Re: Intelligent Design vs. Darwin

[James N Rose <***>]

David,

The way I see it is that we are products of the nature of 
the intrinsic logic and performance potential of being.
RR and many of us realized that under neutral analysis
(if that be possible - and we hope/presume it is), that
several difficulties existed/exist in the current opinion
sets of humans trying to figure out the 'why' of existence.

There is confusion between why and how ; conflation of
actions/outcomes with 'purpose' (aka Aristotle's siblings
group of 'causes').  And all because we are driven to 
understanding or to satisfaction with rationale, when
it comes to our awareness of life and being.

I think that the 'reasoned conclusions' would be quite
different in a universe where we were sentient but never
died or ceased to exist 'as is'.  No one would care about
the eternal questions because ther would be no pressure
'to find out before the ability to find out were taken away'.

If you'll all excuse a sideways meandering of thought here
for a moment - if there is a god, and it were important for 
created sentience to appreciate creation and the scope of being,
then extinction was/is a needed part of the scenario.  

We seek 'immortality', but if immortality were all that there
were, what sentience would give a damn spending the time to
contemplate 'eternal' issues and values?  None, I think.

Not that a 'rush to embrace death' is any logical conclusion to
this thought stream, but just like Doug Adam's one minute whale
in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, existence seems an awful
waste if insufficient contemplative time exists for any 
creature capable of it.

And by extrapolation, it becomes dicey to glorify an afterlife
over life, because it puts life at self-risk from that idolation.

Heaven and afterlife are not just ideals in the sentimental sense,
but "idols" in the bibilical sense.  And that deity warned humans
not to worship idols .. be they material -or- immaterial (note that
god never over-specified any distinction in that tract).

Don't worship 'images'.      physical -or- mental

Just appreciate life -  the BULK of the 10 commandments in that
particular religions group - and value existing in the etheric -
the REST of the commandments.

Explore being and all that it is and do it with an eye towards
knowing you're with companions and  not egoistically alone.

Those of us doing that in an open and adventurous way tend
to see more distant horizons, appreciate relationships that
go beyond the near and the practiced.  We respect order but 
are refreshed by 'more'.  And are definitely restless to not
stay pidgeon holed by other people's pronouncements that their
models of existence are ultimate and unquestionable.

RR was a premiere example of us.  We are embarked on extending
the collateral challenge: finding the right words and concept
relations to have all time-subsequent worlds of people move
into this way of thinking - as a practiced way of life. 

Which includes - 'knowing' the Rosenean (or similar) thoughtways
is one thing; pragmatically applying them is something else.

Otherwise, Rosenean wisdom will be useful only for historical
hindsight evaluation purposes.  I presume there's more potential
in it than that.  Projective planning in the ilk of Asimov's
Sheldon (Foundation Trilogy) is what we are capable of.

BUT ... and this is an -enormous- exclusion ... the E X P L I C I T 
impication of Rosenean thought versus the clever but conventional
Asimovian version (and all other current conventional thinking,
(unfortunately)) is that living existence requires an openness
and -not- reductionist (completely closed/ordered) future states.

"Potential" is vaster and more self opportunistic than any 
along-the-way evaluation of it.  To pre-define the future is to 
amputate potentials it just might be capable of, but which 
reside just over the far side of a mind's prescience to appreciate. 

Reductionism disvalues systems 'doing their thing'.  And that is like
advocating selective systemic abortion for some premeditated sake.

Then again   :-)   natural selection culls systems -anyway-, so who's
to say my logic isn't misfounded.   (lol)  

Jamie