::scr Re: doesn't have the morlocks

[Piers Cawley]

Dan Argent <dan@bladeinteractive.net> writes:

>> > So you can stand if you are tall.
>> 
>> you were born with a predisposition to to tallness
>> 
>
> Yup.
>
>> > You can jump if you are a small springy gymnast.
>> 
>> I think we decided that the aim was to reach high without your feet
>> reaching the ground, but even so you a special skil which alows you
>> to do this better than other people

Who's this 'we' white man. I specified the field.

> Sorry.... I misread that bit
>
>> > You can build a machine to do it for you.
>> 
>> the rules definatly dont allow this, but again you have a
>> mechanical aptitude

> Is Olympic shelf reaching a real sport? Are there rules? I was
> unaware of them.  Are mechanical aids illegal?

Yes. I deemed it so. I had thought it would be obvious, but you seem
to have conveniently ignored the message in which I clarified the
rules.

>> > You can blackmail people to do it for you..............
>> 
>> you were bourn to rich parents and inherited money
>>
>
> And is that a genetic predisposition? Or you could have made the
> money yourself.

Sorry, issue is moot in this particular sport. The use of outside
agencies is deemed illegal. Again, see my clarifying message.

>> There may many ways to win but some people are more suited to some
>> than others it makes sense to try the ones you are going to suceed
>> at.
>
> Of course it does. However, it doesn't mean that if you are short
> you believe yourself unable to move things from tall shelves!

But you emphatically *are* unable to move things from tall shelves
under the rules of Olympic shelf reaching. An admittedly artificial
sport introduced solely for the purposes of clarifying a point.

>> Most animals are going to have no conciousness of their limitations
>> but this does not stop some in a life or death situation where each
>> individual is trying his hardest from surviving and others from
>> getting eaten
>
> okay. I don't understand the relavance. In fact, I could say this
> supports my case, because prey animal X is unaware that lizards
> can't fly, until being chased by carnivore Y off a clif, whereupon
> suddenly his freaky webbed arms and legs have a great use.....

Except for all the ones that don't have the freaky webbed arms and
therefore plummet to their deaths on the rocks below. Only a very
small fraction of such lizards will have the genetically predetermined
capability of flight.

>> If there is no inheritable difference in ability and potential then
>> it is impossible for any evolution to occur and the only
>> explanation for the diversity we see around us is a creator god
>
> pah. Why invoke god?

Because if evolution doesn't work then some kind of god is the only
other explanation for the observed diversity of our surroundings.

> Is the choice between a) God / Evolution determing your future 
> or b) Yourself determing your future so hard?

Um... that isn't the choice though. Looking at this from a point of
view which allows free will we have:

Ones inherited characteristics do not predetermine our futures, but
they put some/many predispositions in place. The exercise of our will,
tempered by our genetic predisposition along with the cultural and
physicals predispostion of our parents, school, town, state, planet
and the whole damn extended phenotype the proceed to determine the
course of ones life. It's becoming clear that the genotype can and
does have second, third, fouth ... nth order effects. There are
heritable traits which one inherits from ones grandparents for
instance, some of which are undoubtedly crippling.

Of course, if one dispenses with the whole silly concept of free will
one could then argue that is predetermined. We may think we're
deviating from some ordained plan, but everything that is happening
now was solely determined by the conditions imposed on the Universe at
the big bang and the rich complexity that we observe is 'merely' the
emergent behaviour of a massively parallel, non linear and deeply
recursive system. Of course, it seems like free will because the
fastest way to know exactly what's going to happen in 5 minutes time
is to wait for five minutes and see what happens. Plus, the whole
system runs in such a way that 'we' 'believe' that 'we' 'feel'
'better' through 'believing' that 'we' have 'free will'.

Plus, it's really hard to sustain a paragraph about the idea without
falling into a really nasty recursive loop as you try to find some way
of refering to the perceived entity (the self) that you are arguing
doesn't actually exist. And we have to go on pretending that we have
free will and that our choice of actions will have consequences
because that's what everyone else is pretending. They don't have any
say in the matter.

-- 
Piers

   "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in
    possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite."
         -- Jane Austen?