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Re: Culture & symbols
Arthur L. Baron (abaron@STU.ATHABASCAU.CA)
Mon, 29 Jul 1996 14:03:12 MDT
>
> At 07:42 PM 7/28/96 +0000, Ronald Kephart wrote:
> >In message <19960728180425.AAA22703@LOCALNAME> Robert Snower writes:
> >
>
> Our agreements overall are making it difficult to find bones to pick. But I
> find a few.
> E.g., I don't know what the problem with "higher" and "lower" is, except
> that you are oversensitized to nonsense about "hierarchy." If A is higher
> than B it means A is based on B instead of vice-versa. If I throw a ball
> and it unintentionally breaks the window wich lies due south by southeast,
> is the ball directionless, except in retrospect? Of course not. It had one
> definite direction, all the time.
>
AH, may I pitch this curve ball. The ball is heading due south by southeast in
a difinite direction and all of a sudden a tornado descends, grabs the ball and
hurles it to Kansas. Not so far fetched considering this is what mass
extinctions have done with respect to the straight line direction of evolution.
Earth history has had five (?) such mass extinctions, not to mention the
countless less catastrophic individual plant and animal species extinctions
along the way. Humans did not evolve by means of a home run, more like a foul
ball.
arthur baron
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