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1: By worth, are you referring to the summation of their attributes (including the attribute we call a 'person')? Because while attributes are inherent... worth is a value determined by the individual judge. In an example that touches on this:
The Location (unfinished) Wrote:The Location
Let us say that there are two identical swords, made of the same materials, exactly alike to the atomic level. Now, one of these swords is hung on a wall in a rich man’s home… and the other one is in the hands of a great warrior, who is battling endless legions of demons. The only difference between these swords is their location… but that location brings quite a difference to the value of these swords.
To the rich man… the sword is ‘that valuable weapon I bought’… but to the warrior: the sword is his very lifeblood, survival or death as he faces the demonic onslaught.
Now let us look at a similar, but different issue. Say I own a boat… a really big and expensive one. This boat is in my beautifully built dockyard behind my wonderfully built mansion. Where am I? On a small uncharted desert island, 5000 kilometers away.
How much is that boat worth to me now? Does not the boat’s location change how useful it is to me… doesn’t it define the boat? If I were to tell the only other survivor on the desert island that I own a boat… is not their first question going to be “WHERE IS IT?!”?
Back to the twin blades… if the warrior drops his weapon, and cannot retrieve it: does not his blade change in identity? It is no longer within his reach, and he must make do without it… despite its usefulness. If that rich man were to bring the warrior the second blade, would that blade not suddenly become much more valuable than the first? Perhaps the warrior could fight his way over to the first, and then he would have two blades in a similar location, both being useful.
But now that he is dual wielding… are the swords still different? He may be ambidextrous, so maybe the swords are of equal use to him… but he is using a different blade in each hand. How are these ‘identical’ swords different now, one might ask? Simply, it is because they occupy a different place in space.
Coming back to our topic of Identity… ‘Identical’ is not a word that can be used to describe anything in physical existence… as so long as location differs: there will always be the difference. There are no identical twins… nor identical spoons… nor identical atoms in space. There are similar twins… similar spoons… similar atoms… but location is a very important attribute of three dimensions. What something is, where it is, and when it will be, is, or was there: these three questions define existence.
“Why?” and “How?”… Those are questions that target the defined existence… and without the other three: could not be asked. Before a question may be asked of a base… that base must be established, however impossibly or incorrectly... but there is nothing to question without a base upon which it can be questioned.
Worth is based primarily on where a thing is is, when it is there, and what the thing is. So I take it that you are basing 'inherent worth' on the status of 'personhood'?
2: Those are good values
3: Acceptance is generally good... but what do you mean by 'spiritual growth'?
4: This is also good.
5: This is good in general
6: Same. Although surly you mean to update this when we meet aliens/advance our society beyond a single 'world'?
7: I would agree with that... but others could interpret that differently...
