Ok, so how does that inform your views? If life has no intrinsic value, what are your thoughts about suicide, or imprisoning the Mansons or Hitlers of the world rather than just killing them?

I wouldnt say so, no. That is only one type of life you are talking about, there is other life that doesn't have that appreciation as you yourself stated and therefore life itself cannot have this intrinsic value.

I think its because people are not thinking clearly, they have been trained and indoctrinated to see racism where the is none. That certain words make a person racist, rather than what a person actually believes about race. (To varying degrees, some people think anything about race coming out of someones mouth is racist).
You’ve heard of Trump derangement syndrome? I think racism derangement syndrome is a thing too.
People lose their fucking minds about Trump and race.

Ok, moving onto someone else then, as per your request.

Whats important about the distinction is that when people hear you use “colour blind” in the non-racist way you mean, they take you to mean “color blindness” in the sense a racist might use that word as a cover for racist sentiment. Thats what happens when people see racism in everything and everyone (everyone white anyway, which seems kinda racist, but welcome to the wacky world of diluted terms we find ourselves in.)

I dont mean to make reference to an objective standard, whatever people/society decides has value is fine.
I think we agree, and I agree with your reference to religion as well. It seems pretty obvious that religious thinking places an inherent value to life because of the immortal soul, salvation and all that.

Interesting, didnt think of AI. Maybe people who think life has intrinsic value have something purely biological in mind as part of that intrinsic worth but to me if we are talking about personhood I dont see how we could exclude AI provided the AI has personhood (however you want to define personhood).
In order to answer your question about personhood being of intrinsic value, I would need to know exactly what you mean by personhood. If personhood has intrinsic value then personhood would have to be intrinsic to life in order for it to make life itself intrinsically valuable. I dont think thats the case, as I wouldnt say a plant or bacteria have personhood...but you might have something else in mind concerning what counts as personhood.

Well the murderous individual could have value if they offset the murders with saving lives or something I suppose, but I was meaning to make a point about a case where there is no offset. I used a relentlessly murdering and hurting person as an obvious example of that but you are right, its not always going to be the case that a murderous person has no value. What about the cases where it actually is the case they have no value (to people/society in general)? Do you think that life has something above and beyond the contents of that life?

Sorry you lost me here. What statement is contrary?
Im not saying life has no value, Im saying life has no value on its own. I dont think we should worry about preserving life in the case of a person who just goes around hurting and killing, we would only need to do that if we believed life had some sort of special, intrinsic value that we should preserve despite the hurting and killing. Some folks think we should lock that person up and expend time, energy and resources because life should always be preserved when possible.

Yes, I would agree life is important but I would still base it on the merits of that life. The import of a life correlates directly with the important things dine with that life.

Good post, I think you captured an important distinction in a nutshell.

It was more the context of something like someone braindead but kept alive by medical technology. Does life have value just on its own, so that we should respect and revere it even if it has nothing else going for it but itself?

The basic idea of the golden rule is pretty useful, yes.
To me if you are framing it as about people having intrinsic value then you are talking about the merits/demerits of that life, where as Im curious about what value life is supposed to have absent those specific things that are encompassed by personhood.

Well Antinatalism is about an individuals value assessment and I am trying to frame this at a societal level.
Also, I do not agree that Antinatalism is correct or even coherent.

I meant to use Manson as an example of a general principal but I take your point.

Well Im trying (unsuccessfully it seems) to illustrate a distinction between life and the contents of life. Im not trying to judge life as having nothing of value in it but rather question what value a life has when it has nothing of value in it, if that makes sense. Does life on its own have some sort of sacred, inherent value, so that we should preserve it for its own sake regardless of its contents?

[reply="I like sushi;348481"

Again though, you are talking about the inherent value of something other than life, in this second case “rare” and “quite fleeting”. Those are the things you see as having inherent value, but what about life itself? (In the sense that we should preserve it regardless of practical consideration)

Right, I suppose what I have in mind is a more practical set of values, and meant in a broad sense of humanity. Value to us, our societies. (Though not necessarily the law).

Things do not always have value if they are “very curious”, except if being very curious is what made it valuable in which case isnt it being very curious that has the intrinsic value?
As far as the standard of “value”, I have No particular preference or expectation, I just dont think it matters that much. Its the application I think is interesting.

