What Is Life Worth? Is it ‘a precious gift’?

H

Hume

Verified User
But it doesn’t follow that life is a gift, let alone a ‘most precious gift’.

First, for something to be a gift, there must of course be a giver; and except for the banal sense in which parents fulfill such a role in giving life, any other attribution is vexed and controversial.

Religious positions remain disputed, including any religion’s reason why you or I or anyone else (or anything else) exists. In this sense our existence is a fact we cannot fathom, whether we appeal to an extra-worldly creator or not.

What Is Life Worth? | Issue 162 | Philosophy Now

Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’.
philosophynow.org philosophynow.org
 
Some Christians say we should express gratitude toward god? Why? They never tell us.
Seems like something you would say to a dictator.
 
Hume said:
But it doesn’t follow that life is a gift, let alone a ‘most precious gift’.

First, for something to be a gift, there must of course be a giver; and except for the banal sense in which parents fulfill such a role in giving life, any other attribution is vexed and controversial.

Religious positions remain disputed, including any religion’s reason why you or I or anyone else (or anything else) exists. In this sense our existence is a fact we cannot fathom, whether we appeal to an extra-worldly creator or not.

What Is Life Worth? | Issue 162 | Philosophy Now

Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’.
philosophynow.org philosophynow.org
Click to expand...
First you didn't make yourself, therefore there is a giver. Your first point makes sense you look more stupid than usual. Now whether or not life is a precious gift is a other matter. I think that depends on your point of view.
 
Hume said:
But it doesn’t follow that life is a gift, let alone a ‘most precious gift’.

First, for something to be a gift, there must of course be a giver; and except for the banal sense in which parents fulfill such a role in giving life, any other attribution is vexed and controversial.

Religious positions remain disputed, including any religion’s reason why you or I or anyone else (or anything else) exists. In this sense our existence is a fact we cannot fathom, whether we appeal to an extra-worldly creator or not.

What Is Life Worth? | Issue 162 | Philosophy Now

Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’.
philosophynow.org philosophynow.org
Click to expand...
Life is a gift just like all opportunities are gift. A gift from whom? Who knows? Just accept it and make use of it....or not.

If you don't want the gift, give it back. Drug OD, step off a building, in front of a bus. Dying is easy. Lots of ways to do it.

As for me, I've found that it never pays to leave a party too soon, but if the time comes, I'm ready to do it. You? Have you have considered the circumstances that would make suicide a good option? If not, don't bother to reply. :)
 
Hume said:
But it doesn’t follow that life is a gift, let alone a ‘most precious gift’.

First, for something to be a gift, there must of course be a giver; and except for the banal sense in which parents fulfill such a role in giving life, any other attribution is vexed and controversial.

Religious positions remain disputed, including any religion’s reason why you or I or anyone else (or anything else) exists. In this sense our existence is a fact we cannot fathom, whether we appeal to an extra-worldly creator or not.

What Is Life Worth? | Issue 162 | Philosophy Now

Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’.
philosophynow.org philosophynow.org
Click to expand...
America rejects your nihilism.
:magagrin:
 
A gift is something that came to you, free, that you didn’t earn or perhaps didn’t even deserve.

One thing about life that we call all probably agree upon, both religious and non-religious, is that we each possess a combination of DNA that will never occur again in all of mankind. Pretty awesome and humbling concept.

Regardless, we are all born and we all die. Just try to make the best of it in between.
 
Commander Dutch said:
Life is a gift just like all opportunities are gift. A gift from whom? Who knows? Just accept it and make use of it....or not.

If you don't want the gift, give it back. Drug OD, step off a building, in front of a bus. Dying is easy. Lots of ways to do it.

As for me, I've found that it never pays to leave a party too soon, but if the time comes, I'm ready to do it. You? Have you have considered the circumstances that would make suicide a good option? If not, don't bother to reply. :)
Click to expand...
It took 4.5 billion years for advanced sentient conciousness to emerge on Earth. That's a bloody long time. Life on Earth might only have less than 500 million years left, before the sun begins it's inexorable expansion into a red giant, evaporating all the water on Earth.

Given that the average existence of an animal species on Earth is only about a million years, we might be the only advanced intelligence that will ever exist on Earth, before we blink out of existence. It's possible we are the only complex conciousness that exists in the Galaxy.

Ours might be the only sentient consciousness that will appreciate the aesthetic beauty of stars, planets, moons, the only conciousness that will ever marvel at the balance and mathmatical harmony of the universal laws of nature, the only sentience with the complex aesthetic sensibilities to appreciate art, literature, religion, philosophy, wisdom, music.

That is why I do not subscribe to the notions of strict reductionist materialism, nor believe that my quarks and electrons have no higher meaning than the quarks and electrons in moss, algae, and rocks.
 
domer76 said:
One thing about life that we call all probably agree upon, both religious and non-religious, is that we each possess a combination of DNA that will never occur again in all of mankind. Pretty awesome and humbling concept.
Click to expand...
Why is it humbling? Do people think they caused themselves to exist?!
 
