Re: virus: Abortion, etc.
C. David Noziglia (noziglia@actrix.gen.nz)
Thu, 14 Mar 1996 06:15:29 -0800
Ronald Ferruci wrote:
>
> I am writing to reply to your e-mail where you said that we are
> different from other animals because we think. How do you know that
> other animals don't think? I don't know (know in the empirical sense
> that knowledge is what you get from expierence) that they can think,
> but I believe that it is quite possible that they could. They same
> lack of expierence or knowledge that keeps me from being able to say
> that they don't think is the same that keeps me from being able to
> say that they don't think. We would like to believe that they don't
> think and that we are better than them because they don't because
> that places us above they and allows us the right to decide which
> ones live or die. What makes us different is that we think that we
> are better than then and in doing so have brought many of the other
> animal species of the world, either to or over the brink of
> extinction. And we are dragging ourselves over that edge too.
Your last point is an extremely good one, with which I entirely agree.
My meaning of the word "think," however, was a little more restricted
than you give me credit for. I'm not interested in knowing what I can't.
What I was saying was that animals always act in their local interest.
Humans can, in effect, violate their genetic and behavioral programming,
and it is this capacity that offers the only hope we may have to rescue
ourselves from the consequences of our own destructive actions.
--
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C. David Noziglia
Wellington, New Zealand
noziglia@actrix.gen.nz
"Blessed are those who have no expectations,
for they will never be disappointed."
Kautiliya Shakhamuni Sidhartha Gautama Buddha
"Things are the way they are because they got that way."
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