I’m new in this community. Anyone interested in engaging with these sorts of questions? If so, share your thoughts.
My initial inclination is that intrinsic value is an illusion.
I think this is related, but the term evidence-based gets used quite a bit in the media these days. I find that phrase has no intrinsic value, if thats right, because I’ve never studied philosophy. So, if that is an example, I say it because I think the word evidence doesn’t have a value, it needs valuation as to whether it is good evidence or some other description.
Edit: I guess, therefore not an illusion.
Outside of physical properties, like mass, charge or spin, I don’t think so. It’s all made up by us. Which isn’t a bad thing, I think.
Yet we have no proof these physical properties exist without humans to experience and quantify them. So in some sense, could we not say that they exist because we experience and quantify them?
Well, I guess we have to accept that we both exist and we expirence a share a universe with some objective properties. At least I wouldn’t know how to make any argument outside of that premise.
But with that, I’d say we have a basic understanding of how this universe works. We know our eyes detect a certain electromagnetic spectrum which is the predominant mechanism to carry information around in this universe. And we managed to do quite a lot by inferring laws of nature from that, building them up and these days we can detect and meassure all kinds of forces that tells us things that allows us to build things, and it all … works (ignoring the many times it didn’t, but it’s part of the process). So that’s proof. But of course we invented the concept of proof …
One could ask, does the universe without humans have value? Does order over chaos have value? Does energy vs empty space have value?
If it would all still exist and go on this way without humans, it feels like someone or something must have seen value in it at least at some point. Or perhaps we do really exist in some manifestation of total chaos.
But there is where I end up in the same question as @[email protected]. What exactly do you mean by value?
I don’t know what you mean if order has value over chaos, but we have values for order and the general law is, that it’s going towards chaos. Entropy.
And according to physicists, empty space itself has an energy value. They call it dark energy. No one knows what it is.
Also, I think it’s a bit egocentric to think it’s all about humans. Who says we are the only ones with the concept of value, even just on our planet. Maybe we’re just an anomaly. Like mold growing on someone’s solar system model.
I’m now considering a line of thinking where value = scarcity. Feels weird, but maybe there’s something there?
That wasn’t what I was thinking of, but I think there is something to it. Even it’s not an intrinsic value, it’s indisputable that some scarce resources have immense value to any life form that can utilise them. That’s a big factor in evolution.
But does it have “value”? What is the point of a planet with life on it against a barran rock planet or a gas giant? Why does the universe care that something is scarce?
I don’t know if you know about George Carlin, but a lot of people refere to him as a philosopher. But it’s also really harsh and abrasive stand-up comedy. And a few decades old.
Hey, i’ll check that comedian out. I can guess where that plastic and scarcity in the universe argument might go.
I’ve been thinking about it more and I added my own comment about my new inclination on this.
The problem with my initial line of thinking was in craving certainty. I think intrinsic value is not so much an illusion as it is a mystery. It very well could be plastic for all we know, or it might not exist at all.
I’m just an amateur, but I’ll bite. I apologize in advance for answering with more questions.
My initial thought was that any intrinsic value is going to be purely in relation to human consideration, and thus arbitrary, but on further consideration, I came to question the validity of that. Even without an understanding of the concept, could other living things not have a vague sense of value as well?
If so, I think we could possibly tease out some sort of basic intrinsic value that is at least common to most animals: companionship, comfort, sensory experience, escaping violence etc. That seems like a good starting place to me.
That would seem to fit into a fairly hedonistic world view, however, which seems to raise the question, are higher order conceptions of intrinsic value uniquely human? If so, does that make them any “less real”? I think this line of thought leads to your idea that intrinsic value is an illusion. I think this would fall under nihilistic or at least skeptical schools of thought.
But now what if you go the other way? Are our most basic hedonistic intrinsic values not just a consequence of our nature as progenitors of evolution? This seems to also lead to intrinsic value being illusory.
I like this idea of life in general defining inherent value. What if we encountered an alien race that developed completely separate from us and we happened to view certain common things as having intrinsic value? Could we make a case that these concepts of intrinsic value truly exist?
Yet, if life itself were high on that list we might be a bit bias.
Value according to who?
A good question. Does value exist without an entity to experience and quantify it? Is there value in a universe without humans - assuming such a universe could exist?
How would you define value, objectively?
Say, existence = value maybe? Or, energy = value?
Then your question becomes “Does intrinsic energy exist?” or “Does intrinsic existence exist?”
Could be. Interesting tactic. Energy does indeed seem to intrinsically exist. Existence does seem to exist. Scarcity does seem to exist. Even shared feelings of value for things that are hard to make a logical case for them seem to intrinsically exist. Yet, I feel unsatisfied that intrinsic value exists. Maybe I mean something harder to define.
After some thought, my new inclination:
Whether intrinsic value exists or not is unknowable to us, specifically because we did not create our own universe. I can’t say for certain there is value in truth, justice, love, etc. beyond what we humans assign to these things. Yet, I can’t say for certain that there is not. Intrinsic value by its very nature and definition is a mystery.
