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From: John Young <jya@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 11:53:58 -0400
Forwarding litsci-l mail by: porusd@xxxxxxx (David Porush) on
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I've got some work on the metaphysical status of the idea of
rational numbers among the Pythagoreans if you're interested.
David
David Porush, Professor
Language, literature & communication
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, New York 12180 USA
e-mail: porusd@xxxxxxx
tel: (518) 276-6467
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Nature was finished from the moment it invented the human
brain.
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David,
Your sig-gram on brain dooming nature, prompts this excerpt
from an article "God's Utility Function," by Richard
Dawkins in November 1995 SciAm:
"So long as DNA is passed on, it does not matter who gets
hurt in the process. Genes don't care about suffering,
because they don't care about anything.
The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world
is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that
it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals
are being eaten alive, many others are running for their
lives, whimpering with fear, others are being slowly
devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all
kinds are dying of starvation, thirst and disease. It must
be so. If there is ever a time of plenty, this very fact
will automatically lead to an increase in population until
the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.
In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind
physical forces and genetic replication, some people are
going to get lucky, and you won't find rhyme or reason in
it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has
precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at
bottom, nothing but pitiless indifference. As the unhappy
poet A. E. Housman put it:
For nature, heartless, witless nature
Will neither care nor know
DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to
its music."
Biolograms hotzoning the inpenitents, eh? SciFright
Dawkinses acackling at luridly lucrative Fangs and War on
the Discovery (!) Channel -- fearing ravenous gene-clad
kids.
John