"Richard Brooks" wrote in message
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michael adams wrote:
"Richard Brooks" wrote in message
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It's only through the human ego 'you are the Shepherd and master of all
you survey' shite written in the bible by man and man alone that has
percolated to these times that we feel that we have a special place.


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I beg to differ. The human race believe they have a special place
because a far as is known, they alone are self-conscious in any highly
developed sense*, they alone believe themselves to be aware of the
feelings of others, and they alone are capable of forming abstract
moral principles. Regardless of religions which, in the views of
some, are merely belief systems designed to as to satisfactorily explain
some of the above features. The fact that such features may in fact be
a "fortuitous" concomitant of spare brain capacity is neither
here nor there.

Of course, as you say capable but tied to our roots, hence the term
'human animal' and the animal that we are, we just use bigger tools to
sort out differences or our own greed fro the want of other's property
or inheritances.

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Indeed we're also the only species capable of immorality.

The rest of creation is incapable of either moral or immoral acts.

Animals act solely on instinct, or exhibit those behaviour patterns
which have given them an advantage in the survival game.

Its quite possible that what we term morality are merely behaviour
traits which enable large social groupings such as ourselves to co-exist.
Nevertheless we need to tell ourselves we're responsible for the way
we act, whatever its actual basis, whereas animals don't. They just
get on with life without any reflection whatsoever.

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New aspects of animal intelligence are being demonstrated all the
time, such that at some time in the future there may be misgivings
about their being slaughtered for food, but the possibility of animals
ever being shown to embrace generalised concepts of morality seems
very doubtful at any time.

In that case we may well understand the 'senses' of plants also and
start shitting on the land once again, to form part of that symbiotic
nature built up between man and flora.

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The senses of plants like the senses of animals don't embrace
complex self consciousness. Plants sense light in the sense that
they grow towards it, and a chimpanzee looking in a mirror
may eventually come to realise that the image is of itself
and so start grooming itself in the mirror. But it's doubtful
if that amounts to actual self consciousness.

Animals will naturally feel emotions of fear and fright because
it's those feelings which motivate them to flee from predators.
For similar reasons they will feel pain, because escaping from
a source of pain is a useful defence machanism.

It's generaly thought immoral nowadays, to subject defenceless
animals to gratuitous fear or pain.

Plants cannot move and so have no feelings in that sense because
such emotions or sensations would have no survival value.

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In the absence of religion, an appeal to man's special nature
is the only possible defence there is against wanton wickedness
such as deliberate acts of cruelty to small children or animals to
name the most obvious examples. While man may indeed have sufficient
general intelligence to exert dominion over most of the natural
world, it's only the ability to form moral principles - often running
directly contrary to religious teaching which leads him to question the
morality of wiping out entire species, or being cruel to animals
etc. Which in the view of many religions were put on the earth
solely for man's use.

We
do not, and as soon as we lay back and say of oursleves "we've had a
good innings" then all will be fine - without us. After all, as
individuals we all have a time when it ends and no amount of crying and
screaming at the end will change that, so why not as a group ?
...

The moral qualms arise because man as a species may feel a
moral responsibility, not felt by any other part of creation
as far as we know, for wiping out entire species of wildlife
in the process. The fact that this is merely a working through
of evolutionary mechanisms, and that species are dying out all
the time in any case, including out own, is neither here nor there.
Man alone is capable of feeling responsibility for things. Morality
like religion is based on sentiment - the story the human race needs to
tell itself, in order for life to be meaningful, rather than on
cold hard facts.


michael adams

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I don't deny the moral aspect of the human structure which is an inward
looking concept as it puts man at the centre of his own world ("how do
'I' relate to the world") but I was taking an external stance, looking
in on man whether from that meteorite we were worrying about some five
or six years ago and that would reach here in about fifteen years now,
or some virus that too has a survival plan of its own which involves us
as a host.

After all, we're only the dinosaur Mk II waiting to happen and it's no
big deal. It's been a great ride and especially as we are in the
uk.rec.gardening group we should be even more aware that there are
seasons to *every*thing!

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Not if we manage to conquer time. The final frontier. Along with plenty
of heat resistant teflon. Then every galaxy in the Universe will be our
oyster. Through the black holes as well, with even better Teflon. That
was the dinosaur's big mistake IMO.


michael adams

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Richard.

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