Human Rights

[TenEightyOne]

Life, liberty and property; along with the means to defend all three in the best way possible.

They have them because they invent them and apply them legally, otherwise they don't exist. There are no natural rights.

And brace...

 

[Agent_47]

They have them because they invent them and apply them legally, otherwise they don't exist. There are no natural rights.

And brace...

I disagree. I would not say they were 'invented,' but rather 'rediscovered' from time to time. They have always been there, it's just that some societies have chosen to view them differently or not at all.

 

[Keef]

They have them because they invent them and apply them legally, otherwise they don't exist. There are no natural rights.

And brace...

Let's imagine there are no laws. We'll try and go through this step-by-step to come to logical conclusions, hopefully ones that nobody can argue with. Right then.

Are you alive?

 

[TenEightyOne]

Let's imagine there are no laws. We'll try and go through this step-by-step to come to logical conclusions, hopefully ones that nobody can argue with. Right then.

Are you alive?

Yes.

 

[Keef]

Yes.

How do you know that? (yes it's a real question)

 

[TenEightyOne]

How do you know that? (yes it's a real question)

I wish I'd put my longer answer now... it seemed pedantic so I shortened it

I don't. I believe in this moment that I have consciousness and that I conceive of myself as Being. I know no more than that but I am forced to presume that I am Alive in order to negotiate a continuation of whatever this state is. At the root of my consciousness that is all I desire. Everything else sits atop that to facilitate it, both inwardly and outwardly.

 

[Keef]

I wish I'd put my longer answer now... it seemed pedantic so I shortened it

I don't. I believe in this moment that I have consciousness and that I conceive of myself as Being. I know no more than that but I am forced to presume that I am Alive in order to negotiate a continuation of whatever this state is. At the root of my consciousness that is all I desire. Everything else sits atop that to facilitate it, both inwardly and outwardly.

It's a tough question, I'll give you that. I don't have a scientific vocabulary to explain it. But does it seem like there's enough evidence there for you to accept the fact that you must be alive? Maybe some sort of self-awareness that just says, this is the way things are.

 

[TenEightyOne]

But does it seem like there's enough evidence there for you to accept the fact that you must be alive? Maybe some sort of self-awareness that just says, this is the way things are.

Only what I gave to you. I know that I will attempt to perpetuate this state until I am no longer able to function as a consciousness or maintain 'my' biological integrity.

In that I believe I fulfill the definition of a thing that is alive, in so much as that affects anything other than 'myself' without in some way negotiating with other things that seem to believe in 'their' own consciousnesses.

 

[Keef]

@TenEightyOne Do you want to stay alive?

 

[TenEightyOne]

@TenEightyOne Do you want to stay alive?

As I said, I know I will attempt to perpetuate this state until I can no longer maintain integrity or negotiate survivable conditions amongst the society with which I am aligned.

Yes, I will call that "want", or "desire". I can say "I want" to stay alive because it will be an overriding driver to my base actions ahead of all else.

 

[Keef]

As I said, I know I will attempt to perpetuate this state until I can no longer maintain integrity or negotiate survivable conditions amongst the society with which I am aligned.

Yes, I will call that "want", or "desire". I can say "I want" to stay alive because it will be an overriding driver to my base actions ahead of all else.

Do you think other people should respect your intense drive to keep going? Alternatively, would you be pissed if somebody tried to ruin it for you?

 

[TenEightyOne]

Do you think other people should respect your intense drive to keep going? Alternatively, would you be pissed if somebody tried to ruin it for you?

I'll take the second question first.

What is anger? A negative reaction to something? My only reason to exist is to continue to exist until I cannot. I will end any other life in order to further mine, either because I need to consume it or because it threatens to terminate my consciousness.

There is no "should" about it, only "will". My consciousness will show no respect for 'life' in its struggle to survive in an absolute situation. Reason would therefore have it that my consciousness should expect that other life will behave the same way in return.

 

[Keef]

Well, you've jumped right to the next point I'd try to cover which is defending one's right to life @TenEightyOne . You mention that you'd be willing to end another life if it threatens yours. You expect others to do the same, and surely they would.

Humans are capable of understanding that they themselves have a desire to live, and more importantly that other humans also have this drive. A mutual interest in self-preservation which leads to a mutual respect in that, "if you try to kill me I'll kill you first, so let's not try to kill each other and go gather some berries instead." This mutual understanding and respect is the foundation of a fundamental right to life. Even when we don't know the words to explain it we're aware that something primal is driving all of us to keep moving forward. Nobody made a law that said so, it's just a side effect of our own consciousness. It exists whether we realize it or not.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Humans are capable of understanding that they themselves have a desire to live, and more importantly that other humans also have this drive. A mutual interest in self-preservation which leads to a mutual respect in that, "if you try to kill me I'll kill you first, so let's not try to kill each other and go gather some berries instead." This mutual understanding and respect is the foundation of a fundamental right to life. Even when we don't know the words to explain it we're aware that something primal is driving all of us to keep moving forward.

