From: Tim Bates (tbates@karri.bhs.mq.edu.au)
Date: Sat Feb 13 1999 - 04:27:05 MST
hi all and Paul,
I wrote
>> Unless you have evidence that time is something other than
>> the motion of matter, you must accept that just as it cannot be
>> destroyed, it cannot be created.
and Paul said
>To accept any limit simply because we don't know of a way around it, entirely
>circumvents the tranhumanist spirit of inquiry and exploration.
I am sensitive to some elements of the spirit behind this claim. But I
disagree with it. It is simply not up to us what limits there are. They
either are or are not. And that was really my point.
What i responded to in Eric's initial mail was the idea that not only is
everything we "know" wrong (I am confident that it is), but that it could
be wrong in a way which invalidated all of our efforts to understand the
universe.
That it could be wrong in a Cartesian fashion: with the whole universe in
fact put into play by a creator who has left no trace of himself.
Accepting this, to me, makes a mockery of being human. Frankly, if for
one moment I conceived that this was possible, I would exercise the only
free choice left to me: I would excuse myself from this joke at my
expense.
cheerio chaps,
tim
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