Number 93 : July 1998 |
Back to taking cheap pot shots at me elders and betters this outing - as ever points arising from last issue (C92) first.
Rick (C92/25.2) : " . . And BAT is also one species ! ...... ?
Not unless "species" has been drastically re-defined recently it ain't. If your mastery of statistics matches your apparent grasp of simple biological terms maybe you ought to get someone to re-do that " .... statistical evaluation ..." of yours for you. Sorry, but there you were being all gloatingly smug (if for all the "wrong" reasons) and you go and spoil it with a basic factual error. I'm disappointed Rick, really I am.
Anyways I reckon we've about played out the "bats 'n' stats" thingy now. So unless you're one of those annoying twerps who takes being offered the courtesy of "having the last word" as a sign of victory by default I defer to your authority as to what you meant (as opposed to what you seemed to be saying) and "leave it with you" (if’n y' want it).
Theo (C92/3) : SIG on the Web ?
Great idea. Unless you don't have access to the Web that is. Could this be where two-tier membership begins ? I think David Taylor has already made a similar point somewhere, so 'nuff said on this one.
Incidentally I had the "comic poet of Colophon" ("One God is All") fair in mind last outing.
John Neary (and Theo; C92/18-19) : I don't know if this is relevant or helpful (given my track record it probably isn't) but as a "lucid dreamer" I found your joint comments on dreaming vs being awake especially interesting, so, if I may, a couple of points ...
In answer to Theo's question as to whether we "...ever know we're dreaming while we're dreaming, or only once we've woken up..." my own experience is that I am aware that I'm dreaming, while I'm dreaming - but, of course, by the time I've woken up that "knowledge" has become a memory, and thus retrospective - part of the dream as it were.
I'm vaguely suspicious - for no good reason I hasten to add - of John's definition as per part 1 of his missive. Perhaps it works best as a general rule, for those who aren't aware of when they're dreaming ?
My own test is to see if I have god-like powers - full wakefulness being like unto Kryptonite in this respect. It's not 100% reliable, but if I can't "change the script" then either I'm awake or I've temporarily lost control of my own dreamscape and am trapped in a somewhat dreary nightmare. (Which, thinking on it, seems itself a fair description of being awake.)
Anthony Owens (C92/13) : Picture if you will a sadly not hypothetical enough example. A twelve year old becomes pregnant as a result of a brutal gang rape. And you'd be the one to tell her that as well as everything else she must also endure the risks and rigours of carrying the pregnancy to term ? For the sake of something which might or might not qualify as a human life at that point?
Perhaps you should find something else to be "provocative" about - as is you just seem to be digging an ever deeper hole.
Nice idea about a "licence to populate" though. Not sure why "being married" should be such an "obvious" qualifying criteria however.
Norman Mackie (C92/28.2) : " .... What is so unique and distinct about human life that the power which creates and regulates it is excluded from the laws of Nature, or rather our limited understanding of them ?. . . "
Nothing whatsoever, Norman. Strange question. Still, glad to be of service.
And to round off, a little idle musing ......
Now, let's see if I have this straight.
Before some fifteen or twenty billion years ago there was nothing. Not even really a "before" as "time" didn't "exist" "yet".
Then existence just sort of happened out of somewhere less than nowhere.
Since then the Universe has grown from rather smaller than an atom to something of the order of at least a trillion light years, forming complex structures within itself along the way. All for no good discernible reason.
And the subtle irony is that none of it may "really" be "real". Summing up all the positives and negatives, and taking into account wherever the Universe came from and wherever it's supposedly going, gives a grand total of zero.
The greatest joke of the Cosmic Liar - the Universe ain't there and never has been. Nor us. But, of course, being equally non-existent, we're as (un-)"real" as the rest - thus, relatively speaking, "real".
So, in what sense are scientific "Creation Myths" an "improvement" on religious ones ?
"Divinity" and "Reality". Same shit different boxes.
Stef Gula
Stef : The gang rape issue is a complex one that, not being involved, we do well not to pontificate on. I agree that, if we get away from the mystical aspect of human life being inviolate at all costs and at all stages of development, we end up weighing the good / harm done to the girl and foetus. If we abort early enough, I can’t see how we harm the foetus as it isn’t sentient. We might harm the girl even so, depending on what her beliefs are. "Doing what’s best for her" - whether to abort or not - is another rape if her own decision is not sought. But, if it does come down to her decision, as it would for an adult, isn’t that another burden too difficult for her to bear ? A difficult issue, very case-dependent, I suspect. Any role for the girl’s parents in all this; after all, her belief-structure may still owe a lot to them at that age ?
Incidentally, I’ve just made the following dangerous posting (20:00, 24/7) to the Unofficial Mensa List. A thread on the issue of "what is life" and the consequences for abortion has just started :-
Some dangerous thoughts for you ....
Isn't the attempt to define "life" simply a throw-back to the old vitalist days, when there was supposed to be some extra essence - a life force - that divided animate from inanimate matter. If there is no such thing, then are we chasing after a definition of something that does not exist ?
Does the distinction not turn on the difference between conscious & unconscious organisms ? This is maybe even harder to pin down than the old definition of life, given that we can't get inside the head of other humans, never mind other organisms - but we proceed along the lines of analogy with a layer of common-sense added to take account of possibilities or limits imposed by neurological complexity or simplicity and adding a bit of "benefit of the doubt" lest we commit atrocities ?
Getting back to abortion, for me the critical time for the foetus would be when it's aware of what's happening to it. Viability has nothing to do with it - babies aren't particularly viable on their own in any case, and what is viable varies with the amount of money & technology we have to throw at it. Who knows, one day we may have Brave New World style artificial placentas & nutrient soups with viability pushed back to conception - this is only a technological problem, not one of principle. Whether the foetus is "alive" has nothing to do with it, nor, at this stage does potentiality - this only arises when an entity becomes self-aware. Once the foetus is aware (not necessarily aware of self), its needs and fears need to be taken into account, though they don't necessarily override those of the mother.
In case I'm misunderstood, I'm not advocating lack of concern for living but unconscious entities - ie. ruling out the plant kingdom as worthless. Nothing has a right to exist - it's a big struggle for existence after all - but that doesn't mean the end of conservation. The world would be a poorer place for us (humans) with half the biosphere missing. We can confer rights, insofar as this is within our power, but these are not natural rights.
Nor am I advocating all manner of enormities that might be deducible from filling in the gaps in a complex position not fully fleshed out above.
Theo Todman
SIGSec, Philosophical Discussion Group; SIGSec, Physics SIG
.... new members welcome !
Stef : getting back to your contribution above ... I don’t go along with you at all with your "creation myth" idea. I’m not saying that the current model is correct, but if it is proved incorrect it will be because certain quantitative predictions persistently come out wrong, not because some of the concepts seem extraordinary to the likes of you or me.
Theo