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Vanity
- Thread starter Fool
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Is there any good reason to believe that something only has value if a human decides it does? Sounds like anthropocentric arrogance to me.
Terrywoodenpic
Oldest Heretic
"value" like many other attributes can be see far more clearly in retrospect.
Value even has relevance to the inanimate. Consider the value of Gravity to the universe.
Value even has relevance to the inanimate. Consider the value of Gravity to the universe.
A Vestigial Mote
Well-Known Member
That's not how I read the question at all. It is, I feel, humility to recognize that what we humans value is not automatically/objectively worthy of value. For instance our preoccupation with gold and diamonds. Most animals (maybe not raccoons) would sniff a giant pile of gold and continue their search for something worthwhile. Recognizing this disparity in perspectives isn't what I would call "arrogance." Not by a long shot.
Basically, it is recognizing that the things we attribute "value" to are only necessarily of relative value to other humans... and in some cases not even then. Recognition that the things important to us are not important to everyone/everything.
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Yes.
OK, so does anything have value greater than another based on self's assignment of good and evil of materialistic things and apart from human?
i agree with you.
Nope.
To clarify, value is a trait which someone assigns
to a thing, rather than a trait inherent to the thing.
Beauty works that way too.
its interesting how a thing important to humans isn't important to other sentient beings. as if a thing is neither good or evil except how it reacts to the being experiencing it. gold and silver would simply be neutral, a food source good, an apex predator as possibly a negative.
there appears to be no hard and fast rules.
Apologies. I thought you asked me a yes or no question.
An owl's nest that is at the top of a tree, out of view and inaccessible to you has value to the owl that built it, and to the chicks that hatch within it. What value does it have to you?
PureX
Veteran Member
That's a bit of a 'trick question'. As humans have evolved to assign value to the various forms and expressions of existence as we experience it. So in that sense, existence is assigning value to itself, through us. We're just fulfilling our given role in the event.
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i agree. to me it would have no subjective value of either good or bad but from the owl's perspective it serves as a purposeful thing.
I'm afraid I don't understand your question. You lost me at the boxcar language of "self's assignment of good and evil of materialistic things." I have no idea what that means.
Skwim
Veteran Member
Sure. Food is valuable regardless of how humans regard it. Of course this could go off into one of those philosophical conundrums, so let's just take the statement as is.
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aside from anthropocentric value, can a thing have value in your opinion? do you suppose a non-human animal believes it has worth for example and doesn't take in to consideration whether a human judges it as worthy/worthless?
as an aside, what is a boxcar language?
I don't see why not, though the degree to which would depend on how "value" is being defined. When it comes to utility or instrumental value they exist as a matter-of-fact for the most part. @SalixIncendium gave an example of this earlier with the owls and the trees.
I see two questions here: (1) do non-human persons believe they have worth, and (2) do non-human persons take into consideration human judgements of worth.
For the first, I have no idea. My communications with non-human persons are quite limited and the linguistic barriers immense. For the second, that seems highly improbable with the possible exceptions (e.g., your pet dog) supporting the general rule of "no." Contrary to what many humans seem to think, reality doesn't revolve around them (or really care about them, generally).
When a writer has smashed together a bunch of technically nuanced terms together to the point it borders on incomprehensibility (or at the very least creates needlessly complex sentence structure), that's a boxcar. The expression "boxcar" to describe this was used by one of my science writing instructors in grad school.
To say something has value beyond what humans assign to it reeks of metaphysical speculation, a distasteful pastime. Unless, of course, one means the value presumably given things by some non-human life forms.