being in an eternally positive state of mind just like your description above ?
This may be an ideal to aim for but it is not something that can be achieved in reality because suffering will exist as well
Human beings are just not psychologically or philosophically capable of living a Utopian existence no matter how desirable

[RCSaunders]

OK. Maybe I'm over complicating things, then. But I was looking for some sort of imperative in it, ...

A value is not a mandate or imperative. A value is a term of relationship. A value is a relationship of any thing or action relative to some objective, purpose, end, or goal. A thing has a positive value (good or right) if it further or achieves the objective or purpose, and has a negative value (bad or wrong) if it inhibits or prevents the objective or purpose. Nothing is just good right bad or wrong (there are no intrinsic values). A thing is only good, right, bad, or wrong for something to someone. Values do not tell one how to behave, only what the objective of one's behavior ought to be.

... what I would call heroic or noble people ...
I realize that Ayn Rand turned such beliefs on their head, accusing those who admire heroism ...

I have no idea why you mention Ayn Rand. I certainly do not adhere to her philosophy (or that of any other philosopher) but if you are going to mention someone you should at least get it right. She certainly didn't have your view of what the, "heroic," is but she certainly was an advocate of true heroism:

Joy, exultation, beauty, greatness, heroism, all of the supreme, uplifting values of man’s existence on Earth, are the meaning of life.

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

She wrote that every individual had the capacity to be a hero and should aspire to be one in fact:

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark…. Do not let the hero in your soul perish….

The view that there is anything virtuous or noble in, "sacrifice," is anti-heroic and anti-human. Nobody has ever done

... great things (sometimes at great sacrifice) ...

A, "sacrifice," is giving up or destroying something of a higher value for the sake of a lesser value. A, "sacrifice," is throwing virgins into the volcano to save the village. A sacrifice is taking one man's hard earned dollars to give to some drunken bum or drug addict. When someone gives up something or endures suffering or depravation for something they value more than what they give up, that is not a sacrifice. The hours of excruciating practice a concert pianist endures to achieve his goal is not a sacrifice. The things a parent gives up and the pain they may endure for the sake of the children they love, is not a sacrifice. Everything has a price, a cost, and a consequence. No matter what one suffers, gives up, or endures, if it is to achieve or acquire something they value more, it is not a sacrifice. It is a trade, an exchange of something one values less for the sake of something one values more.

There is absolutely nothing heroic or noble about sacrifice. Sacrifice always mean giving up or throwing away what is of a higher value for the sake of that which is a lesser value, or of no value at all.

If you really want to do something that will improve others' lives, sacrificing your life or any part of it cannot possibly do it, but achieving something, producing a product that others can use, or wear, or eat, performing a service that others will value enough to pay for, inventing or creating something that others can use will improve others lives. Only achievement can possibly benefit anyone, yourself or anyone else. Sacrificing (wasting) yourself will only destroy your own life and the lives of those your, "sacrificial service," meddles in.

This is a personal question, so please do not actually answer it here. The answer is nobody else's business. The question is, do you really want anyone else to sacrifice any part of their life for you? What kind of people would we be if we expect others to sacrifice their lives for the sake of our own? I know I could never want anyone to sacrifice anything for me, and I'm sure you wouldn't either. But wouldn't that make it presumptuous, on our part, to assume others even want our sacrificial help? What must we think of others to believe they cannot live unless we meddle in their lives.

[Skepdick]

That can only be true for solipsists/individualists.

If my life is valuable, then the lives of me + my wife + my children are collectively more valuable.

Is no different to saying "I don't recognise the value of other lives"