> Date: 22 Jan 2001 13:24:31 +0100
> From: Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se>
> Subject: Re: SOC/BIO: George Will joins the bioluddites
......
> I have noticed that Marx's definition of freedom also pops up in the
> strangest places (a free act is an act done without an positive or
> negative incentives to do it - which is a quite crazy definition when
> you start thinking about it).
The crazyness might be justified by the character of the property.
Our immediate time slice is riddled with pressing practical concerns and
it is hard not to focus mainly on these.
It is worth considering the merit of 'enemy views'.
Even advanced-cultural biases might fog good thinking.
There is the notion of the unity of opposites. In the dialectical
materialist terms freedom and neccessity are related in this way. If
there is no 'necessity' there would be no use for the concept of freedom
(as it would have no opposite).
Gun lovers might prefer compulsion to necessity here.
Dynamic tensions between such opposites are supposed to resolve in some
new-way over time.
Consider Entropy <> Extropy I think there is plenty of room here for
dialectical approach.
> Since it is so sensitive, any influence
> one human has over another is coercive, and this helps bolster the
> anti design rhethoric. Shows how a very prevalent but low-key stupid
> meme can infect the discourse from advertising to genetics.
> > (Most of the talk on this list about `inalienable rights' and other
> > mystical individualist beliefs derive, of course, from 18th century
> > deist liberal humanism.)
Have to agree with the above from Damien Broderick
.....
> after the lessons of the 20th century - but miss our own internal
> questioning and criticism. I think the individualist beliefs and other
> enlightenment stuff we have are great, but if we can recombine them
> with postmodern scepticism we will get a hybrid that may very well be
> a very vital discourse/meme.
> - --
> - -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
> asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
> GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
> ------------------------------
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