The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not; it depends on a specific course of action.
Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death.
Life is a process of self-sustaining and-self-generated action.
If an organism fails in that action, it does; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of Life that makes the concept of Value possible.
It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.A plant must feed itself in order to live; the sunlight, the water, the chemicals it needs are the values its nature has set it to pursue; its life is the standard of value directing its actions. But a plant has no choice of action; there are alternatives in the conditions it encounters, but there is no alternative in its function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction.An animal is equipped for sustaining its life; its senses provide it with an automatic code of action, an automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil.
It has no power to extend its knowledge or to evade it. In conditions where its knowledge proves inadequate, it dies. But so long as it lives, it acts on its knowledge, with automatic safety and no power of choice, it is unable to ignore its own good, unable to decide to choose the evil and act as its own destroyer.
Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice. He has no automatic knowledge of what is good for him or evil, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires. Are you prattling about an instinct of self-preservation?
An instinct of self-preservation is precisely what man does not possess.
An `instinct' is an unerring and automatic form of knowledge.A desire is not an instinct.
A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living. And even man's desire to live is not automatic: your secret evil today is that that is the desire you do not hold. Your fear of death is not a love of life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it.
Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him t9 perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer-and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.A living entity that regarded its means of survival as evil, would not survive. A plant that struggled to mangle its roots, a bird that fought to break its wings would not remain for long in the existence they affronted.
But the history of man has been a struggle to deny and to destroy his mind.
Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice - and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man, by choice; he has to hold his life as a value - by choice: he has to learn to sustain it, by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues, by choice.A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.
Whoever you are, you who are reading my post now, I am posting to whatever living remnant is left uncorrupted within you, to the remnant of the human, to your mind, and I say: There is a morality of reason, a morality proper to man, and Man's Life is its standard of value.All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil.Man's life, as required by his nature, is not the life of a mindless brute, of a looting thug or a mooching mystic, but the life of a thinking being, not life by means of force or fraud, but life by means of achievement, not survival at any price, since there's only one price that pays for man's survival: reason.Man's life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose.
If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man, for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling, and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life."Since life requires a specific course of action, any other course will destroy it. A being who does not hold his own life as the motive and goal of his actions, is acting on the motive and standard of death. Such a being is a metaphysical monstrosity, struggling to oppose, negate and contradict the fact of his own existence, running blindly amuck on a trail of destruction, capable of nothing but pain.Smart words are more effective than smart bombs!
Mighty words of a charismatic keynote speaker can transform your people to a new dimension of organizational climate, efficiency, self-actualization, enthusiasm, belonging, and motivation.
To get such a speaker to your conference, write to keynote.speakers@yahoo.com
Eμμανουήλ Χρύσης - emmanuelch.wordpress.com - Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone
There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence-and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not; it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and-self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it does; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of Life that makes the concept of Value possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.
A plant must feed itself in order to live; the sunlight, the water, the chemicals it needs are the values its nature has set it to pursue; its life is the standard of value directing its actions. But a plant has no choice of action; there are alternatives in the conditions it encounters, but there is no alternative in its function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction.
An animal is equipped for sustaining its life; its senses provide it with an automatic code of action, an automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil. It has no power to extend its knowledge or to evade it. In conditions where its knowledge proves inadequate, it dies. But so long as it lives, it acts on its knowledge, with automatic safety and no power of choice, it is unable to ignore its own good, unable to decide to choose the evil and act as its own destroyer.
Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice. He has no automatic knowledge of what is good for him or evil, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires. Are you prattling about an instinct of self-preservation? An instinct of self-preservation is precisely what man does not possess. An `instinct' is an unerring and automatic form of knowledge.
A desire is not an instinct. A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living. And even man's desire to live is not automatic: your secret evil today is that that is the desire you do not hold. Your fear of death is not a love of life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it. Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him t9 perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer-and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.
A living entity that regarded its means of survival as evil, would not survive. A plant that struggled to mangle its roots, a bird that fought to break its wings would not remain for long in the existence they affronted. But the history of man has been a struggle to deny and to destroy his mind.
Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice - and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man, by choice; he has to hold his life as a value - by choice: he has to learn to sustain it, by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues, by choice.
A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.
Whoever you are, you who are reading my post now, I am posting to whatever living remnant is left uncorrupted within you, to the remnant of the human, to your mind, and I say: There is a morality of reason, a morality proper to man, and Man's Life is its standard of value.
All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil.
Man's life, as required by his nature, is not the life of a mindless brute, of a looting thug or a mooching mystic, but the life of a thinking being, not life by means of force or fraud, but life by means of achievement, not survival at any price, since there's only one price that pays for man's survival: reason.
Man's life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose. If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man, for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling, and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life.
"Since life requires a specific course of action, any other course will destroy it. A being who does not hold his own life as the motive and goal of his actions, is acting on the motive and standard of death. Such a being is a metaphysical monstrosity, struggling to oppose, negate and contradict the fact of his own existence, running blindly amuck on a trail of destruction, capable of nothing but pain.
Smart words are more effective than smart bombs! Mighty words of a charismatic keynote speaker can transform your people to a new dimension of organizational climate, efficiency, self-actualization, enthusiasm, belonging, and motivation. To get such a speaker to your conference, write to keynote.speakers@yahoo.com
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