[MD] Oneness, Dualism & Intellect

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting ARLO J BENSINGER JR <ajb102 at psu.edu>:

> [Arlo]
> Evolution occurs on both micro and macro scales, with the macro usually
> evidencing the greatest leaps and changes. Macro-level evolution, such as the
> evolution of species, is typically only ever inferred by witnessing that things
> were different in the long ago than they are now.

Isn't there something in critical thinking about the dangers of inference?
I don't know. I'm asking. 

> At any given point in time an
> observer would of course be led to think, this is "it", evolution has now
> stopped. Neanderthal man would have little to observe to indicate that one day
> "he" would evolve into "us".

I get your point, but technically I don't think Neanderthals evolved into Homo
Sapiens Sapiens. I believe their line died out.

> From his vantage, he was as good as it gets.
> Should you time-travel back 300 billion years, and witness the simply algaes
> and bacteria that constituted the entire biological level, you would see
> "nothing" that would indicate that one day these simply single-celled things
> would evolve into "people" and fly to the moon. Evolution, on the macro-scale,
> can only ever be viewed retrospectively, and although we can infer that a
> natural process that has been active since the beginning will continue to be
> active, we can't predict where "we" will be in another 300 billion years.
> Maybe, like the Ousters in Dan Simmons' Hyperion quadrilogy, we will evolve
> into beings capable of inhabiting the vacuum of space. Maybe we will, like the
> Gamesters of Triskelion in Star Trek, evolve into pure thought energy. Who
> knows. But the illusion of the present is always, in every age and every time,
> to appear to be "the pinnacle of evolution". 

Is it possible we will not evolve at all, but like the Neanderthals, become
extinct?

> We appear to suffer the same illusion. Incapable of accepting that "man" is part
> of "nature", we exempt him from the natural processes we see around us,
> historically and in the immediate now. In an effort to divinify him, we
> consider his existence to have sprung into being, fully formed, the result of
> some also-external "god". Proof, this is, that "man" is uniquely separate,
> apart and rules over nature.

I don't know who the "we" are you're referring to. Muslims perhaps? In any case
you can exclude me. But, like Pirsig, I do believe in a higher power that "creates
this world in which we live." (Lila, 9)

  



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