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From: jeand@ihlpg.UUCP (AMBAR)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: The Emperor's New Clothes
Message-ID: <970@ihlpg.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 27-Jul-85 06:11:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpg.970
Posted: Sat Jul 27 06:11:00 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Jul-85 06:19:26 EDT
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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> People "liking" survival is not subjective.  I'm not saying "I like
> survival, therefore it is valued".  I'm saying that people gain pleasure
> from surviving.  That is a physical fact about organisms.   A drive for
> hunger leads to a pleasurable experience of eating, a drive for procreation
> leads to a pleasurable experience of sex.  Etc.  Death is a painful,
> non-pleasurable experience, and thus we seek to avoid it.  

Whoaaa.  Have you tried it?  How do you know?  Perhaps we're downplaying
a really great experience here.  No one's come back to tell you what it was 
like.  You *can* try it for yourself, but that won't be real informative to 
the rest of us....
Ok.  So that was sarcasm.  My point is:  isn't that a *subjective* opinion?

> .....
>
> Funny, I didn't think these were "my" preferences.  As I said above, people
> like life because they don't want to die, because dying is a painful thing.
> This is in our biochemistry.  If we didn't like life, if we were organisms
> like Marvin the Paranoid Android from HHGttG ("Life, don't talk to me about
> life"), then we'd have died out long ago, not even surviving long enough to
> reproduce.  Even Marvin, who hated life lasted millions of years.  Perhaps
> because the alternative was worse.
 
You're representing as binary (like life/or die) a choice that is really
multiple.  Life may be (and is!) fascinating.  Which is not to say that
we may not find death (or what may come after it) even more pleasurable.
Again I state the obvious:  did you try death?  talk to anyone who did?
Nope?  Must be subjective.