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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LLCF who wrote (23817)	6/16/2006 12:35:28 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

"It's only "obvious" once you define the terms we've been talking about" Literate people do not need to invent new definitions of common terms. "That function came from somewhere didn't it??? :" All matter is limited by inherent qualities. Just as all elements have limitations of heat, elasticity, energy, etc.--so does genetic life have discreet limitations. It does not matter that our knowledge is fallible. What matters is that we acknowledge the knowledge we have and how it is justified. Surely, I can speculate with you that the moon is part of a nervous system or maybe not...maybe part of a mind without a nervous system or maybe not...maybe a delicious piece of cheese representing itself with a table image in Texas Hold em as a very forbidding piece of rock. But this would all be speculation, as distinct from fact. I mentioned earlier how language is almost our entire advantage. I believe that is so. Even the domestication of the dog works because information is passed on between LIVING beings so long as the loop is not broken. So long as I or the dog I have trained to human ways is kept in an information interchange with the new puppies...advancement occurs--helped along by selective breeding--but all creatures can go wild and primitive again without some form of teaching through some form of language. So it is all about the brain and what we are able to store in the brain and how equipped our brains are to process and manipulate data and compare the data to other stored (memorized) data. When you consider that we began just as microbes seeking light this becomes clearer. We use the word "seeking" because we have language and the word means something to us. But because we use it to describe something happening in a cell does not mean we are asserting "choice" as we understand it to reflect human intelligence. Rather, it reflects the fact that certain attributes or tendencies lead to survival and others do not. Cells may be likened to a nose. The receptors of a doggy are far more numerous than ours, but whatever molecules fit into those receptors gives information to the brain. In the same way all cells receive information. They have evolved over millions of years to match this with that. These attributes or tendencies were originally random. It may be that they still are, but our small conceits have made it difficult for most to even consider this likelihood. Is there some indication of an underlying "intelligence" to all of this? Who knows? It is an awesome universe. But as we understand "intelligence" we do not see it as a property of generalized matter but rather as a property of nervous systems that have evolved to the ability to store, move, and process information--while remaining outside of it on some level. It is still a walk on the moors. But from a religious perspective it is clear that human identity dies when brain waves cease to exist. So let us appreciate and value the life we have and not get too caught up in what is intelligence or why do dogs smell so many things or horses run fast...