Tuesday, March 29, 2005

A reply to a liberal on the Shiavo case...

Not that sound history and philosophy matter, as far as liberals go. They are too narcissistic to understand much of the metaphysical, as are most Americans. The reaction of most Americans to such a case is to personalize it all and make it subjective. "Well I would not want to live that way." And so on. It's all about them. Radical individualism has always been an American tradition...

"Second, tragic though it is, Terri’s mind died that day."

Neuroscientists have not mapped all of consciousness to the physical brain. Instead what is observed is that the metaphysical mind can rewire the physical brain to make new connections, sometimes even working around damage. It's true that the brain is to some degree hard wired. But your brain is also up to you, to a degree. To a degree you are in charge of wiring it. This is what is observed empirically. And fundamentally, at the quantuum level there is an indeterminacy to matter itself, that which the physical brain is made of. The pretense by any neuroscientist that they can make fundamental determinations about a brain is false to a degree and plainly wrong at a fundamental level.

Note in this case that there are many doctors who have the same tendency of the Nazi doctors (See: The Nazi Doctors: Medicine and the Psychology of Genocide, by Robert Lifton). They have a policy motivation in pretending that they can determine all things with respect to cognition, consciousness and what "life" is. In the end it is pretty simple, proto-Nazis want to kill the cognitively disabled. They always have, always will. That is all there is to it. Thus, their various contradictions. It is not as if Nazi ideas appeared with Nazism, or disappeared with its defeat. Subpaganism goes back much farther and has always been based on a crass naturalistic view of man leading into survival of the fittest.

"Third, there have been no less than 34 legal proceedings."

They were all based on the first finding of facts under judge Greer, who received campaign contributions from George Felos, Michael Shiavo's attorney. And so on. This case is dark and reeks of corruption. How is it that so many affidavits keep getting signed, more testimony provided as to Terri's condition? Why does the Old Press try to deconstruct Terri's parents by pointing to their religious motivation yet they fail to point to the motivations of the "experts" and doctors? It seems that is the way the Old Press fits things into their scripts, science on one side (doctors, supposed experts) and religion (her religious parents, family) on the other. How many times will they mention that her parents are Roman Catholic? Yet they fail to highlight the proto-Nazi tendencies of the bioethicists, "experts" and the like. They accept their views and do not challenge them.

It's possible to go on in deconstructing the supposed case made on the Left for starving and dehydrating the cognitively disabled to death in this instance. Yet it seems that American "liberals" have won in this case. Perhaps they have won in general too. One has to wonder about the polls of Americans on this case, if they are really so stupid and ignorant. Still, politically it is doubtful that liberals will get anything out of their "success" in this case. They may establish a few precedents about killing the disabled by defining the disabled in certain ways through the Judiciary so that they can then be starved. One might think that people for disabled rights will rise up and prevent that. How absurd, they will do so in the same way that the pro-life movement has risen up and overcome the entire Judicial branch. I.e., they won't. It is not so easy to do. And in the end, one has to wonder if there is any way to overcome textual degenerates who will say a text means pretty much anything.

Well, Congress will check them....no, they won't either. They're in the same situation. Most Americans think they are just politicians, all just a bunch of grandstanding and corrupt politicians while at the same time many Americans are stupid and igorant enough to have a high opinion of the Judiciary. There are enough that seem content to have a new oligarchy make all their discriminations for them. There are enough to drag the rest into the tyranny of the Judiciary that Jefferson predicted.

(Original reply edited...and now edited again...)

20 comments:

mynym said...

I don't mean to use "liberal" as a buzzword. In that case, the person has some feelings about the word and then sees what they want to see or draws from it what they want to draw.

By the term, I mean a specific set of ideas driven on by radical individualism and radical egalitarianism. I also mean some specific people, including specific bloggers who can be linked to.

I just wanted to be clear about that. Also, an American "liberal" often represents a different set of views than that which the term meant classically, or still means abroad. This is because there are virtually no American socialist parties, etc. So all the socialists are "liberals" in America, although the term does not mean that and abroad it still does not. (I.e., places where socialists run openly as socialists...come to think of it, American "liberals" don't even run as liberals. And studies have shown that the Old Press certainly does not define them as liberal, although they are sure to define conservatives as such.)

