Philosophy Discussion Forums

arjand wrote: ↑March 11th, 2020, 12:46 pm The question is: at what state would the forest be considered gone?

Given that it's the Amazon we're talking about, I would think we will be gone before the forest is.

Considering the industrial development that may remove 1/5th of the rainforest according to plans in the next years, it may go much faster than estimated.

A bill the president is sponsoring, now before Congress, would allow infrastructure to be built on indigenous territory. Such lands cover 386,000 square miles of the Brazilian Amazon — one-fifth of the jungle.

https://www.ecowatch.com/indigenous-peo ... belltitem1

And, as it appears, it may soon be possible that you can choose a life-span of +10,000 years. It is even possible to reverse the aging process to become young again.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16651

The question in that topic has remained unanswered.: would the human be able to respect nature or is it inevitable that in the near future humans will choose a life-span of +10,000 years?

It seems difficult to find an argument as to why respect for nature is vital.

arjand wrote: ↑March 11th, 2020, 1:37 pm It seems difficult to find an argument as to why respect for nature is vital.

Because our survival depends on it? Pretty trivial, I know. If trees doubled as mobile phone masts, we'd be planting them all over. Too bad they only provide the oxygen we breathe.

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑March 11th, 2020, 1:56 pmBecause our survival depends on it? Pretty trivial, I know. If trees doubled as mobile phone masts, we'd be planting them all over. Too bad they only provide the oxygen we breathe.

Would an argument in defense of respect for Nature at most be functional for the human? It would imply that the value that the human can 'see' would be all there is to consider when it concerns an insect or animal.

The ability to choose a +10,000 year life span may be an example. What could hinder people to make such a choice?

As it appears, it is almost impossible to formulate an ethical claim in favor of aging and natural death.

What lays beyond the human is unknown. The human cannot know the intrinsic value of what it cannot know beforehand. The same is applicable to animals and Nature as a whole.

I wonder if philosophy may enable to change how humans perceive and interact with Nature.

arjand wrote: ↑March 11th, 2020, 4:10 pm

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑March 11th, 2020, 1:56 pmBecause our survival depends on it? Pretty trivial, I know. If trees doubled as mobile phone masts, we'd be planting them all over. Too bad they only provide the oxygen we breathe.

Would an argument in defense of respect for Nature at most be functional for the human? It would imply that the value that the human can 'see' would be all there is to consider when it concerns an insect or animal.

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What lays beyond the human is unknown. The human cannot know the intrinsic value of what it cannot know beforehand. The same is applicable to animals and Nature as a whole.

I wonder if philosophy may enable to change how humans perceive and interact with Nature.

I can't quite see what you're getting at, here. Do you think that it's ethically OK for humans to determine the value of another living thing, species, or group of species? It sounds like that.... And are you also saying that if, for example, humans (deliberately) make a particular species extinct, and the ecosystem suffers complete and total collapse as a result, that it wouldn't really matter because we couldn't've known it would happen?

I'm sure I must be misunderstanding, so I will stop here, so that you can put me right, if necessary.

My argument is that the human cannot know the intrinsic value of what it cannot know beforehand, as an explanation of why it may be difficult to formulate a reason why for example the consciousness of an animal has a value beyond what the human can 'see' (e.g. as food).

I did not intend to argue that a value that would lay beyond the human, isn't to be considered.

What I intended to highlight is that humans appear to have a difficulty to formulate a reason why respect for nature is vital, with as an extreme example, a reason why it would matter when (millions of) animal(s) go extinct. There are people who argue that it wouldn't matter when some animals, such as the mosquito, were eradicated from Earth.

An example response from a scientist:

The eradication of mosquitoes is the only way to control malaria, otherwise you will have to pay Big Pharma to develop an effective antimalarial (it's pretty resistant nowadays to quinine) that doesn't induce hallucinations.

I'm no great fan of tsetse fly, warble fly, or a dozen other things that infect humans and cattle with various parasites, nor of cockroaches and the like that spoil about 20% of all human food.

Wasps and hornets are OK, particularly those that prey on other insects, but once you get a nest in your house it's hard to persuade them not to eat the woodwork and sting your grandchildren, or to go back to the forest where they belong. Poison works. Likewise termites - OK in the desert, but not in houses, bridges, telephone poles....

Head lice are an annoyance, but fleas and bed bugs can kill you. No great loss to the rest of the ecosystem - they only eat people and nothing else eats them.

Real life isn't all about butterflies and honey bees, alas.

With regard to the value of a mosquito:

The bizarre and ecologically important hidden lives of mosquitoes
Mosquitoes have many functions in the ecosystem that are overlooked. Indiscriminate mass elimination of mosquitoes would impact everything from pollination to biomass transfer to food webs.

https://theconversation.com/the-bizarre ... oes-127599

Steve3007 wrote: ↑February 24th, 2020, 3:53 am

Present awareness wrote:You make a good point Steve, “ one way or another, everything is going to go extinct anyway.”! When our own Sun goes supernova and the Earth is consumed and becomes a burnt and barren rock, will it matter that at one time in history, life thrived there? That event may seem like a long way off into the future, but then again, it took 13.7 billion years before I appeared on the planet and from my point of view, that time went by very quickly!

Thanks, but I was kinda hoping someone would shoot my idea down! . It seems to me akin to the idea that there's no point getting up and dressed because I'll only have to get undressed and go back to bed again tonight. The apathetics' manifesto. Hopefully some other people in the world are less apathetic than I was being on this subject!

