From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Dec 03 2005 - 11:26:37 GMT
Case:
Much omitted due to arguments going nowhere and in the interests of space:
> [Case]
> You seem to have a real need to feel yourself and your idealized
> "individual" as powerful autonomous masters of fate. I suspect no amount of
> evidence will disabuse you of this.
Yes, I believe in free will and the ability of human beings to largely
determine their own fate by the choices they make.
[Case}
> Setting man apart from nature is a very low Quality way of
> looking at things. But this does seem to be your position. You seem to hold
> that not only is one man an island but mankind is its own island. You
> obviously hold this belief very deeply and in defiance of all logic and
> evidence to the contrary. I doubt there is anything anyone could say to
> change your mind. But this is not a belief rooted in reason. It seems like
> more like faith. It might at least be therapeutic for you to acknowledge
> where reason ends and faith begins.
Reason ends with the Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and Godel's
Incompleteness Theorem. As for mankind being an island, no evidence has
yet been found that man exists elsewhere in the universe, but nature does.
> [Platt]
> No. I don't subscribe to truth by taking polls.
>
> [Case]
> What standard would you apply?
There are several standards. If you want to discuss "What is truth?" let's
make it a separate post. We've discussed it on this site many time before,
so why don't you start it off again by citing your own standard(s) of
truth. If interested, others can chime in.
> > [Case]
> > Ok but defining a term with more undefined terms is not helping me to
> > understand what you mean. What is "betterness"? What is "Excellence"? You
> > seem to imply that purpose, betterness and excellence are fundamental
> > properties of nature. If that is true I would think you could at least
> > say what they are and what they do.
>
> [Platt]
> If you don't know what betterness and excellence is, I can't tell you,
> anymore than I can tell you what Beauty is.
>
> [Case]
> It is strange then that you would elevate something you can not even
> describe metaphorically to the status of an eternal principle. You seem to
> be saying that all of reality is brought into being and guided by a warm
> fuzzy feeling.
Yes, reality is guided by responses to Dynamic Quality which often give
one a warm, fuzzy feeling after the "Wow" effect wears off.
[Case]
> As I tried to point out in the example above, life emerges from the
> interaction of matter and energy every time an seed sprouts or a newborn
> emerges from the womb. In addition ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny so that
> every individual retraces the steps of its ancestors. We all have gills at
> some point in the womb.
>
> The process is there for all to see and make of it what they will. But
> there is none so blind as he who will not see.
Yes, but where did the first "seed" come from?
> [Case]
> I am saying that, at the moment, the "cause" of the Big Bang is not known.
> This gives theoretical physicists something to do. I for one am content to
> let them work out the details rather than spinning fantasies. I admit that
> this is a leap of faith and have said so repeatedly. But this leap is a
> short hop over a mud puddle compared to constructing elaborate scenarios
> that involve concepts like eternal consciousness, purpose, beauty and
> whatever else is on your list of things that you can not define, describe
> or point to.
You go your way, I'll go mine. There is much in my experience I can't
explain.
> > > [Case]
> > > So a hog finds beauty in the smell of a sow's girly parts, would you
> > > say this then is intrically beautiful?
> >
> > [Platt]
> > To a hog, you bet.
> >
> > [Case]
> > This seem like beauty residing in the eye of the beholder rather than
> > beauty being an property of the beheld. Are we agreeing here? I think you
> > just made my point for me.
>
> [Platt]
> Yes, like Quality, beauty is in the eye of beholders to the extent that
> beholders are different and have different life experiences. But also like
> Quality, Beauty transcends the eyes of beholders as well as objects beheld.
> Beauty is beyond description.
>
> [Case]
> If hogs find sow vaginas beautiful and I find them disgusting, it can be
> said that sow vaginas have some property that lends itself to a variety of
> interpretations. Beauty and disgust have nothing whatever to do with the
> sow vaginas they have to do with hogs and men. Even as you describe it
> beauty is a purely subjective phenomena.
What isn't purely "subjective" in your world?
> [Case]
> Saying that one does not know something is merely an admission of
> ignorance. Saying that one does not know something or can not know
> something, therefore it must have been this or that, is a demonstration of
> stupidity.
Agree.
> > [Case] Oddly
> > enough everything in my experience suggests it is a big crap shoot. The
> > world I see is organic, fluid and mysterious. It is fundamentally
> > indefinable but experienced intimately. It is wondrous and terrifying. I
> > recommend the book of Ecclesiastes.
>
> [Platt]
> Are you suggesting God plays dice? Einstein didn't think so.
>
> [Case]
> I didn't think I was being evasive in the least on this point but for the
> record: "Yes, of course, I believe God is playing dice with the Universe!"
>
> If you won't take me up on Ecclesiates, try this one from the prophet: "For
> my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the
> LORD." - Isaiah 55:8
>
> Even the Lord of Hosts distains anthropomorphism.
Agree.
Platt
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