Anonymous said...

hmm

my question is this.

if a doctor told you you had cancer, would you believe him?

your post starts off making profound metaphysical statements. that are based on faith not fact, not measureable scientific data.

while you are at it you might as well say every brain has a bit of jello since jello is composed of the same subatomic structures that string theory is still attempting to define utilizing quantum mathematical formulas.

if all atoms have electrons then all matter is somehow related and can be anything right?

wrong you idiot. take a science course. instead of looking around this world and thinking god made everysingle fucking atom, say holly shit, there are atoms here.

i wonder what else there is around here.

science is an attempt at explaining things utilizing measurable data points that have been discovered over hundreds of years.

faith is completely different and should not be used to categoricaly dismiss anything science has worked hard to discover and explain.

therefor. terri's brain is mush. that is why we have cat scans, and doctors, and people like yourself probably would swear on an affidavid that terri was alive and well if you had the chance.

so that is why we need judges to sort all this shit out.

it took 7 years to sort it out, i dont know how much money schiavo's lawyer gave the judge but for 7 years he had to have him on a pretty high payroll to keep him going for that long on a case that you obviously solved in a single blog post.

ass hat.

as for liberals being nazi's uh nazi's were right wing extremists.

ethnic cleansers, kind of like folks that want to deny gay people any human rights.

Anonymous said...

"wrong you idiot. take a science course. instead of looking around this world and thinking god made everysingle fucking atom, say holly shit, there are atoms here."

Mynym,

Looks like the people that you were pining for have appeared. (By the by, I didn't know a holly could do that...who knew?)

Also,

I didn't mean to post that reply thirteen times. I have more to say, but will have to do so at a later date.

Hope you're doing well.

Carl

mynym said...

"your post starts off making profound metaphysical statements. that are based on faith not fact, not measureable scientific data."

As I noted, liberals are somehow utterly blind to the metaphysical. The metaphysical is not based on faith, it is based on thought, the mental, logic, reason, even physics and mathematics. There are people who base their metaphysics on the scripts of Scripture or some religion or mythos. That might be what you are calling "faith." It's difficult to tell, with how some liberals are willing to discard all traditional wisdom with some hand waving about "religion." Something on which their knowledge seems to approach nil.

But instead of going into such tangents look at the original post, "Neuroscientists have not mapped all of consciousness to the physical brain. Instead what is observed is that the metaphysical mind can rewire the physical brain to make new connections, sometimes even working around damage."

You call that "faith"? I don't care what you call it. It's an observed fact that at a word, that which refers to invisible information, the mind can change the brain. It is also an empirical fact that people's brains can vary greatly. One person's brain can look healthy, yet they have serious mental problems, even to the point of cognitive disablity. On the other hand, empirical observations show that some people have brains which would be diagnosed as that of the cognitively disabled. Yet the person is not cognitively disabled and they do not even have mental problems.

"Actual neuroscience research has yet to keep pace with its vaulting ambition. That should hardly surprise us. The neu rophysiology of our brains is incredibly plastic and has proven notoriously difficult to correlate with intentional states. For instance, Louis Pasteur, despite suffering a cerebral accident, continued to enjoy a flourishing scientific career. When his brain was examined after he died, it was discovered that half the brain had completely atrophied. How does one explain a flourishing intellectual life despite a severely damaged brain if mind and brain coincide?"
(Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology
By William Dembski :215-216)


Is that a metaphysical claim about his brain or is it an empirical fact? It's an observed empirical fact, little one. What is it that you "think" you're doing right now as you read this?

mynym said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
mynym said...

"The National Church demands immediate cessation of the publishing and dissemination of the Bible in Germany."
(The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History
of Nazi Germany
By William L. Shirer
(Simon and Schuster) 1990 :238)


Why do you think that is?

