Number 92 : May 1998 |
Howdy-doodly fellow ponder-junkies and apologies, if such are needed, for my absence from C91. I'll try not to let it happen again. To business then ...
Commensal On The Web (C91/5-6) : This would not be Commensal but a separate organ of the PDG benefiting from faster turn-around time whilst suffering from fewer contributors. I suggest that Commensal has perhaps two pages of edited highlights from the Web-fest in each issue, simply to stimulate further debate in Commensal. There will inevitably be one or two people who will defect totally to the Web and Commensal will suffer from that but this will be offset by the highlights section. In all I think Commensal will become slightly different but no better or worse and if it makes the techies happy then I say let them have their fun.
Dave Botting - The Evolution Of Society And Morality (C91/10) : Evolution is neither swift nor simplistic. I contend that society and morality, like physiology and intelligence, are subject to Darwinian evolution. The example Dave Botting gives of the massacre of the idolaters in the Book of Exodus may well have been a significant event in history but on an evolutionary timescale is relatively small. This isolated incident need not necessarily improve either society or morality in the long term for the phenomenon of social evolution to still exist. However! ... It could be argued (so I will) that Moses’ hypocrisy in disobeying his own commandments has, in the long term, damaged the influence that Christianity and Judaism have in the modern world. Plus! ... You've gotta ask yourself how Moses' followers were ABLE to massacre Aaron’s followers. Something evolved in that event! The Levites were either fitter, better equipped, had better tactics, were better organised or were simply right. The idolaters got massacred ‘cos they were inferior and ‘cos Moses was a vindictive *%L£! If Moses had been more charitable you, Dave, might now be Jewish. If Moses had left a legacy of better behaviour Jesus may never have bothered changing the rules, and the Archbishop of Canterbury might now be Jewish. The brutality of the Levites has caused the principles of Judaism to have less influence than they might otherwise have had.
Dave (Botting) says (C91/10.4) : "The social and moral systems that we find ourselves in are the result of historical accident; there are no evolutionary ... processes involved". But evolution is by very definition the long term out-come of a series of accidents. The meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs was not exactly anyone’s fault but large reptilian monsters evolved out of the ecosystem because they were not up to coping with the demands of environmental change. If the idolaters had been right they could have converted the Levites to idolatry and Moses would have been the one they massacred. Leaders are like orchestral conductors! A conductor cannot make a musician play what he does not want to play but for the musician to make the music he wants, he must do as the conductor tells him!... (God that was a dodgy analogy but I can't think of a better one so I'll leave it in.)
And by the way Dave, don't listen to Theo, I loved your title!
Michael Nisbet - The Understanding Of Reflective Surfaces (91/16.3) : Obviously I had not read The Apes Reflection and I now firmly intend to do so. The behaviour of the crab-eating macaque would seem to support your argument whilst destroying mine. I must think about this...........
Mike Rossell - Beauty In The Eye Of The Bee(Holder) (C91/22.2) : I think Vijai is basically correct in saying (C90/24.2) that flowers are not fundamentally beautiful but that beauty is a quality bestowed on flowers by people who believe them to be beautiful. However I'd go one stage further and describe beauty as a quality of the relationship between viewer and flower. And I don't see why the viewer needs to be human, either. I'm sure that bees find flowers just as, if not more, beautiful than we do.
Why Don't World Leaders Charge Into Battle Like In The Good Old Days? (C91/22.11) : While Mike ponders the psychology of modern politicians, I'm inclined to favour more pragmatic reasons why modern world leaders don't actually participate in warfare personally. Firstly the theatres are much larger and communications are better so the commanders are now best able to direct their troops from away from the front line. In the old days the commander had to be able to actually see the battle in order to know how it was going; but not so today. Also the modern battlefield is a far more dangerous place than it once was due to the disparity of weapon and armour technologies in the modern world. King Arthur (or whoever) bagged the best suit of armour and the best horse and surrounded himself with the best soldiers and was comparatively safe even if the main body of his troops were getting massacred. However with modern tanks and multi-launch rocket systems and laser-guided air strikes the equivalent degree of safety can only be attained by residing on another continent.
Alan Carr - Reincarnation? Philosophy Or Aquariana? (C91/25.6) : I am quite happy to discuss reincarnation with you or anyone else. The deeper the thoughts a subject raises the better as far as I'm concerned; but I suspect that other members of the PDG may not see it like that. Re-incarnation is a contentious issue - not merely from a philosophical stand-point but from one of believability. In the Aquarian SIG most members will believe in re-incarnation and will happily read about and discuss its implications. Outside of this group, however, many people will consider it to be fanciful nonsense and wish to discuss ethics or causality or something more substantiable. If the Aquarian SIG did not exist I'd be on your side totally ‘cos these issues need a forum in which to be discussed but that forum is the Aquarian SIG. Anyone interested in paranormal issues who isn't already a member should join immediately. In the PDG a discussion about re-incarnation could all too easily deteriorate into the kind of futile slagging match between sceptics and new-age hippie types that I've seen all too often on TV shows and Fortean conventions alike. Let the sceptics have their SIG and let the new-agers have theirs. These two groups don't mix, so lets not mix them.
Stef Gula & Theo - Statistically... Am I Bats? (C91/30.3 & 31.3) : Tee-hee. Its always amusing to watch two people arguing about what they think I meant. Probably just means I'm incomprehensible though; but who cares? (except the entire readership obviously). And equally obviously, you are both wrong! In my statistical evaluation I'm no more likely to be a bacterium than a bat, nor am I miscounting the ratio of bats to humans. Perhaps I should explain ... There are several million different SPECIES that I could possibly be! Human is ONE species! And BAT is also one species! Therefore, in the absence of any data as to my actual nature, I'm equally likely to actually be either. Any introduction of statistics concerning the populations of humans and bats is misleading because these statistics only apply to the dream not the "real" world. However in both dream and reality a bat is a bat and a human is a human. The bats may be different but they are still bats otherwise they wouldn't be bats, would they? Is that any clearer? Oh well ...
Crime, Punishment & Evolution : With all this talk of crime and punishment (C91/33-36 etc.) I thought I'd add an odd little notion of my own.
Natural selection is the most reliable and efficient mechanism for developing individuals and societies known to man (or "known to me" at any rate) so why not utilise it in the pursuit of a crime-free society!? Anyone committing any significant crime should be sterilised. That way, inconsiderate behaviour will eventually evolve out of the gene-pool and we'll one day have no need of law or law enforcement or prisons or capital punishment or any of that messy, expensive nonsense that we have today.
Of course there're the problems of immigration, random mutation, cryogenics, and the fact that none of us will live long enough to see this Utopia but, hey, every good plan needs a little work prior to implementation.
And on that note I shall leave you all to ponder the mysteries of bats, bees, monkeys and the origins of the universe. Happy head scratching ...
Rick Street
Rick : Good to have you back again ! As usual, too much to comment on. Thanks for the Internet suggestions. One day perhaps. What makes you think that, but for Moses the vindictive, Judaism would have become a proselytising world religion ? Surely we’d have ended up as pagans or devotees of Mithras ? And would Judaism with a different Moses still be Judaism ? I think we’ll have to give up on the "statistical" discussions ! So, you’re another steriliser ! Presumably the cornerstone of your argument is that there is some "crime gene" that can be selected out ? What if we’re all "that way inclined" - original sin & all that - so that the hydra of crime would forever arise. Besides, your average criminal would already have a brood of sprogs before percolating to the criminal level demanding sterilisation, so the boat would have been well missed, unless you propose shop-lifting as the threshold crime ?
Theo