Chris:
>I don't think you are an ignorant creationist pig,
Bertvan:
Whew! That's a relief!
Chris:
> but I *do* think you
>keep yourself ignorant. You're the kind of person who doesn't think well
>enough to be able to answer views that you don't agree with, but you
>continue to disagree with them all the same, on the basis of *faith*, the
>*feeling* that what you believe must be true, regardless of what mere facts
>say.
> It's obvious that you are so
>deep in your quagmire of mysterianism that cognition is of little
>importance to you. It's your own contact with reality that should "tell"
>you what to believe, but if you determinedly *avoid* such contact, if every
>basic concept is left in a state of surreal haziness and confusion, if
>every sophistry seems just as plausible to you as bare cold logic (and if
>you can't tell the difference), then what determines what you believe is
>not your cognitive contact with reality, but the recycling, in different
>forms and extensions, of beliefs that you already have and that you hold
>emotionally.
Bertvan:
At least that's better than being an ignorant creationist pig. (I think) You
have me all wrong, Chris. I really admire your ideas, obviously the result
of an awesome intellect. You say:
Chris:
>Ultimately, *disorder* is logically impossible. In a sense, there is no
>such thing as true disorder. There is only order that is too complex for us
>to understand, or order that we might understand but which is not
>sufficiently significant to us for us to bother to come to understand it.
Bertvan:
I truly see the advantage of calling it "natural order" instead of design.
You could call it IOU (Intelligently Ordered Universe) instead of ID. On the
other hand, since intelligence involves the use of judgement to make choices,
and you claim real choices don't exist, I assume no intelligence is involved.
Maybe you should call it NOT. (Non-intelligent Order Theory). And there are
great advantages to saying, "Natural order just *is*. Period. It
couldn't be otherwise." Such insight would have put a stop to centuries of
philosophizing.
Chris:
>First, order does not have an origin. It is simply the fact that things can
>only behave according to what they are, and not in other ways. Thus spheres
>may roll smoothly but cubes will not (on a flat surface). What is the great
>mystery in this? Do you think that we should find it odd that square pegs
>will not fit in round holes if the holes are smaller than the square pegs?
>Do you find it odd that identical things behave identically? How could they
>*not* behave identically? After all, it's their identical behavior that
>enables us to tell (if we can) that they *are* identical.
Bertvan:
There are so many profound insights here, Chris! For instance, "Things can
only behave according to what they are, and not in other ways" Wow!
Awesome! And "identical things behave identically". And yet another insight
which could have only been the result of rare genius; "it's their identical
behavior that enables us to tell (if we can) that they *are* identical".
Like relativity, it might be a while before ordinary humans can grasp these
concepts. However, you do take all the mystery out of it. Try to have a
little more patience with those of us who "don't think well
enough to be able to answer views that we don't agree with."
Bertvan:
http://members.aol.com/bertvan
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