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Dear Yuyutsu,

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You wrote :

« Life is all around, at least wherever matter exists. Considering non-biological phenomena, such as the movement of stars, to not be worthy of the name "life", is prejudice based on human ego »
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I don’t see anything reprehensible about making a distinction between animate and inanimate matter. The distinction is not due to “prejudice based on human ego” as you suggest. It is the result of a long process of natural evolution.

Life, as I have indicated in previous discussions, is what the French biologist Jacques Monod described as a process of chance and necessity, where chance is a random variable and necessity an inevitable event.

Both animate and inanimate matter are subject to the laws of nature. But only organic, biological, or animated matter is capable of autonomy, to whatever extent its particular biological form and degree of evolution may allow.

Stars (which you mention) move, not because they are animated and autonomous – therefore “worthy of the name life” – but simply because they are subject to the laws of nature (gravity, explosions, collisions, fusions, etc.).

Life is not “all around wherever matter exists”, as you state, Yuyutsu. Life is extremely rare. The dirt, rocks, stones, and ice of the planets together with the Sun and the stars (often composed of gases) are not organic, biological, or animated matter.

You may live among the stars, Yuyutsu, and dream at night that they are part of your life, but they, as such, are not live objects.

The only resemblance between the inanimate matter of the cosmos and us materialises when we are dead and, like all the other inanimate matter of the cosmos, we too become inanimate matter subject only to the laws of nature.

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Dear Banjo,

In your previous post you praised objective reality over the subjective, but now you speak of autonomy and free will, which is a subjective experience with no objective or scientific backing.

From an objective point of view, neither stars nor animals nor humans have any free will - in fact, they have no will at all of any kind, they are all subject to the laws of physics, including what goes on in our brains and even in our minds.

If you prefer to view life from an objective perspective, then I will go along: stars, rocks, stones, ice, planets, sun and stars, plants, animals and humans, that which seems to be animate and that which seems to be inanimate, are all the same, all made of the same sub-atomic building blocks, all helplessly following the same physical laws, none being more important or less important than the others. To dissect the objective reality and then consider one part of it to be more precious and/or sacred than the others, makes no scientific sense, no logic: such thinking is based on emotional arrogance.

Hi diver dan
I wasn’t referring to your previous post, I merely put in my 2-cents worth about some points in the article.
But in your response to me, you don’t acknowledge that free birth control and mandatory, comprehensive sex ed is the best way to reduce abortion rates.

Do you really think that if abortion is made difficult to access or illegal, that women would stop having abortions?
Like it or not, throughout history, women have found a way to terminate a pregnancy -sometimes successfully, sometimes dangerously. For example, backyard procedures, hot baths, and using abortificant herbs have been used prior to legal abortions or in countries where there’s no access to safe abortions, to terminate unwanted pregnancies.
Termination of pregnancies should be safe and easily accessible to prevent unnecessary pain and deaths.
Do you prefer it if women have dangerous abortions?

Sure, some women may feel guilty after having an abortion, but that’s for them to deal with and to find help with, if needed. It’s her choice, not yours or anyone else’s. It’s a matter between the pregnant woman’s doctor and her.
You don’t know the circumstances pregnant women are in so you should stop to judge them.

Hi Individual
I agree that women who want to prevent getting pregnant should have free access to birth control either here in Australia or elsewhere.
The best way to lower the birthrate is to educate women.
Good point, we know by looking at history that higher education and falling birth rates go hand-in-hand. Empower women by education throughout the world and the problem of poverty and high birth rates will start to fall.

'The best way to lower the birthrate is to educate women.'
The problem is not with women

Educate all and you have a chance to a balanced society

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Dear Yuyutsu,

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You wrote :

« In your previous post you praised objective reality over the subjective, but now you speak of autonomy and free will, which is a subjective experience with no objective or scientific backing »
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I did not “praise” objective reality, Yuyutsu. I simply indicated that “it exists independently of any ideas we may have concerning it”. That is just its definition, that's all – nothing to do with praise.

You note that I “speak of autonomy and free will”. Yes, I do speak of autonomy, but, if you re-read my posts carefully, you will not find any mention at all of “free will”.

That said, I am quite happy to discuss free will with you if you are interested.

As I see it, nature has endowed all life forms with a certain degree of consciousness and autonomy to enable us all (animals, vegetation, and whatever) to thrive, evolve and survive. And it is the exceptional growth and development of the human brain that has allowed mankind to dominate all the other life forms and attain the supreme degree of consciousness and autonomy that we call free will.

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Hi Special Delivery
While I agree that education of every person is necessary, we still have a global problem when you look at the obstacles that girls/women face when it comes to education; obstacles that boys/men are not facing.

There is a strong link between increased education of girls/women and lower birth rates. I’m not sure if we’re allowed to post links in our comments, but just look it up yourself and you will find it out.
There are several articles discussing this fact.