----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Martin Tangora feels "deeply disturbed by the reckless disregard shown here for 20th century cosmology, paleogeology, physics, and evolutionary biology", and Mohammed Gani (after Chas Anderson) reminded him that there are good reasons for feeling deeply disturbed by the reckless disregard of science for living entities. This is indeed the crucial point of difference, because the gist of autonomy eludes all of today's scientific thought. The reason is simple: By premise, it approaches its object in descriptions. In this way, it can only detect results of deliberate acts, but never the cause of the act itself. The chosen categories eliminate this realm. One can of course try to catch life by projecting the cause of change into the genes (molecular biology), or the cause of thought into the brain (neurosciences), but then one can only grasp some part of what one would like to grasp, never strictly all of the phenomenon. Of course one can acquiesce with that part and pretend there is no more than that. Is that really helpful? But since Martin Tangora feels "Chas Anderson, whoever he is, deserves the same treatment that he shows everyone else", we should maybe offer Martin Tangora the same treatment that he shows everyone else. We might simply remember that even in the realm of the inanimate itself, science is far from having achieved what Martin Tangora feels it has. Take for example quantum theory. It offers a probabilistic image of matter. But is has never realized that its paradox imagery is only the fruit of a specific one-sidedness in its approach, namely of wanting to measure. Yet measuring is never an absolute act. Man must posit the unit or act of reference, because nature offers no basic unit for any metrics whatsoever. Even Planck's constant or the speed of light are no universally basic units: Recently cosmologists were shocked that maybe the fine structure constant and the speed of light are not really constant after all -- while in a wider view variations are indeed very probable, because nothing material can be strictly eternal. The debate on the Anthropic Principle is one of the results of science's incomplete grasp. Other hot debates are sure to follow. There are conceptual (or rather: categoreal) approaches which allow a truly holistic grasp and do not incur the dangers that today's scientific approach willy-nilly implies. But they are not available to the average mind acquiescing with the usual half-truths. This being the mainstream position, the thirst for such alternatives is not yet developed enough for the alternatives to surface. We will probably have to suffer some more from the old one-sidednesses and incompletenesses until wanting better than that. Science is a good catalyst in this process, because it forces the process of misunderstanding life to the point of having to recognize that this is not the best path to take. Of course I am ready to discuss any of the mentioned points with whoever would like to. In fact I enjoy doing so. Alec Schaerer ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]