From: russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence)
Subject: Re: Should humans assign "status"?
Organization: WP Group
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 20:19:57 GMT


Rich Young writes:
ry> The question was not about dictionaries or the words "sapience" and
ry> "sentience," Russell.  It was about your constant insistence that
ry> "meaning" is necessary.  I am asking you to define for us exactly
ry> what you think is "meaning" IN THIS CONTEXT.  And, by association,
ry> the definition of a "meaningful experience."

Russell Lawrence writes:
rl> If you reread my statement carefully, you'll notice that I used 
rl> the phrase, "meaningful existence", whereas you've introduced the 
rl> term "meaningful experience".  There's quite a difference between 
rl> your phrase and mine.  

From article <1992Sep10.004348.10673@pixel.kodak.com>, by young@serum.kodak.com:
ry> Actually, you've used both phrases at various times during
ry> this discussion.  What I'm trying to do is get you to explain
ry> exactly what it is that constitutes "meaningful."  How will I
ry> (and the rest of the t.p.a. readers) know "meaning" when it happens?

Asking how you would "know" a meaning when it happens is like 
asking how you would see a sight when you see one, or hear a sound 
when you hear one.   Did you really believe that you could divorce
the notion of "knowing" from the notion of "meaning" and get away
with it?

A more revealing question is this:  How would you know "meaning" 
if it doesn't happen?   

As I've pointed out previously, it seems rather silly for a man 
like yourself, whose meaningful existence hinges on his sensory 
and cognitive faculties, to insist that sentience and sapience 
are "arbitrary" considerations when we set out to evaluate the 
impact that our actions have on other entities, whether mindful 
beings or mindless things.  Yet that's precisely what you've 
insisted in the past, as evidenced by your unbelievably clumsy 
distinction between brain-dead humans and kidney-dead humans at
the beginning of the thread.  

rl> In the context of the previous conversation, I'd be inclined to 
rl> argue that all experience is meaningful in some small way,....

ry> But what CONSTITUTES "meaningful?!?"  

All sensations and thoughts are meaningful, Rich.  They mark the
distinction between mindful existence and mindless existence.

ry> Define it for us, as used above, and do not simply give us 
ry> another list of examples which use the words "sentience" and 
ry> "sapience." 

You're asking me to define "meaningful" _without_ reference to
sensation or cognition???   Such a question doesn't make sense
to someone like myself, who understands that the notion of 
"meaning" is itself meaningless without reference to mental 
events like sensation and cognition.   

> ...
rl> If you still believe that sentience and sapience are irrelevant
rl> concepts, [...]

ry> As you've been told before, this is NOT my argument.  My argument
ry> is that sentience/sapience are ARBITRARY CRITERIA for assigning
ry> "status" to non-human species.

As I told you before, I'm content to refrain from "assigning status"
altogether.  You, on the other hand, seem to think that it's ok to
"assign status" when it suits your convenience.  

ry> If you're going to re-state my arguments, please make some attempt
ry> to do so accurately.  This is at least the third time you've been
ry> corrected on this very point.

Rich, I haven't knowingly misrepresented your position.  In the future,
please refrain from asking questions, editing out my answers, and then
asking the same questions over and over again.

ry> 3.Why is your criterion of "sentience" any more valid than a criterion
ry>   of "life," or "ability to jump sideways," or "ability to 
ry>   synthesize glucose?"

[Rich edited out my answers.  I'm editing them back in]

rl> Without the qualities of sentience and sapience, an action would
rl> have no meaning whatsoever.  And without meaning, an action could
rl> hardly be "good" or "bad".  As an example, the notion of "torture"
rl> would be meaningless if the object of our actions were incapable
rl> of feeling pain.  If you choose, you're free to point out that the
rl> object in question may be a living bacterium or a self-propelled pogo 
rl> stick capable of jumping sideways, or a lab machine capable of 
rl> synthesizing glucose, but the fact will remain that the "torture"
rl> of such an entity would be a meaningless concept.

ry> And once again, we have a retreat into the undefined "meaning".
ry> Might I humbly suggest that you re-read the section of your book
ry> on logic that describes circular reasoning?  You've just said that
ry> without sapience, there is no "meaning" (whatever THAT is), but
ry> without "meaning" (whatever THAT is) there is no sapience (as in
ry> understanding the concepts of "good" and "bad").

rl> No, that's not what I said.  What I said was that existence would
rl> be meaningless without sentience and sapience, not that "meaning" is
rl> a precondition of sentience and sapience.
rl> 
rl> It's important to remember that sentient abilities are "primitives".
rl> If you were to ask, "why is pain bad?", most people would respond 
rl> that pain is bad because it hurts.  This isn't a circular 
rl> argument by any means.  To the contrary, such people are citing 
rl> an experiential fact that non-contrary, non-argumentative people 
rl> would readily accept as truthful.  If you were to deny that pain 
rl> is bad, we could set your mind at rest by kicking you in the 
rl> shins or extinguishing a cigarette on the skin of your 
rl> outstretched palm.  

ry> Let us review your statements:
ry> ...
ry>    "Without the qualities of sentience and sapience, an action would 
ry>      have no meaning whatsoever."
ry>
ry> This certainly matches the first part of my objection to your logic.

rl> Not at all.  If we were to say that "torture" is meaningless 
rl> without "pain", we're not engaged in circular argumentation.  As 
rl> I said, pain is an experiential fact, not an argument.  Think about
rl> it, Rich. 

ry> Please, Russell, without further dithering, either answer the
ry> question or state that you won't.  And kindly stop these nonsensical
ry> forays into the inanimate.  I told you in one of my early responses
ry> that I wouldn't put up with it and I think I've been more than
ry> magnanimous thus far in allowing it to continue.  We had, I thought,
ry> agreed that there is a fundamental difference between a paramecium
ry> and a ball bearing and that we were limiting our discussion to
ry> that which is alive.

Uh, huh.  Once again you're "assigning status" to a given set of 
entities when it suits your convenience.  Why should our 
discussion include live (albeit mindless) viral particles, yet 
exclude dead viral particles?  Please explain why you think the 
mindless self-replicating proteins in a virus deserve more 
consideration than the mindless vibrating atoms in ball-bearings.  

ry> In an effort to forestall the obvious, let me point out that my use
ry> of terms like "cosmos" and "natural world" has been an attempt to
ry> gather all forms of life under one convenient term, NOT use of the
ry> inanimate as example, as you are so wont to do.

You've mentioned that you're an atheist, Rich.  Let me present a 
hypothetical case for your evaluation.  If there truly existed an 
omniscient, but non-living, "god" somewhere in the universe, would 
the views of such a god warrant your consideration?  Or would you 
dismiss them altogether because of the god's non-living "status"?  

-- 
Russell Lawrence, WP Group, New Orleans (504) 443-5000
russ@wpg.com   uunet!wpg!russ