Self Bias - Who to save, the ant or the human?

[Scholar]

Is it self-biased to save a human being over an ant? Is it self-bias to argue that a human being is more worth to save because it has a richer experience of life and has a greater contribution to higher consciousness?

How do we justify sacrificing the ant for the human? Can we do that by adopting the position of the ant and the human and deciding which one would prefer to continue to exist? But wouldn't that be self-bias because we are humans and will therefore choose the human?

Would a high consciousness being without self-bias choose the human over the ant?

[Anton Rogachevski]

If you really want to go down that rabbit hole, try contemplating the fate of deadly bacteria in an infected body.

[Scholar]

8 minutes ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

If you really want to go down that rabbit hole, try contemplating the fate of deadly bacteria in an infected body.

Yes the same question would apply, but the ant vs human example is more obvious, because human beings also sustain bacteria by being alive.

[Rilles]

47 minutes ago, Scholar said:

Is it self-biased to save a human being over an ant? Is it self-bias to argue that a human being is more worth to save because it has a richer experience of life and has a greater contribution to higher consciousness?

How do we justify sacrificing the ant for the human? Can we do that by adopting the position of the ant and the human and deciding which one would prefer to continue to exist? But wouldn't that be self-bias because we are humans and will therefore choose the human?

Would a high consciousness being without self-bias choose the human over the ant?

You cant be alive without it being at the expense of something else. For the body to grow something has to decay. For you to eat something, be it a plant or an animal, has to die. You can go as complex as you want with this and eventually you realize that nomatter what you do you will affect someone, even if you kill yourself that will hurt someone, you could cause a deadly competition between the worms that feast on your body. 

[Spiral]

Killing a human creates mental distress, killing insects don’t. In essence both are just as imaginary and worthy of life. 

 Ants are hiveminded so you should consider it as a limb rather then a individual entity. Beetles are less detrimental to earth than humans so one might argue for why they are more worthy.

Edited August 17, 2019 by Spiral

[Anton Rogachevski]

@Spiral

Good arguments. Since the human will cause more harm to the environment, it's better to save the ant. (As crazy as that may sound.) 

[Scholar]

28 minutes ago, Spiral said:

Killing a human creates mental distress, killing insects don’t. In essence both are just as imaginary and worthy of life. 

 Ants are hiveminded so you should consider it as a limb rather then a individual entity. Beetles are less detrimental to earth than humans so one might argue for why they are more worthy.

Yes but isn't it self-bias to structure what is worthy of consideration after what kind of impact they have on our environment? And why is mental distress relevant if we were to be unbiased?

 

So a fully conscious enlightened being should kill the human and save the ant?

33 minutes ago, Rilles said:

You cant be alive without it being at the expense of something else. For the body to grow something has to decay. For you to eat something, be it a plant or an animal, has to die. You can go as complex as you want with this and eventually you realize that nomatter what you do you will affect someone, even if you kill yourself that will hurt someone, you could cause a deadly competition between the worms that feast on your body. 

But what does that have to do with the question I asked?

Edited August 17, 2019 by Scholar

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Spiral said:

Ants are hiveminded so you should consider it as a limb rather then a individual entity.

Let's use that same logic when your mother gets killed.

Do you see how your logic falls apart as soon as the tables are turned?

[Aeris]

1 hour ago, Rilles said:

You cant be alive without it being at the expense of something else. For the body to grow something has to decay. For you to eat something, be it a plant or an animal, has to die. You can go as complex as you want with this and eventually you realize that nomatter what you do you will affect someone, even if you kill yourself that will hurt someone, you could cause a deadly competition between the worms that feast on your body. 

Death by fire for me.

But soul transfert in a synthetic body first

[Rilles]

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

But what does that have to do with the question I asked?

Because nomatter what you choose it doesnt really matter in the end. Youre just trying to encapsulate a chaotic reality into something that you feel in control of. 

[Scholar]

1 minute ago, Rilles said:

Because nomatter what you choose it doesnt really matter in the end. Youre just trying to encapsulate a chaotic reality into something that you feel in control of. 

Yes but with that logic you could go on and rape and kill people and just say "Well you gonna kill stuff anyway".

In the thought experiment we can also remove the chaos. It's just the ant vs the human, leaving out all of the complexities. Who do we save without self-bias?

[Rilles]

Just now, Scholar said:

Yes but with that logic you could go on and rape and kill people and just say "Well you gonna kill stuff anyway".

You wont because youve been taught empathy from an early age. Only towards those things that serve you though, like other humans or cute pets. Some people werent taught those empathic feelings, they can kill as they wish. Although you are responsible for the slaughter of every cow youve ever eaten too so youre no better. Im not judging you here, Im just using ”you” as an example. 

