>If you have a desire to impose
>materialism upon those who feel differently, I doubt you will succeed, even
>if you learned to speak more politely. Most adults have a world view and
>philosophy not easily changed.
I think Chris's confrontative style is a bit much, but I agree with nearly
everything he says. I doubt he wants to "impose" "materialism" on anyone.
He wishes to persuade with logic and evidence. That is *far* different from
"imposing" anything on anyone. You have repeatedly said you wish not to
persuade, yet you continue to participate in this forum. You don't seem to
wish to defend your ideas using logic or evidence and this gives your posts
a "cut and paste" quality. It actually looks like you have a series of
macro keys which contain your assertions and you paste them into e-mails
from time to time and send them out. I don't think that is actually the
case--I think you retype the same wording and same ideas over and over--but
that's what it *looks* like and that, I think, is a big part of Chris's
(and my) frustration.
>>Chris
>>So, you're claiming that the simplest possible living thing has free will,
>>consciousness, intelligence, purpose, creativity, spontaneity and choice?
>>Is there *any* evidence of this incredibly general claim?
>
>Bertvan:
>To me it is obvious these are the characteristics that distinguish life from
>non-life.
It is not at all obvious to those who study biology and can give you
examples of organisms that may or may not be "alive" as we think of life.
Viruses come to mind. There is debate as to whether or not they "live" in
the true sense of the world. The contrast between a dog and a rock is
pretty obvious, but there are things that are *between* life and non-life
with characteristics of both.
>I believe your position is that free will doesn't really exist for
>humans, that our actions are merely the mechanical result of neural
>connections in the brain. To me that denies experience and common sense,
flies spontaneously generating from rotten meat, hungry ghosts, the
flatness of the earth, and many other things used to be part of experience
and common sense. Those things shift and change over time and are not all
that reliable.
>but I realize perfectly intelligent people hold that position, and for them,
>no evidence to the contrary would be acceptable.
that certainly relieves you of the burden of presenting any evidence!!!
>>Your posts are often a waste of bandwidth on this list because you rarely
>>if ever get out of the tiny little orbit of circular reasoning that you
>>live in. You are apparently almost completely unable or unwilling to do
>>*any* kind of serious analysis of concepts, ideas, or theories, so you just
>>keep repeating packages of cliches, like college kids who pick up the
>>latest intellectual fads and go with them, but without bothering to learn
>>how to understand the concepts involved.
>
>Bertvan:
>Even many scientists and people who are convinced random mutation and natural
>selection are the power behind evolution claim they are not strict
>materialists. Most people acknowledge the existence of phenomena that
>science can not presently explain. (If science doesn't remain rigidly
>dogmatic, some of these phenomena might be explained in the future.)
Science will always eventually succumb to the preponderence of evidence. If
ghosts and angels start leaving evidence behind, then science will
acknowledge and study them.
Susan
----------
For if there is a sin against life, it consists not so much in despairing
of life as in hoping for another and in eluding the implacable grandeur of
this one.
--Albert Camus
http://www.telepath.com/susanb/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 09 2000 - 12:55:35 EDT