But then you move beyond the natural and the absolute and into negotiating structures.

A lion protects his breeding female to reproduce himself. She accepts the protection to reproduce herself. The fittest cubs are most likely to survive and so they adapt to reproduce through social negotiation. There's a pretty understandable if simplistic system of negotiation in furthering one's own survival interest.

At greater levels of negotiation we agree 'rights', that's the first time they begin to appear. It's better for society overall, especially for the killing-stuff. Here's the reply I made in the Arizona thread (which I know we're kind of continuing here now), it goes over my thinking more slightly-rambling detail;



I don't believe in a natural right to life. Life happens. It doesn't happen because it deserved to, it happens. I'm just going to talk about human life here, we know that humans aren't averse to ending lives from other species if they constitute a threat to human life (viruses, alligators in swimming pools, Piers Morgan). I accept that it's right to end lives in that way because I share a common property with all life; I have a will for my species to survive.

Let's say you and I are alone on the planet with a finite amount of food resources. One of us will eventually kill the other. I will actually kill you early to make sure I have more food for a longer time. Pretend you didn't read that, just in case.

Do we care about each other's right to life? No, it doesn't exist in that setting because it is you and I simply surviving. That is what Life is. It will eradicate, consume and breed. That was predetermined in the first sparks of DNA and hasn't changed right through its evolution into a Human host.

Right now I shudder at the thought of killing you but I know that when the time comes it will be something that needs to be done and that my natural programming will take over from my social programming. Faced with the ultimate choice humans are capable of anything including murder and cannibalism. Wasn't going to mention the C word

The very concept that there might be a "natural right to life" is, imo, purely driven by a personal survival instinct. It doesn't become recognised as a right until you and I agree that we share that right and will observe each other's right. Until then we will compete punitively to be The Survivor. All life will.

Large social groups need to negotiate power in order to remain cohesive. Let's say that you and I happen upon more post-apocalyptic GTPers and eventually there are 10,000 of us. We're going to need to organise ourselves pretty well, and agree some ground rules. The first rule is going to be something about not killing, (we need the people, we need to breed, we need workers to turn the fields and build the houses and raise the children and to organise it all). We're going to say that people have a right not to get killed. Bob kills Dave in an argument over who spilt the mead. Bad luck, Dave.

We either do something about it or we don't. If we don't then we don't observe the right to life that we as a society have decided on. We need some people to sit, listen to Bob's story, the story of the witnesses, and decide if what Bob did was right or wrong. Soon that process becomes more and more refined and becomes a process of law that is due to every person named by the society. We'll have ways of gathering statements, preserving evidence, allowing appeals... and all to simply enforce protection of the rights that we have agreed are

Not slaves, they're not entitled to due law. Or women.

We all agree on the human right, but only because that right can be catalogued and exercised in law (otherwise it's a wish)

There's the problem, the rights are only a "should" unless society holds breaches-of-right to account. Rights are a product of the minds of humans in organised groups, they do not exist outside that. There are no 'natural' rights.

The society of which I am a part believes that all Humans have a right to life and that they are all born equally. I concur and am happy that my country is a signatory to the UDHR. The effect of that signing is that our courts must observe the agreements therein as part of their own judgements thereby informing our own case law in line with the philosophy and wording of the Declaration.

I'm not sure if I said that "no discrimination is better than discrimination" but in this context I'm clear that discrimination is actually required in order to form societies or to identify 'categories' of people for any reason. As I said at the beginning, all life is punitive, it is not naturally peaceful. Discrimination and force are required to even reach the position where rights are identified.

Morals are also a social construct. I shouldn't steal from you. Why not? I'm hungry and need to survive. If I have a natural right to life then you have no right to hamper me. I keeeel you.

I might be doing something that I don't think is immoral but you do. Where's the lookup of morals? We normally say that a moral instinct is just knowing when something is wrong, or that it feels wrong. That feeling is the basis of us agreeing what our society's rights should be. The law is the system of ensuring that everyone follows The New Way.

If a 16 year old boy has consensual sexual intercourse with an underage girl, it's a crime. But is it immoral? At what age would you say the border between morality/immorality is. It depends on the country you're from, some countries have much lower ages of consent and have a significant number of citizens in support of that. These aren't all tinpot third-world countries, there are some upstanding 1st world democracies amongst them, all reasonable decent people who just take a differing moral view as a result of their social 'contract' with each other.

Shared social views of right and wrong are expressed as morals which are listed as rights and protected by law. There are no natural rights or morals.

The only reason that global society is now discussing morality and right is because we can.The most successful societies set standards for others to follow (we refer to those societies as Civilisations). As communication spreads into more and more of the globe we see more and more societies rebelling against their leaders in order to attain the same democratic standards that we hold.

Because there's no natural moral or righteous standard, societies evolved very differently from each other up until mass communication really grew. Try asking for a breadcake in Manchester if you don't believe me.

