MARIA, on Mar 18 1998 you wrote,
I am happy to
discover that my reflections and yours are in the same direction.
In just a month, I found many answers about myself (my self ), and have realized that I am
able to continue doing so. Now, as I have more confidence in myself, I am willing to
discover many more answers in the future. I think that my efforts and work --four years of
very deep and intensive psycho-therapy)-- begin to bear fruit.
I agree completely with you when you say (if I have understood your words properly) that
Nature acts naturally --meaning, WITHOUT PURPOSE--. One of the answers that
MYSELF gives me is related to this idea. I need to enjoy doing "things" without afunctional purpose. It's a coincidence, but my last tale is about someone condemned to live in a cave... I'm
not able to render it into English, but if you can read Spanish (and if you are interested), I
will send you my story. Have you written other dialogues? I will be here to read the next one.
Maria, you have been very honest in your posts, and perhaps you are on the verge of
being fully rewarded by your efforts. It would appear that there is no more place for interdialoguing. However, in view of your significant contribution to this site and of
your continued interest, I have developed a new idea based on your correct
understanding of Nature acting without purpose. It might be argued that it is paradoxical
that organisms --who act teleologically, doing things for their own benefit and survival--
should spring up from 'blind' Nature. Let me first explain about paradoxes. Those of Zeno, as told by Plato, were meant just
for the benefit of mind sharpening. The argument that Achilles couldn't overcome a
tortoise that was already ahead of him because he had to traverse the infinite halves of
the distance, is defeated by just saying that Achilles was running 'digitally' and not
'analogically.' Also, the tortoise could not have advanced, as it also had to traverse
infinite half distances. Again, we have paradoxical statements, such as, "less is more,"
where sober architectural lines add to natural beauty, as contrasted with kitsch. Also,
one could say, "saving is wasting," when not spending money rationally results in
wasting the pleasurable use of it. Let us enter now the subject of what appear to be serious paradoxical propositions. But
firstly, we must begin by assuming that there are no contradictions in Nature, and by
taking a look at absurd propositions, such as, "Nature acts intelligently: if there were no rivers or
other nearby sources of water, city dwellers would die of thirst." That the city was built
around a water source is somewhat sophistically inverted in this statement. Matter obeys laws created just moments after the Big-Bang, when the primal energy of
infinitely compacted 'proto-electrons' and 'proto-positrons' was transformed into
Hydrogen and the subsequent atoms. By dint of those laws, living organisms came into
existence. Until recently, we believed that viruses have been created as separate live
forms. Now we know that there is a class of wasp that creates a virus!
It is formed in the wasp's genome, serving to defeat immune mechanisms of a moth
caterpillar into which the parasitic wasp injects its fertilized eggs.
We humans, are the vertex of evolution, no doubt, yet there is no reason for feeling
ourselves excessively proud for that. Life in this planet is very imperfect, and none of us
should pretend to really know what is essentially good or bad at a given moment. We create our own
values in order to live in society, because Nature "determined" that we be social animals. I propose that humans are intelligent, as distinct from non-existent Nature, which is just a
result of immutable physical laws. Condensate matter probably does not exist except
under extreme laboratory conditions (perhaps in comets?), while the stars have plasma
in their superhot parts. Humans have discovered this, as well as the mysterious world of
subatomic particles in the quantum mechanics reality. Should it be surprising that we
are amazingly intelligent? And are we to be despised for manifesting the supposed
hubris of pretending that we surpass dumb Nature? The same animal called man has developed so many technical novelties, that the mind
of a significant segment of the world population has been unable to adapt itself to such
revolutionary changes. The result? Consumerist society with crime-prone members
being unable to adjust and react for the benefit of society as a whole. More crime, more
Police and more confusion. Is man to blame? No! Just "Nature"! Do I believe that I'm revolutionary with my New Philosophy reasoning? I plan to show that
the Paradise legend already knew that people are divided in two camps, the
Evolutionists and the Creationists. I only claim the merit of having detected such
component in the legend, and of challenging Nature as just a convenient name for
phenomena that are not intelligent and yet resulted in a highly intelligent non-planned
product which is truly intelligent. And that there is no paradox in this phenomenon. This will do for now. Many questions may arise from this post. I believe I'll be able to
answer some of them. This is a basic purpose of the Dynamic-Scientific philosophy: leisurely disrobing life on our planet off some of its ambiguous wardrobe.
