Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

Fred Matser: Well, we have the freedom of thought. So, we can think what we want to think. We have that right to choose with our free will what we think. And indeed, the general thinking is that human life is more important than the life of other species. And if I look into myself, I have to say that indeed, although not too much, I eat some meat, I eat fish and I eat vegetables. And in a way, it's our expressions of life. And I nurture myself with those products of creation or nature. Yeah, is then our life, the human life, more valuable than the other forms of life? It is a judgment, important or not important. I think it is different and I think we can honor other forms of life. Many people do that by -- before dinner, they pray and they thank God for allowing them to eat the meat, the fish or the vegetables and they allow themselves to be nurtured by it in order to be aware and grow in their consciousness. So, a real answer I don't have, but these are just some perspectives on it.

by Fred Matser

Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

Galsan Tschinag: Although I have a lot of respect for every life form I would say that human life stands above the life of a dog or a sheep. Yes, without giving an explanation for this I say that human life is more important than any other life form.

by Galsan Tschinag

Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

Geert Lovink: I'm more interested in the science fiction reading of your question. It is not for me so much a question if we talk about the relation between humans and their pets, cats and dogs, horses or to have the whole debate about the vegetarian, the bio industry and the way we treat animals. Other life forms -- I'm more intrigued by aliens from other planets. That's a more challenging question for me and in fact a lot of science fiction novels and films have been made about this question. This is a much more exciting question, an open question because you can't just give an easy yes or no answer to this according to what you make of it or whether you are a vegetarian yourself. It is interesting to think that we could at some point travel to other solar systems and to meet other life forms. This question will keep us busy for many, many centuries or even more. So the other life forms for me…

by Geert Lovink

Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

Giora Feidman: Well, human being have a brain and because of a brain, it can think. Even already was proved by the science that the plants, they sense, they understand, they have a sound where the grass grow, they have a sound, everything have breath, everything have life. But, the human being has a brain. And, think, they have a brain, he can understand, respect, he can understand and can practice how to live with everything. Even with this table down here, my eyes don’t see that the table move now; it is not the table move. Our eyes make us so confused because our eyes can see only in this dimension, not everything even in this dimension. Again and again, what we have the possibility as a human being to treat everything, everything material or not material to treat this with [inaudible]. This perhaps is the difference between us and animal, plants and general environment.

by Giora Feidman

Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

Gladman Chibememe: Humanity is just part of a big equation. Humanity is just part of an equation that completes an ecosystem, an ecosystem comprising of men as part and parcel of the whole system. So, we have no right to say human beings are more important than other forms of life because once we remove the human element within the ecosystem level, it will collapse. And, if once we overemphasize the human or become too human-centered, anthropocentric, then it means at the end of the day, we will be -- it is as you will lose, because the environment will collapse. So, in this case, it is important that we look at life forms as one package, life forms as an integrated and holistic system that needs to be supported in its wholeness not as individual discrete elements. These are not discrete elements, but this is a unified system that needs to be looked at from a holistic point of view. It also applies to other areas of politics, environment, development; those issues need to be considered at a more integrated holistic dimension instead of looking at them as discrete, overemphasizing one element result in confusion and conflicts. So, the human element is just that is complementing other forms of lives and we should remember that those lives needs to be there and humanity needs to be there, because of other lives. Failure to have those lives, it means humanity is also going to be excluded or be out of the system.

by Gladman Chibememe

Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi: No. We should not have the right to consider human beings as more valuable than other life forms. But, do we care? Do we think ever that way? You all the time think how do I look at every other life form. You look at agriculture. How many of the farms allowing other life forms to coexist. Look at the industries. How much they pollute the natural water sources? I think there is hardly any attention that is being paid that what we do need to be done in a responsible way that we don’t deny the opportunity of existence through other life forms because of our selfish interests. We must see the mutual benefits in order to coexist without denying the right of existence. Even the process of development that we often prescribe and promote need to be reviewed, look at so much [audio ends]

by Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi

Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

Hans-Peter Dürr: No. We cannot grant human beings a higher value, but they have a different value. They are different from other species, especially in their capacity to see the world in two different ways. The first one is intuitive, from within so to speak, contemplative, developing sensibility for wisdom which comes from within ourselves. Additionally, there is the second way from outside, stepping outside of the world and looking on it. This capacity gives human beings the possibility to act intentionally. To change the world, to act creatively. But human beings also have to recognize that this capacity of intervention does not free them from testing if their actions are in accordance with life in general. Human beings should not act destructive but try to make life livelier, to enable the achievement of a higher level. This is the special capacity of human beings and if they don't recognize this, they are acting in a way which will transforms them back into a homo oeconomicus or Homo Faber, who are just acting without understanding the larger context. This is an immense danger today. We have a fantastic possibility to move on, but we have to listen to our inner voice, which tells us how we can serve the community. In this sense the higher value, which we give ourselves can be appropriate.

by Hans-Peter Dürr

Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

Harry Wu: The situation of different people, their physiological organisms, their historical and cultural backgrounds are different so that the value of their lives is different. Gandhi, or the Dalai Lama, or Einstein, they have their own values of life, which of course differ from the general. Certainly, they have different opinions about life, so are their values.

