Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Lifeism

 



The term lifeism appeared as part of the critique of efilism. Lifeism is the opposite of efilism and seems to stem from a rejection of philosophical pessimism. Efilism regards life as a negative phenomenon and deems its extinction desirable. Lifeism views existence as something worth continuing and is opposed to actions intended to accomplish the erasure of life.

Outlining a clear dichotomy between these two currents of worldviews by presenting them as mutually exclusive terms may provoke the undecided to take their position and consider their vision of the world, perhaps redefining some of its elements. When accepting any of the views, one has to take into account the logical consequences of adopting them. Both lifeism and efilism have controversial and often very uncomfortable elements for the human psyche, and the choice between approving of extinction, accepting the lack of future suffering and satisfaction, and approval of continuing or spreading life, accepting a huge amount of suffering and satisfaction, is not obvious if we try to consider both options from the position of suspension of judgment.


Lifeism is, in contrast to efilism, the claim that conscious and sentient life is worth spreading or continuing. Life has a value in itself, or some values make the creation of a conscious life legitimate or morally good. The declared goal of lifeism is not that ultimately life to be erased, but its duration and continuation as long as possible. Lifeism, then, is not the notion that we should not be dying out now if we want to prevent as much harm as possible, by keeping civilization alive for the ultimate sterilization of space. Passive lifeism seems to be a default view that exists in the background of models-of the-world. Perhaps for this reason it was not widely recognized as a certain philosophical position, being an automatic axiom. Active lifeism should involve focusing on the propagation of life itself (biological, sentient, or conscious) and spreading it across the planet and, potentially, throughout the available (material or virtual) cosmos.


Lifeism, therefore, argues that life must be maintained or proliferated. The extinction of life is seen as a negative phenomenon. In theory, even if it was not at the cost of any suffering.


Lifeism in practice should imply the recognition of nature as valuable, as well as taking steps to preserve it, protect it from destruction, and reconstruct environments, although a hypothetical futuristic lifeist could object to the protection of our nature if using its resources could result in the creation of more life, like the colonization of other planets or virtual worlds. The idea of filling the future cosmos or virtual worlds with life is inherently extremely lifeistic.


Certainly, in abstract scenarios, we can imagine actions that do not fit the definitions of lifeism nor efilism. For example, post-biological intelligence (posthumanism, extreme transhumanism) whose representatives are immortal but do not create new life, or (in some exotic case) a collective mind engulfing other minds to make them a part of some cosmic unity.


Sometimes it can be useful to distinguish between weak lifeism, considering life something that we should not or must not destroy, but it is not advisable or necessary to spread it and propagate it in space or virtual worlds. A strong lifeism would argue that we should fill the universe with life, and the idea of doing so is beautiful and valuable. The desire to fill the cosmos with intelligent life, presented by some transhumanists, probably qualifies as a strong lifeism.

Though probably relatively widespread for its level of extremes, a similar view would be extreme lifeism, that we have a moral obligation to spread life. Bringing the cosmos or virtual worlds to life and filling them with myriads of living beings, or the moral obligation to create more transhumans or other ascended beings should be one of the moral priorities of advanced civilizations. Thus, not only would it be a moral goal to preserve existing life, such as preventing climate catastrophes on, say, planets with alien life, but also to create new such planets would be a moral goal.


In terms of approaching biological life in the form that exists currently on Earth, lifeism can take two basic forms. Earthly nature can be seen as something positive in itself. Despite its cruelty and the amount of suffering, despite the existence of overwhelmingly more pain, lack, and torture than there is satisfaction, gratification, pleasure and bliss in nature, it is worth continuing and spreading through its beauty, utility, potential, or intrinsic value. Although 10 kittens for one adult ocelot have to be butchered, and many thousands of other animals must suffer agony before their death to keep one alive, the existence of the biosphere is worth continuing. Despite the original pointlessness and great pain, there is a good reason why we must not lead to the extinction of the biosphere. Therefore, nature is seen here as a value, despite or even because of the suffering that occurs in it.


The second approach would, I believe, be the look of some transhumanists. Life has some value in itself or enables the existence of other values. Creating happiness and beauty, mystical experiences, or consciously experiencing the universe or love might be some of them. Hedonism, philosophical as well as practical, and positive utilitarianism seem to operate from the perspective of this assumption, and both negative utilitarianism, tranquilism, and suffering-focused ethics are technically compatible with this claim. This does not mean accepting suffering in nature as good, useful, or necessary, but it does not mean accepting the metaphysical pessimism of life as real. The suffering of humans and animals today is a price, dreadful but necessary to pay for the happy lives of transhumans and posthumans, as well as perhaps billions of other fulfilled lives in the cosmos to come. Accepting the tragedy now justifies the well-being of future lives. To deprive the future of such enormous potential to exist and experience the beauty, love, delight, and admiration of the universe's greatness would be to impoverish the cosmos. And having in our power to enrich the universe beyond imagination, certain sufferings are worth the achievement.


Even recognizing metaphysical pessimism as true does not have to lead to efilistic views, if the value system we choose does not recognize suffering as the only value (negative value, "positive" value would be preventing it). On the other hand, it is difficult for me to imagine an internally coherent system based on metaphysical pessimism, but at the same time recognizing life as ultimately, metaphysically worth living. As I perceive both terms, they seem to be mutually exclusive if the system is to be consistent, but the variations in defining the terms used probably allow for greater flexibility in practice. However, I believe that both existential nihilism and absurdism allow one to be a lifeist and reject efilism, but that no coherent, objective system of values ​​can be involved in it. Perhaps the will to live alone would be a motive (but not an argument) to justify such a view, even admitting the irrationality or potential irrationality of such a decision. The mere irrationality of the human psyche, or more complex psychological phenomena and philosophical concepts that I have not considered because of lack of knowledge or sufficiently deep analysis of the subject, may lead to more sophisticated explanations.


This material is not meant to provoke. I believe that to emphasize the dichotomy and to highlight the fact that in terms of a philosophical approach to existence there is no "normal" position and a handful of efilists. The subject of a philosophical approach to existence is in practice complicated and the fact that the implicit view, with more and more often controversial obviousness, remains unnamed may hinder a constructive approach. Lifeism and Efilism are therefore opposite philosophical and ethical views, resulting from a different approach to the subject of the metaphysical value of life and its possible ethical implications. Efilism claims that sentient life is something that we should hold back and eventually erase. The ultimate euthanasia or extinction of all life and the prevention of its future arising is posed as the moral goal of efilism. Lifeism says we must not do that: for several possible reasons, and usually because of the implicit or deliberate assumption that life itself is worth living. The ethical goal of lifeism is to enable life to continue on earth, and potentially to create new life, including spreading it throughout the universe.




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