What makes life sacred or valuable?

Post Reply New Topic

Are you sure? Please reconsider after the following.

In every single cell of our body lives a prokaryot. A 'bacterium' if you will, although it's so specialized living in symbiosis with the eukaryotic cell that the only way we can infer that it is a prokaryot is from its circular DNA.. We call it an 'organel' (mitochondrion). Without it, we would die within seconds. It delivers the energy in the form of a high energy molecule (ATP) that powers EVERY process in our body.

Bacteria live on our skin and protect us from harmfull invaders. Bacteria live in our gut to help us digest our food and supply us with vitamin K which humans can't make themselves. That's not all. The plants and animals we eat, all depend on bacteria. Without bacteria nothing would decay. Decay isn't 'nice', but it's necessary. It's true that some bacteria are very harmfull for us, and I'd rather see them gone from the face of the Earth too. But the truth is that the vast majority of bacteria are very usefull little critters. I don't like to use the term 'sacred' (what does that mean outside of the context of religion?), but I certainly have a great deal of respect for the humble prokaryot. And besides, they were here first. 1.7 billion years before us eukaryots.

Last edited by NewDawn on 21 Apr 2013, 4:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Okay if not sacred then fundamentally valuable. What makes life valuable for its own sake if anything does?

If bacteria is useful to me or other organisms I want to keep alive I feel it should be preserved. If bacteria is harmful to me or to another complex organism that I want to keep alive then I will destroy it without even a thought. It has no value (to me anyway) in and of itself. Do human beings? I believe we do but maybe I'm just deluding myself.

Prokaryotes are certainly resilient.....they were here first and for a billion years before us. lol. I don't think that makes them valuable though.

Last edited by daydreamer84 on 21 Apr 2013, 4:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No, and I say that while refusing to value one human life over another.


In some cases, their only "contribution" might be our opportunity to serve them at our own expense and without reciprocation or reward.


That could be a good reason.


At least in theory, I would rather die together while sharing insufficient rations than to live at the expense of another against his or her own will...and I hope I never have to sort all of that out in any real-life situation.


Things like the Biodiversity Treaty of a couple of decades ago would have us believe that is not possible, but I refuse to consider the reduction of human life a solution to any of our global troubles.


I would say we should never value either over the other and that we should all live or die together...and I say that without getting into the tough decisions to be made by the able-bodied few with victims suffering and dying all around them following some kind of disaster or devastation.

Well ,this is the way I'd like to see the world and what I'd like to believe. This would mean there is something inherently valuable about human life , I suppose. We should live and die together but I suppose you wouldn't think twice about saving a human over a dog or a cow or a worm if it came down to it? I wouldn't. Does thinking this way mean that what makes human life valuable is something separable from intelligence?

Looking just a bit beyond that, I would say there is value in placing equal value in human life...and at the very least because that can help keep us from valuing our own lives more highly than we might otherwise value the lives of others.


Rhetorically: Can pears be more valuable than oranges? How about a snake and an apple? I do not eat pork, but the pig and the chicken play different roles in relation to humans eating bacon and eggs.

So no, I believe it would be arrogant to view intelligence as a deciding factor. Where evolutionists might say "natural selection" decides value and others might say value comes from "creative design" or by mandate or whatever, the bottom line is that mere dominion does not establish any right or authority in judgements of value.

Pretty much.



I don't find it the least bit bleak.



As bio-chemical processes in the brain, sure. As social primates, humans have evolved the capacity for both of these things so that we can live together in societies. Love, empathy, compassion, and sharing are just as much a part of our genetic heritage as violence, competition, and war.



Not in any objective sense. Of course, we can always assign value to life.

Well, except that new human life can easily be made (see overpopulation)


What makes life sacred and valuable? well, as George Carlin said: "It's a self serving, man made BS story"

Most animals don't have as much of a reason to live as most humans, so animals generally don't lose as much when they die as humans do. A lot of wild animals lead hard lives, in which their only goals are to not starve or be eaten. Those animals really only lose the burden of meeting their survival needs when they die. Some animals, like deer, are spared from dying in more unpleasant ways later in life when they get shot and killed by hunters, like being ripped apart by coyotes or slowly starving to death. They would most likely not survive long enough to die from old age. Nature is cruel, and humans can't change that. Wild animals don't enjoy the luxury of being safe from harm like most humans do. They also don't usually enjoy having relationships with very many other members of their species. The death of a human can make entire communities grieve, whereas the death of a wild animal only makes small numbers of other animals of their species grieve, if any grieve at all.

Human really do not make new life in the sense of craft. They toss seeds in the soil and through purely natural processes they germinate.

ruveyn

Thanks for the replies everyone. I am reading them through. I'm just not responding because I don't have a fully formed opinion about this which is why I'm posing all these questions.

That's an interesting perspective. The potential pleasure an individual can get from life or the potential for richness in his experience of life as well what the individual means to others of his species is what makes him valuable. That could be a part of it.

if there were no humans, everything would go to rack and ruin. vehicles would get dirtier and dirtier. dust would pile up in houses and buildings. everyone's lawns would become overgrown until they were in a hideous condition. just imagine what state the roads would be in with no one to maintain them?

I'd say our sense of value is inborn. When thinking about it, I can't quite point to anything specific, other than that I feel I and my fellow humans are valuable and more so than other species. It's not our intellectual capacities, but it might have to do with our level of awareness of the world. We are not only self-aware, but also death aware. Perhaps chimps, bonobos, gorillas and elephants are too, but not as much as we. They don't burry their dead with ritual. They do seem to mourn them and even other species they've grown attached to, as can be seen in this video of Koko the gorilla who has learned some sign language.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQCOHUXmEZg[/youtube]

We are a social species and can't survive on our own. Our children take a really long time to grow into adulthood and are completely helpless at birth. We are simply born with the instinct to protect and help each other. That can't work if we don't have an inborn feeling of value. We are not unique in this. Most mammals, some reptiles and many birds will fiercely protect their young. It seems that the higher the investment of having progeny, the more protective a species is.

Yes, and now even we cannot keep our concrete jungle well-maintained.

i was not being serious.