by Harry Wu

Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

Helena Norberg-Hodge: I believe that human beings everywhere in the world will expend more energy and more love for their near and dear ones. They will feel more pain at killing a baby than they will at killing an ant or even a snake or even a larger mammal. However, we urgently need to recognize the fact that even if we value human life more in an emotional sense, intellectually we are today at the point where it is vital that we recognize that we will not live if nature doesn’t live. So that our dependence on the natural world means that we urgently have to change the system that’s condemning us to polluting and poisoning our water, the soil and the seeds that feed us. So there it is without a doubt a fact that we are completely dependent on the natural world. I also believe that we derive our sense of spiritual joy and peace when we quiet the mind and feel our connection to the living world. The sense of oneness with the natural world is the essential message behind most religions, behind most spiritual traditions, being in tune with that, feeling it, experiencing it is a vital part of becoming truly human of revitalizing or regaining our sense of life, our connection to life. However, that doesn't mean that we therefore will value an insect as much as we will our own baby. I think that's an unrealistic intellectual concept that is counter productive. Valuing and loving and respecting the natural world can happen without insisting that an ant...

by Helena Norberg-Hodge

Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

Homero Aridjis: We have no right to consider a human being as more valuable than other life forms, because other life forms have the right to share with us the life on Earth regrding the concepts "dignity" and "existencial equality".

by Homero Aridjis

Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

Jerry Mander: Answertext will be available soon.

by Jerry Mander

Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

Jesper Green: Yes, we as the human race have the right to consider human beings as more valuable than other life forms. And in extreme situations humans could face the fact of a situation where we have to sacrifice other people, other human beings in order to save an animal that is vital in the ecological system and then therefore for the survival of mankind. It’s cruel. It’s controversial. But I think it’s some kind of matured evolution, cynical evolution. And I think it happens every day. And that’s just because we want a new kitchen or a new toilet or a new some kind of wellness in our western society.

by Jesper Green

Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

Jodie Evans: Only at our own peril.

by Jodie Evans

Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

John Gage: At the beginning of all human evaluation, at the core of questions about where do we place our interests, we view as human beings other human beings as the most important component of the world. That view, which is easily expressed by human beings one to the other, because human beings have the power of language, that view amplifies among human beings, everyone agrees, well, human beings viewed as separate beings from the rest of the world, from the rest of environment in which they live, from the rest of the humanity – of the life surrounding them, the trees and plants and components of all of the biosphere, that separatist view has led to disproportionate investments and disproportionate evaluations in what we do. And what do human beings do? Human beings alter the world around them. Depending upon value systems, some groups of human beings alter the world around them with amazing power and technological advances giving ever more power to those human beings with resources to change the utilization of resources in the world. So, the older views, which may have made great sense at a time when there were few human beings, now given the weight of 6.5 billion human beings magnified by the force of technology to change even the foundations of life by altering DNA, genetic codings, to alter life, those older ideas of the pre-eminence of human beings I think fundamentally must change. If you think about a human being, if you think about a cell in a body of the human being, that cell in fact contains the remnants of bacteria millennia ago that invaded the human cell, became part of the human body in each cell and live [audio ends].

by John Gage

Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

Jonathan Granoff: We not only have the right, but we have the responsibility to preserve human life when it's attacked by life forms such as viruses. The plague, which decimated this region of Europe several hundred years ago, was a life form, and I don't think anybody would say, oh, people should not have changed their hygienic practices to curtail the spread of this life form. That maybe - you know Europe should have - should continue - should have not developed central plumbing and greater hygienes to nurture this other life form, and let the pathogen of the plague spread, and have as much richness on the planet earth as human life has. So I think not only do we have the right, we have the responsibility. But that doesn’t mean that we should not apply some sense of justice. It doesn't meant hat we should kill and hurt other life forms without any sense of respect and recognition of their value. There is the capacity of judgment and evaluation and balance. Should we rely on killing animals to feed our hunger, when we can kill plant life that doesn't suffer so much to feed our hunger? And certainly, we don't have a right to be destroying thousands of species for our greed in the marketplace. That we certainly don't have a right to do. We don't know why there's a platypus, why the creative force of the universe and the mysterious source of creation itself created platypuses. There's so many creatures there, you know, they just seem so strange to us. But we don't know. We have to have a sense of respect for the great mystery that creates, sustains, and absorbs life.

by Jonathan Granoff

Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

Jonathan Meese: Primarily man is allowed to claim everything. He is his own life form and his own formation of life. Whether the claim is right or wrong is insignificant. It is in human's nature to aspire to higher values or higher systems. But we won't have any opportunity because mostly those who we concede less value to outlast us - and this is good. This is just a game of the powers. But this system will melt. As a matter of principle there mustn't be any prohibitions. Any other life form is superior to us. Human being is the lowest one. There is no other life form that is lower and this is wonderful. Therefore we can play on it and continue the game. Human is up to the total revolution. Human defines himself by his capability of revolution exclusively. If human is not capable to revolutionise any more, he is a slave - a slave of the things.

by Jonathan Meese

Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

Jonathan Stack: I don't think the question is, do we have more valuable. I think we have the question of more impacted. We contain more energy in us. We have more -- and there is no doubt about that. That's just an objective fact. Does that mean we are more important and we can only exist alone? We are so small compared to the sum total of energy on this planet, so that this is all small little beings that we are is nothing yet. These small little beings are incredible because these small beings, us, these human beings, we can contemplate and imagine it all. We can name it, we can take -- we can give or take life in a conscious and unconscious way. This gives us enormous power. That is not to be denied or to be felt bad about. It's to be embraced and to be taken with great responsibility because it is a huge responsibility. And with great responsibility, it's also a burden. But, it's a burden that's like such a gift. What a gift to have that power to be able to be conscious of consciousness. I love that kind of power that comes with knowing and being able to -- just to be able to be alive. I don't feel bad about that fact. I just feel bad about what we do with the power that we have. We have made such a choice to -- instead of like humbled by that power, we are sort of -- kind of drunken by it, and that's kind of the [big comfort] and the great irony because how unpowerful we'll be. We will [audio ends].

by Jonathan Stack

Sep 9, 2006 11:40:00 AM cite

José Manuel Prieto:

by José Manuel Prieto