RE: virus: Belief and Knowledge (was: The truth about faith)

David McFadzean (david@lucifer.com)
Mon, 08 Sep 1997 18:23:02 -0600


At 06:03 PM 9/5/97 -0400, Gifford, Nate F wrote:

>Imagine Lady Macbeth gets a job as a mid-wife after she regains most of her
>sanity. <Or did she die? I'm not sure .... > Imagine that her compulsive
>hand washing behavior is still exhibited. Wouldn't she be a damn effective
>midwife in the late medieval period? Imagine she apprenticed a bunch of
>midwives who exactly emulated her behavior including the hand washing. It
>is conceivable that an entire aseptic child birth ritual could evolve in
>this midwives guild ... but they still wouldn't be acting
>reasonably....would they?

Sure they would, why not? All reasonable behavior before humans and
probably most after humans was discovered accidently and retained
because it conferred some advantage to the actor. The origin of the
behavior has nothing to do with whether it is reasonable or not.

--
David McFadzean                 david@lucifer.com
Memetic Engineer                http://www.lucifer.com/~david/
Church of Virus                 http://www.lucifer.com/virus/