Thanks Quk - I think we're seeing gatekeeping and mods swayed by people with large post numbers...

I'm not 'spiritually' inclined or by any means an advocate of things like homeopathy (or other things that are linked to spirituality contextually - like tarot, star signs etc) - quite the opposite in fact. I believe in what i can sense and prove - so yes lets disentangle that.

I link the meaning we can derive from this framework to what I'd label "spiritual enrichment or spirituality". Mainly because it becomes so intuitive, the things we all see as beautiful and awe inspiring (what some people might say come from the soul or spirit) actually become the things that are meaningful and our purpose.

To be clear - I’m not accusing you of bad faith. But I do think it’s worth being self-aware about how ideas are filtered and who gets to set the tone. — James Dean Conroy

Good—no worries.

I'm here because I've never really prioritized philosophy. I find the forum experience interesting, and I enjoy asking people who’ve done more reading and thinking than I have what their perspective is. Even if they agree with me, that doesn’t mean I think we’re both right, it just suggests I’m not entirely off base. I find 's approach clear, and he’s more knowledgeable than I am.

But yes, there’s always the risk that here many of us gravitate toward those who share our dispositions, presuppositions and values. Just like life in general.

Thanks Tom, I appreciate the genuine response.

I do understand I'm upsetting the status quo here and expect resistance from the establishment...

I’d be surprised if you were upsetting any kind of status quo—there are several perspectives here that regularly jostle with each other, but no single dominant view that I can see. There seem to be thoughtful contributors from a range of approaches, from analytic philosophy to Neoplatonism. I enjoy reading people’s views and occasionally throwing in my own to see how they land. But it does seem that certainty or members who believe they've solved a great quandary are often met with skepticism. Which would make sense for a philosophy site. Disagreement is good, as long as it is managed without rancour and abuse.

Couldn't agree more Tom.

I welcome rigour and disagreement, as long as is it actually valid. I've had both rancour and abuse (not from you, I won't mention names)

I don't want the assertiveness I've shown or confidence in my position to be misunderstood as evangelism or unwillingness to to entertain critique.

Banno was right when he said :

there are various axioms that set up propositional logic, and so on. Without these rules there is no game — Banno

I'm just asking people to play fairly. Albeit, admittedly, assertively.

Are you familiar with the works of John Hodge, John McMurty and Robert Brem? If not, look them up — James Dean Conroy

I looked up John McMurtry. I can see how your position has been influenced by his work. In attempting to understand the practical value of a broad abstract scheme , I alway look to see how it is applied to real world events. I noticed McMurtry attempting to do this in his article Explaining the Inexplicable: Anatomy of an Atrocity, published in The 9/11 Conspiracy: The Scamming of America. Here he illustrates his concept of Life Consciousness by claiming that 9/11 was a conspiracy perpetrated by the Bush administration to provide an excuse to invade Iraq and Afghanistan and take their oil. Are you sympathetic to his view?

No and I'm not aware of that.

I was purely referencing his Life-Value-Onto-Axiology.

I do think "Life is Good" is probably more portable, though...

It's probably worth mentioning that I became aware of his work after I'd finished the first draft of my framework. I am going to update it to cite him, but it's in peer review, I'll wait for the first revision they undoubtedly will seek of that to include it and the others I mentioned.

I see you're active on Academia.edu, you can find the others I mentioned there.

The white paper presents a long historical arc and 26 citations, I'm adding a new section to the end of that titled "contemporary thinkers". The last thing I want is accusations of plagiarism.

And just to mention to you personally Josh. I appreciate your position, your credentials and the scrutiny you can bring. Thank you for the engagement. Hold me to the flame.

I'll go a step further.

The argument in the OP seems to rely on the part-syllogism: There cannot be values without life; therefore life is valuable.

Now perhaps most folk would agree that there cannot be values without life, and think life is valuable, and yet agree that the second does not follow from the first.

There is a gap between the "is" of "There cannot be values without life" and the "ought" of "Life is valuable.

So let's try to put the argument, as given together, and see where the problem lies. Most obviously, the interpretation above is not a syllogism, since it has only one premise. So is there a second premise, and if so, what is it?

What was called a "formal" version remains a bit unclear, but seems to be found in the following lines:
1. Without life, there is no subject to generate or interpret value.
2. Life persists by resisting entropy through structure, order, and adaptation, and “Good” can be structurally defined as that which reinforces this persistence.
3. For life to continue, it must operate as if life is good.

It's hard to see how (3) follows from (1) and (2) in any formal way. The idea seems to be that since life does persist, it ought to persist. But that does not follow.