"The struggle between the German National Socialist State and the Catholic Church may be described at present as being in that preliminary stage...."
(Nazis and Church Groping for Issue
The New York Times, Feb. 14, 1934, pg. 4
By Otto D. Tolischus)


How about that? You know, the accurate history that American "liberals," i.e. socialist kooks, tend to be ignorant of.

You say that the Nazis were...
"...kind of like folks that want to deny gay people any human rights."

Try to explain history, that which you are ignorant of.
"...not ten percent of those men who, in 1933, took the fate of Germany into their hands, were sexually normal...."
(The Memoirs of a Sexologist
By LUDWIG L. LENZ
(New York: 1954) pp. 429 ff)


It's probably not your fault that you are ignorant. American universities or highschools are rather pathetic as far as education and accurate knowledge goes these days. There are too many ignorant Leftist kooks teaching in them, it seems.

mynym said...

One note, I did not try to sum up or refute this specific case (Shiavo's) in one post. One would have to write a whole blog for that. Rather, I was noting broad philosophical, cultural and historical trends to place it in the context of Good and Evil.

I can leave going into every detail to many others. E.g., Liberals for Terri.

Etc., there are plenty of blogs for that. Perhaps you should educate yourself as to details, hearsay, affidavits, the process of the case, etc. There are many more details than the fact that judge Greer and that wacky pro-death lawyer Felos seem to be great pals.

mynym said...

"Looks like the people that you were pining for have appeared."

Indeed, indeed....and the average the kook of the Left is always such a nice platform for raising up the Right.

I don't bother with trying to convince them. They are too stupid and ignorant to admit that the metaphysical exists, after all. So instead I try to make use of them for the sake of others who are not so blind, as much as possible.

mynym said...

"Louis Pasteur, despite suffering a cerebral accident...."

In modern times and under the rule of technocratic barbarians if he was sick and unable to communicate while his brain scan showed that, perhaps he would be starved to death.

According to the liberals technocratic barbarians and "experts" can be trusted to safeguard life, so there will always be enough safeguards to prevent that.

Wrong, not if the fundamentalists, noble pagans, Jews or others bearing the "Jewish influence" or the "ethical code worship of the Jews" fail to keep pressure on the proto-Nazi experts in white lab coats or tyrants in black robes.

"[W]hen moral barriers collapsed under the impact of Nazi preaching...the same anti-Semitic movement that led to the slaughter of the Jews gave scope and license to an obscene revolt against God and the moral law. An open and implacable war was declared on the Christian tradition...[which unleashed] a frenzied and unavowed hatred of Christ and the Ten Commandments."
(Harvest of Hate: The Nazi
Program for the Destruction of the Jews of Europe
By Leon Poliakov
(New York, Walden Press,
1979) :300)

(As I recall, that book was first published in the 1940s.)

That's the Weimar Republic. Who in the American Republic seems to have some sort of implacable hatred for the Ten Commandments?

Anonymous said...

Yeah!! Go get 'em!

~Bertie

Anonymous said...

metaphysics

is that a science?

while you are at it, explain to me how intelligent design is a science.

while you are at that take your dictionary and look up the word science.

you forgot to mention what you would do if a doctor told you you had cancer.

would you somehow resort back to your idea that while your cells may look totally fucked up under a microscope you may feel just fine and as such you would be completely healthy.

or would you go to another doctor and then another. I am not saying doctors are always right but when 7 doctors agree by looking at the data and 15 years of medical observation about someone's mental state, YOU BET YOUR ASS THEY ARE PROBABLY RIGHT.

Otherwise you and your ilk can go back to the days when we used to bleed your arms when you got sick.

what a CT scan shows is just how FUNDAMENTALLY, and PHYSICALLY fucked up a tissue is.

now, we can get into what metaphysics would say about a refrigerator whose compressor seemingly looks like it is working but somehow the ice cream keeps melting in the freezer.

i dont see where your metaphysics comes in. perhaps it is my utter and profound ability to smell when something is full of shit. being blind to something like metaphysics is not something I nor you nor anyone within the realm of the real should be ashamed of. by the way i am sure many conservatives would fall under us metaphysically blind as well.

if you can prove to me that metaphysics somehow supercedes physics, please do so.

otherwise i will categorically deny that it exists, just like the theory of intelligent design which somehow with less than a couple of years of data attempts to supercede the decades of data that supports evolution.

