[Tina]

Originally Posted by mkirkpatrick I self and me,coupled with the idea of "it's mine! Is the root of all evil. regards michael.

No Michael 'it's mine" is also vital for survival eg offspring.

[TRY AGAIN]

[mkirkpatrick]

Originally Posted by Tina No Michael 'it's mine" is also vital for survival eg offspring. [TRY AGAIN]

Thats correct Tina,however self-centeredness and exclusivity cause all the ills
and evils that (live) on this planet.

Incidently,a group calling themselves the Atlantian Society,believe that flies such as
the bluebottle,are cosmic-evil and do not really belong on this planet,they say the fly
was "sucked into" this solar system by a vacuum caused by misplaced force!





regards michael.

[safwan]

Originally Posted by Tina SAFWAN you are getting seriously distracted from the path of enquiry. In your earlier post you identified the (emotion) of aggression and the (intellectual) act of cunningness as root of evil. Now all this talk of pre-historic evolution is highly speculative, unhelpful and incorrect (There is more evidence of Neanderthals pacivity than aggression). Earlier in this forum we identified evil as a product of the imagination - but once imagined it bred what we call evil ie "we began to deface life". No other thing in existance does this but the human. We must not confuse animal behaviour with humans - basically that is an insult to animals - they only do what is necessary - we do what is unneccesary. Why have we chosen to act in an unneccesary way? CHEMICALS! CHEMICALS! CHEMICALS! AND WHAT PUMPS YE OLDE KEMICALS INTO ACTION?

Thanks you Tina,

Necessary behavior is the natural behavior which exists by necessity determined strictly by laws of nature. It is impossible for necessary behavior not to exist once its conditions are there. But it is the behavior of no choice.

Because humans are the only species with a sufficient evolving intellect(including awareness of the outcome of death), this relative awareness (consciousness/ intelligence) is the driver of more freedom of choice, giving humans wider scope of behavior, i.e. more possibilities. In addition to the category of behavior necessitated by nature, human behavior also involves another category (which you call "unnecessary" and I call "possible" or contingent behavior determined by a "second nature" (= human culture) with laws as yet not very well understood. It may, once the laws of this second nature are sufficiently elucidated, that this unnecessary but possible or contingent behavior turns out to be "necessary" in the overall scheme of things.

Applying Protheory's theory that everything is either positive, negative, or neutral, introduced above ( #158 ) by my friend Pat , if "necessary behavior" is positive (it must exist) and the negative behavior is the "impossible behavior" (impossible to exist" then human behavior, or "possible behavior" represents the neutral.

I hope I've answered your question..

Best regards,

Safwan.

[Tina]

Originally Posted by safwan Thanks you Tina, [Necessary behavior is the natural behavior which exists by necessity determined strictly by laws of nature. But it is the behavior of no choice.] All our determined Laws of Nature reflect this point. [Because humans are the only species with a sufficient evolving intellect] You must understand intellect is the ability to interpret how we feel about our perceived reality. Language describes our feelings. Instinct sorts this out for non-humans there is no need to interpret - the organism simply knows what to do or how to respond. [(including awareness of the outcome of death)] Human has ambigious attitude towards death - this is evidenced by readiness to believe in eternal life - but this idea may stem from our residue instinct since all matter is eventually re-arranged in the universe so even after death we are somewhere dispersed in matter. [(consciousness/ intelligence).... i.e. more possibilities....which I call "possible" or contingent behavior determined by a "second nature" (= human culture) with laws as yet not very well understood.] We are going to get to the root of these LAWS soon. [It may, once the laws of this second nature are sufficiently elucidated, that this unnecessary but possible or contingent behavior turns out to be "necessary" in the overall scheme of things.] Necessary to teach us the error to them...but the ONLY way we can now learn. [I hope I've answered your question.. ] Best regards, Safwan.

Not necessalrily answers but precious insights

But I have taken out Protheory because demonstrated some mis-interpretation. Can discuss another time.

You know what - your idea of SECOND NATURE - has described something that has eluded me for a long time. To me your concept of 'second nature' perfectly describes our human condition/problems (symptoms of evil) as a product of us being locked into "our second/acquired natures" and we have not realised our true "human nature'. An example is "follow the status quo or be rejected" We are in constant state of conformity not freedom.

[YOU HAVE DEFINED THE ULTIMATE SYMPTOM - THE ACQUISITION OF SECOND NATURE - NOW THINK WHAT CAUSED US TO DO THIS]

[Profpat]

Two new guesses:

1) Pandora's Jar ( The opposite of the coke bottle theory )

2) Paranoia. ( As in "Paranoia will destroy ya" )

Best,

Pat

[Tina]

Originally Posted by Profpat guesses: 1) Pandora's Jar ( The opposite of the coke bottle theory ) Pat

guesses guesses guesses guesses guesses guesses guesses?

Eve and Pandora are just variations on the same theme - Woman are responsible for unleashing Evil in the world - thanks Guys!!!!

[Profpat]

You're welcome Tina;

I only think women are 1/2 to blame.

Best,

Pat

[Tina]

Originally Posted by Profpat You're welcome Tina; I only think women are 1/2 to blame. Best, Pat

I can't resist the temptation to say "and the snake is to blame for the other 1/2". But jokes aside we do have to share responsibility.

[Graybeard]

Originally Posted by safwan Thanks Greg for a most interesting and informative response. I have 3 questions, to you and Tina, if I may Best regards, Safwan

Thanks Safwan ... I'll try to answer all three. I'll answer number 2 first if I may ?

