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nigelswift

8112 posts

Re: no sound ever comes from the gates of eden

Apr 21, 2004, 07:30

"Would you agree that there's a difference between the consciousness of humans and that of animals?"
Wow, don't hold back on the big questions, will you?

I'm not as sure about that as the tone of your question seems to assume. The thing is, if you're as sure about the omnipotence of evolution as a Christian is about the omnipotence of God then you see confirmation of it everywhere. So I can very clearly see us as more than the animals but not as different from them. Not as having acquired a quality that is totally new and different. Only the inanimate and the dead can undergo change so radical that their nature is utterly lost and they become something else…

"Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are corals made;
Nothing of him doth remain
But hath suffered a sea-change
Into something rich and strange."

But for we poor saps who live and breathe, we're prisoners of our ancestors, pinned to the tree of life and connected to every part of it. Much of our freedom of thought, indeed much of our thought, much of our notion of self, is illusory. We think and feel as we must through our natures, And we owe our natures to no-one but our ancestors, and they to theirs. We still carry our pre-human heritage around with us in our heads, surely? People who's embryos have gills shouldn't claim to be anything special, as I said at the vicarage tea party…

In reply to:
no sound ever comes from the gates of eden (TomBo)

Replies:
Re: no sound ever comes from the gates of eden (Hob)
Re: no sound ever comes from the gates of eden (TomBo)

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