Every thing, besides the Universe, Itself, may go extinct. But, we certainly do not have to go extinct. The innate nature of being intelligent is having the ability to learn, understand, and reason absolutely any and every thing, and this is why we can very easily live forever. If the Universe is eternal, and we have the ability to learn how to, and want to continue to, explore and discover, then having the whole infinite Universe as our backyard, then we still have some more playing or living to do.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑February 16th, 2020, 3:23 pm

arjand wrote: ↑February 16th, 2020, 1:45 pm

I've noticed similar responses. I understand that some insects are annoying or even dangerous for humans but how can you be certain that those insects are not vital in an unforeseeable way?

I'm willing to take a chance when it comes to some critters.

Are you being serious, really?

Could the very reason be that mosquitoes and roaches are so prolific is because there are so many human beings, leaving the mess which allows roaches to thrive, and producing the needs for the mosquitoes to keep growing and multiplying on?

creation wrote: ↑March 26th, 2020, 10:24 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑February 16th, 2020, 3:23 pm

I'm willing to take a chance when it comes to some critters.

Are you being serious, really?

Yes.

Could the very reason be that mosquitoes and roaches are so prolific is because there are so many human beings, leaving the mess which allows roaches to thrive, and producing the needs for the mosquitoes to keep growing and multiplying on?

If we assume that's the case, what of it?

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑March 27th, 2020, 5:25 am

creation wrote: ↑March 26th, 2020, 10:24 pm

Are you being serious, really?

Yes.

Could the very reason be that mosquitoes and roaches are so prolific is because there are so many human beings, leaving the mess which allows roaches to thrive, and producing the needs for the mosquitoes to keep growing and multiplying on?

If we assume that's the case, what of it?

If you do not assume that that is the case, then what do you presume is the actual case?

Now, considering you seriously want to get rid of mosquitoes and roaches, and considering it is you who is supporting the prolific growth of mosquitoes and roaches, then maybe it would be best to get rid of the true pest on earth, which is producing the continual growth of mosquitoes and roaches, and that pest is; 'you', the human being.

After all the earth would be pollution free and a far better and easy place to live if the true pest on earth was gotten rid of first.

creation wrote: ↑March 27th, 2020, 6:39 am Now, considering you seriously want to get rid of mosquitoes and roaches, and considering it is you who is supporting the prolific growth of mosquitoes and roaches, then maybe it would be best to get rid of the true pest on earth, which is producing the continual growth of mosquitoes and roaches, and that pest is; 'you', the human being.

VHEMT

creation wrote: ↑March 27th, 2020, 6:39 am Now, considering you seriously want to get rid of mosquitoes and roaches, and considering it is you who is supporting the prolific growth of mosquitoes and roaches, then maybe it would be best to get rid of the true pest on earth, which is producing the continual growth of mosquitoes and roaches, and that pest is; 'you', the human being.

After all the earth would be pollution free and a far better and easy place to live if the true pest on earth was gotten rid of first.

Why would I want to get rid of the animal I like, though?

arjand wrote: ↑February 10th, 2020, 8:04 am When you were young, were you the type of child who would scour open fields looking for bumble bees? Today, it is much harder for kids to spot them. Researchers discovered that bumble bees are disappearing at rates "consistent with a mass extinction.". If declines continue at this pace, many insect species could vanish forever within a few decades.

"We have now entered the world's sixth mass extinction event, the biggest and most rapid global biodiversity crisis since a meteor ended the age of the dinosaurs."

Scientists agree that Earth is at the outset of a mass extinction event—only the 6th in half-a-billion years—which could drive a million species, or one-in-eight, into oblivion over the coming decades.

https://phys.org/news/2020-02-bumble-be ... chaos.html

Multiple eco-crises could trigger ‘systemic collapse’: scientists

Overlapping environmental crises could tip the planet into “global systemic collapse,” more than 200 top scientists warned Wednesday.

https://phys.org/news/2020-02-multiple- ... tists.html

Question: What could explain a potential collapse of nature on Earth? Is is logical that some species "give up" or is it plausible to assume that millions of species are actually forced into extinction by humans or an other factor, in decades of time?

No scientific work survives the moronic vicissitudes of the media who seek to sensationalise and "sex-up" any findings or scientific suggestions.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑March 27th, 2020, 8:04 am

creation wrote: ↑March 27th, 2020, 6:39 am Now, considering you seriously want to get rid of mosquitoes and roaches, and considering it is you who is supporting the prolific growth of mosquitoes and roaches, then maybe it would be best to get rid of the true pest on earth, which is producing the continual growth of mosquitoes and roaches, and that pest is; 'you', the human being.

After all the earth would be pollution free and a far better and easy place to live if the true pest on earth was gotten rid of first.

Why would I want to get rid of the animal I like, though?

But you would not want to get rid of the animal you like. I never even thought you would, so why would you ask such a thing?

Is this thread about 'you', "terrapin station", and what you like?

Or, is this thread about what we each like and would like to get rid of? Or, is this thread, in fact, about something else entirely different?

If this thread just happens to be about what animal each one of us posters would like to get rid of, then, to me, please lets get rid of the human animal first. And can we not just do it now instead of having to wait a few decades? (And no this does not mean what just about every one of you readers is thinking right now, in the days of when this is written.)

creation wrote: ↑March 27th, 2020, 10:18 am If this thread just happens to be about what animal each one of us posters would like to get rid of, then, to me, please lets get rid of the human animal first. And can we not just do it now instead of having to wait a few decades? (And no this does not mean what just about every one of you readers is thinking right now, in the days of when this is written.)

Agreed. If the current pandemic was to achieve anything worthwile - in the context of your words - the fatality rate would need to be overturned: 98% instead of 2%. That would still leave about 200 million of us, worldwide, which would be more than enough, as far as the ecosystem is concerned.