Do you have specific ideas useful for resolving this question?
Fear of death doesn’t mean death is bad in the same way that fear of black people doesn’t mean black people are bad. (Please forgive me the loaded example.)
Fear of black people, or more generally xenophobia, evolved to facilitate kin selection and tribalism. Fear of death evolved for similar reasons, i.e., to make more of “me”. We don’t know what we mean by “me”, or if we do then we don’t know what’s valuable about the existence of one “me” as opposed to another, and anyway evolution meant something different by “me” (genes rather than organisms).
It’s usually best to avoid using the word “rationality” in such contexts.
I actually meant rationality here, specifically instrumental rationality, i.e., “is it getting in the way of us achieving our goals?”.
I feel like this thread has gotten derailed and my original point lost, so let me contrive a thought experiment to hopefully be more clear.
Suppose that someone named Alice dies today, but at the moment she ceases to exist, Betty is born. Betty is a lot like Alice in that she has a similar personality, will grow up in a similar environment and will end up affecting the world in similar ways. What of fundamental value was lost when Alice died that Betty’s birth did not replace? (The grief for Alice’s death and the joy for Betty’s birth have instrumental value, as did Alice’s acquired knowledge.)
If you find that I’ve set this up to fit my conclusions, then I don’t think we disagree.
What of fundamental value was lost when Alice died that Betty’s birth did not replace?
Hard to say. Notice that in such examples we are past the point where the value of things is motivation by instrumental value (i.e. such thought experiments try to strip away the component of value that originates as instrumental value), and terminal value is not expected to be easy to enunciate. As a result, the difficulty with explaining terminal value is only weak evidence for absence of said terminal value. In other words, if you can’t explain what exactly is valuable in such situations, that doesn’t strongly indicate that there is nothing valuable there. One of the few things remaining in such cases is to look directly at emotional urges and resolve contradictions in their recommendations in terms of instrumental value (consequentialism and game theory).
Fear of death doesn’t mean death is bad in the same way that fear of black people doesn’t mean black people are bad. (Please forgive me the loaded example.)
Fear of black people, or more generally xenophobia, evolved to facilitate kin selection and tribalism. Fear of death evolved for similar reasons, i.e., to make more of “me”. We don’t know what we mean by “me”, or if we do then we don’t know what’s valuable about the existence of one “me” as opposed to another, and anyway evolution meant something different by “me” (genes rather than organisms).
I actually meant rationality here, specifically instrumental rationality, i.e., “is it getting in the way of us achieving our goals?”.
I feel like this thread has gotten derailed and my original point lost, so let me contrive a thought experiment to hopefully be more clear.
Suppose that someone named Alice dies today, but at the moment she ceases to exist, Betty is born. Betty is a lot like Alice in that she has a similar personality, will grow up in a similar environment and will end up affecting the world in similar ways. What of fundamental value was lost when Alice died that Betty’s birth did not replace? (The grief for Alice’s death and the joy for Betty’s birth have instrumental value, as did Alice’s acquired knowledge.)
If you find that I’ve set this up to fit my conclusions, then I don’t think we disagree.
Hard to say. Notice that in such examples we are past the point where the value of things is motivation by instrumental value (i.e. such thought experiments try to strip away the component of value that originates as instrumental value), and terminal value is not expected to be easy to enunciate. As a result, the difficulty with explaining terminal value is only weak evidence for absence of said terminal value. In other words, if you can’t explain what exactly is valuable in such situations, that doesn’t strongly indicate that there is nothing valuable there. One of the few things remaining in such cases is to look directly at emotional urges and resolve contradictions in their recommendations in terms of instrumental value (consequentialism and game theory).