 

[Winters Noble]

Human Rights. A good concept for understanding people, but it's quite subjective.

 

[Keef]

At greater levels of negotiation we agree 'rights', that's the first time they begin to appear.

This is probably the most important thing you've said that you don't realize you said.

The key phrase is "greater level". Humans are capable of this "greater level" of thought. So far, science has been actively pursuing but hasn't been able to show that any other animals are capable of the same level of self-awareness that humans are. This is why the idea of rights is exclusive to humanity. They're human rights.

The only animals that have shown to science a level of consciousness approaching that of humans are certain great apes and dolphins, of all things. So much so in the case of dolphins that they've begun debating the intricacies of extending "human" rights to include dolphins because it appears that they grasp a natural right to life and property.

 

[Exorcet]

A lion protects his breeding female to reproduce himself. She accepts the protection to reproduce herself. The fittest cubs are most likely to survive and so they adapt to reproduce through social negotiation. There's a pretty understandable if simplistic system of negotiation in furthering one's own survival interest.

It's completely unlike the human situation though as there is no understanding.

At greater levels of negotiation we agree 'rights', that's the first time they begin to appear. It's better for society overall, especially for the killing-stuff. Here's the reply I made in the Arizona thread (which I know we're kind of continuing here now), it goes over my thinking more slightly-rambling detail;

It's not that rights are better for society, it's that people understand each other. In the most basic sense, if a lion kills a person, nothing wrong was done because the lion doesn't understand anything except "eat". If a person kills another person, there was a wrong because the killer knows that the first person didn't want to die and didn't have to. The killer intentionally put the victim through suffering.

I don't believe in a natural right to life. Life happens. It doesn't happen because it deserved to, it happens.

Yes, life just happens. There is no higher judge determining what should be, this doesn't get rid of rights of though. Rights are based in logic.

I'm just going to talk about human life here, we know that humans aren't averse to ending lives from other species if they constitute a threat to human life (viruses, alligators in swimming pools, Piers Morgan). I accept that it's right to end lives in that way because I share a common property with all life; I have a will for my species to survive.

Killing is fine when no rights are violated.

Let's say you and I are alone on the planet with a finite amount of food resources. One of us will eventually kill the other. I will actually kill you early to make sure I have more food for a longer time. Pretend you didn't read that, just in case.

Do we care about each other's right to life? No, it doesn't exist in that setting because it is you and I simply surviving. That is what Life is. It will eradicate, consume and breed. That was predetermined in the first sparks of DNA and hasn't changed right through its evolution into a Human host.

The right to life does exist whether we care about it or not, unless I'm delusional I know you want to live and killing you would be clearly wrong because of this fact. I could pushed to do it despite knowing its wrong or trying to justify it to myself, but that doesn't change anything.

Right now I shudder at the thought of killing you but I know that when the time comes it will be something that needs to be done and that my natural programming will take over from my social programming. Faced with the ultimate choice humans are capable of anything including murder and cannibalism. Wasn't going to mention the C word

No disagreement. In that case, there is a right violation, unless the attacker is killed of course. People aren't special outside of being the only species capable of higher thought that we know of right now. Once a person loses that ability, they lose their rights as well. So in that case where one is so hungry to forget that the other person is a person, they've gone from a state of having rights to a state of having none.

Morals are also a social construct. I shouldn't steal from you. Why not? I'm hungry and need to survive. If I have a natural right to life then you have no right to hamper me. I keeeel you.

Morals of a society are shaped by society, but absolute morality isn't. You're being hungry and your need to survive is your problem. It's no one else's concern, you have no right to live above anyone else, that's why you don't have a right to steal/kill. Your right to life is not your right to exist indefinitely, it's your right to be the thing you happen to exist as.

I might be doing something that I don't think is immoral but you do. Where's the lookup of morals? We normally say that a moral instinct is just knowing when something is wrong, or that it feels wrong. That feeling is the basis of us agreeing what our society's rights should be. The law is the system of ensuring that everyone follows The New Way.

Absolute morality follows from logic. Feeling is a terrible system of determining right and wrong.

If a 16 year old boy has consensual sexual intercourse with an underage girl, it's a crime. But is it immoral?

Crime yes, immoral no (assuming they both having understanding).

At what age would you say the border between morality/immorality is.

Age is meaningless.

It depends on the country you're from, some countries have much lower ages of consent and have a significant number of citizens in support of that.

The law depends on country, the "feeling" or what is right depends on country. What is right does not.


Going back to the discrimination law thread, I just can't make sense of your position. That you don't believe in natural rights is the smaller issue. That you say you don't believe in natural rights, but say that discrimination is bad confuses me to no end.

 

[Danoff]

Life, liberty and property; along with the means to defend all three in the best way possible.

*cough* number 3 *cough*

 

[Danoff]

Let's imagine there are no laws. We'll try and go through this step-by-step to come to logical conclusions, hopefully ones that nobody can argue with. Right then.

Are you alive?

Yes.