In the thought experiment we can also remove the chaos. It's just the ant vs the human, leaving out all of the complexities. Who do we save without self-bias?

Will have to ponder this one a bit.

 

[Spiral]

@Leo Gura  That very unclear, if i was a an hivemind and my mother hivemind died? or my queen? or? I was a hivemind I rather kill humans because that's a lot of food. If a was a lone ant I won't care cuz ants can't care. 

 

 

[Scholar]

9 minutes ago, Rilles said:

You wont because youve been taught empathy from an early age. Only towards those things that serve you though, like other humans or cute pets. Some people werent taught those empathic feelings, they can kill as they wish. Although you are responsible for the slaughter of every cow youve ever eaten too so youre no better. Im not judging you here, Im just using ”you” as an example. 

I think you are making jumps between prescriptive and descriptive morality. You go from stating how things should be to how things are.

Quote

Because nomatter what you choose it doesnt really matter in the end. Youre just trying to encapsulate a chaotic reality into something that you feel in control of. 

This is a justification of a prescription, saying that "We do not need to care about this problem because the world is too complex for us to take into consideration what will eventually cause harm and what will not".

 I criticized this justification as it would also apply to someone who rapes and tortures you for pleasure. You would not accept that kind of justification at all.

What people will or will not do due to the nature of their psychology is fundamentally different from what you seek people to act like, what you prescribe yourself to do. So the question is not "What do people act like" but "What, as a high conscious beings, would we want people to act like?".

Saving the ant or saving the human? Can we answer that question without self-bias?

Edited August 17, 2019 by Scholar

[Rilles]

13 minutes ago, Scholar said:

I think you are making jumps between prescriptive and descriptive morality. You go from stating how things should be to how things are.

This is a justification of a prescription, saying that "We do not need to care about this problem because the world is too complex for us to take into consideration what will eventually cause harm and what will not".

 

13 minutes ago, Scholar said:

 I criticized this justification as it would also apply to someone who rapes and tortures you for pleasure. You would not accept that kind of justification at all.

What people will or will not do due to the nature of their psychology is fundamentally different from what you seek people to act like, what you prescribe yourself to do. So the question is not "What do people act like" but "What, as a high conscious beings, would we want people to act like?".

Saving the ant or saving the human? Can we answer that question without self-bias?

Youve shook my mind up and Im getting a bit edgy so I will just say; I will be checking for my own blindspots more in the future, thanks. Its a complex topic and I half/half agree with you but Im too busy to write more now. 

[ahmad ibdah]

The purpose of life is to realize your true nature. Ants do that easily once dead. Human beings don't. So they require more attention. And they deserve to be a priority.

[RichardY]

Kill the ant, don't kill the ant. Set the whole nest on fire with a can of deodorant as a makeshift flamethrower or buy an Elon musk one.(discretion advised)  God will generally forgive, unless you're a Jain, which kind of rules that out, being your own God.

[Moreira]

save from what? If its from death, which kind of death? painful?

If its a painful death obviously the human has a more advanced nervous system therefore would suffer more, killing an ant would inflict him less suffering.

Also humans are mammals that only have 1-2 babies at a time white ants are a plague with hundres of eggs, so eliminating one of them would have insignificant impact in the world in comparison

 

Edited August 17, 2019 by Moreira

[Forestluv]

8 hours ago, Scholar said:

Would a high consciousness being without self-bias choose the human over the ant?

You are knocking on the door of “trans-human” consciousness here. Humans are very human-centric and practice humanism subconsciously. Notice how spiritual people speak about transcending the ego/personality, yet contextualize it all in human frameworks, Many people have transcended the ego, very few have transcended humanness. 

At the human level, we can come up with all sorts of concepts and justifications. These are all within human constructs. Why do humans get to call the shots? Why do humans get to claim highest consciousness and define enlightenment and who is eligible for enlightenment? Humanism.

Sometime in the future, beings with expanded consciousness, beyond our imagination, will view today’s human consciousness as rudimentary. Just as we view the ant. Humans will be the ant. 

The jump from ant consciousness to human conscious seems massive from the perspective of a human. Yet from the perspective of infinity it is miniscule. Within infinite consciousness, ants and humans are essentially at the same conscious level. It just seems like a lot from a tiny contracted human perspective. 

[Leo Gura]

11 hours ago, Spiral said:

@Leo Gura  That very unclear, if i was a an hivemind and my mother hivemind died? or my queen? or? I was a hivemind I rather kill humans because that's a lot of food. If a was a lone ant I won't care cuz ants can't care.

Not IF. Humans are a hive super-organism just like ants.

You don't see it because of self-bias.