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It's a wonderful article but I can't accept the core argument. Life is rare = life is precious is just a version of the naturalistic fallacy. You are entitled

It's a wonderful article but I can't accept the core argument. Life is rare = life is precious is just a version of the naturalistic fallacy. You are entitled to believe that life is beautiful; you are equally entitled to believe it is a terrible cosmic mistake - acknowledging the rarity of life doesn't obligate you to change your belief.

deadbabe 1y ago
Thinking this way is a necessary prerequisite before pushing humans into an oven.
- cwmoore 1y ago
  How about after?
  - braingravy 1y ago
    Only necessary for those who carried out those actions and want to live afterward without remorse.
    - cwmoore 1y ago
      I disagree that rarity is a decider for remorse. We are all related and our actions influenced in many ways by the experiences of others. The very commonness of modest stars on uninteresting arms of a minor galaxy in a narrow window of time leads me to expect that indeed, an essential humility about our expression of certain moral virtue might be in order.
falcor84 1y ago
I agree that "precious" might be too much of a leap, but nevertheless think that there's a legitimate argument here for life being "interesting". I'm particularly reminded of Schrödinger's "What Is Life?", which (amongst other great arguments) posits that life is what actively rejects within itself the increase in entropy (via homeostasis). I'm not aware of any mechanisms doing so that aren't either alive or were assembled by living beings. This function comes hand in hand with the creation and maintenance of information, and in my opinion makes life particularly "interesting", especially if it is rare in the universe. In other words, if our universe is to be analyzed by a hypothetical external entity, it is likely that a significant fraction of the analysis effort would go towards our small corner of the universe (and any others) with living organisms.
api 1y ago
Without life nothing is precious or a mistake. There is nothing to make a value judgement.
- aacid 1y ago
  Life on Earth would be perfect ecosystem without human. Sure lion eats zebra but there are no animal species capable of eradicating other species. my (very amateurish) opinion is that "high inteligence" is very effective and successful short term genetic strategy (it allowed very average mammal species to become absolute apex predator) but long term it is very unsustainable and self destructive. Look at the lion, apex predator in his environment and it is completely content. People are never content, always need more and more. We are intelligent but so bored that we spend most of our time finding out new ways to kill or at least hate each other. yea, I'm not a big fan of Humanity...
  - api 1y ago
    Perfect by whose measure? How do you know lions are content? Do you speak lion? Are all humans permanently discontented or just the noisiest ones? Contented people don’t scream as much. I’ve thought like this, or versions of it, before in my life. Eventually figured out it was just globalized philosophized depression. I’ve come to call it “low serotonin philosophy.” (Yes, the serotonin hypothesis for depression is a huge oversimplification, but it’s a catchy name.)
bko 1y ago
> you are equally entitled to believe it is a terrible cosmic mistake - acknowledging the rarity of life doesn't obligate you to change your belief. I don't know, thinking life and humanity is a "cosmic mistake" seems to be a destructive nihilistic take. Easy to justify horrible things, because why not? Shouldn't we all seek to be pro-human? All of the things I care about most in this life are human.
- idiocache 1y ago
  Can't we believe that life is a terrible cosmic mistake and still be pro-human?
  - kurthr 1y ago
    Create whatever joyful apocalypse your putrid hateful heart desires. I think the key here is "mistake". I don't really like that word here, any more than I like "precious" as opposed to interesting. Many rare things are just dangerously destructive.
  - fellowniusmonk 1y ago
    Can the cosmos make a mistake? Can a highly energetic RNG generator make mistakes? Random perhapse, mistake is just a very anthropocentic way of phrasing it State change is all you need to create humans and state change is impossible to deny. Maybe other basic stuff exists too but that isn't important. We are structural semantic meaning generators, we turn energy into semantic meaning. Nothing and meaninglessness don't actually exist. You can assert otherwise but that assertion relies on the very structures that make you able to assert, so assert that everything is meaningless but your ability to do so undercuts your own assertion. Even if you remain silent your brain keeps making meaning. Does meaning lead anywhere? It might, idk, seems too early to call it. Based on our current understanding and empirical observation, there are a very small number of entities and their progeny that can try and figure it out until the heat death of the universe. If you feel meaningless it's just evolutionary pressure to not get stuck in a local maximum.
- cwmoore 1y ago
  Destructive and horrible events are often very hard to justify without resort to nihilism, which indicates that it may secretly be the truer core belief, and therefore the better foundation for understanding how humanity can become over the arc of time, less often mistaken.
blamestross 1y ago
The nifty feature of intelligence is that you get to examine what you value. Critical peer comments (so far) don't seem to address the "naturalistic fallacy" part, or even lean into it. As far as I am tell, life can be maximally ambiguously defined as "entropy deferral". Nothing can stop entropy, but life crams as much organization into that lifetime as possible. I think that is kinda cool and I want to help, so I think we should make as much matter alive as possible before the universe fizzles out. Rationalizing value judgments is always a challenge. We can argue over facts and implication of facts all we want, but the "predicate values" are arbitrary and you can't change them in others. I generally don't bother unless I have a strong idea of my audience's "predicate values". If they don't match mine, or I can't manipulate others into agreeing we share instrumental values, I am just out of luck.
oh_my_goodness 1y ago
Are you personally alive?
jagged-chisel 1y ago
“Mistake” imparts intentionality. Perhaps life is an accident, but it can only be a mistake if intelligence is behind the cosmos. Observation, not argument.