How do you know that? (yes it's a real question)

I wish I'd put my longer answer now... it seemed pedantic so I shortened it

I don't. I believe in this moment that I have consciousness and that I conceive of myself as Being. I know no more than that but I am forced to presume that I am Alive in order to negotiate a continuation of whatever this state is. At the root of my consciousness that is all I desire. Everything else sits atop that to facilitate it, both inwardly and outwardly.

Yes you have lack of knowledge of the manner of your existence. You could be in the matrix, or any number of other bizarre scenarios which have tricked you into thinking that you're a living breathing human being on the planet Earth. And you could choose to act in a manner consistent with this uncertainty and not address the reality you're presented with if you chose. Or you could take reality at face value in the absence of a reason not to.

But then you move beyond the natural and the absolute and into negotiating structures.

A lion protects his breeding female to reproduce himself. She accepts the protection to reproduce herself. The fittest cubs are most likely to survive and so they adapt to reproduce through social negotiation. There's a pretty understandable if simplistic system of negotiation in furthering one's own survival interest.

That's an awfully rosy view of nature. Powerful male lions rape the most fertile female lions who have little alternative other than death, and who also have a hormonal desire to reproduce. Cubs adapt by growing stronger and more skilled at killing. Those who are strong enough to kill food, and kill their competitors, are strong enough to rape female lions and reproduce. There is no negotiation.

Human beings have also demonstrated that they are more than capable of living in such a manner.

At greater levels of negotiation we agree 'rights', that's the first time they begin to appear. It's better for society overall, especially for the killing-stuff. Here's the reply I made in the Arizona thread (which I know we're kind of continuing here now), it goes over my thinking more slightly-rambling detail;

As a rule, in nature there is no negotiation, only a contest of who can produce the most force. Might makes right is the rule of nature, and it is a rule humans have lived by as well.

I don't believe in a natural right to life. Life happens. It doesn't happen because it deserved to, it happens. I'm just going to talk about human life here, we know that humans aren't averse to ending lives from other species if they constitute a threat to human life (viruses, alligators in swimming pools, Piers Morgan). I accept that it's right to end lives in that way because I share a common property with all life; I have a will for my species to survive.

You have a will for yourself to survive. Humans kill all kinds of animals, including other humans, for all kinds of reasons including food, resources, reproduction, or just plain fun.

Let's say you and I are alone on the planet with a finite amount of food resources. One of us will eventually kill the other. I will actually kill you early to make sure I have more food for a longer time. Pretend you didn't read that, just in case.

That's definitely not true. It's one possibility. Another possibility is that you agree that you can accomplish more by working together. This is the basis of tribes - which worked out better than going it alone for early man.

Do we care about each other's right to life? No, it doesn't exist in that setting because it is you and I simply surviving. That is what Life is. It will eradicate, consume and breed. That was predetermined in the first sparks of DNA and hasn't changed right through its evolution into a Human host.

It is true that you have a propensity for living, and that your propensity for living can lead you to kill others, including humans. And that is very much part of the natural programming of all life - that might makes right.

Right now I shudder at the thought of killing you but I know that when the time comes it will be something that needs to be done and that my natural programming will take over from my social programming. Faced with the ultimate choice humans are capable of anything including murder and cannibalism. Wasn't going to mention the C word

None of that is disputable.

The very concept that there might be a "natural right to life" is, imo, purely driven by a personal survival instinct. It doesn't become recognised as a right until you and I agree that we share that right and will observe each other's right. Until then we will compete punitively to be The Survivor. All life will.

It doesn't become recognized as a right until it is recognized. It exists even if it is not recognized.

Large social groups need to negotiate power in order to remain cohesive. Let's say that you and I happen upon more post-apocalyptic GTPers and eventually there are 10,000 of us. We're going to need to organise ourselves pretty well, and agree some ground rules. The first rule is going to be something about not killing, (we need the people, we need to breed, we need workers to turn the fields and build the houses and raise the children and to organise it all). We're going to say that people have a right not to get killed. Bob kills Dave in an argument over who spilt the mead. Bad luck, Dave.

Well that's generally not how humanity operated for a very long time. There were no rights recognized in ancient Egypt. Monarchies didn't recognize them either. We managed to assemble into groups, and even develop a semblance of morality and rules, all from the prospect of submitting to a higher authority who was ordained to make the rules for the rest of humanity - whether that was God, or those who claimed to be chosen by God. In general, human rights don't appeal to rulers.

We either do something about it or we don't. If we don't then we don't observe the right to life that we as a society have decided on. We need some people to sit, listen to Bob's story, the story of the witnesses, and decide if what Bob did was right or wrong. Soon that process becomes more and more refined and becomes a process of law that is due to every person named by the society. We'll have ways of gathering statements, preserving evidence, allowing appeals... and all to simply enforce protection of the rights that we have agreed are

That process didn't stem from democracy, it stemmed from dictators who didn't want to be bothered with enforcing their rules. They put others in charge of making sure that their rules were observed.