Hume said:
But it doesn’t follow that life is a gift, let alone a ‘most precious gift’.

First, for something to be a gift, there must of course be a giver; and except for the banal sense in which parents fulfill such a role in giving life, any other attribution is vexed and controversial.

Religious positions remain disputed, including any religion’s reason why you or I or anyone else (or anything else) exists. In this sense our existence is a fact we cannot fathom, whether we appeal to an extra-worldly creator or not.

What Is Life Worth? | Issue 162 | Philosophy Now

Michael Allen Fox wonders whether life really is ‘a precious gift’.
philosophynow.org philosophynow.org
Click to expand...
Want to find out what a life is worth?

Donate.

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Feed the Children is dedicated to ending childhood hunger, and is one of the largest U.S.-based anti-hunger non-profits. Learn how you can help change lives.
www.feedthechildren.org www.feedthechildren.org

Oh, not going to? I guess a life is worth ZERO then! ZERO!
 
Hume said:
Do you ever post on the topic of a thread?!
Click to expand...
Yes, and I did. The topic of this thread is:

What Is Life Worth? Is it ‘a precious gift’?​


My post answered that question directly and succinctly. A life is worth nothing, and the proof is that people are not willing to give up even small amounts of money to save one.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Yes, and I did. The topic of this thread is:

What Is Life Worth? Is it ‘a precious gift’?​


My post answered that question directly and succinctly. A life is worth nothing, and the proof is that people are not willing to give up even small amounts of money to save one.
Click to expand...
ok
 
Cypress said:
It took 4.5 billion years for advanced sentient conciousness to emerge on Earth. That's a bloody long time. Life on Earth might only have less than 500 million years left, before the sun begins it's inexorable expansion into a red giant, evaporating all the water on Earth.

Given that the average existence of an animal species on Earth is only about a million years, we might be the only advanced intelligence that will ever exist on Earth, before we blink out of existence. It's possible we are the only complex conciousness that exists in the Galaxy.

Ours might be the only sentient consciousness that will appreciate the aesthetic beauty of stars, planets, moons, the only conciousness that will ever marvel at the balance and mathmatical harmony of the universal laws of nature, the only sentience with the complex aesthetic sensibilities to appreciate art, literature, religion, philosophy, wisdom, music.

That is why I do not subscribe to the notions of strict reductionist materialism, nor believe that my quarks and electrons have no higher meaning than the quarks and electrons in moss, algae, and rocks.
Click to expand...
13.5B if you count since the Big Bang. Older star systems might have more advanced life that lived, expanded and died out even before ours.

Possible about only remaining intelligent species on Earth. :) Unlikely in the Galaxy since there are over 100B stars.

Possible but again unlikely given the numbers. We also whack anything we dislike including all other intelligent life on Earth and keep taking risks that could wipe out our own species....not to mention a few others.

Agreed upon a synergistic effect of intelligent life within the Universe and, possibly, without.


www.astronomy.com

What will happen to the planets when the Sun becomes a red giant?

categories:The Sun | tags:Magazine, The Solar System, The Sun
www.astronomy.com www.astronomy.com

nineplanets.org

How Many Stars are in the Milky Way? | Amount, Location & Key Facts

The most important star in our galaxy is our Sun. However, if we were to analyze our galaxy, the Milky Way there are many more.
nineplanets.org nineplanets.org
 
Commander Dutch said:
13.5B if you count since the Big Bang. Older star systems might have more advanced life that lived, expanded and died out even before ours.

Possible about only remaining intelligent species on Earth. :) Unlikely in the Galaxy since there are over 100B stars.

Possible but again unlikely given the numbers. We also whack anything we dislike including all other intelligent life on Earth and keep taking risks that could wipe out our own species....not to mention a few others.

Agreed upon a synergistic effect of intelligent life within the Universe and, possibly, without.


www.astronomy.com

What will happen to the planets when the Sun becomes a red giant?

categories:The Sun | tags:Magazine, The Solar System, The Sun
www.astronomy.com www.astronomy.com

nineplanets.org

How Many Stars are in the Milky Way? | Amount, Location & Key Facts

The most important star in our galaxy is our Sun. However, if we were to analyze our galaxy, the Milky Way there are many more.
nineplanets.org nineplanets.org
Click to expand...
Good article (y)
It's going to get a little warm on this planet! I think I read that the sun will get a lot hotter before it balloons into a red giant, rendering life impossible long before the red giant phase

When we see numbers like 100 billion stars thrown out there in the literature, I think that may be tricking us into a false sense of optimism.

The giant stars burn fast and die out too quickly to allow for evolution.

The M class red dwarfs only put out one percent of the solar radiation of our sun, which may be too low for the energy needs of a complex biosphere.

The long lived F, G, K class stars are only about 15 to 20 percent of the stellar distribution frequency.

