What's wrong with animism then? Your analogy for how magnets work is nice but its an infinite regress, however small the detail you describe you still dont come up with a motive.
Embedded: > Hi Craig, and all -- > > Animism is apparently still alive and well in the MoQ > community. At least > the repeated assertion that "awareness" is a property of > inanimate objects > seems to indicate that this belief is prevalent. Yup, if the cap fits. But just cos you have a convenient word for it that's laden with backward, primitive conotations doesnt mean that its wrong. > Just what is "an inorganic awareness"? I assume that all > the participants > on this forum have had a class to two in Physics or Biology. Yup and I suspect rather more than you Pal. In the > absence of a brain > and nervous system, there can be no cognition, feeling, or awareness. > Rocks, trees and magnets simply are not equipped for psychic > sensibility; Seeing as how we neuroscientists dont know how these traits arise from matter, there is no reason to presume that they are uniquie to the particular matter that is a brain. What you say is pure conjecture. > they are not sentient organisms. There is no awareness at > the "inorganic > level". To perpetuate the myth that the "attractive" > behavior of objects > equates with subjective awareness is a regression to > pre-enlightened times > when it was thought that objects had souls. Again this is not an argument, you're just stating your position. > For those who need it, here's a primer on electro-magnetic force. > Every atom is a tiny magnet. Please define "Magnet" If you attach a coil of wire to > a battery so > that electric current runs through the coil, it becomes > magnetic (i.e. an > electromagnet). Thats good, but what exactly do you mean by magnetic? In the same way, the motion and spin of the particles > inside an atom cause the atom to be magnetized. In the iron > particles of a > standard magnet, the atoms are all aligned in the "same > direction". Really? The best tunneling microscopes and xray diffraction equipment available cant resolve images that small, so how are you so certain?? You infer it from observed properties thats how, and in doing so you propose an explanatory anaolgy for those properties which fits in with your existing (flawed) starting point. Their > magnetic fields work together Why? Great teamwork on the part of unaware in-animate objects?? to concentrate the field force. Who set this as a desirable end product and how was the information communicated to these dolt inert particles? > The polarity > of the magnetic poles (positive and negative) is determined > by which way the > atoms face. Or - the direction that the atoms face is determined by the poles of the magnet, how did you know which to assign as cause and which as affect? Moving charges passing through a magnetic field exert a > magnetic force Well done them! Since electrical conductors radiate from electric charges, > electro-motive force attracts charges toward (or away from) > the charge > producing the electric field. (Laughing too much to continue) > > It's common to metaphorically associate the behavior of > things observed in > nature with human emotions, such as "feeling", "wanting", and > "valuing". Very true, why does that make it wrong? The association you describe is the wrong way around, there are traits associated with evaluative moments which occur throughout the whole scale of complexity, in humans we describe them as wanting and feeling but these are analogies for simpler underlying basic forms. You see aminism as an attempt to ascribe a watered down version of a human emotion to a lump of coal, I would see the human emotion as a highly complex version of an inorganic force. > But a magnet isn't attracted to an iron bar because it is > "aware of it", nor > does a ball thrown into the air fall because it "values" the > ground. Yes it does! If it didn't it wouldn't fall! This e-mail (and any attachment) is intended only for the attention of the addressee(s). 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