[MD] Food for Thought

[Case]

[Platt]
Confidence in and ascribing validity to those describing their experiences
is something I generally have and grant unless there is contrary evidence in
play such as with those who have obvious ulterior motives such as car
salesmen and politicians. Basically I'm a trusting soul and have rarely been
disappointed. 

[Case]
Hmm, that would explain some of you political views then. Sure there were
WMDs, sure the Arabs what Liberty...
 
[Platt] 
I have yet to meet an adult who at one time or another in his life wasn't
completely overwhelmed by the beauty of an object or event. In my book,
those moments are moments of individual mystic experience. 

[Case]
We have many wonderful experiences from the cool breeze to orgasm but we
don't necessarily claim they explain the True nature of reality.

[Platt]
Now that's scary. The same can be said of a cockroach. As for the creation
of life, there is nothing to suggest it is anything other than a one time
event. 

[Case]
In this regard we are indeed similar to la coocaracha. We have much that is
different as well. The roach has six legs. We have anxiety disorders and
mortgages. 

When you are talking about something that happened 4 or 5 billion years ago,
it is difficult to say what happened or how often. We do know that the
process was reset a couple of times. One of Gould's books was about the
Burgess Shale deposits that show lots of life forms that are fundamentally
different than critters living today.

> [Case]
> Science types are more likely to declare what isn't true than what is. But
> there are many kinds of truth.

[Platt]
Such as?

[Case]
Love, pleasures of every kind, the Golden Rule; while science might be able
to explain the reasons and the relationships, it does little to enhance the
actual experience of these truths.

[Platt]
I don't think physics ever postulated that what goes up must come down. But,

what sort of question might be asked that you would not subject to the
assumptions of science to reveal? The ideal mate, perhaps? Or the best 
painting in a gallery?

[Case]
Why do those sorts of things need a scientific explanation? I supposed
studies could be done to predict why certain people choose the mates they do
and what the likelihood of a couple staying together would be. Or one could
study the reaction of museum patrons and quantify them somehow. But one of
the things a probabilistic view offers is that while we can say things about
how collections of people will act, we can say very little about how a
single individual will respond. Uncertainty and complexity at the microlevel
often produces predictability and simplicity at higher levels of analysis.