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To: D-fendr
Usually the improvements we imagine have negative consequences to the whole

You asked me if I could imagine and I said yes, but not sure if possible. I can design a perfect optical system that cannot be made for practical reasons.

God doesn't have those limitations. Why design a uvula? Or an appendix, or a crossed respiratory and alimentary tract?

Why not design self-healing bodies? Bodies that grow severed limbs the way we grow hair and nails, or the way a lizard grows back his tail? Why not be able to replace bad eyes with new ones, etc?

If we remove the capacity for evil, we remove the capacity for good.

I disagree. Good is absence of evil.

Still the default for humanity is compassion

Compassion is not natural to man. It is learned. What we consider a "human being" is a learned set of values, not an innate characteristic of our animal nature. In other words, it is not our default.

Leave a child in the back yard with only food and water The child will grow up without manners, without a language,with no reading ability, no mathematical skills.

That child will revert to being an animal in no time. In the case of a nuclear or asteroid catastrophe, survived only by 10-year olds or younger, practically all human knowledge will be lost, all knowledge of history, science or any academic field, or anything we consider part of human civilization, would be lost. We would revert to being practically cave men in no time at all.

There is nothing noble about us other than what we have learned. You could say we were domesticated.

The alternative is random nothingness

I don't understand what that means. What is nothingness?

1,583 posted on 07/22/2010 6:05:12 PM PDT by kosta50 (The world is the way it is even if YOU don't understand it)
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To: kosta50
Time is limited for me right now, so please excuse a partial reply.

Why not design self-healing bodies?

Well, our bodies do heal themselves. If we're healthy. If they didn't we'd break down as fast as cars.

But I think the question can apply on a larger scale of death. Why do we have to die?

The way the world works, death is necessary for life. The living die to make room for the new born. Much of life feeds on dead matter. The rest of life eats life to live.

It's all part of a whole. A pretty incredible whole that has to work, and it works to grow life - where conditions are favorable. Any improvement we can imagine has to avoid unintended consequences.

If we discovered a means to live forever tomorrow, imagine the consequences.

I appreciate your reply and discussion very much.

1,589 posted on 07/22/2010 6:36:25 PM PDT by D-fendr (Deus non alligatur sacramentis sed nos alligamur.)
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