Rand: To Exist

Let me quote from Ayn Rand, on Page 16 of her book, The Virtue of Selfishness: "I quote from Galt's speech: 'There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or nonexistence--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-generating action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept 'Value' possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil." My response: Humans, living organisms, must choose to live or die. Humans choose to live not just by propagating their kind or eating food so that they do not starve to death. In accordance with a hierarchy of needs, for a human to choose to live is to aim higher in pursuit of a worthy end, for reaching a valued or desired goal. If the person does not struggle to gain higher value, the soul or spirit of the human withers, dies or they plot to wreck and ruin, spreading lower values, evil, or the lack of values around himself. God put him here on earth to make things better, and he has denied that invitation, instead channeling his strength, power and energy to making things worse. To live indicates one is to biologically survive, but it also means that one is to get after gaining ends of higher value. So pursuing is living, not choosing living death. Rand seems spot on here. Rand continues: "To make this point fully clear, try to imagine an immortal, indestructible robot, an entity which moves and acts, but which cannot be affected by anything, which cannot be changed in any respect, which cannot be damaged, injured or destroyed. Such an entity would not be able to have values; it would have nothing to gain or lose it could not regard anything for or against it, as serving or threatening its welfare; as fulfilling or frustrating its interests. It could have no interests and no goals." My response: Rand is suggesting that humans possess free will, so they can choose to live or die. Only as a living creature do we mortals need to generate reasons to live, and goals to pursue. Only as living creatures do we come to scale and assess various actions as superior or inferior in quality. Only as innately moral creatures we will we fill the need and will provide answers for our urgent need to live and survive by ranking actions and choices as better or worse, good or evil, and desirable or worthless. To live we must impose moral values upon our assortment of potential actions and choices. To be alive is to be moral, and to be moral is to be happy, and for the average atheist agent that Rand envisions, that is a life well-lived, as each agent pursues his own rational self-interest. Now the religious believer that serves and follows God is also a person that must choose to live or lie, literally and spiritually. When she chooses to do nothing with her life or refuses to help God run the world as a holy place, or refuses to make the world a better place, by improving herself first, and indirectly assisting and uplifting all those around her, then she does evil, and her actions are of little value, and she is dying (slowly) physically, morally and spiritually. I believe that Rand's statements above apply to believers as well as to unbelievers, secular humanists and atheists like whom she is. Now let me react to her example of the immortal, indestructible robot (sounds like a deity-substitute to me): any immortal, superhuman being, unchanging and impervious to any attacks, worries or suffering around it. I agree with her somewhat that it cannot have values, in the human, fallible context of humans needing values so that they can choose to do good and serve with the children of light, or elect to do evil, and work with the wicked children of darkness. Humans, naturally more evil and good, but still good enough that, with will, good habits and consistent wise, loving choices, can do good and be good. As such good persons, they are alive, valuable and are adding value to the world, for society and in their personal lives, and this successful effort is most commendable, and approved of by the Divine Couple. In this contest the robot/deity cannot have values because he is unchanging and eternal, not becoming, evolving and changing like mortals do. Lifeless matter, animals and the robot/deity are all set and unchanging, so they do not have values in the way that Rand suggests, and her analysis seems applicable to the human condition. I would add that any deity will have values, good or evil, and they will not be able to do much good if they are wicked, or sin much if they are innately perfect and good, but whatever their value is (pure good or pure evil), they will work to extend that power in the world. To extend whatever value extreme that they would be their interest and goal in the world. Let me quote Rand further at the bottom of Page 16 and on the top of Page 17: "Only a living entity can have goals or can originate them. And it is only the living organism that has the capacity for self-generated, goal-directed action. On the physical level, the functions of all living organisms, from the simplest to the most complex--from the nutritive function in the single cell of an amoeba to the blood circulation in the body of a man--are actions generated by the organism itself and directed towards a single goal: the maintenance of the organism's life.*" My response: If God and Satan and their underlings have physical bodies and biologically exist, at least in some way to some degree--and they do and this is another mystery that I cannot explain but intuit that it is their ontological and biological status, they then also have free will, goals and can originate goals. This might imply that they are not perfected and unchanging like Rand's robot/demigod, but they are mostly perfected and unchanging. With that status established, by contrast, humans are mortal but living entities that are very vigorous and very active, for the few years that they live. In the mortal realm, in humans, half-angel and half-beast, is where god and beast mingle freely and complexly. There is where the cosmic, endless battle between good and evil unfolds, and that is how the universe seems to work. God may have created humans not because De was lonely (That may have been part of it.), but because the arrival of humans on the planet earth allowed some unknown, universal deficiency to be fulfilled, and divine balance and justice could thus be restored as humans live and clarify and instantiate values of good and evil, and their efforts might well be far more significant for the inhabitants of heaven and hell than we have been told. With this potential responsibility in mind, we must shoulder our responsibility to self-realize, to live and love and fight evil, to put the world right, and the serve the Mother and the Father, not Satan and Lera. Here is that footnote from the bottom of Page 17: "When applied to physical phenomena, such as the automatic function of an organism, the term 'goal-directed' is not taken to mean 'purposive' (a concept applicable only to the actions of a consciousness) and is not to imply the existence of any teleological principle operating in insentient nature. I use the term 'goal-directed,' in this context, to designate the fact that the automatic functions of living organisms are actions whose nature is such that they result in the preservation of an organism's life." My response: Rand seems correct in distinguishing between simple organisms and animals that are instinctive driven to evolve in the world in such a manner as to preserve their lives, not goal-directed, teleological and purposive as deliberate conscious choosing of human beings. It could be that God and Satan plan and execute their goals, but it is among humans where the main action happens. Note that Rand offers that humans enjoy active, rational minds (or consciousness), and that makes their lives valuational and their plans to be teleological, and I agree with her.