Dear Elephant,
Thank you for your timely and thoughtful response.
If I might clarify, the essence of my position, which tends to be rooted in
ancient traditions (i.e. beliefs which have lasted for three or more
millennia because they have always remained compatible with whatever the
current scientific vogue was), is that each of us IS everything that is part
of us and IS everything that we are a part of, and IS everything to which we
have a connection, whether it be the water we drink, the food that we eat,
the stones with which we build our dwellings, the theatrical roles that we
play, our mentors, our spiritual leaders, the atoms of which we and our
physical neighbors are composed, or the atoms of larger incomprehensible
hosts of whose composition we are only a part. If we are all of this, and I
contend that we are, then if we are aware, all is aware (that which we call
"atoms" included). The only problem is that we humans are not aware of it.
Now there's a paradox!
The Bard
----- Original Message -----
From: elephant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2001 3:33 PM
Subject: Re: MD Atomic awareness
>
>
> Thracian Bard wrote:
> I still must reserve the possibility that such an actor may be Hamlet; and
> that you and I and all of us reading this may, in fact, be Hamlet, and
> Caesar, and Gandhi, and GOD. And there may indeed be a level of Quality
> inherent in the actor and us admitting this fact.
>
> ELEPHANT:
> Ok. *May* be. But as a matter of supremely high-quality-fact I am *not*
> Gandhi or Caesar or God, and it is also an imposibility for a historical
> figure known as Hamlet (if he existed at all) to play himself in a
> theatrical production conncocted by an englishman years after his death.
>
> But I think we are getting off the point. The point being that atoms are
in
> just the same category as characters in a play. As characters in a play
> they are dependant for their being on the being of the consciousness which
> conceives them, just as Hamlet cannot exist without Shakespeare. "Hamlet
> thinks x ...." is a peice of literature appreciation that will always be
> shorthand for "Shakespeare writes/allows us to beleive that Hamlet thinks
x
> ...." - and this kind of shorthand operation is revealing. It is "as if"
> Hamlet were a living breathing human being with his own internal dramas
> (because shakespeare is proficient at his craft) - it is *not* the case
that
> Hamlet *is* a living breathing human being with his own internal dramas -
> for if that were so we'd face some pretty vexing (and ridiculous)
questions
> about where the souls and bodies of the actors go off to, when Hamlet
comes
> into being and the actors disappear - about whether Hamlet can be in more
> than one theatre at a time, about whether social services are legally
> obliged to take Hamlet into protective custody, and so on.
>
> Parrallel nonsense questions pile in when you start with the "atoms
prefer"
> business. It is *as if* atoms prefer, because atomic scientists are
> proficient at their craft, in just the same way that Shakespeare is
> proficient at his. And don't you forget whose craft we are talking about
> here - because it sure as hell isn't the atoms. When was the last time an
> atom told you how to calibrate an quark detector?
>
> Anyway,
>
> Thanks for the kind words Bard.
>
> P.E.
>
>
>
>
> MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
> Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
> MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
> http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
>
>
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
