LS Re: Carl Sagan


Bodvar Skutvik (skutvik@online.no)
Sat, 6 Dec 1997 09:44:09 +0100


Dec.2 Martin wrote:

> I was reading "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" by Carl Sagan and
> Ann Druyan when I came across on following passage:
>
> "The prey animal may run; play dead, exaggerate its size, erect its hairs
> and shout; produce foul-smelling or acrid excretions; threaten
> to counterattack; or try a variety of other, useful survival s>
> What are Sagan and Druyan talking about? The struggle of two patterns
> of value on the biological and intellectual levels, no doubt.
> And how is this struggle being played out? Well, what is the
> con
> Martin
>
> "Life is a four-letter word: ACGT."

Martin
Before saying anything, is this all? Your message was of a
special format and it was impossible to see it all. And what is
ACGT? Why "struggle of two patterns of value"? I don't see where the
Intellect (of MOQ) enters the picture? Or is that the "con" you see
behind it all? Such hunter/prey conduct (what biologists of the
biosemiotics school would call "signals"), often evade
our understanding. The hare f. ex. does not bolt at once, but sits
straight up for the fox to see it clearly so that the play may be
initiated.

I have been busy at other threads so this one is perhaps "solved",
but it looked very interesting. Please send again and elaborate. I
have Sagan's "Dragons of Eden" and "Bocca's Brain". The first
book made a great impact on me in its time.

Bo.

PS. I see that you are against a "Bible". Yet, it is impossible to
avoid some sort of basic principles to see where the Quality idea
takes leave of "ordinary" thinking. All systems starts with axioms
(the trick of Subject/Object Metaphysics is that has fooled us into
believing that it has no such foundation, but is reality itself)
Pirsig saw this himself when he formulated the sentence. "As long as
you are inside a coherent universe of thought you cannot avoid
metaphysics". Such a "Principia" is something else than "articles of
faith" in a religious sense, so relax and let's see what
we may put together. Admittedly, we have the principles in LILA, but
it may be possible to extract the basics in a "digested" form.

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