There's the problem, the rights are only a "should" unless society holds breaches-of-right to account. Rights are a product of the minds of humans in organised groups, they do not exist outside that. There are no 'natural' rights.

This is a common misunderstanding of rights - the notion that because rights can be violated they do not exist. The opposite is true, if rights couldn't be violated, they wouldn't exist.

Morals are also a social construct. I shouldn't steal from you. Why not? I'm hungry and need to survive. If I have a natural right to life then you have no right to hamper me. I keeeel you.

You could kill someone to steal their food. You could decide to evoke the logic of "might makes right", but at that point you announce to the world that you are willing to live by an arbitrary rule like "might makes right", at which point society can say right back to you "might makes right" as they put you in jail.

I might be doing something that I don't think is immoral but you do. Where's the lookup of morals? We normally say that a moral instinct is just knowing when something is wrong, or that it feels wrong. That feeling is the basis of us agreeing what our society's rights should be. The law is the system of ensuring that everyone follows The New Way.

That would be the rule of the majority - pure democracy - which has really nothing at all to do with morality as has been well demonstrated in history.

If a 16 year old boy has consensual sexual intercourse with an underage girl, it's a crime. But is it immoral? At what age would you say the border between morality/immorality is. It depends on the country you're from, some countries have much lower ages of consent and have a significant number of citizens in support of that. These aren't all tinpot third-world countries, there are some upstanding 1st world democracies amongst them, all reasonable decent people who just take a differing moral view as a result of their social 'contract' with each other.

All of that is correct. In otherwords you cannot rely on democracy for morality. I'd add that disagreement about morality doesn't preclude the existence of an objective morality, just as disagreement about whether or not the Earth is flat doesn't preclude the existence of an objective answer to that question.

Shared social views of right and wrong are expressed as morals which are listed as rights and protected by law. There are no natural rights or morals.

The second statement doesn't follow from the first.

The only reason that global society is now discussing morality and right is because we can.The most successful societies set standards for others to follow (we refer to those societies as Civilisations). As communication spreads into more and more of the globe we see more and more societies rebelling against their leaders in order to attain the same democratic standards that we hold.

I wouldn't argue with that.

Because there's no natural moral or righteous standard, societies evolved very differently from each other up until mass communication really grew. Try asking for a breadcake in Manchester if you don't believe me.

Societies evolved differently not because there is no objective standard, but because they chose not to adhere to it or simply didn't understand it. A monarchy chooses not to understand or adhere to human rights, that does not mean that rights don't exist, only that it is possible for them not to be observed. But remember, rights would have no meaning if they couldn't be violated.


Alright, I think you should pick back up where you left off before with Keef. You're not sure you exist as a human being on planet earth. Why do you get out of bed in the morning?

 

[TenEightyOne]

That's an awfully rosy view of nature. Powerful male lions rape the most fertile female lions who have little alternative other than death, and who also have a hormonal desire to reproduce. Cubs adapt by growing stronger and more skilled at killing. Those who are strong enough to kill food, and kill their competitors, are strong enough to rape female lions and reproduce. There is no negotiation.

Human beings have also demonstrated that they are more than capable of living in such a manner.

Rape? Forced intercourse? You're entirely sure? That's an even stranger view of the situation; don't believe that somehow male lions are at the top of the "negotiation" through force, plenty of animals naturally use subvert negotiation to assimilate into negotiated groups. Dogs are the very best at it, cats have mostly lucked-in with humans and still can't believe Facebook.

Of course humans can/will live in such a manner; that's why we establish a system of laws and rules to limit "anti-social" behaviour such as rape and murder.

As a rule, in nature there is no negotiation, only a contest of who can produce the most force. Might makes right is the rule of nature, and it is a rule humans have lived by as well.

You have a will for yourself to survive. Humans kill all kinds of animals, including other humans, for all kinds of reasons including food, resources, reproduction, or just plain fun.

That's definitely not true. It's one possibility. Another possibility is that you agree that you can accomplish more by working together. This is the basis of tribes - which worked out better than going it alone for early man.

It is true that you have a propensity for living, and that your propensity for living can lead you to kill others, including humans. And that is very much part of the natural programming of all life - that might makes right.

None of that is disputable.

Well it is, watch

"As a rule in nature there is no negotiation"; I can't dispute that, I think that's what I've been saying. "Only a contest of who can produce the most force". You're almost correct but not quite; simply producing the most force isn't a guarantee of long-term biological viability, life must be able to assimilate enough energy to continue assimilating energy. The quickest lions aren't always the longest lived because they're inefficient, those that plan well are. You could go further into force-multiplication where animals negotiate group hunts to save energy.

"Might makes right is the rule of nature". Huh? There is no "right" to anything, at an absolute level survival is key. To create rules you have to have agreement (or it's one person's rule) and then it's normal to pursue a majority by negotiation or force. None of that exists naturally in any individual life.

