From: wsadjw@rw7.urc.tue.nl (Jan Willem Nienhuys)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Gerry Roston, I'm sorry.
Date: 7 Oct 92 18:01:53 GMT
Reply-To: wsadjw@urc.tue.nl
Organization: Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands

In article <LEET.92Oct6084759@dove.ims.com> leet@ims.com (Lee Thomas) writes:
>
>Jan> Enjoyable, meaning etc. are all personal matters. *I* can think *my* life
>Jan> hopeful, enjoyable, meaningful (h.e.m. for short),  and *you* can think
>Jan> *yours* to be h.e.m. or not.  But there's no way in which *I* can judge
>Jan> *your* life to be so.
>
>Why not?  And, "hopeful" for what?  "Enjoyable" on what basis?

Let me rephrase that: *you* cannot judge *my* life.  I have to do the
enjoyment/hope/etc. of my life.  Even if you would think my life is 
enjoyable (or not), it would not automatically cheer me up (or down).

>Jan> No. The judgement is strictly personal.  Therefore it can't be in a
>Jan> book.
>
>On what basis can you make a universal assertion like that?

On the basis that I can't see how you can do the enjoying of my life
for me. You may try to cheer me up, but it is I who should become
cheerful.

>Jan> .....  As the human race will probably go the way all species go,
>Jan> maybe helped a little by ourselves, and as the Earth will be
>Jan> incinerated after some billions of years anyway, this seems
NB. this = "the good of the species is rot"
>Jan> rather evident.  But our acts are not measured by the effect they
>Jan> have on the ultimate fate of the world.  So this is irrelevant.
>
>What are our acts measured by, then, and where does the "m." in
>"h.e.m." come from, if not from acts of eternal significance?

That's your problem, not mine.  "Meaning" is in the perceived 
relations of me with other people.  Can I try to cheer you up
by convincing you that anything less than infinity is also 
worthwhile?

>
>>                In fact, if life is meaningless, there is no
>>difference between a doctor saving a life and a murderer taking one,
>
>Jan> There is a big difference.  The first one enables the patient to
>Jan> continue judging the patient's life to be h.e.m., whereas the
>Jan> second does the judgement for his victim, and rather summarily at
>Jan> that.
>
>If the patient/victim sees life as meaningless (as you do), then there
>is no difference.
>

Wrong again. The doctor does not have to find out what the patient
thinks about life.  The null hypothesis is that any person likes to
be alive for whatever reason. If the patient is in much pain, slowly
dying anyway and explicitly asks for euthanasia, then that hypothesis
may be rejected.  Even then, the patient might want to look forward
to a painless death, without much risk of botched or painful euthanasia
attempts. 
The murderer on the other hand doesn't even try to establish evidence
that might reject the null hypothesis; moreover, even if s/he did, it
is not sure s/he would be an impartial and competent judge*, and neither
can a random murderer be trusted to go about his business in a humane 
and painless fashion, that would not shock my relatives either.

Good heavens.  That I should have to explain this to a 
Sunday school teacher.  What is the world coming to?

*) I just would hate the idea of meeting a derelict christian robber 
who for some reason judges that I am not a christian, don't care for
eternal values, hence that my life doesn't mean much (I a heathen
anyway) and that he will therefore mercifully take my wallet and put
an end to my "suffering".