Re: If life is a benefit...

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 10:14:26 -0500, "Tim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 18:01:58 GMT, ipse dixit <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> If life is a benefit, then it's logically certain that
>> no life [ie never existing at all] is a loss.
>
>Life is not a benefit. Life is not an argument. Logical certainty and loss
>are meaningless, unthinkable, and impossible without the existence of some
>being capable of  harboring them. To the best of our knowledge humans are
>the only beings capable of  logical certainty. Other (some) critters are, I
>believe, capable of a sense of loss. Both cases require life; specifically
>animal life. 

    Life is the benefit which makes all others possible. If it were not, then
things which are not alive would be able to benefit. That doesn't mean
that the individual lives of all creatures are a benefit--some are and some
are not. But there is a big difference between life itself, and the individual
life an animal experiences. It's rather hard to believe, but it appears that
some people can't understand the difference between the two, probably
because the same word is being used to denote two different ideas.

>If life never existed it could not possibly be a loss. We can
>contemplate the extinction of all life and make value judgments as to
>whether or not it is a loss (noting that the extinction is, in one sense, a
>definite loss. Extinction = all life - all life. - as subtraction is a
>lessing or loss), but never existing at all prohibits the possibility of
>loss - one needs something to loose.
>