Correction: This should have said: "Justin Halpern's Dad".
Rebecca was "quoting".
Joebama American citizens 2024 print
2 months ago
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Quote of the Day
"Everybody loves to say how much we’ve evolved, but the real measure of
whether or not a species has evolved is if they can look their DNA in
the eyes and say, ‘Fuck you, I can do better than you think I can.’ "
- Rebecca Trotter's Dad
Correction: This should have said: "Justin Halpern's Dad".
Rebecca was "quoting".
Correction: This should have said: "Justin Halpern's Dad".
Rebecca was "quoting".
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Gosh darn it Gunny!! I can't explain it but for most things you post, I just nod my head in agreement and seldom write any comments but here is another in a string of that ain't so moments.
ReplyDeleteI think it is common in the course of any civilization to go from refinement to coarseness as a matter of fact in day to day living. Sure, I cracked up at dirty jokes when they were dropped by surprise on TV or radio, but I still laugh like anything when I see the Honeymooners. It's the avante garde comediennes I don't find humorous any longer.
So what is Rebecca saying? Beats me but I suspect from what she writes we still haven't descended as far as we are destined. Some comediennes I once enjoyed I now find to be total turn-offs. I mean how many times do they have to say that word before it goes from comedy to shear vulgarity?
As she says, dirty jokes were funny when they were a surprise. They just aren't that surprising any more.
Tru, it's the quote I like. I only included the link out of courtesy, to give credit where credit is due...not to promote that particular post, which I don't care about at all. I use vulgarity all the time, as you obviously know, and there's not much chance of me changing any time soon. So....bad language doesn't offend me. I agree that so-called humor which depends on the shock value of cursing is only effective in a culture that generally does not use vulgar language. In one like ours where it is casually used, fairly commonly, using it for "effect" is pretty clueless. And over-using it is just boring.
ReplyDeleteBut...getting back to the quote: I like the idea of our rising above our DNA, getting right in its face...and acting through free will.
Atheists often suggest that our behavior—even that which we call principled and virtuous and freely chosen—is merely our DNA acting in it's own interests.
Now, that makes us nothing more than vehicles for DNA, programmed to behave as we behave and think as we think.
And I like the particular way this denial was presented. Defiant and ever so human.
And finally, as you can see, I even got the attribution wrong...after all that!
Cheers!
I accept the quote but think it could have been stated in a far more classy and effective manner.
ReplyDeleteI had a debate with an atheist concerning free will that took a rather unusual turn. He had claimed that the Big Bang set everything in motion to determine the future and it was only our inability to make all the complex calculations that prevented us from making very precise predictions, including how we would think. He further maintained that probability did not reflect any physical reality but was merely a mathematical tool we used to compensate for out inability to perform extremely large and complex calculations. His conclusion was that free will was an illusion and our decisions were merely the consequence of physical interactions arising from the Big Bang. This is also consistent with an evolutionary theory of the development of the universe.
When I brought up quantum mechanics and tunneling in particular, his argument collapsed. Indeed, QM introduces truly random processes that are probabilistic and not at all deterministic, regardless of how information we have concerning starting conditions. You can find research on the web concerning quantum mechanics and the study of neural synapses. It is that randomness that is required for free will to exist.
Tru..you've been reading my blog for years....what possessed you to expect "classy"?? :-)
ReplyDeleteAs for the other stuff you said. I don't understand a word of it.
Okay, I do get that quantum mechanics threw Newtonian physics into an uproar because as I understand (?) it, what's true in the macro is not true in the micro. And that's pretty weird.
And yeah, atheists are big determinists, my personal atheist uses the DNA argument. Maybe that's because he's a physicist...and knows better than to use THAT one!
Doh, ya got me!! It must have been demonic possession. I better fetch my Archangelic Ginsu and deal with it right quickly.
Deleteheh heh...
ReplyDelete