Originally Posted by safwan 2.. Do you agree that "evil" is a function of (aggressiveness + cunning)?

2.. First of all, in my opinion, all life requires energy to sustain itself. Now we can get energy from the sun (slime and algae do this) or we can get it by eating those who get it from the sun, or ... we can get it by eating those ... who eat those .. who get it from the sun. And so on. All life apart from those primary life forces such as algae, slime and slimy creatures that live around deep sea volcanic vents, are predators. 99.99% of all life on earth are predators. ALL predators are prey to other predators.

The actions that occur between any individual predator and any individual prey is some ratio of GOOD and EVIL. It can never be all good, it can never be all evil. How do we know this? Because we invented the terms!

Relations of any individual prey would consider the actions of the predator evil, but relations of the predator sharing in the kill would consider the actions that occurred as good. To maintain life we must consume, in large quantities and often, organic material. Organic material is, was, or will be alive. We are all predators, we are all killers.

The wonderful thing about humanity is that, as we have evolved, we have determined to minimise the effects of predation. We are more humane than ever before. The increase in our population and in our life expectancy, as well as the increase in life expectancy and population of all creatures in our care prove this. The GLOBAL concerns of all races currently on the earth regarding environment shout out our humanity.

There are more cattle, sheep, goats, dogs, mice, rats (I could give an endless list) than could ever have been sustained without our intervention. They live stress free lives unlike they would have in the wild. Of course the trade off is that one day we kill them and eat them. This is the ratio again!

So my answer is that the RATIO of GOOD/EVIL is a FUNCTION of (AGGRESSIVENESS + CUNNING). I don't believe you can have GOOD without EVIL. You can only have a fairer split for all. To the credit of humanity we are aiming for that result.

Originally Posted by safwan 1.. Neanderthals were stronger, more aggressive, and violent, but were they more evil than Homo sapiens?

1.. I think the above answer already answered this one. However. All Neanderthal fossils have been found to have multiple fractures that were incurred during the life of the Neanderthal. They could 'suffer' enormous pain, pain that would have crippled, and therefore disabled, and eventually lead to the death of any Homo-Sapiens, as they would have been unable to continue hunting or gathering resources.

We know that these crippling dis-abilities had very little effect on Neanderthals as fossils have been found with secondary fractures laid over other healed primary fractures that had occurred years previously. Primary fractures that would have assured the death of any individual Homo Sapiens unless he/she was carried and cared for, for the rest of his/her life! And yet, we (science) can tell that these individuals continued to live and hunt as though the fracture was no more than a bee sting.

Neanderthals, so far as has been discovered, had very little Art. Art is an expression of deep reasoning. Homo-Sapiens left a great deal of artwork around during the time of the Neanderthal. Neanderthal Artwork has been discovered, but only where it appears that they shared 'territories' with Homo-Sapiens and were influenced by Homo-Sapiens lifestyle.

If Art is an indirect expression of reasoning ability then we (Homo-Sapiens) could plan further into the future and had greater access to the communal knowledge of the past.

It must follow that we had a better capacity to alter the GOOD/EVIL ratio, either way of our choosing, in our predatory lifestyle, compared to Neanderthal.

I hope this is an acceptable answer.

Originally Posted by safwan 3. Why do you doubt that we will make the 4 million years benchmark? What risks are there?

I doubt we will make 4 million years for the single following reason.

There is a mechanism called the Run-Away Greenhouse Effect. The Planet Venus is an example of this. In the late 60's-early 70's (round about) Russia explored the planet Venus. This was beyond the ability of any other nation on earth at that time and was truly a remarkable achievement.

They discovered something so horrendous that it should have set alarm bells ringing throughout the earth at that time. Venus had been the victim of the runaway greenhouse effect. As the cold war was still a reality at that time this knowledge was limited in distribution. Venus is slightly smaller than earth and slightly closer to the sun. As a consequence its oceans had a slightly greater rate of surface evaporation.

This evaporation formed clouds that trapped the heat, the oceans evaporated quicker in the hotter atomsphere, more clouds formed trapping more heat and this affect 'snowballed' until in a very short time Venus became the Planet from Hell.

The temperature on Venus today is between 700 degrees C and 900 Degrees C. Snow that falls on Venus is made of Titanium, its believed.

Venus was once a Planet just like us. There is a point at which the runaway effect kicks in and from that point on it cannot be stopped.

I believe we are straddling very close to that point. Can we continue to balance for at least the next 2 million years ... what do you think?

As an interesting bit of trivia here. A VHS tape series on the planets was released maybe 12-15 years ago. Now it is available on DVD. I don't know if the series has been updated today but at that time two versions were released.

One for the USA and one for the rest of the world. The difference being that the USA version had nearly all the Russian achivements cut out. True. (I received a copy of both versions)

Of course we all know that Saddam Hussein was truly one of the roots of all evil. But who told us that!!

Hope I answered all three questions Safwan, and sorry about the long post

cool bananas ... greg

[Profpat]

God bless you Greg, I thought I was the last optimist.

The wonderful thing about humanity is that, as we have evolved, we have determined to minimise the effects of predation. We are more humane than ever before. The increase in our population and in our life expectancy, as well as the increase in life expectancy and population of all creatures in our care prove this. The GLOBAL concerns of all races currently on the earth regarding environment shout out our humanity.

Best to all,

Pat