clark (clark@netsites.net)
Wed, 25 Mar 1998 05:52:31 +0100
Lila Squad,
What a feast lately. I am so confused I don't know whether I will ever
get it all sorted out.
Bo, thanks for your explanation to Maggie about SAIOM. I missed the early
discussions and needed that explanation. Now I have a platform to think
about.
Horse,
Your couplet at the end of your message evokes this response. Horse is a
synonym for Stud so now I am satisfied on that.
My forty some year old recollection of the genesis of the civil war was
that it was a reaction by the movers and shakers of the South to the
manipulation of cotton prices by the Northern markets plus some South North
shipping regulations that they didn't like. They decided that a good
solution would be a separate nation.
I believe that Lincoln said something to the effect that if he could
preserve the Union and let slavery stand that he would do it. Probably
knowing that the force of ideas had already begun to discredit the slavery
system. Importation had already been stopped and some in the South were
beginning yo reconsider and some had already freed their slaves. Popular
opinion (the John Browns, etc) probably motivated the extreme ferocity of
the actual battles. Glad I wasn't in them.
On the Determinism question. In my mind the quantum theory had nothing to
do with Determinism. It operated at the quantum level upon which the
universe is constructed. As Horse (Stud) said, we can't have a predictive
system sitting on top of a purely random system. I think we just need more
information.
In my view the universe bagan in a purely Deterministic way which was
later modified by the theory of Deterministic Disorder (Chaos) resulting in
a universe which is guided by Dynamic Quality (Evolution) in which the
force for greater information content (the operation of evolution) resulted
in a continually increasing level of "betterness" (Morality, Value?). In
this view Dynamic Quality has been operating since the beginning (Kevin).
In my opinion the Universe is a moral order which is not deterministic
except that there is a pressure for continually increasing morality or
value which is the result of random latchings of value which results from
the initial conditions set by the Big Bang.
I am still somewhat puzzled by the interface between non-sentience and
sentience but if we adopt this view it seems to me that we have to place
Dynamic Quality above all human considerations (place the universe first)
and make intellect subservient to Dynamic Quality, or we have to assume
that the entire reason for the existence of the universe was to produce
Humanity. It is not entirely pleasing to me that the universe is of a
higher moral order than Human Ethics but it seems to me that there is a
conflict here.
Somebody convince me that I am wrong and let me subside to musing about
Human Ethics. Thank you all for joining the Lila Squad. Ken Clark
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