Re: If life is a benefit...

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 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.

Benefits and deficits are value judgements. One needs to be alive to make
them. Yes it is a benefit to be alive if one wants to make value judgements.
But wait - one needs to be alive to want!. Life is not a benefit. Please:
how exacty do none living things 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.

I fail to see were that double meaning pertains in the original post. Yes
there is Life; yes there are individual lives. So what?

>
> >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.
> >
>