deadbabe 1y ago

Thinking this way is a necessary prerequisite before pushing humans into an oven.

cwmoore 1y ago
How about after?
- braingravy 1y ago
  Only necessary for those who carried out those actions and want to live afterward without remorse.
  - cwmoore 1y ago
    I disagree that rarity is a decider for remorse. We are all related and our actions influenced in many ways by the experiences of others. The very commonness of modest stars on uninteresting arms of a minor galaxy in a narrow window of time leads me to expect that indeed, an essential humility about our expression of certain moral virtue might be in order.

falcor84 1y ago

I agree that "precious" might be too much of a leap, but nevertheless think that there's a legitimate argument here for life being "interesting". I'm particularly reminded of Schrödinger's "What Is Life?", which (amongst other great arguments) posits that life is what actively rejects within itself the increase in entropy (via homeostasis). I'm not aware of any mechanisms doing so that aren't either alive or were assembled by living beings. This function comes hand in hand with the creation and maintenance of information, and in my opinion makes life particularly "interesting", especially if it is rare in the universe. In other words, if our universe is to be analyzed by a hypothetical external entity, it is likely that a significant fraction of the analysis effort would go towards our small corner of the universe (and any others) with living organisms.

api 1y ago

Without life nothing is precious or a mistake. There is nothing to make a value judgement.

aacid 1y ago
Life on Earth would be perfect ecosystem without human. Sure lion eats zebra but there are no animal species capable of eradicating other species. my (very amateurish) opinion is that "high inteligence" is very effective and successful short term genetic strategy (it allowed very average mammal species to become absolute apex predator) but long term it is very unsustainable and self destructive. Look at the lion, apex predator in his environment and it is completely content. People are never content, always need more and more. We are intelligent but so bored that we spend most of our time finding out new ways to kill or at least hate each other. yea, I'm not a big fan of Humanity...
- api 1y ago
  Perfect by whose measure? How do you know lions are content? Do you speak lion? Are all humans permanently discontented or just the noisiest ones? Contented people don’t scream as much. I’ve thought like this, or versions of it, before in my life. Eventually figured out it was just globalized philosophized depression. I’ve come to call it “low serotonin philosophy.” (Yes, the serotonin hypothesis for depression is a huge oversimplification, but it’s a catchy name.)

bko 1y ago

> you are equally entitled to believe it is a terrible cosmic mistake - acknowledging the rarity of life doesn't obligate you to change your belief. I don't know, thinking life and humanity is a "cosmic mistake" seems to be a destructive nihilistic take. Easy to justify horrible things, because why not? Shouldn't we all seek to be pro-human? All of the things I care about most in this life are human.

idiocache 1y ago
Can't we believe that life is a terrible cosmic mistake and still be pro-human?
- kurthr 1y ago
  Create whatever joyful apocalypse your putrid hateful heart desires. I think the key here is "mistake". I don't really like that word here, any more than I like "precious" as opposed to interesting. Many rare things are just dangerously destructive.
- fellowniusmonk 1y ago
  Can the cosmos make a mistake? Can a highly energetic RNG generator make mistakes? Random perhapse, mistake is just a very anthropocentic way of phrasing it State change is all you need to create humans and state change is impossible to deny. Maybe other basic stuff exists too but that isn't important. We are structural semantic meaning generators, we turn energy into semantic meaning. Nothing and meaninglessness don't actually exist. You can assert otherwise but that assertion relies on the very structures that make you able to assert, so assert that everything is meaningless but your ability to do so undercuts your own assertion. Even if you remain silent your brain keeps making meaning. Does meaning lead anywhere? It might, idk, seems too early to call it. Based on our current understanding and empirical observation, there are a very small number of entities and their progeny that can try and figure it out until the heat death of the universe. If you feel meaningless it's just evolutionary pressure to not get stuck in a local maximum.
cwmoore 1y ago
Destructive and horrible events are often very hard to justify without resort to nihilism, which indicates that it may secretly be the truer core belief, and therefore the better foundation for understanding how humanity can become over the arc of time, less often mistaken.

blamestross 1y ago

The nifty feature of intelligence is that you get to examine what you value. Critical peer comments (so far) don't seem to address the "naturalistic fallacy" part, or even lean into it. As far as I am tell, life can be maximally ambiguously defined as "entropy deferral". Nothing can stop entropy, but life crams as much organization into that lifetime as possible. I think that is kinda cool and I want to help, so I think we should make as much matter alive as possible before the universe fizzles out. Rationalizing value judgments is always a challenge. We can argue over facts and implication of facts all we want, but the "predicate values" are arbitrary and you can't change them in others. I generally don't bother unless I have a strong idea of my audience's "predicate values". If they don't match mine, or I can't manipulate others into agreeing we share instrumental values, I am just out of luck.

oh_my_goodness 1y ago

Are you personally alive?

jagged-chisel 1y ago

“Mistake” imparts intentionality. Perhaps life is an accident, but it can only be a mistake if intelligence is behind the cosmos. Observation, not argument.