Surely its value is mostly in the experience of life and not the relative span of time? — TiredThinker

I agree. Re:Value.

relative span of time — TiredThinker

Length, time, distance, speed, motion, etc... are all relative. Which means they don't actually exist. So the length of your life is an illusion. You only have the eternal here now.

The mind needs relativity to know. It compares things and calls it knowledge. Value and insignificance are just descriptions that can be applied to anything.

There seem to have been a few threads on this idea.

I think there are several correct answers to this depending on your perspective and age. Personally I would not want to live forever. I wouldn't even like to have 200 years, mainly because I am getting bored now and I am only in my 50's.

The most interesting atheists I have known have argued that mortality and the lack of an afterlife (in their worldview) act as an aphrodisiac for living. Life is more precious if it is finite and if it is the only one we get. I respect this answer. Personally I think my valuing life is an emotional reaction based on enculturation, but who knows for certain?

precious if it is finite — Tom Storm

It is only finite in the mind. I have no proof I am not eternal. The idea I am finite is an idea in the mind. Which then causes fear and wonder.

Everything is in the mind, Miller, so the point holds. :cool:

Everything is in the mind, Miller, so the point holds — Tom Storm

The mind likes to live with fear and wonder. It gives it more stimulation. Mental masturbation.

Everything is in the mind..... except reality (which is everything)

Living gives value, flourishing, exploring, participating, ...

:up:

Length, time, distance, speed, motion, etc... are all relative. Which means they don't actually exist. — Miller

This looks wrong. That the fork is to the left of the knife is relative to where you sit to table. Do you conclude that the fork does not exist? Of course not.

What gives life value? We do.

Values are not found. Nor is meaning.

The most interesting atheists I have known have argued that mortality and the lack of an afterlife (in their worldview) act as an aphrodisiac for living. Life is more precious if it is finite and if it is the only one we get. I respect this answer. Personally I think my valuing life is an emotional reaction based on enculturation, but who knows for certain? — Tom Storm

Yep.

The very worst thing about dying will be not finding out what happens next.

I think the fact that life is finite gives it value. If it wasn’t we wouldn’t even notice it as ‘life’ we’d just keep being us and then perhaps section up the span of existing in some other way that gave it relative value.

Given that some organisms live for hundreds of years where others barely a single day, it would not be felt as ‘merely a day’ or ‘a long century’ because generally speaking time is felt subjectively apart from the physical measurement of time. We know this when we are young and developing, the days drag when we wait for a special event or fly by in ‘holiday’ time.

I don’t understand about arguing for ‘the value, or lack of value, of life’. Without life there is no ‘value’ and what you may or may not call a ‘mistake’ in such abstracted universal terms is utterly meaningless.

Life as a human item has many fluctuated somewhat over human history. In terms of sacrificing human lives it could be argued that life was so valued that offering up a human life meant it was given more value than in times where life isn’t so readily sacrificed.

As for arguments that value is relative that doesn’t much help matters as we then need to address relative to what and how relative it is to said item/s. In the current era we live in this is further complicated by our cultural need to measure and log things. The power and understanding measuring items has given us (in terms of knowledge and insight) is so ubiquitously useful that we do perhaps over apply it (heuristic blindness). Meaning when measuring as a cultural and scientific practice has led to so many benefits it can become increasingly hard to recognise/register when/if such a heuristic is in fact utterly useless and misplaced.

For example, I can value certain things like a painting or a sunset, yet to measure such a value against other things lacks any universal constant and moreover lacks any real way of determination. I have noted to friends that I would rather lose my right hand than my sense of taste and I truly believe this … yet if by some extraordinary circumstances this hypothetical became a reality would I actually opt for losing my hand or am I just kidding myself? The value is therefore based on subjective appreciation of reality and no matter how much someone may tell me that x is worth more than y I am not simply going to agree when my personal position says otherwise.

That the fork is to the left of the knife is relative to where you sit to table. Do you conclude that the fork does not exist? Of course not. — Banno

I conclude that left and right do not exist objectively.

What gives life value? — TiredThinker

Nothing. What makes God real? The fact that people believe that God is real?

Surely its value is mostly in the experience of life — TiredThinker

Experience, yes. Especially the experience of being human, male, straight, and white.

P.S. Add value for being American and Republican.

So one could live forever (assuming they don't trip into a bus) and have a life full of value and joy? If the concern of some is that infinite life can't be relative to anything with today's math that it is less precious and has less value it could still have phases. It could be divided into sections no matter how many sections there are. Not like rings around trees (unless you're a Kardashian), but our appearance could hypothetically change in an infinite life. Lets even consider we all live hypothetically infinitely but we find a mortal way to die before we can prove it. Lol. Life is what we make of it no matter the duration?