ADDENDUM: I have been able to really explain the paradox on Achilles and the tortoise. It is expounded in my List at
"Things" (to write tales, e.g.) guided by my own sensibility, and which I do, not for money,
responsibility... but only for my own ENJOYMENT. Your Dialogue Method is wonderful.
This type of paradoxes are explained by saying that
the contrasting terms do not refer to the same values. Paradoxes based on just two
words are called 'oxymorons.' "Sweet pain," "the burning ice in your eyes" --as
described by lovers-- are examples. Sometimes oxymorons are used for comic effect,
with the two paradoxical words separated, like in, "he is not a perfect idiot because
nobody is perfect."
Also, "Eyes were created for seeing." There are cave-dweller fish which have only slit
marks where the eyes should be. Obviously, an extremely long period of time in the cave
suppressed the determining influence of light in eye development, a process physically
dictated by pure "trial and error" in the course of eons. Should Nature act teleologically,
it would have "created" very fast the perfect "creatures" and conditions. The preceding
are not examples of paradoxes but of faulty thinking.
Truly apparent paradoxes, as dealt with by me in this post, I explain as follows.
All the particularities of evolution are determined by physico-chemical laws and by
circumstances. Therefore, there is no "planned" teleology in the resulting developments
of evolution giving rise to teleologically oriented organisms. There is no paradox here at
all. Even the most impressive type of energy found in nature --direct-current electricity,
carried in electrons-- is not the one we utilize at large, but the alternating-current type
created by man!
I propose that there is no "Nature" at all. We have become accustomed to apply that
term to the sum total of the results we detect from the interplay of energy-matter
according to physical laws. We were used to talk about the matter states solid, liquid
and gaseous. A long time ago we added the absolutely ionized matter state which was
named "physical plasma." The past year added the "Bose-Einstein condensate state."
Well, think of man's creations: can we run faster than a car? Can we fly as an airplane?
Can we calculate and program ourselves as a simple PC? Isn't it true that we perfect
Nature's bungling, lazy evolutionary grappling ? And that our own creations behave much
better than ourselves, their creators, in their respective capabilities? No paradox here.
Even worse, as far as "inconsiderate" Nature acts: She did not "take in consideration"
that an animal would be developed who would be able to challenge her. And I am going
to be specific. I accuse Nature of being selfish, inconsiderate, interested only in the
young and procreative. My absolutely clear arguments are as follows. 1. Men are
allowed to procreate up to any age, while women suffer an age limitation.
2. Natural estrogen has two separate functions, which
are fine in young, procreative women. But just let women become "useless" for Nature,
and estrogen will be dangerous for their uteri and breasts. Enter hubris-drunk man, and
he develops a form of estrogen selective for the benefit of those women!
3. Did "wise"
Nature prepare our planet for the appearance of an animal who would poison the
atmosphere?
Here is the specific part:
*Then came the law of inverse squares: The degree of electric attraction between two oppositely charged elements, and also of gravitationally attracted bodies, varies inversely with the square of their distance. If the distance decreases by half, from 8 to 4, the attraction is incresed not by two, but by four. Keep decreasing by halfs, and the attraction keeps increasing, yet never reaching a finite number. Meaning that there will never be a complete approach. This is an example of 'Zeno's paradoxes.' (See PARADOXES.) Yet, infinite does not exist in physics, but only in numbers, because numbers do not exist, as letters don't either. Therefore, in physics, in contrast with mathematics, the possibility of keeping the halving of distance forever is inexistent: there is a physical limit to that halving. And that limit has a mathematical expression. Zeno's trick was to apply a law valid for mutual attraction, to a situation where Achilles had to overrun the turtle. Had he been attractd to its center of gravity, then he would have been stuck to its carapace...*
What this means is that Achilles was not attempting to reach the tortoise: he was just running, and would overcome it.