From: Miriam English (miriam@werple.net.au)
Date: Tue Jan 29 2002 - 18:23:21 MST
Wow! This is beautiful... poetic. I like very much.
It seems to me a nice reconciling of the conscious and non-conscious
meanings of "purpose" that have spoken of here lately. I had felt they were
totally different and was going to send a posting to that effect, but
luckily Jacques sent this lovely post before I could.
At 10:58 AM 30/01/2002, Jacques Du Pasquier wrote:
>I agree to this last point, but I am not sure that "moral reasonning"
>is really key to the psychological explanation for the Question.
>
>There is one simple point, which is that we were not meant, as
>individuals, to realize we are mortal, and to reflect about it.
>Animals seek what they are made to desire, and the stream of life (the
>genes' purpose) goes through them that way. When one animal, to which
>a strong sense of self has been given, realizes that he or she was
>designed as instrumental to this stream of life (he is not the end --
>in fact, though apparently *made to survive*, he is actualy *certain
>to die*), a strange situation results. (in which we spent all of our
>history so far)
>
>We were built for a well defined purpose (copying our genes), and
>autonomy was given to us, so to speak, for seconding that purpose more
>efficiently ; but too much autonomy it would seem, and too much
>cognition, as it has now led us to reflect on that purpose and take
>distance from it, and consequently to wonder what purpose we should
>pursue.
>
>That's the origin of the Question. Not the fact that we of all things
>seek to have purpose ("moral reasoning") ; but the fact that we used
>to act blindly according to a definite purpose, and by successive
>steps we woke up from this and ended up strangely free (but mortal).
>
>If you think of evolution (or the genes) as a conscious designer, you
>could say that he (or she) messed up, that he overlooked the
>consequences of his design, and lost control of some of his robots
>(humans). It's an old story told by many traditions (but in which the
>creator is either God -- think Satan -- or Man -- think Dr Frankenstein's
>creature --, not evolution), and it turns out that, with all the
>support of our scientific understanding, we now realize this is actually
>*our* story.
>
>The question is not really linked per se with consciousness of
>mortality ; but that's a huge hint (that we are instrumental), and
>that's why, though having no clue about evolution, humans started
>suspecting something long ago.
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To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
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http://werple.net.au/~miriam
http://members.optushome.com.au/miriame
Virtual Reality Association http://www.vr.org.au
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