Re: [pf] A compassionate and reverential attitude toward everything

>>David MacClement wrote:
>>> (there's no way a rock can be aware; Gaia: maybe),
>
At 08:14 23/01/00 -0500, tully wrote:
>Interesting David that you could possibly see Gaia as self aware but not a 
>rock.  How can that be? 

**  By analogy with the brain of a self-aware individual - there's no way
either the passive parts (blood cells, a tiny piece of bone or of the
meninges) or the active parts - nerve cells - can possibly be self-aware. I
see awareness as the ability to create some sort of image in one's mind, of
who one is in relation to other parts of oneself and to the outer world as
communicated by one's senses. That may be too fancy; one could debate
whether an earthworm is aware or has just a set of automatic responses to
stimuli.
**  But I'm using that analogy to illustrate that the great complexity and
interconnectedness of the active parts of Gaia /could/ mean the totality is
self-aware, whereas the individual parts, particularly the passive parts
like rocks, /cannot/ be self-aware. IMO.


>            ... After all, isn't this planet just the third rock 
>from the sun?  At least that's how the scientists paint it. 
> I believe there are awareness levels we ... know nothing about. ... 

**  What's the purpose of discussing something we know nothing about?


>I went the vegetarian route 30 years ago, for the reasons of not wanting 
>to 
>be responsible for the pain of another being, not wanting to kill, etc. 
> An old book, .. (1972) .. a study that had two potted plants in a room. 
> ... However when the plant shredder person approached, the register 
>went wild and subsided only when the man left the room.  This test was 
>repeated with other plants and the same response was registered.
>  Even science can tell us ...

**  My understanding of the word science differs from that. The experiment
described would be only the first step in a series (other people trying the
same experiment, people trying variations on that experiment, etc.), and
only at the end of the series, with constant confirmations, would it be
possible to say: "science can tell us ..."  Scientists lie, some of the
time. In this case, how would an observer know whether or not a radio
transmitter was being turned on as the plant shredder person approached, so
that currents (measured by the galvanometer) were being induced in the
plant and/or wires acting as an antenna/aerial.


>We have so little connection to that on which we subsist.
>  Even our work is simply in exchange for 
>numbers in a bank account and rarely does our work have 
>anything to do with our subsistence or even any need in any direct way.  
>We 
>don't build our own homes, make our own cloth or clothes, grow or hunt our 
>own food.  We live in artificial environments as far from real nature as 
>possible, ...  We are alienated from the sources of what being human is 
>all about in so many ways.  And we continue to accept it.
>  We do not have to accept it.
>
**  Bravo!

**  Absolutely; we do /not/ have to accept it!

David.
(David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz 
www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/3142/Pg1-AD11.html
 or better: http://www.emucities.com.au/member/davd/
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