Jay Hanson wrote:
>
> From: Ed Weick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> >>We are not computers, we are animals. The genetic distance that
> separates
> >>us from pygmy or common chimps is only 1.6% (the two chimps are separated
> >>by 0.7%). In fact, we are the chimp's closest relative with the gorilla
> >>differing by 2.3%.
> >
> >So? Can chimps build computers? Can they program them? That 1.6% makes
> a
> >hellova difference.
I propose it might make a real difference in lowering the prevailing
wage for computer programmers if we could get chimps to do it.
Instead of *only* a "global economy" where the
wage floor is dictated by the parochial requirements
for [in Marx's lovely phrase:] "reproduction of individual
and species life", we could actually make "Darwinism" an effective
ECONOMIC force! Having overcome our ethno-centrism, let's get
on with PROGRESS and stop being species-centric! This is great stuff!
>
> It does make a big difference. But an observer from outer space would
> classify humans as the Third Chimpanzee (see Diamond's book of the same
> name).
[snip]
And an observer with 20/400 vision in both eyes might do equally
as well from a closer distance!
>
> The ONLY scientific explanation for human behavior comes from the
> evolutionary psychologists. Evolutionary psychologists are
> reverse-engineers -- they observe behavior and then try to understand how
> that behavior led to survival.
>
> If we reject their findings because we believe that humans transcend nature,
> then we are left with "unexplainable behavior".
You got it! Human creativity brings previously unthinkable
ideas into the world. Therefore, on principle, those ideas
are unexplainable (or at least unpredictable). [Of course,
there is a way to make reality conform closer to science:
lobotomize everybody.]
> If we continue to deny our
> animal nature -- if we embrace superstition and ignorance -- then we condemn
> our grandchildren to certain death.
God's already done that. The least we can do is try
Him in absentia.
>
> Deja Vu:
> ------------------------------
>
> Uncritical offhand condemnations of Copernicus and his followers were not
> restricted to conservative and unoriginal popularizers. Jean Bodin, famous
> as one of the most advanced and creative political philosophers of the
> sixteenth century, discards Copernicus' innovation in almost identical
> terms:
>
> "No one in his senses, or imbued with the slightest knowledge of physics,
> will ever think that the earth, heavy and unwieldy from its own weight and
> mass, staggers up and down around its own center and that of the sun; for at
> the slightest jar of the earth,
[snip]
Again, it looks like everything depends on the earth
being hit by an asteroid big enough to shake things
up a bit.
As for people who disagreed with Copernicus,
Tycho Brahe was not exactly a fool (at least in
scientific matters...). In Copernicus' time there
simply was not good enough evidence to decide the
issue of the spatial structure of the solar
system, and, as has been pointed out, Copernicus'
system was little if any
better than Ptolemy's -- Copernicus
still had everything kludged up with compounded
circular motion. Sun-worship was not a negligible
factor in the triumph of heliocentric
theory.
It was Kepler who at least improved
the mathematics, although there is also evidence that
he would have failed in his endeavors had Brahe's
astromonical tables been either less accurate or
*more accurate* than in fact they were. But we all
know that PHYSICAL REALITY ACCORDING TO THE
MOST FASIONABLE THEORIES OF TODAY'S PHYSICISTS is
exactly what exists entirely apart from any person
thinking about it or thinking at all (another
name for this is: hypostatization).
--
I'm increasingly impressed that Castoriadis may
be much easier for non-philosophical persons to
read than (e.g.) Husserl. Try his _Philosophy,
Politics, Automony_ (Oxford, 1991, US$19.95).
What have you got to lose except your chains....
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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