"Neuroscientists have not mapped all of consciousness to the physical brain. Instead what is observed is that the metaphysical mind can rewire the physical brain to make new connections, sometimes even working around damage"

you are right, scientists have lots to discover yet. but if we go along with ass hat theories instead of rational science based on the real world, we probably will never reach the limits of our scientific capability.

and what is this about rewireing metaphysically?

how can you rewire using metaphysics. my house needs rewireing should i call a metaphysical electrician?

Anonymous said...

by the way
the liberal technocrats that supposedly either ignored or wouldn't take up terri's case are some of bush's favorite judges.

William Pryor, Scalia, Thomas, just to name a few.

mynym said...

"metaphysics

is that a science?
"

Do scientists engage in thinking or does Nature select all their thoughts for them?

Much of what is labelled science relies on assuming the metaphysical. E.g., that numbers and symbols have some intrinsic metaphysical significance that allows them to be used to make observations and predictions about the natural world. I.e., the world is designed in such a way that human symbols and signs have significance.

"while you are at it, explain to me how intelligent design is a science."

The recognition of intelligent design is used in scientific fields such as forensic science, archaeology, cryptography, code detection and is used in copyright issues on anything from biotechnology to music. It is the work of distinguishing between a naturalistic accident, "Hey, these biotechnology companies just happened to develope the same modifications of the genetic code at the same time." and intelligent design, "Hmmm, according to the data and the specified complexity of these codes one company stole code from another, and it must be the one that came up with after the first."

Scientific attempts to distinguish between naturalism and intelligent design also go on in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The concepts are rather simple in some ways. That doesn't mean that someone with your psychology will understand them though. In the end, I don't care if you call searching for Intelligent Design. You can call it, "Not science, not science! It is not my...my, precious science!"

Well, it's still true. And that's all that matters to me. It's also true that it fits into "science." But that is a trivial issue to me.
______
A side note to the reader, it is not trivial to liberals.

Rather, the term "science" to a liberal is like the word Bible, the Quran or Vedas would be to various others. Beware yee blasphemers who would point out the myopia of the religion typical to nerds, i.e. scientism. Yet the irony of it with respect to the American "liberal" is that they are typically too ignorant and stupid to know much about science anyway. It's like someone lecturing on and on about the Vedas this and the Vedas that, while at the same time it is clear that they don't even know much about that which they venerate.
_______

"you forgot to mention what you would do if a doctor told you you had cancer."

No I didn't. I overlooked the personalization typical to American "liberals." For the most part the original post wasn't about me as a person and has little to do with me. But to suit your burning curiousity, it would depend on whether the doctor was a moral degenerate or not. The moral degenerate is the textual degenerate, and so you could not trust what such would write on their charts, etc.

"...when 7 doctors agree by looking at the data and 15 years of medical observation about someone's mental state..."

Actually, I am not familiar with every last detail of this specific case. I am more interested in the tendency of many more doctors (many more than seven) to begin to set up diagnoses to suit themselves. One critic labelled it diagnoses for dollars. As civilization declines there is always an increasing lack of integrity among its doctors. Why do you think you can buy pretty much any "expert" opinion that you want in the American courts? It's just another form of diagnoses for dollars. This specific case seems to be an example of holding to the diagnosis of PVS for the sake of precedent. I.e., if leftist doctors can establish that someone who is clearly only cognitively disabled (not brain dead, or a "vegetable") then they can establish that cognitively disabled people can be starved to death.

There are others like Terri. Now, according to the American Judiciary they may be starved to death at the choice of their legal guardians once some doctors are payed to diagnose a "persistent vegitative state."

As the cold toads will inevitably argue,
"It doesn't matter if the patient seems to be communicating, smiling at their mother and so on. That's all just bodily reactions. The mother believes it only because she is her mother. It's understandable. Oh, how we understand!

