Posted on 04/14/2004 6:15:04 AM PDT by Momaw Nadon
If I have my chronology straight, neander presents us with the earliest evidence of tender sentiments, in the form of flowers and keepsakes strewn in graves.
I am more inclined to suspect he was too good for his own smarts.
Human constructs are particularly vulnerable because the critical failure is often something commonplace and taken for granted. The more the technological 'bar' is raised, the more complex the 'basic' components become.
We take telephones for granted, but who could build a pair of phones and power them from scratch, even given the materials? Very few people understand the theory of the devices they use, much less could asemble one.
But it is the cultural constructs which would fail, because they rely on the technological ones. The failing would be man's, not nature's.
Where has it been measured? observed? Repeated? I took a year of paleontology as an undergraduate Geology student. I never saw so manu hypothetical protomorphs and ancestral stocks joined by more dotted lines than the interstate highway system--and that never came close to Humans.
"Evolution" is so full of missing links that it is just a theory, not gospel. Besides, Darwin stole the idea from Wallace, anyway.
"We take telephones for granted, but who could build a pair of phones and power them from scratch, even given the materials? Very few people understand the theory of the devices they use, much less could asemble one."
All taken for granted. I usually use the automobile for this analogy. It has (almost) every modern technology available in it.
Not positive about that but, my tendancy is to agree. There are Neanderthal skeletons found that lived to old age that would have required others to care for it.
My first guess would be: can't interbreed with us.
I find this question kind of interesting. Put the shoe on backwards and consider the discussion about Neanderthal in this thread. Assuming Neanderthal was, in fact, a dead end, how do you think Neander would have felt about, say, our ascending to the moon? Would he feel parental comfort and pride? Would he care at all? How about if he wasn't a dead end, and was, in fact, an ancestor--would that change the picture much?
So do you affirm or deny the proposition that consciousness resides in the hydrogen atoms?
Given the world-view that hydrogen, given enough time, turned into people, the naturalistic world view would require one logically to believe the proposition, would it not?
No reeking intended. TM
Cordially,
hmm. Two for two. Wrong AND irrelevant.
no
your problem resides in the slipperiness of the definition of "resides". This is pretty typical of the absurd knots you can put yourself into by trying to use logic on natural language. You are engaged in what formal logicians often describe as an example of the fallacy of the excluded middle. But I think it's a bit of a strain to cover this case. I'd prefer to call it bait-&-switch.
I'll be more specific. In the first proposition, you want "resides" to mean "requires", for your second proposition have much meat to it. However, your hopes for the acceptance of the first proposition lie in that most people will take "resides" to mean "allows".
Don't do this kind of thing--it damages your brain. Logic is not good for you in your present mind-set--rub more smelly, concrete earth into your brain before you start applying etherial logic to it--if ever.
No. There was quite some discussion of the "fallacy of composition" or some-such-thing last year.
A horse trainer was interviewed on radio last night by, I think, George Noory. The trainer gave his opinion that horses have a high moral sense because they could kill us at any time, but don't because it wouldn't be right. While that may be the case for horses he has trained, or perhaps the trainer is misinterpreting the thoughts of an alien species, not all horses share that sentiment. Many of us have met horses that apparently couldn't stand the idea of humans in their world.
Oh, and aside from being in an illogical syllogism, this proposition is hardly airtight on it's own: the fact that hydrogen turned into people is not particularly pursuasive evidence that outside intervention didn't take place. Whether it did, or not, hydrogen still existed, and was used to make atoms to make humans, presumably. The naturalistic world view is NOT necessarily athiestic. Naturalistic explanations in science do not in any way preclude the possibility of intervention, divine or otherwise. They merely propose that natural explanations are sufficient for most practical purposes of the day. There are those who propose that natural explanations preclude divine explanations, but they are not touting a mainstream scientific line, and they would not be called naturalists by most pedagogically inclined philosophers.
Main Entry: re·side
Pronunciation: ri-'zId
Function: intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s): re·sid·ed; re·sid·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French or Latin; Middle French resider, from Latin residEre to sit back, remain, abide, from re- + sedEre to sit -- more at SIT
1 a : to be in residence as the incumbent of a benefice or office b : to dwell permanently or continuously : occupy a place as one's legal domicile
2 a : to be present as an element or quality b : to be vested as a right
I took the word "resides" to mean "to be present as an element or quality." In the materialist view, what other choice is there for the source of consciousness other than hydrogen turning by itself over time into people? Logic requires it.
Cordially,
The dictionary does not address the qualities of a thing that may be residing. You do. And you hope the reader will assign two importantly non-identical qualities (must or may), depending on which ox you are goring at the moment.
Yes, but unlike Diamond, they were mostly hysterically-foaming-at-mouth nutcases. But I saw no point in repeating that entire argument when it can probably be easily linked for his perusal.
Then Carl Sagan was not touting a mainstream scientific line when he said in his PBS series Cosmos that the universe is all there ever was or will be. I have always understood the term naturalism (in the philosophical sense) to be the view that there exists nothing outside the physical universe, and that everything that exists, including our own mental states, results from nonrational causes.
Cordially,
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