In addition, there remains the obvious question: why ought life continue? Perhaps what ought happen is that life ought be deleted, maybe in order to remove all suffering. Again, I am not advocating this, but pointing out the logical gap in the argument.

Some folk will read this and not see that my counter isn't about whether life is valuable or whether life ought continue, but about the lack of validity in the argument. We cannot move from the observation that there is life, to the conclusion that life is valuable, without introducing an evaluation. We cannot move form that A exists, to that A is valuable; at least not without introducing a second premise - but this premise must introduce the value of A. We can't get form an "ought" to an "is", at least nto int he way suggested in this thread.

but about the lack of validity in the argument. — Banno

We agree on the validity of the argument.

To get from an "is" to an "ought", logically, there needs to be some premise which connects the two verbs. This need not even be ontologically significant. Or logically significant!

The is/ought distinction needs more attention than is given here. "Life is good" -- ok, sure. all of it? in every case? all the time? And if so what is the difference between the reference of "Life" and "...is bad"? Is anything bad if Life is Good?

Yep.

From elsewhere,

3. The "Life = Good" Axiom

Life must see itself as good. Any system that undermines its own existence is naturally selected against. Therefore, within the frame of life, the assertion "Life = Good" is a tautological truth. It is not a moral statement; it is an ontological necessity.
Example:
Suicidal ideologies and belief systems ultimately self-terminate and are selected out. What remains, by necessity, are those perspectives and practices that favor survival and propagation. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam persist precisely because they endorse life-affirming principles, even if imperfectly. — James Dean Conroy

The sentiment is that life ought be preserved, and that's not a bad sentiment. But the argument that the opposite view leads to there not being any life is void; perhaps there ought not be any life.

In the end, the argument affirms that life is valuable, but does not demonstrate, let alone prove, that life is valuable.

There cannot be values without life; therefore life is valuable.

Now perhaps most folk would agree that there cannot be values without life, and think life is valuable, and yet agree that the second does not follow from the first.

There is a gap between the "is" of "There cannot be values without life" and the "ought" of "Life is valuable. — Banno

Well this is kind of where I got to 18 days ago on the first thread dedicated to this idea.

3. The "Life = Good" Axiom

Life must see itself as good. Any system that undermines its own existence is naturally selected against. Therefore, within the frame of life, the assertion "Life = Good" is a tautological truth. It is not a moral statement; it is an ontological necessity.
Example:
Suicidal ideologies and belief systems ultimately self-terminate and are selected out. What remains, by necessity, are those perspectives and practices that favor survival and propagation. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam persist precisely because they endorse life-affirming principles, even if imperfectly.
— James Dean Conroy

Tom Storm - Aren't these is/ought fallacies?

Just because life tends to organize and propagate doesn’t mean that it should. Evolution describes tendencies, not values. Saying that because something happens in nature, it is therefore good, risks committing the naturalistic fallacy (a form of is-ought reasoning).

In addition, there remains the obvious question: why ought life continue? Perhaps what ought happen is that life ought be deleted, maybe in order to remove all suffering. Again, I am not advocating this, but pointing out the logical gap in the argument. — Banno

Yes, again, I think I made a similar point. I'm obviously not a lone voice.

Please don't take this as ganging up on you. I just struggle to see your argument as working properly, even though I think I understand what you're trying to do - grounding morality in a foundational presupposition. As I understand it, you believe that since life is the only basis for judging what is good, the continuation of life must itself be good — or something along those lines.

I'm always fascinated by arguments which work to ground morality in foundational principles.

Well this is kind of where I got to 18 days ago on the first thread dedicated to this idea. — Tom Storm

I don't think I saw this, but yes, it looks similar.

I'll leave you to the diplomacy, since it's apparent that I am a part of the conspiracy. I'd count this thread as another example of what I've characterised as the "retired engineer" coming in to fix up all that bad stuff in Ethics by bringing in some hard cold reason, only to demonstrate a lack of understanding of the issues. But that's my biases.

Whenever I've thought about objective morality (as a secularist), I've tended to hold that if you select a presupposition like human flourishing or Sam Harris's well-being, you're choosing that foundation from a range of possibilities - and that choice itself is not objective. However, once you've chosen a goal, you can work objectively toward achieving it, just as there are objective rules for playing chess, even if the game itself was a human invention based on "made up" conventions.

I'm wondering if you see the difference between the thrust of the argument in the OP and it's logical validity? One can agree with the conclusion and yet not agree that the argument is valid.

One can agree with the conclusion and yet not agree that the argument is valid. — Banno

That's an important distinction.