Now, let's starve her to death before her body seems to have a reaction to her mother again. It's cruel to let her live this way. She is dead, so let's starve her to death. My, how compassionate and knowledgable we are to do this!"

mynym said...

"...instead of rational science based on the real world..."

What is your rationale for rationality? Are you an expert on the real world?

"...if you can prove to me that metaphysics somehow supercedes physics, please do so."

Are you familiar with cosmology?

How about this instead,
"The ultimate illusion is one that nature plays on brain and mind. We look out at the world and see a myriad of solid objects. Scattering of high-energy particles by atoms tells us that the nominal radius of an atom’s nucleus is… (one million billionth) meters. The nominal radius of the surrounding electron cloud is…(one ten-billionth) meters. That means the fraction of the total volume of the atom that is solid, a cubic function of the radius, is one part in a million billion. That number is a billion written out a million times. For every one speck of space in a solid iron bar that is filled with a nuclear particle, there are a million billion specks of space that are wondrously and gloriously empty. Like the blind spot in vision, there’s nothing there no matter how solid it feels. Impossible to internalize, this fact is contrary to every experience we have. But it’s a verified aspect of reality. Ethereal force fields among the atoms and molecules penetrate the voids, giving the vast open regions the impression of “solidity.” If our eyes could perceive to the minuteness of the subatomic scale, we’d see we are walking on a very sparse grating. The illusion of solidness is due to the “weak” resolving power of our eyes.
Even the particles that make up the atom, the protons, neutrons, electrons, may not be solids after all. They may all be extended forms of energy. If indeed matter is the conscious expression of information, then the idea of mind over matter requires a revision. It must read the consciousness of the mind over the consciousness of matter.
. . . . .
Fighting it all the way, we are being dragged, kicking and screaming, into accepting the truth that our material existence is more fiction than fact. I say it. I teach it. The logic of my frontal cortical lobes analyzes the data and believes it. But in my limbic emotions, I fight it all the way. I want nature to be natural, natural by human, physical standards, and it doesn’t seem to be turning out that way after all.

Even without cranial illusions, we find that the world gets curiouser and curiouser with each new discovery. Physics has touched the metaphysical realm within which our physical illusion of reality is embedded. In crossing the threshold from the physical to the metaphysical, science has discovered a reality it had previously relegated strictly to the mystical. It has discovered the presence of the spiritual, for that is really what the metaphysical is, within the land of the living."
(The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth
By Gerald L. Schroeder :170-171)

There is more...more and more.

How about this, what is the physical explanation for the text you are writing here? Keep in mind your view that physics cannot be superceded by the metaphysical, if your mind is not already too weak to do so.

Anonymous said...

ok anyone who reads your bullshit is obviously the real moon bat (not us liberals).

however just to let you know, i have a masters degree in biology. with a concentration in molecular biology.

i minored in chemistry and have read a ton of books on physics including the latest string theory.

now cosmology, astrology, and other fomrs of science base their assumptions on observations.

observations dont necessarily mean, "i saw it with my own two eyes" but it can mean, whenever you mix A with B you get C, therefor i HYPOTHESIZE that if you mix C with D you will get E.

that is the simplistic form of defining the scientific method. however, it is important.

because scientists alwyas hope their hypothesis is true, yet they dont always expect it to be.

in fact that is a scientists work. they try to prove their hypothesis, however, they can't really pull any funny business if they want their proof to be taken seriously.

you see there is something in the scientific world of conspirators that is called peer review.

now this means that if a proof of a hypothesis gets published (the only way you and i or anyone except for the scientist doing the work gets to know about it) it has to be agreed upon by the scientific community of scientists.

now even after something gets published said proof (should some other scientist disagree with it) can be duplicated, or tested again to see if it is really true or if this one scientist came up with a fluke.

this goes on and on, eventually you have things that are basic laws and accepted scientific facts because get this....

drumroll please....

they have been observed and tested over and over again and you get the same result. now a law like that of gravity is something that is proven 100% of the time.

