Re: virus: religion

Eric Boyd (6ceb3@qlink.queensu.ca)
Sat, 18 Apr 1998 22:12:12 -0400


Hi,

Marie Foster <mfos@ieway.com> wrote:
> Excellent points. But the truth is that we are at a pinnacle
> as a species. Each day we are at a new one.

I guess I've been to highly trained in calculus to appreciate the "truth"
of that one. A pinacle is like a local max -- a local max only occurs at a
critical point, and at a critical point, the derivative is ZERO -- meaning
that, at the very least, our upward progress has been haulted! I prefer to
see our progress as an ever increasing function, myself. I honesly hope we
never acheive a "local max"; lets keep learning more!

(the question of whether of not there exists a point of *absolute* max is
another very interesting question... but some other time, eh?)

> "Newtonian physics is useful, even if it is not true, as
> an approximation that helps us to understad many different
> phenomena. But it is completely discredited as an answer
> to any fundamental question about what the world is."

Newtonian physics was never designed to answer a question about what the
world IS; it just answers questions about what the world DOES. (indeed,
most of the sciences could be described this way)

> Life may be nothing but a list of choices... I don't know.
> But I hope that there is more than that.

Could you be more specific? I, for one, would add that our ability to
*change* the options from which we have to choose is very important, but
I'm wondering if you had something else in mind.

ERiC