From: ian glendinning (psybertron@gmail.com)
Date: Fri Apr 22 2005 - 06:30:34 BST
In reply to Mark, (With a point for Scott)
Mark, you lay into Ham and Joe pretty thoroughly with arguments
against their statements - whilst I might not say what you say, I
wouldn't fundamentally disagree with your views.
Whether Ham or Joe will buy your argument is another matter. As you
know I prefer the syntehtic approach. I would (and have) owned up to a
sneaking sympathy for the germ of something in both "essence" and
"pantheism" for example and build from there, see where it takes me.
Anyway, that's just a personal observation.
What your two posts do for my argument is remind me of your Poincare quote.
Scott Please Note
"Flash" - in Poincare's words - the "intuition" "insight" "
inspiration" element of science - is "EVERYTHING". That is all I am
saying. Scientific method is for the masses, not for advancing
knowledge.
Ian
On 4/22/05, Mark Steven Heyman <MarkHeyman@infoproconsulting.com> wrote:
> On 21 Apr 2005 at 16:52, hampday@earthlink.net wrote:
>
> joe said to ham:
> Through history there has been an oddity on this planet: individuals of the highest
> evolved species kill each other on a massive scale. IMO this defeats continued
> evolution by destroying many fine things that had already been achieved.
> Some very fine people have tried to elucidate ways of behavior that would
> eliminate this problem e.g., Buddha, Moses, Astrology from India and
> Greece, Jesus, Mohammed, Lama are the most recognized.
>
> ham said to joe:
> I don't know exactly what point you're trying to make here, Joe. If it's
> that the "rational" creature sometimes behaves "irrationally", you'll get no
> disagreement from me. Keep in mind, however, that if it were not for this
> irascible creature's ability to reason, we would not have the means to print
> books, fly airplanes, cure syphilis, predict hurricanes, or communicate on
> the Internet.
>
> On balance, I'd say the positives outweigh the negatives, wouldn't you?
>
> msh says:
> The point is that your rational creatures are not all that rational,
> and far far from the exalted status you would like to grant them.
> And whether or not "the positives outweigh the negatives" sort of
> depends on which pan of the scale you occupy. If you by chance are
> born to the team holding the upper hand in violence, and you are
> sufficiently egocentric, things might seem just peachy. It is
> precisely this incredible self-centeredness, and apparent
> obliviousness to the plight of others, that makes your Essentialism
> (as well as Rand's Objectivism) most unpalatable to anyone with even
> a shred of a sense of our common humanity.
>
> Thanks,
> Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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> "Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything." --
> Henri Poincare'
>
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