a theory is something that has not yet reached 100% but a generally accepted scientific theory is one that approaches the magic 100% of the time marker.

this is kind of what the theory of evolution is like, it has been proven right probably 90% of the time.

perhaps i should have started with this explanation.

so perhaps your alternate metaphysical world will someday be accepted as a new "science" because by your definition science is nothign but a general acceptance of facts by a majority of people.

what you are missing in your definition is that science isnt just a majority opinion on how the world works. it is a set of principles and ideas that can be applied to unknown problems and actually turn out to predict outcomes because it is right most of the time.

now perhaps the metaphysical with its infinite wisdom of explaining the unexplained by comming up with its "i dont know must be a god's work" ideas, or something like it.

however, it does not worry me, because guess what.

no matter how hard you try to push your metaphysics, real physics is what actually exists, it makes your car work in the mroning, if you dont drive it is what makes your bicycle work, physics explains every single step you take in your daily life.

there is a formula for the amount of force your jaw muscles require to allow you to open your mouth and take a bite of that sandwich.

science has an explanation for almost every single thing that you do, whereas metaphysics, well...

us scientists call that simply "that for which we do not yet have an answer for"

and that is ok with us, why isnt it ok with you.

you know, poeple like you stoped trying to turn tin into gold centuries ago, because they realized they couldn't do it, it was IMPOSSIBLE.

perhaps you and the rest of your metaphysical ilk should wake up and realize the truth.

ps you didn't reccomend a metaphysical electrician yet

Anonymous said...

Ooh...ooh! Can I be the metaphysical plumber?! Please?!

Right. For my first project I shall discuss the highly probable theory that, billions upon billions of years ago, feces was incorporeal. Which fact, once established, shall prove beyond dispute the etymological heritage of that common phrase "I don't give a sh..." well, you get the idea.

Carl

mynym said...

"i minored in chemistry and have read a ton of books on physics including the latest string theory."

Then you don't write like you have read.

"now cosmology, astrology, and other fomrs of science base their assumptions on observations."

Yet because assumptions are invisible they do not exist, and search for knowledge is just an illusion. Wrong. Yet according to your sort of crass empiricism, to insist that the invisible must be nonexistent or "unscientific" (with science defining all that exists) would be perfectly apposite.

I notice that you have not answered any question. Yet here is another: Is string theory science?

"...funny business if they want their proof to be taken seriously."

That depends on what you mean by funny business. The greatest scientists have been innovative, changing the paradigms of science in a Kuhnian way, with most scientists of their day set against them.

"you see there is something in the scientific world of conspirators that is called peer review."

So would you believe in German scientists' peer review of the work of Einstein in the 1930s? Or are you just talking about American scientists, in the year of 2005?

Hmmm, cutting to the point:
"this is kind of what the theory of evolution is like, it has been proven right probably 90% of the time."

Since you claim to be a scientist, write what you think the "theory of evolution" is.

"...by your definition science is nothign but a general acceptance of facts by a majority of people.

Where did I write that? Ironically, you are writing along such lines by apparently arguing that science is nothing but what American scientists believe in the year 2005, all peer reviewed by some peering peers.

"...it is a set of principles and ideas that can be applied to unknown problems and actually turn out to predict outcomes because it is right most of the time."

And? That is a portion of science. It is limited and myopic in some ways and often builds on the assumption that the way things are is the way they always have been. Yet there are those who do not recognize limitations to science who begin to believe in scientism. (Typically, they misunderstand technology.)

Anomalies and the like in which science comes up against its limitations are quite important. You cannot put John Locke in a test-tube and run tests to prove his existence or claim that he did not exist because of crass empiricism. Did he exist? Of course he did, he left behind writings dealing with the metaphysical that continue to influence billions of people to this day. Just because something happens once and does not fit into gradualism or the patterns that scientific laws are based on does not mean that it did not happen.