What was called a "formal" version remains a bit unclear, but seems to be found in the following lines:
1. Without life, there is no subject to generate or interpret value.
2. Life persists by resisting entropy through structure, order, and adaptation, and “Good” can be structurally defined as that which reinforces this persistence.
3. For life to continue, it must operate as if life is good. — Banno

What about that?

Premise 1: All living subjects are good.
Premise 2: A value generator is s a living subject.
Conclusion: A value generator is good.

Now, mass murderers are living subjects. Are they good? From their perspective they are good. From the victim's perspective they are evil. Obviously, goodness is relative rather than universal. There's always an excuse for the one or the other (see "vegan" debates etc.).

That's why I introduced that ratio factor in one of my previous comments. Evil things are rare, good things dominate by far. This ratio sets the trend: Life tends to the "good" rather than to the "evil". In a good system, most creatures can trust each other (a system of love, attraction). In an evil system, nobody can rely on anybody (anti-attraction, hate); that's why evil systems don't last long. In other words, I define the "good" not as a moral property but as a matter of attraction and self-stabilization.

In short: I think it's impossible to put life strictly into a stiff "goodness" category. There must be some flexibility so that the evolution gets some room for lottery games, without which life couldn't generate its essential variety. Goodness is impossible without a little bit of variety. Paradise is boring. Boredom is no good.

Thanks for the engagement - I was hoping you guys would apply yourselves and you've not shied away.

That said, I’ve already anticipated these misinterpretations in my earlier comment, so let's set the record straight once more. The framework I’m presenting is descriptive, not prescriptive. There’s no ought here - it’s about the way life must operate to persist. This isn’t a moral claim, and it’s not about Hume’s Guillotine or any sort of ethical objectivism.

These misreading were preemptively accounted for in my second post:

I often face accusations of either being in some way "Randian" ( i.e. Morally Objectivist ), or another popular one is that it's a "Naturalistic Fallacy" ( i.e. Hume's Guillotine )

Neither are true and miss the point...

My paper describes a framework that is 100% DESCRIPTIVE and 100% DEDUCTIVE.

No "Is-Ought" - just is.

Not morally prescriptive in any way.

Good = positive value.

Bad = negative value.

No one has ever defined these any differently - they just get caught up in what their perception of positive value is.

Plants judge value. They judge sunlight to have positive value ( i.e. it's Good ) — James Dean Conroy

The distinction you're missing is that the "Good" here is not about moral value, it’s about positive value in a structural sense. Life operates as if it’s "Good" (represents positive value) because it has to, it’s how life continues. Plants, for example, judge sunlight as Good because it sustains them.

The framework is entirely about structural facts, not about personal moral opinions.

So, lets consider the specific points raised in light of this:

The argument in the OP seems to rely on the part-syllogism: There cannot be values without life; therefore life is valuable.

Now perhaps most folk would agree that there cannot be values without life, and think life is valuable, and yet agree that the second does not follow from the first.

There is a gap between the "is" of "There cannot be values without life" and the "ought" of "Life is valuable.

So let's try to put the argument, as given together, and see where the problem lies. Most obviously, the interpretation above is not a syllogism, since it has only one premise. So is there a second premise, and if so, what is it?

What was called a "formal" version remains a bit unclear, but seems to be found in the following lines:
1. Without life, there is no subject to generate or interpret value.
2. Life persists by resisting entropy through structure, order, and adaptation, and “Good” can be structurally defined as that which reinforces this persistence.
3. For life to continue, it must operate as if life is good.

It's hard to see how (3) follows from (1) and (2) in any formal way. The idea seems to be that since life does persist, it ought to persist. But that does not follow. — Banno

That’s the critical misread - and it’s precisely what I’ve been careful to avoid from the start.

There is no 'ought' in this framework. Let me be crystal clear:
The claim is not that life ought to persist, but that life only persists by operating as if it is good. That’s not a prescription - it’s a descriptive entailment.

Let me restate the logic in deductive form, fully within descriptive, ontological terms:

Without life, there is no value - because there’s no subject to experience, measure, or generate it.
Life exists - therefore, some form of value must exist from the standpoint of life itself.
Life persists through self-affirming behaviours — behaviours which reinforce its continuation (order, adaptation, structure).

Therefore, life necessarily operates as if it is good - meaning, it selects for what sustains it (positive value) and against what threatens it (negative value).

This is not “life is good therefore it should persist.”
It’s: If life did not regard itself as good, it would not persist.
It would self-negate.

So this is a factual, structural claim - a Darwinian axiom, really. Life only exists because it builds and affirms. That's what life is, in systemic terms. No morality needed.

That’s why I say: No “is-ought.” Just is.

TLDR:

The analysis is misreading the intended scope of the framework. It's descriptive.