So right off the bat, the 100 billion stars is reduced to 15 to 20 billion stars that can possibly support life.

And that doesn't account for the percentage stars that have planets, the percentage of star systems that are sufficiently enriched in life-giving heavy elements; the percentage of stars that have rocky planets in the liquid water zone, the percentage of planets they have actually have the chemistry for abiogenesis, the percentage of stars with rocky planets with active geology and persistent magnetic fields, the percentage of stars sufficiently far away enough from super novas for life to be sustained, etc.


I think at some point, you are down to a very small fraction of stars that could possibly support a complex and sophisticated biosphere, and advanced intelligent life
 
Cypress said:
Good article (y)
It's going to get a little warm on this planet! I think I read that the sun will get a lot hotter before it balloons into a red giant, rendering life impossible long before the red giant phase

When we see numbers like 100 billion stars thrown out there in the literature, I think that may be tricking us into a false sense of optimism.

The giant stars burn fast and die out too quickly to allow for evolution.

The M class red dwarfs only put out one percent of the solar radiation of our sun, which may be too low for the energy needs of a complex biosphere.

The long lived F, G, K class stars are only about 15 to 20 percent of the stellar distribution frequency.

So right off the bat, the 100 billion stars is reduced to 15 to 20 billion stars that can possibly support life.

And that doesn't account for the percentage stars that have planets, the percentage of star systems that are sufficiently enriched in life-giving heavy elements; the percentage of stars that have rocky planets in the liquid water zone, the percentage of planets they have actually have the chemistry for abiogenesis, the percentage of stars with rocky planets with active geology and persistent magnetic fields, the percentage of stars sufficiently far away enough from super novas for life to be sustained, etc.


I think at some point, you are down to a very small fraction of stars that could possibly support a complex and sophisticated biosphere, and advanced intelligent life
Click to expand...
The Space.com article below gets into a lot of math, specifically the Drake Equation, to calculate habitable planets. Presumably ones that can be terraformed if they don't harbor life....which I expect is very rare. The NASA link comes up with a much smaller number than yours, but 300M is still a lot of planets.



www.space.com

More than half of all sunlike stars in the Milky Way may have a habitable planet

That's a lot of potentially Earth-like worlds.
www.space.com www.space.com


www.nasa.gov

About Half of Sun-Like Stars Could Host Rocky, Potentially Habitable Planets - NASA

Editor’s note: This story was updated on Nov. 2 to provide clarity regarding the statistics used to estimate the number of potentially habitable worlds in our
www.nasa.gov www.nasa.gov
Our galaxy holds at least an estimated 300 million of these potentially habitable worlds, based on even the most conservative interpretation of the results in a study released today and to be published in The Astronomical Journal. Some of these exoplanets could even be our interstellar neighbors, with at least four potentially within 30 light-years of our Sun and the closest likely to be at most about 20 light-years from us. These are the minimum numbers of such planets based on the most conservative estimate that 7% of Sun-like stars host such worlds. However, at the average expected rate of 50%, there could be many more.
 
Commander Dutch said:
The Space.com article below gets into a lot of math, specifically the Drake Equation, to calculate habitable planets. Presumably ones that can be terraformed if they don't harbor life....which I expect is very rare. The NASA link comes up with a much smaller number than yours, but 300M is still a lot of planets.



www.space.com

More than half of all sunlike stars in the Milky Way may have a habitable planet

That's a lot of potentially Earth-like worlds.
www.space.com www.space.com


www.nasa.gov

About Half of Sun-Like Stars Could Host Rocky, Potentially Habitable Planets - NASA

Editor’s note: This story was updated on Nov. 2 to provide clarity regarding the statistics used to estimate the number of potentially habitable worlds in our
www.nasa.gov www.nasa.gov
Our galaxy holds at least an estimated 300 million of these potentially habitable worlds, based on even the most conservative interpretation of the results in a study released today and to be published in The Astronomical Journal. Some of these exoplanets could even be our interstellar neighbors, with at least four potentially within 30 light-years of our Sun and the closest likely to be at most about 20 light-years from us. These are the minimum numbers of such planets based on the most conservative estimate that 7% of Sun-like stars host such worlds. However, at the average expected rate of 50%, there could be many more.
Click to expand...
300 million is starting to get down to a smaller galactic scale, and it's going to come down to how likely abiogenesis really is, and how likely is it that evolution leads to advanced sentient life.
 
Cypress said:
300 million is starting to get down to a smaller galactic scale, and it's going to come down to how likely abiogenesis really is, and how likely is it that evolution leads to advanced sentient life.
Click to expand...
We've yet to discover other life, but if, and when, we do, it will push the research to find out why.

We're agreed life is very rare as shown by the lack of examples in the galactic neighborhood.

As for life evolving towards intelligence, I'm sticking the Red Queen hypothesis which, among other things, includes the theory favoring intelligence as a survival strategy.
 
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