Philosophy and history are just as important as science when it comes to the pursuit of truth. What American "liberals" and proto-Nazis typically do is change science from the pursuit of truth by scientific methods of observation, etc., into the pursuit of some form of crass and myopic Naturalism. The ones with the urge to merge typical to Nature worshipping spiritual monists miss the historical fact that science was still-born in all cultures adhering to such spiritual monism. It is only logical that it would be so. What was your rationale for rationality, again?

"...us scientists call that simply "that for which we do not yet have an answer for"..."

Your faith in Naturalism is touching. It really is...yet it seems to rely on a tremendous amount of ignorance with respect to science, philosophy and history. Don't you know why evolutionists, mainly biologists, are beginning to come into conflict with more and more physicists?

"...you know, poeple like you stoped trying to turn tin into gold centuries ago, because they realized they couldn't do it, it was IMPOSSIBLE."

People like me? Why, am I a scientist? Alchemy, phrenology, etc., were all sciences of the past, despite your touching belief in scientism. Inflated claims about science, science with no awareness of limitations is the realm of alchemy. It is when people begin to believe that science is responsible for all technology. Technology helps them live well, so it is something good and true. Therefore science is something good and must always be true too.

Alchemy,
"The sequence of the chemical ages commenced—the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Steel Age and the present Nitrogen Age. The old mythologies tell of metal lurgists—Tubal Cain, Hephaistos-Vulcan....

A discussion of the beginnings of chemistry is a discussion of the beginnings of civilization wherever and whenever they occurred.

Chemistry accomplished marvelous things. New and altogether surprising phenomena were discovered. It seemed no extravagant hope that chemical procèsses might lead to the elixir and to trans mutation. Alchemy arose at a time when much chemistry was already known. It was not pre-chemistry. It arose in consequence of a pre-existing knowledge of chemistry.
The same conclusion follows from our definition of alchemy as the search for the elixir and for transmutation by chemical means. Without the means, how could one conduct the search with them?
.....
Primitive man, thinking about the world, early developed theories, at once scientific and religious, cosmological and epistemological, physical and metaphysical, which supplied him with a general explanation of the order of things, a background upon which special theories for special purposes were later super structed."
(The Problem of the Origins of Alchemy
By Tenney L. Davis
The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 43, No. 6. (Dec., 1936), :552)

Modern man is no different with respect to dealing with the metaphysical and the physical.

"perhaps you and the rest of your metaphysical ilk should wake up and realize the truth."

Since you do not believe in the metaphysical it would be fair to say that you believe in adhering to "biological thinking," rather than thinking about biology, correct? In fact, that would seem to sum up your thinking quite well.

"ps you didn't reccomend a metaphysical electrician yet"

I hope you use an electrician who has a knowledge of the metaphysical such as intelligent design. Otherwise, he might try to begin to let mommy Nature select the wiring of your house through natural selections.

That is a much, much less complicated task than assembling one cell. I wonder what an electrician who disbelieved in ID might do, what "selective" forces of Nature could supposedly be brought to bear in such a simple task. Far, far simpler than one cell...or even one protein, etc....

Anonymous said...

I find it amazing the people who want to blame "liberals" (any way you try to frame it your still saying a blue stater) when liberal Federal judges were the only ones to vote to de novo the case. HELLO! I'm not following the logic. I guess in order to reform the judiciary in order to get the ruling the Schiavo case that you thought should have been delivered is to appoint more liberal judges.

mynym said...

I find it amazing that people think that the Supreme Court is "conservative" just because an utterly textual degenerate like Ginsburg was appointed by Reagan.

Generally the Judiciary simply does not take a conservative view of text, no matter who appointed them.

Saying that the Judiciary is "conservative" because Republicans appointed many judges is like saying that a sewage system does not stink because Republicans use the bathroom. It has undeniably become the most "liberal" (in the American sense) branch of government. And so, the most technocratic, proto-Nazi, etc.

It is true that having Republicans appoint more judges may not do anything at all. If those judges do not actually take a conservative view of text, then it is for naught. To be fair, for Republicans it is a bit like trying to get a glass of clean water from the sewer, with active opposition.

mynym said...

What liberal federal judges tried to abide by the will of Congress?