Ask Lemmy

I am not sure why you think I'd count a computer as a living thing by default, given my reply and the fact a computer or machine is whatever we give it the capability to.

Why does it matter that we “give” them their capabilities and functions? Living things act the way they do because the universe shaped them that way, and since humans are part of the universe, the same is true of computers. To give life priority because it wasn’t “made” is an arbitrary subjective choice.

As for the reason they are comparable to living things, they can respond to stimuli, which is the main necessity of your definition of pain. If you try to define life in another way, you’ll be biasing data by only including things which fit the pattern you’re describing.

The scientific definitions of “living” usually require growth, reproduction, and the ability to sustain itself, which means your statement that all living things seek to sustain themselves is vacuously true.

By saying all living things seek to avoid pain and hurt, you’re saying all things that seek to sustain themselves seek to sustain themselves. You drew a line around things that had a quality and then said that because all these which have this quality have this quality, somehow it means that quality is objectively important.

That’s the point I was trying to make.

Using universal patterns as a basis for morality is also problematic because entropy is far more common and far more universal than living/self-preservation. All things decay. Everything “wants” to be in the lowest energy state. Order always tends to disorder.

So if prevalence of a thing/pattern is basis for morality, accelerating entropy (destruction, disorder, chaos, etc.) is the most moral action.

You might actually have a better chance at justifying that the preservation of life is important by using scarcity since, as far as we currently know, we’re the only planet with life in the entire universe.

So the question is not "one vs millions" but "millions vs billions". And therefore destroying millions of viruses/bacteria to keep an organism of billions of cells alive is the lesser evil.

Fair point.

Do you know the game Stellaris?

I’ve heard of it but haven’t played, but that does sound interesting, so maybe I will.

Anyway, I would like to note that for what it’s worth I do agree with you on the idea that pain is probably a good basis for ethics. I just don’t think one can claim that it is objectively/universally right.