[MD] Do genes experience?

[Ham Priday]

Peter --

> I had to look up 'nihilist' in my Oxford handy
> dictionary - 'Rejection of all religious and moral
> principles'; that's unfair - what am I doing on this
> forum if I reject morals?  My handy dictionary
> didn't have 'reductionist' so I'll just take that as
> something aimed to make me feel small.

For your information, reductionism is "the attempt to explain all biological
processes by the same explanations (as by physical laws) that chemists and
physicists use to interpret inanimate matter." --[Webster's New Collegiate
Dictionary].  The reductionist is one who subscribes to the theory that
complete reductionism is possible.  If this makes you "feel small", don't
blame me; you have brought it on yourself.

> I'm not saying everything started from the
> Big Bang; they may have - I don't know. But Ham,
> where do YOU suppose those processes started from
> - a creator? You can't use that kind of Intelligent Design
> hypothesis because I'll use the same logic against you
> - then who designed the creator?

Everything experienced in existence begins and ends in some time frame.  The
fallacy of human intelligence is taking experience at face value; that is,
in concluding that ultimate reality must have a "beginning" and evolve in
time as natural evolution does.  The most knowledgable physicists cannot
explain what caused the Big Bang.  At best, they're perpetrating the logical
implausibility of _creatio ex nihilo_, creation from nothing.

To answer your question, the absolute Source of existence is not subject to
the finite limitations of time and space, therefore needs no prior creator.
Feel free to challenge my logic, but don't expect me to "prove" it; proof of
absolute truth is inaccessible to man.  (And there's a reason for this,
too.)

> I try to take life as I find it largely -
> and I see no creator there. I don't pretend to
> know how it all started, maybe it never started -
> but why would I want to assume there is a
> creator and I am in his experimental fish tank?
> What would be the advantage to me in that?

Peter, you're participating in a philosophical forum whose goal is to
explain the nature and origin of your "fish tank".   If you haven't the
slightest curiosity about the reality beyond finite experience, I would ask
why you are here.  To discuss music and politics, or the Pirsigian theory
that morality is innate in the cosmos?

> I think Dawkins is right to press his point against
> religion - it had it's place once in man's history as
> a social binding but there are too many people now
> and the different religions are the cause of  much
> friction as they rub up against each other; it falls to
> science to solve humanity and the world's problems
> now.

Yes, I've heard this before.  "Times have changed and God is passe".  And
the scientists have done a marvelous job of solving human problems, haven't
they?  Unfortunately for those driven by materialism and technology, there
will never be answers because they will reject anything that smacks of the
"supernatural", as Pirsig himself made clear.

Should you wish to "extend yourself" with an open mind, I invite you to read
my on-line thesis at www.essentialism.net .  Most of my discussion here is
an attempt to compare the fundamental concepts in my Philosophy of Essence
with those of Pirsig's MoQ.  When you do, I'll be most happy to answer any
of your questions.

Cheers,
Ham