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Re: "defense of wilderness" (wasRe: lexicon)

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Wednesday, June 4, 2003, 12:55
Andreas Johansson scripsit:

> > natural processes can _not_ be controlled, avoided or defeated. > > This appears to boil down to determinism. Is that intended?
Well, they *can* be avoided even in a determinist world. I can't explain this yet, because I'm still trying to grok Western Barbarian Daniel Dennett's latest book _Freedom Evolves_, which is about how we still have free will even if everything we do is rigidly determined by physical laws. ObLang: when we say we are determined to do something, we normally mean not that we have no choice, but on the contrary, that we *have* chosen to do it. I don't think this is just a pun.
> > The American Taoist Gung-Fu Surfer says: "Shit Happens. Roll with > > the > > Punches. Go with the Flow [Tao]." > > This appears to say that one should not try to avoid dangers. That's correct?
No, it's a warning that what appears to be stable equilibrium (like a cone resting on its base) may well be more like unstable equilibrium (like a cone resting on its tip) after all, and the better choice may be to assume a posture of neutral equilibrium (like a cone resting on his side). See the works of Western Barbarian Raymond Smullyan. BTW, coolest explication of mysticism I have *ever* seen: "Planet Without Laughter", by Smullyan, at http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/smullyan.html . Yeah, *the* Donald Knuth. -- John Cowan <jcowan@...> http://www.ccil.org/~cowan http://www.reutershealth.com Unified Gaelic in Cyrillic script! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Celticonlang