X-Message-Number: 9158
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 10:10:14 -0800
From: Rand Simberg <>
Subject: Will to survive and objectivity

Bob Ettinger writes:

>Rand Simberg (#9137) says the survival instinct is hard-wired into us.
>Well--yes and no, but mostly NO.

>Most of us have the survival instinct AT TIMES OF CLEAR AND PRESENT
DANGER. We
>will jump to avoid a tiger or a taxi. But if the threat is less clear and
less
>immediate, or if it is an "attractive" threat (fatty food, cigarettes),
forget
>it. Also old, sick, or depressed people have greatly reduced survival drives,
>as a rule. 

<remaining argument snipped>

OK, I'll back off on my statement that evolution favors survival, since
nature doesn't care after you've raised your offspring.  However, I still
firmly believe that my own desire to avoid oblivion is hardwired, since
there was certainly nothing in my environment, either family or societal,
that would cause me to have such a desire, and much that militates against
it.  I have been unhappy with the prospect of death since I first exposed
to the concept (about age four), and determined that it wasn't going to
happen to me if I had anything to say about it.  I think I was born that
way.  Perhaps I (and other life extenders) are weird mutants.

When I said that:

>>With all due respect, I would suggest that the will to survive is primarily
>>hardwired evolutionarily. 

Peter Merel responded:

>Ah, the will for *what* to survive? Your name? Your genes? Your
>sense of purpose? Your social affiliations? 

My sense of self, which intrinsically includes my memories.

>>I believe that it will always be subjective, and that even the belief in an
>>objective reality requires a leap of faith (or an axiom, if one is more
>>comfortable with the term).  There is no point in arguing the point (at
>>least with me), because I (and Goedel, among others) don't find it arguable.

>Doesn't the belief that reality is always subjective also require a
>leap of faith?  

It does, as does any set of beliefs.

>What is this difference between subjective and objective?

Objective: having independent existence, apart from experience or thought.

Subjective: subject to mental states--something that cannot be knowably
shared.

That a football field is a hundred yards long can be determined
objectively, with an independent yardstick (assuming that one believes
subjectively in the concept of an objective reality, as I do).  That an
opera is worth listening (or a life is worth living) has to be judged by
every individual, and there is no universally correct answer. 
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