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Words and thoughts are physical objects
I strongly disagree. Just because physical objects are needed to code, store and transmit information (of which words and thoughts are elements), information is immaterial in itself. E.g. material objects are subject to conservation laws, whereas information can easily be destroyed without leaving a trace. What will remain of a word that falls on deaf ears?

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Originally Posted By: wsieber
Words and thoughts are physical objects
I strongly disagree. Just because physical objects are needed to code, store and transmit information (of which words and thoughts are elements), information is immaterial in itself. E.g. material objects are subject to conservation laws, whereas information can easily be destroyed without leaving a trace. What will remain of a word that falls on deaf ears?

What remains of lightning after it strikes? Could a brain think without electrical thoughts?
Remember HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey? HAL was unplugged as was Dave when he was set-apart from the rest of mankind. The Conservation of Energy idea is like the Newtonian ideas of gravity. Close, but no cigar.

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Words and thoughts may be not unlike lightning bolts in our brains but they bear no relation to the physical objects or mental constructs they represent. When my brain ceases working the existence of all the things referred to by the words I know will not cease to be.

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Looking at these last several posts, I think you folks are just going to have to agree to disagree, and move on...

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I think you folks are just going to have to agree to disagree, and move on..
Sad as it is, you may have a point. There has been little evolution in the dispute.

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Originally Posted By: wsieber
I think you folks are just going to have to agree to disagree, and move on..
Sad as it is, you may have a point. There has been little evolution in the dispute.


Not me. Agreeing to disagree is the stuff of wimps.
Understanding "being" is the essence of being, and to not discuss what we are is the stuff of trees and other living machines.

An understanding of Evolution will tell us where the monkey hid the money. Nobody here seems to know but me.
And I will tell if I can find the memes and words to tell the few big-eared people here who will listen.

If you saw a hand reaching out and up from the muck and mire of a dark swamp would you not lend a hand and help him?

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Why do I feel like I'm back in the freshman dorm?

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Originally Posted By: Faldage
Why do I feel like I'm back in the freshman dorm?

Because, dear heart, you intuit that you are.

But alas, the neural patterns of fifty-five years have cluttered your once good brain and now you must discharge those patterns and embrace the new order of thoughts.

Try now, grasshopper, to create a worthy original thought about Evolution and try to express it without using clipped and freshmanic remarks. [kiss and good luck]

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EVOLUTION Part II: Biological Causes of Global Cooling

Public Talk:
"Global cooling by grassland soils in the geological past and near future".

Abstract:
"Major innovations in the evolution of vegetation such as the Devonian origin of forests created new weathering regimes and soils (Alfisols, Histosols), which increased carbon consumption and sequestration, and ushered in the Permian-Carboniferous Ice Age.
Similarly, global expansion of grasslands and their newly evolved, carbon-rich soils (Mollisols) over the past 30 million years may have induced global cooling and ushered in Pleistocene glaciation. Organisms in such coevolutionary trajectories adapt to each other rather than to their environment, and so can be forces for global change.

Some past farming practices have aided greenhouse gas release. However, modern grassland agroecosystems are a potential carbon sink already under intensive human management, and carbon farming techniques may be useful in curbing anthropogenic global warming".




Last edited by jenny jenny; 09/02/13 04:30 AM.
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Here, AWADers, unfolds the beginings of the understanding of semantics.
And if you have ears that listen and a soul that hears you will soon become one of the few folks on Earth who understand our raison d'etre.

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