Peter Moylan wrote:

>> Oh, and Hawaii is on fire.
>
> Yes, and all of this is a timely warning for Australia to build up more
> fire-fighting resources. But the Australian summer is almost upon us,
> and the politicians are, as usual, procrastinating.
>
> (We elected this bunch because they're not as bad as the other bunch.
> The catch is that "not as bad" doesn't set a very high standard.)

I'm afraid that it's an international one.

--
Bertel, Denmark

Snidely <snidely.too@gmail.com> wrote:

> Jerry Friedman suggested that ...
> > On Friday, August 11, 2023 at 7:21:48?AM UTC-6, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> >> Peter Moylan wrote:
> > ...
> >
> >>>> '(I cannot find it right now, but the talk was by a
> >>>> neuroscientist trying to understand the evolutionary *need* to
> >>>> believe in a larger entity.)
> >>>
> >>> According to census data in this country, roughly 1/3 of the population
> >>> don't have this need. That suggests that "evolutionary need" is a
> >>> misleading label.
> >
> >> Maybe he is talking about a stadium of evolution that some of us have
> >> passed?
> >
> > You mean "stage". A stadium is a place for the most popular spectator
> > sports.
>
> Evolution could be considered a spectator sport, depending on your
> choice of spectator. Clearly we can be the spectators to any number of
> lifeforms, from viruses up through farm animals. I won't name the
> spectators from whom we're the sport.

Yes, didn't you see those bacteria and virus doing their ROTFL,
when they learned a decade ago that those silly humans thought
that that had licked them, once and for all?

Jan

On 12/08/2023 14:40, Anders D. Nygaard wrote:
> Den 10-08-2023 kl. 07:48 skrev occam:
>> [...]  You get rid of God,  you need to replace
>> him with something more intelligent than yourself (and your fellow
>> humans).
>
> Ummm .... Why?
>
> I see no logical reason why humans cannot be the most intelligent
> entities around.

I see no logical reason why Americans should elect an idiot for a
President for a second time. What has logic got to do with it? We are
NOT as intelligent as you think we are, as a collective.

> (Which is not to say that we couldn't wish for humans to behave
> more intelligently)
>

Den 14-08-2023 kl. 14:08 skrev occam:
> On 12/08/2023 14:40, Anders D. Nygaard wrote:
>> Den 10-08-2023 kl. 07:48 skrev occam:
>>> [...]  You get rid of God,  you need to replace
>>> him with something more intelligent than yourself (and your fellow
>>> humans).
>>
>> Ummm .... Why?
>>
>> I see no logical reason why humans cannot be the most intelligent
>> entities around.
>
> I see no logical reason why Americans should elect an idiot for a
> President for a second time.

Lack of options?

> What has logic got to do with it?

It is strongly related to the "need" you stated.

> We are
> NOT as intelligent as you think we are, as a collective.

I tried to forestall that particular objection with the following
parenthesis.

>> (Which is not to say that we couldn't wish for humans to behave
>> more intelligently)

In any case, how intelligent we are, exactly, does not really enter
into the question of whether we are the most intelligent things around.

Unless, of course, you would like to argue that dolphins, ants, mice
or cockroaches are more intelligent "as a collective"?

/Anders, Denmark