"None of that is disputable". I understand your opinion but it stems from a chain of "rights" philosophy that I don't believe behavioural science, human nature or human history support. You cannot prove your philosophy any more than I can, we can only debate it.

Well that's generally not how humanity operated for a very long time. There were no rights recognized in ancient Egypt. Monarchies didn't recognize them either. We managed to assemble into groups, and even develop a semblance of morality and rules, all from the prospect of submitting to a higher authority who was ordained to make the rules for the rest of humanity - whether that was God, or those who claimed to be chosen by God. In general, human rights don't appeal to rulers.

That process didn't stem from democracy, it stemmed from dictators who didn't want to be bothered with enforcing their rules. They put others in charge of making sure that their rules were observed.

This is a common misunderstanding of rights - the notion that because rights can be violated they do not exist. The opposite is true, if rights couldn't be violated, they wouldn't exist.

Woah woah woah there.... Ancient Egypt? What's that? A Monarchy? Huh? GOD? Rulers?

Sounds like we've got beyond the "there is no negotiation" into a MASSIVE system of negotiation, again by agreement or force. You're way beyond looking at the basis of rights there. I should think "divine right" is definitely in force somewhere already.

"If rights couldn't be violated... they wouldn't exist". That's true by definition; if we don't agree you have a right to liberty then you don't have a right. That's still a socially defined idea, what is/isn't liberty and the fact that we can express it as a right. Until then it was a will.

The second statement doesn't follow from the first.

I believe it does; the first statement shows (as you seemed to agree) that moral standards are anything but standard and are socially driven. My second (there are no natural laws or rights) because society seeds right seeds law follows from that by pointing out that there is no "natural" order, only standards to which a society might collectively (and independently) aspire.

Societies evolved differently not because there is no objective standard, but because they chose not to adhere to it or simply didn't understand it. A monarchy chooses not to understand or adhere to human rights, that does not mean that rights don't exist, only that it is possible for them not to be observed. But remember, rights would have no meaning if they couldn't be violated.

To demonstrate that "rights" exist they have to be quantified. It takes more than one life form for a right to exist; otherwise it is a moot property. It takes both life forms to observe the right for it to have meaning. It does not naturally occur, only wills do.

There is no naturally occurring "right", we can only even conceive of it because we are part of a negotiated society that has identified them as an idea.

Alright, I think you should pick back up where you left off before with Keef. You're not sure you exist as a human being on planet earth. Why do you get out of bed in the morning?

I need food to survive on the offchance (diminishing) that I might find further opportunities to replicate.

I find my eating schedule to be defined by social convention. Is this the "morning" you're talking about? When the "seeing" starts after the black?

I retrieve food from a local store of food where two other lives are in regular attendance. They trade tokens for the food, milk and cigarettes that I want. The more I retrieve the more tokens I must give to them. I get my own tokens by performing "thinkings" for other lives who send electrical words through my space box etc etc.

You can get the food without the tokens but the hurty-man comes.

 

[Danoff]

Rape? Forced intercourse? You're entirely sure? That's an even stranger view of the situation; don't believe that somehow male lions are at the top of the "negotiation" through force, plenty of animals naturally use subvert negotiation to assimilate into negotiated groups. Dogs are the very best at it, cats have mostly lucked-in with humans and still can't believe Facebook.

It'll be hard for you to see that this is actually responsive until you see where I'm headed, but I'll say it anyway. Pack behavior is a detail that I didn't really need to bother getting into. Human exhibit pack behavior like other animals in many cases, and much of what I said about society applies to that. As a rule, nature is about who can produce the most force. Sometimes groups work together to be able to produce more force than they could individually. Your other point about efficiency of force production and energy intake is very similar, it's a detail that I didn't need to get into. Yes you want to be able to produce force without expending too much energy, but the thermodynamic properties of the food chain is not really pertinent to the discussion.

Well it is, watch

That line "none of that is disputable" was in agreement with your statement. Not sure why you'd dispute it.

"Might makes right is the rule of nature". Huh? There is no "right" to anything, at an absolute level survival is key.

The idea behind "might makes right" is that the mightiest gets his way. That's not to say that animals have some sort of philosophy on the subject, only that nature rewards might.

Woah woah woah there.... Ancient Egypt? What's that? A Monarchy? Huh? GOD? Rulers? Sounds like we've got beyond the "there is no negotiation" into a MASSIVE system of negotiation, again by agreement or force. You're way beyond looking at the basis of rights there.

In response to your tangent. I'm happy to not go there yet as it skips around in the subject.

"If rights couldn't be violated... they wouldn't exist". That's true by definition; if we don't agree you have a right to liberty then you don't have a right.

You just effectively said "that's true; the opposite is true". If it is impossible, absolutely totally impossible, for you to violate my right, then I don't really have a right. For example, if I have a right to have the earth's gravity act on me, that's not really a right - that's just reality. You can't stop the earth's gravity from acting on me, nobody can. And if nobody can infringe it, as a right it makes no sense. Rights must be capable of being violated, or they have no meaning. If the moment you don't agree that I have a right my right ceases to exist, then that's not a right, it's pointless.

