Re: post from Holloway
Gerrit Hanenburg (ghanenbu@inter.nl.net)
Sun, 22 Oct 1995 11:40:54 GMT
hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey) wrote:
>>Depends on your criteria.If snakes took their own complicated jaw structure as a
>>criterion of evolutionary advancement,they would consider humans as a very lowly
>>form of life.
>Yeah, if snakes could think about evolution, they might think so.
Who says they can't?
Wittgenstein wrote:"It is sometimes said that animals do not talk because
they lack the mental capacity.And this means:"they do not think,and that is
why they do not talk." But-they simply do not talk.Or to put it better:they
do not use language-if we exept the most primitive forms of language.
Commanding,questioning,recounting,chatting,are as much a part of our
natural history as walking,eating,drinking,playing".
(Philosophical Investigations,#25)
Apart from that,to take mental ability as a criterion of evolutionary
advancement is rather abitrary.
>If rocks could eat, would they prefer sweets or hot foods?
The ones in my garden insist on caviar.
>If fishes could read would they prefer fiction or nonfiction?
Definitely nonfiction.Subject depends on the kind of fish.
Pike would prefer books about other fish,carp would prefer books about
worms and maggots,and I guess eels would love to read about the Sargasso
sea.
Gerrit.
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