Let’s get back to basics, since the confusion seems to persist.

You like syllogisms, great. So let’s lay one out cleanly, without any morally loaded terms that can be misconstrued:

Premise 1: Systems that persist must select for conditions that support their persistence.
Premise 2: Life is a system that persists through adaptive selection.
Conclusion: Therefore, life must select for what supports its persistence.

That’s the heart of the argument. It’s not moral, it’s mechanical.

Now, if you swap "select for what supports its persistence" with "regard as positive" (i.e. good in the structural sense), then you can see where "life = good" comes from, not as a moral judgment, but as a systemic entailment.

This is not an argument that "life ought to persist."
It’s that only those forms of life that implicitly affirm their own persistence can and do persist.

Any system that doesn’t operate in this way selects itself out. That’s not "ought." That’s physics and evolution.

And just to return to where we agree, I think we're all in agreement with axiom 1, right?

1. Life is, therefore value exists.

Formal Statement: Without life, there is no subject to generate or interpret value. — James Dean Conroy

I guess that's fair. Without life there is no perspective.

I don't see an "ought" either. I forgot to add this info to my last post. Since the start of this discussion I've been seeing just an "is", not an "ought". Just descriptive, not normative.

...from the standpoint of life itself. — James Dean Conroy

I believe it's this that's giving me trouble connecting. I feel like there's some sort of reification going on.

I can accept a descriptive system that says "life is bad" selects itself out, at least for the sake of argument, or testing a logical system (as far as I'm capable; I'm not a trained philosopher). My problem is that at that point I lose sight of the relavance of "value only exists because of life".

Evaluating is something living things do; if they don't affirm, they're selected out. An evolutionary perspective. Fine. The problem comes when you raise value to a perspective beyond the individual. What even is this level? It's not selection in the sense of population figues: it's not like suicidal people or pessimists are different species.

For example: social insects often sacrifice a massive amount of life for the sake of the "queen". From an evolutionary standpoint that makes sense. In terms of human societies, this could mean that evaluating life as bad on the individual level could be affirming life (e.g. a few suicides reduce conflict for limited resources). I simply cannot see the connection between a living thing's perspective and the "standpoint of life itself".

This isn't a criticism of your position, btw, it's meant to illustrate an item I have trouble with. I can't play your game if I don't understand the rules, so to speak.

The problem comes when you raise value to a perspective beyond the individual. What even is this level? — Dawnstorm

I guess "value" in this context means "good". Now what is the definition of "good"? I think, the word "good" only makes sense if it refers to something: "What is it good for?" A knife, for instance, is good for killing. That, obviously, cannot be our subject. I'd suggest, everyone in this discussion using the word "good" should provide a definition of "good". My definition in this context is this: "Good" refers to a life system that can continue for billions of years. This is only possible if most creatures can rely on each other; this requires empathy and attraction ("love"). I'm describing a mechanical system, not a moral law. The fact that attraction ("love") is much greater than rejection ("hate"), stabilizes the mechanism. The mechanism gets disturbed indeed, and that makes the system alive. But the disturbances are self-destructive and therefore a minority. The minority is so small, i.e. the evil dose is so perfectly small-sized, that -- all in all -- even this small evil dose itself is, in the end, "good" as well. -- In short: In my view, "good" means attractive and stable. And this attraction is accompanied by joyful or happy feelings in the minds of most living creatures, I guess.

Honestly Dawnstorm, I tried very hard in the other thread.

I see there's a disconnect here...

Let me try one last time, using a picture as an analogy.

You keep describing the things you see in the painting.
But I’m talking about the canvas they're painted on.

Great, we'll build on this - hopefully the others will come back on this point. Let's go through together if we can.

Sorry, I'm not being ignorant. I've had a busy day. Working...

Honestly Dawnstorm, I tried very hard in the other thread. — James Dean Conroy

I know and appreciate this.

I see there's a disconnect here... — James Dean Conroy

It appears to run deep. I'll slink back into the shadows and continue reading.

I really do want to help :(

The distinction you're missing is that the "Good" here is not about moral value, it’s about positive value in a structural sense. — James Dean Conroy

I understand that, and thought I addressed it. Apparently not clearly enough, so I'll have another go.

Do you think that you are telling us what we should do?

That's what I'd understood by your

2. Life builds, therefore growth is what is valued. — James Dean Conroy

"Growth is what is valued". That we ought value life.

Either you are telling us what we ought to do - value life; or you are saying no more than that life only survives if it survives.

You can't say that you are only using "is" and yet insist that the message is about what we ought do.

So it seems to me that either your point is trivial, or it breaks the is/ought divide.