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

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