I believe it has something to do consciousness. There are all of these natural laws–thermodynamics, Mendel’s laws, Boyle’s law, physical forces, ecological laws–and up to the advent of consciousness, the universe was governed strictly by them.
Now: Consciousness shows up. You can argue that consciousness isn’t any different, just complicated: we love people because it helps us reproduce, etc. You can also argue about what consciousness is, that the universe is conscious, but let’s leave that aside.
But… my line of distinction would be… consciousness builds things like the Coliseum, which are slowly worn down by chaos and cannot repair themselves… whereas biological organisms (as you so ingeniously pointed out) are ordered --but-- they maintain order without the help of consciousness. They’re a fantastic balancing act of natural laws–charge repulsion, charge and osmotic gradients, etc–which have been constructed to be maintained by the laws of nature, automatically. Nobody has to think about translating your RNA, you know? It just happens.
I don’t know if I’m following well here but…
“Natural” is anything that strictly follows the laws of nature. For human behavior, it would be anything that is advantageous for the individual and the human race (that’s a biological law).
Although medical science can effect some repairs, we also wear down, physically and mentally.
Natural laws… laws of nature… what are these but descriptions of the limits on the possible ways in which mass and energy may be manipulated. Sounds to me as if you agree that nature consists of the whole of the universe.
Our tools, our shelters, our artifacts are advantageous to us both as individuals, and as a species. Where would we be without them?
You also seem to be agreeing with my contention that what we make is as much a part of nature as we are.
Have you ever wondered why, in a world full of terrorists, few if any natural landmarks have been blown up? Is it possible that terrorists have a secret affinity for nature? They always take out buildings and people rather than irreplaceable rock formations. In a discussion of what is natural and what isn’t it is interesting to consider that a building can be replaced but Ayer’s Rock in Australia, for instance, never could be. Mind you, neither could a Van Gogh painting. Why do you think your average radical Islamic Fundamentalist (aren’t they all) have so far left what amounts to valuable natural tourist attractions alone? The IRA and Stonehenge - that’s a another good one.
I’m not sure I’m familiar with Ayer’s Rock… prehistoric paintings, is it? If so, I would class both it and Stonehenge as artifacts, but no less natural for all that.
I’m not quite sure what your point is, or if indeed you have one. In any case, I’ll probably not reply to any future posts which seem as irrelevant and confused as your last one.
If you see my last post as a desperate, unconscious need for an end to this thread rather than irrelevant and confused you would be closer to the truth. Your “atom is an atom is an atom is an atom is an atom is an atom is an atom” theory is undoubtedly marketable as a soporific but if this thread went to two pages I’d be a coma risk.
I posted this as a question on ATMB, but I thought it should go here, as well.
Are threads automatically closed after a certain amount of time has passed with no new posts? Can the person who started a thread ask that it be closed?
I’m not real familiar yet with how things are done around here, but this thread has been on my mind. I’ve been wondering if it and other dormant threads cause undue strain on the server. I stopped posting to it because I had a, um, er… suspicion [snort] that I was being baited. I’m wishing now – I know, "wish in one hand… – I had started it in GD where it may have actually been possible to carry on a rational discourse. If the topic as posted merits further discussion worthy of GD, I’d happy to see that. If it doesn’t, I’d be just as happy to see it closed.
Um, I am not an engineer, but I do know that in order to blow up something the size of Ayers Rock, you’d need to spend a couple of weeks drilling preliminary holes for the dynamite first, then put all the dynamite in, which would probably take a couple of days, then coordinate the whole thing with lots of wires everywhere, and finally push the button. And if you’ve got a way to do that while also being invisible to the non-stop parade of tour busses full of American and German and Japanese tourists, then I’d like to hear about it. Maybe pass it off as a movie production crew? “Just special effects, folks”.
And even then, I doubt whether you could do much more than split it into a few really huge pieces.
And BESIDES, whatever you did managed to accomplish in terms of dismantling the rock, it would of course be immediately interpreted by the entire world as a protest against the Australian Aborigines, or possibly as something to do with the exploitative tourist industry. Either way, if the point you were trying to make was about oil drilling in Alaska or American involvement in the Mideast, it’s going to fall flat. So why bother?
Stonehenge, now, with Stonehenge about all you could do would be to knock them big stones over, and what would be the point? Nothing to go “blammo!”, no big fireball. Just “oof” and over they go.
And the world would interpret that as protesting against what? “Development in the Salisbury Plain?” “No more souvenir kiosks within 100 yards of World Heritage Sites”? The reason the IRA blows things up is to try and drum up support from the rest of the world, but they would get only bad press from everybody in the world, for wrecking something as big and important as Stonehenge. Not everybody agrees that Van Gogh was unique, or even important, but I think everybody agrees that Stonehenge is unique.
Terrorists would rather take out the Murrah Federal Building instead of Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, because you get a bigger “bang” for your buck. Blammo! Glass everywhere, fire engines, ambulances, cops, sirens, 20 minutes later every network on the face of the planet has somebody doing standups in front of the bomb site. Wow! Talk about an ego trip!
And hey, the reason for blowing up the Murrah Federal Building is instantly comprehensible even to people from Down Under–it’s the government, stupid.
OTOH, Devil’s Tower is in a place that gives new meaning to the word “boondocks”, and blowing it up would only serve to draw attention to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. “On the news tonight, an explosion at Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, site of Steven Spielberg’s film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. A group of Islamic Fundamentalists have claimed responsibility for the bombing, citing ‘U.S. involvement in the affairs of the Mideast’ as their reason. Here’s Todd Crudd with more…”
“Jennifer, I’m speaking to you from Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, site of Steven Spielberg’s film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Apparently members of an Islamic Fundamentalist group spent the past two weeks here, living in these trailers, drilling holes for dynamite, giving as their reason, ‘it’s for special effects for the sequel’. When contacted, Steven Spielberg’s agent said there were no plans for a sequel in the works. Back to you, Jennifer.”
In other words, the terrorist isn’t really striking at the building. The terrorist is striking at the idea it represents. In order to construct that building, and more importantly, in order to conduct daily business within it, takes an investment of will. The terrorist is imposing his or her own will on that conglomeration of conscious effort, and the society of which it is a part, by setting off the bomb.
Do I understand correctly? Man-made things have an investment of will, or consciousness, or whatever, and that can set them apart from Nature, if only to other men?