It doesnt really matter to me how “value” is defined/viewed, in the sense that im not asking for anything like an objective fact about any of this. Wherever you think the “value” comes from isnt important (to me at least), im not taking a position on that I just want to know about how the values are being applied. For example, you made a value judgement about charles manson, so lets start there. Would you view his life as having no value, when he was alive?

I see. Well the value isnt intrinsic if there are things (merits) that you enjoy. Its those things in life you are enjoying, that are of value. What Im asking is what value does life have without those things.
Maybe we just mean different things by intrinsic. What about sacred? Do you think there is something sacred about life that we should always preserve it even in cases where the life has no real value to anyone or actually have a negative far outweighing any merits such as in the case of a serial murderer?

Im not following you, how does that answer my questions?

I wasnt using those definitions...and I dont even see where I used “worth” at all.
The “value” I have in mind is more about utility or importance.

Interesting, although not at all what I was talking about.
Edited: Also, I didnt say life has no value of any kind, so we would be is disagreement rather than agreement

I applaud your patience and calm responses sir, but I cant help but wonder why you keep at it. Neither of those two are really listening, and constantly use straw men In their “arguments”. Its just a bunch of self righteous douchery, id have given up long ago.
What are you getting out if it, if you dont mind me asking?

What do you call it when someone hates someone based only on the colour of skin/race?

However you want to define consciousness, im asking how would you know. The reason why Im asking is because it would be very difficult to do, considering how very little we actually know about consciousness. How do you know you will have replicated it in this computer when you would have no way of accounting for missing aspects/basis (because you do not even know what they are)?

How do know that what you have created is conciousness?

7
OK - but it doesn't mean importance either. The meaning of Shakespeare’s writing is in his mind. Mind/consciousness produces meaning. There's no agreement on how this happens. — Chris Hughes

The meaning is in the words. If they were not, we wouldnt be able to understand without Shakespeare (or his mind at least) present. Meaning ultimately comes from minds, but through words as well. A mind is the detection apparatus used, but the medium contains the meaning the mimd is detecting.

Well, maybe. I dont see how though. If you can tell by someones race whether or not they are suffering from a genetic disorder or not, how isnt that useful? Should we take it iff the table just because racist might skew it to support their ideology? I do not like ceding anything to racists.

Well its not...not always. Sometimes race can be a much stronger/reliable basis, such is the case with Osteoporosis or certain genetic diseases.

Well it can also just be useful categorisation, like Harry mentioned with medical purposes. The problem isnt the categories, its using those categories to justify different rights for “inferior” races. Right?

Its still what racism is founded upon. Thats why these sorts of discussions are so contentious, because racists can co-opt terms and positions, even facts, and work it into their racist ideaology.

For your fire and water example, it would depend on what other knowledge the person can draw upon to inform their reason. It doesnt have to be empirical evidence about water or fire in order for someone to use reason to figure out what the water or fire is.

One cannot be born with privilege anymore than one can be born with a trophy in his hand. Privilege is always granted, and it needs to be granted from living beings to other living beings. As a corollary, in order to acquire privilege one must first accept it from those handing it out. So yes, the term is silly at best, dehumanizing and racist at worst. — NOS4A2

Some people are born with advantages, isnt that some kind of “privilege”?

Right, individuality. The trump card over pretty much any other metric.

When did I say anything about IQ and race?

Ok, could you expand on that more? Im a fan of brevity but thats too brief, Im not clear on your stance here.
Like I asked, is it the experiences of racism that your worried about forgetting/ignoring?
And if its too literal to take you as saying you can make judgements about character based on skin colour/race, what exactly do you mean? You look at a person, identify their race by their skin colour and that indicates...what exactly? Youre saying nothing about their character directly but what their character is based on...history of racism or slavery?
Is it specific to the race?

Maybe the wrong word, the colour of someones skin dictates the character of that person...in part, you said in part. Which part? For example lets use black Americans. What can we tell from their skin colour about their character? Is it their experience on the receiving end of racism that you mean? That all or most blacks carry that burden and you din’t want that to be forgotten or ignored?
What about white people? What can you tell me about a white persons character, based on the fact they are White?
And as a follow up if you are so inclined, would you say that race or nationality is the bigger factor?
For example, if I present to you a frenchman and a black guy, whose character do you have a more clear picture of?

..and yet the colour of this skin is part of the content of their character. — Banno

So...the colour of someones skin comes along with certain immutable character traits? So MLK had it wrong?
Thats amazing to me, that anyone claiming to not be racist would be so focused on the colour of someones skin.
I guess it all depends on how one defines racism. How do you define it sir?