Nemesis asks me to "nail it down". Certainty is no guarantee of
accuracy. All throughout history intelligent men and women "nailed
down" choirs of angels, circles of hell, proofs of god's existence etc
etc, all unproveable, all empty certainties.
I have no such clarity. I believe we have a range of abilities. I will
give you a few examples: we can recreate the past; we can envisage a
future; we can speculate on our existence, we can recreate and mimic
our existence, we can analyse the nature of it; we possess the
capacity for indepenedent thought; we can probe the past for
knowledge; we value knowledge; we can create vast systems of
administration and organisation; we can construct vast systems of
technology forever increasing the range of our skills.
All of these capabilities issue from our genetic legacy from the past.
They are part of what we can do as a species. My contention is that
our rights and our societies should seek to maximise the expression of
these capabilities and that our rights and capabilities should indeed
be based on our capabilities.
The rigours of our past, the hardships of history, ignorance,
oppression, error, all combined to delay our full appreciation of the
extent and the provenance of our capabilities. Only now can we see all
we are. I wish merely to promote such a seeing.
To me it is incponceivable that matter and energy and "nature" should
work for 13 billion years to produce an intelligent creature only to
see that creature then fritter away that work over a few tens of
thousands of years.
Joseph H
.
|