I believe it does; the first statement shows (as you seemed to agree) that moral standards are anything but standard and are socially driven.

There are subjective moral standards and laws, and there are objective moral standards and laws. Your first statement does not prove that the objective ones don't exist.

To demonstrate that "rights" exist they have to be quantified. It takes more than one life form for a right to exist; otherwise it is a moot property. It takes both life forms to observe the right for it to have meaning.

Ironically, if both life forms observe (and by this I don't mean recognize, I mean behave in a manner consistent with) rights, they have no meaning. It's only when one life form tries to violate the rights of the other life form that rights come into play.

Rights exist from logic, and as such they exist regardless of whether or not we exist.

There is no naturally occurring "right", we can only even conceive of it because we are part of a negotiated society that has identified them as an idea.

We conceive of them because we are capable of understanding logic.

I need food to survive on the offchance (diminishing) that I might find further opportunities to replicate.

I find my eating schedule to be defined by social convention. Is this the "morning" you're talking about? When the "seeing" starts after the black?

I retrieve food from a local store of food where two other lives are in regular attendance. They trade tokens for the food, milk and cigarettes that I want. The more I retrieve the more tokens I must give to them. I get my own tokens by performing "thinkings" for other lives who send electrical words through my space box etc etc.

You can get the food without the tokens but the hurty-man comes.

If you're not sure you exist as a human, then you're not sure you need food - you're not sure food exists. You're also not sure that you can replicate as you're not sure anyone else exists. You're not sure the store exists, or the tokens exist or the hurty-man exist. You do not understand the nature of your existence. So why do you get out of your bed (which maybe doesn't exist)?

There is a simple answer to this question, once you toss it out there we can move on.

 

[TenEightyOne]

The pack behaviour (a pack, a negotiated structure) becomes relevant as soon as you want to make "rights".

The very base of my argument is that there are no rights until there is an agreed standard, either subjective or objective.

The reason to live is to reproduce life, that is all. More complex life forms negotiate groups in order to economise survival. All of life's actions stem from that. There are no "natural" rights or in that context, and natural "laws" mean something very different (as I know you know, just saying).

If you're not sure you exist as a human, then you're not sure you need food - you're not sure food exists. You're also not sure that you can replicate as you're not sure anyone else exists. You're not sure the store exists, or the tokens exist or the hurty-man exist. You do not understand the nature of your existence. So why do you get out of your bed (which maybe doesn't exist)?

There is a simple answer to this question, once you toss it out there we can move on.

I sort of went off on a philosophical tandem, didn't I? Let's say I'm sure of my own existence, and of that of the other lives, the tokens, the sky-words and mister hurty. I can't prove that I exist, so as a benchmark I will presume that I do.

I get out of bed to continue my existence. When I am not scheduled to work I sleep three or four times a day as I need to. When I am scheduled to work I adopt the same one-long-sleep timetable as many of my colleagues. I generally do that in my bed, but in fact it could be anywhere in my apartment.

Everything I do once I'm out of bed forms either some part of a transaction-to-live or, because we've economised so well, something to occupy my thinking while I wait to negotiate.

Why do you get out of bed?

 

[Danoff]

Why do you get out of bed?

I get out of bed because I have no evidence that the world as it is presented to me is anything but what it appears to be. I take my existence at face value because I have no reason not to. No, I am not sure that it is what it appears to be, but until I have a reason to question it, the most logical approach is to assume (and it is an assumption) that reality exists as I perceive it.

If we can agree on that, we can move forward.

 

[TenEightyOne]

I get out of bed because I have no evidence that the world as it is presented to me is anything but what it appears to be. I take my existence at face value because I have no reason not to. No, I am not sure that it is what it appears to be, but until I have a reason to question it, the most logical approach is to assume (and it is an assumption) that reality exists as I perceive it.

If we can agree on that, we can move forward.

Certainly, let's agree that we assume reality exists. We should keep out of the GT6 Update Thread during that time in case we begin to doubt again.

 

[Danoff]

Certainly, let's agree that we assume reality exists. We should keep out of the GT6 Update Thread during that time in case we begin to doubt again.

Always good to start from a common ground.

Ok, a lion attacks an impala, kills it, and eats it. Why did that happen? The lion wanted to eat the impala, the impala wanted to live, why did the lion get his way?

 

[TenEightyOne]

Always good to start from a common ground.

Ok, a lion attacks an impala, kills it, and eats it. Why did that happen? The lion wanted to eat the impala, the impala wanted to live, why did the lion get his way?

The lion's "want" is an instinctive product of it requiring to eat at that moment, the impala was within achievable range and edible. The lion instinctively ate the impala, a process that required first immobilising the impala. Does the lion know the impala was alive? I don't know.

The impala wished to continue to survive. Its instincts were tuned detect predators that might represent a threat to that, perhaps not as well as other impala that may have been nearby but who detected the lion earlier.