I conclude that left and right do not exist objectively. — Miller

Ah, that magical word, "objectively". Folk wave it and think their philosophical errors dissipate. Best avoided. So let's go back to this:

Length, time, distance, speed, motion, etc... are all relative. — Miller

The mathematics Einstein developed shows how the laws of physics are the same for all observers.

Some folk erroneously think that he showed that the laws of physics are dependent on the observer,

That sort of misunderstanding might lead one to say something odd, such as that length, time, distance, speed and motion do not exist.

@TiredThinker

Surely its value is mostly in the experience of life and not the relative span of time?
— TiredThinker
I agree. Re:Value. — 180 Proof

Insofar as the current model of life - the theory of evolution - is concerned, all that matters is:
Birth $\rightarrow$ Childhood $\rightarrow$ Adulthood $\rightarrow$ Mate $\rightarrow$ Death.

All the above are achieved by the following:

1. Mayflies [lifespan 24 hours]

2. Humans [lifespan 90 years]

3. Greenland sharks [lifespan 270 years]

Some argue that if we lived forever that the hardships of life would be greatly depreciated in value. — TiredThinker

There we go. FIFY. Some do. Some may be right.

But does its value largely come from its brevity, finitity, and frailty? — TiredThinker

Appreciation perhaps. That's potentially one reason roller coasters, skydiving, and bungee jumps are fun. Imagine driving and seeing an oncoming car swerve in your lane barely missing yours by inches, then careen off a cliff and blow up. You'd be pretty thankful now wouldn't you. Bet you'd go home and the next meal you ate would have just a bit more flavor.

Is the argument that life in the universe is only possible within like 0.0000001% of the history of the universe an argument for the value of life, or its insignificance, and likihood that it was more of a mistake? Surely its value is mostly in the experience of life and not the relative span of time? — TiredThinker

I feel some truths are self-evident.

Surely its value is mostly in the experience of life and not the relative span of time? — TiredThinker

The answer is both,

“Give someone chocolate for the first time and they will fall in love. But they will never have the same sweet experience as the first time if they eat it again.”

Life comes with a finite of experiences if we lived forever we would probably face eternity with “Apathy”

Immortality is a goal for the fearful and to respect life you need to give it the dignity to end gracefully when the time comes.

Value is communion with, mutualism, the more complete the better, by complete I mean communion without categories, all-inclusive. Personally, I don't know if anyone has actually accomplished full communion, but it's like perfection, a direction, a goal.

Irrelevant to my post

The mathematics Einstein developed shows how the laws of physics are the same for all observers. — Banno

Stop confusing metaphysics with physics.

“There is no such thing as philosophy-free science, just science that has been conducted without any consideration of its underlying philosophical assumptions.” -Dennett

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

And that's why port and starboard. — tim wood

Exactly.

But in the age of digital piracy we use upload and download. :nerd:

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Pain and pleasure give life its value otherwise we would not be motivated to live at all.

Life is not rare from the standpoint of being since there is no other alternative that has content. Anything that presents content to itself must be a kind of life. A infinity of years of time can pass in an awareness void, unconscious universe, and then suddenly, pop!, we're alive but never ourselves again in a strict sense. Death is not an experience! Time passes for the living.

We're in effect quasi immortals with no conserved content/substance but the inevitability of being conscious since we cannot be dead to ourselves.

Life has value because it is inescapable from the long view of a kind of eternal return, like the phase of flowering on the cosmic tree. There will always be a season for the blooms of consciousness. An eternity of nothing never appears to itself. An eternity of something must appear to itself because the only verification that it is something, is an appearance to itself.

Life Quality, primarily. Life has a level of quality, if it's unacceptable, life has no value. Life begins to have value when it's quality is acceptable.

To live is not to experience life's value but to be born is in light of life's value. It's a population question, 'should I have children?' is among the questions involved.

Surely its value is mostly in the experience of life and not the relative span of time? — TiredThinker

Value is a more abstract notion of something we want essentially.

'Something "we" want' already implies a living thing and a duration of time.

For the purpose of this discussion (about meaning) you could say that life is that which has separated itself from the rest of the world (via a cell membrane) and tries to maintain itself, its form, over time.

So to answer your question, life gives itself values by trying to sustain itself over time. It doesn't make much sense to speak of value without both "experience ( a living thing)" and a duration of time. Theoretically, any duration of time could do.

Stop confusing metaphysics with physics. — Miller

The Principle of Relativity is fundamental to physics.

And that's why port and starboard. — tim wood

You shouldn't encourage him. :wink: