On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 1Z <[email protected]> wrote: >> how would the world be different if causes WERE reasons? >> > > > if someone gets struck by lightning, God really does hate them. >
I pray to God you're joking. > Reasons are aims and intentions in the minds of intelligent agents which > explain and justify their actions. If you want to promote causes to > reasons, you are going to need a lot more intelligent agents. > So the difference between intelligent agents and other complex things like cells or computers or redwood trees or galaxies is that intelligent agents do things because of reasons but other mechanical things do things because of causes; and the difference between causes and reasons is that reasons do things to intelligent agents but causes do things to other mechanical things. And around and around we go and where we stop nobody knows. And when you say "the reason the street's wet is that it's raining" you are implying that asphalt is an intelligent agent. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