The impala does not know that the lion is a life.

Why did all that happen? Because it did. There were plenty of instances when it didn't. There was no preordainment other than two instances of life preprogrammed to survive in a particular type of landscape. They happened to be within range of each other and chance/autoprogram determined the result.

 

[Danoff]

The lion's "want" is an instinctive product of it requiring to eat at that moment, the impala was within achievable range and edible. The lion instinctively ate the impala, a process that required first immobilising the impala. Does the lion know the impala was alive? I don't know.

The impala wished to continue to survive. Its instincts were tuned detect predators that might represent a threat to that, perhaps not as well as other impala that may have been nearby but who detected the lion earlier.

The impala does not know that the lion is a life.

Why did all that happen? Because it did. There were plenty of instances when it didn't. There was no preordainment other than two instances of life preprogrammed to survive in a particular type of landscape. They happened to be within range of each other and chance/autoprogram determined the result.

The lion got his way because he was able to. He had the strength, agility, sharp teeth, stealth, whatever, to be able to kill the impala. This is nature - see what you can get away with. Your ability to produce force, or organize force, or even defend against force is what is valuable to animals in nature.

Arguments?

 

[LeMansAid]

@Keef
Just so you know... With my question on page 49, I wasn't trying to corner you, or use an ancient piece of text against you. I was just quoting the posts that brought the question to mind. I may come back with more on that one.

The key phrase is "greater level". Humans are capable of this "greater level" of thought.

To me, "greater level" could merely mean a greater complexity in reward system. We think on a higher level because we can in a luxury sense, and not only because we can in a computational sense. Aren't we just slaves to our learned or bred instincts anyway? Respecting someone else's "rights" simply rewards us with something we deem valuable: either a boost to our own chances of survival, or providing us with a sense of having achieved something significant within the context of the social construct we're positioned amongst. It's all rewards though, in the end. It's just more involved in appearance.

Animal: 1+1 = 2
Human: 1+1x400/40-6+906-752x60/8/30-40 = 2

Let's say you and I are alone on the planet with a finite amount of food resources. One of us will eventually kill the other.

That's definitely not true. It's one possibility. Another possibility is that you agree that you can accomplish more by working together. This is the basis of tribes - which worked out better than going it alone for early man.

Which again is based on reward, and not necessarily respect for the other's "rights".

Going back to the discrimination law thread, I just can't make sense of your position. That you don't believe in natural rights is the smaller issue. That you say you don't believe in natural rights, but say that discrimination is bad confuses me to no end.

I think it's suggesting that our world is what we make it.

 

[TenEightyOne]

The lion got his way because he was able to. He had the strength, agility, sharp teeth, stealth, whatever, to be able to kill the impala. This is nature - see what you can get away with. Your ability to produce force, or organize force, or even defend against force is what is valuable to animals in nature.

Arguments?

Sometimes (lesser chance) the impala is able to get its way because it is able to, either by expending enough energy over time in escape that the lion gives up the chase, because the lion selects a different impala at the last minute, or because of some other random chance. That's a result of the interactions between the lion and the impala, neither recognising the other as anything but a goal driver.

Both did what they were able to, being pedantic neither would do what they were unable to, unless forced to attempt it as perceived risk demanded it in the sliding scale of worth-of-action/need-to-survive.

@Exorcet you're misundertanding how I'm using "discrimination", as in "defining a difference". I wasn't saying if negative/positive discrimination were good or bad, simply using "discrimination" in a proper sense.

 

[Touring Mars]

Humans are capable of understanding that they themselves have a desire to live, and more importantly that other humans also have this drive. A mutual interest in self-preservation which leads to a mutual respect in that, "if you try to kill me I'll kill you first, so let's not try to kill each other and go gather some berries instead." This mutual understanding and respect is the foundation of a fundamental right to life. Even when we don't know the words to explain it we're aware that something primal is driving all of us to keep moving forward. Nobody made a law that said so, it's just a side effect of our own consciousness. It exists whether we realize it or not.

I think you are confusing the urge to survive with a 'right' to survive.

My understanding of the word 'right' is that it is an entitlement... as such, it can either be self-proclaimed, bestowed upon you by other people, by some other entity (e.g. God), or they are simply innate.

My view is that human rights only truly exist as a result of the relationships between people, and thus I can only agree with the view that they are bestowed upon us by other people. You only need take a walk through the Serengeti to find out how much a self-proclaimed 'fundamental right to life' is worth to a pack of hungry lions. I don't believe in God(s) so I can't accept that human rights are God given, and there is no scientific evidence that says that humans are born 'entitled' to life, liberty or anything else for that matter.

As such, I assume that human rights are really legal rights, and are not 'natural' as such. I also don't really see the point in natural rights if there are no laws, institutions, societal norms or mechanisms for rights to be defined, recognised or protected. In other words, natural rights are not worth the paper they (aren't) written on.