Jim,

Thank you. I must say, you are asking all the right questions.

>Hmmm. . .  why not just say that it is life itself that is sacred?  Why is
>it necessary to undertake the diversionary tactic into "low entropy"-speak
>at all?
>
>Perhaps you simply need to provide us with your definition of entropy.  But
>as  many commentators have noted, entropy is overall a rather negative
>metaphor for ethics: it connotes disorder and life running down. . .

If you have a notion of the sacred that is not grounded in reality, you run
risk of espousing a view of the sacred as removed from the earth--witess
Judeo-Christian and other belief systems. For them, the earth is like a
pergatory, and real life (the "sacred" part) doesn't start until after this
one; I heard a priest on NPR saying this very thing in the wake of one of
the recent school massacres. An idea of the sacred oriented toward energy
flows might keep us grounded. Many traditions have been attuned to these
flows and were therefore grounded. 

If you say just that life is sacred without defining the physical essence of
life, than it's easy to distort and say life really just means "intelligent"
life or "advanced" life. Energy flow (the unidirecetional entropic flow) is
the physical essence of all life, regardless of sentience or intelligence.
If it is recognized that all things that are alive (humans, animals,
barnacles, plants, trees) share an ordered energy (low-entropy) quest, and
that that quest is sacred, than it must be that even the barnacles and ferns
are sacred, not just the "advanced", "domineering" humans (whom we know to
have beliefs in the sacred).

Pessimistic or not, the unidirectional flow of low-entropy to high is a fact
of the universe. My idea is that this increasing disorder vision is an
ill-informed take on the whole thing, not an objective fact the way that the
entropic flow itself is. Order/disorder is just one way of looking at
things; moreover it stems from the _microscopic_ (quantum statistical)
approach, an approach which we have every reason to believe is at odds with
thermodynamics at the core--entropy is macroscopic terrain, and at the
microscopic level its truths might not hold as well.

Think of it this way: if part of what is unsustainable in our economy is its
ignorance to the entropic flow, then becoming aware of it offers a great
hope for the future. Entropy awareness is optimistic. Pollution is a classic
example of local high entropy. Lack of clean water and lack of fuel and a
lack of food all also signify local high entropy. As such, they also signify
the global finance-based economy's ignorance to a) the importance of solar
as our only income, and b) the fact that _materially_ the earth is a closed
system.

>Frankly, this makes no sense to me.  To take the most trivial case: how can
>we justify using an anti-bacterial soap to wash our hands?...
>
>Well, the hand washing example for one:  how can you square the intrinsic
>value of the bacterium with my intrinsic value, and my additional selfish
>desire not to die from things like dysentery or cholera?

>From this it is clear to me that you have decided that: intrinsic value=no
killing. I don't see it that way. Just because something has intrinsic value
doesn't mean it is never morally justified that it should be killed. This
issue in fact is at the core of ethical theory: the cases are exagerrated
and abstracted so that the question points to principles and
contradictions--when exactly is it morally justified that those with
intrinsic value should be killed? They try to drive home the distinction
between utilitarianism and deontology with the trains examples: is it worse
to let 3 humans be killed through not diverting your train or to make the
proactive choice of diverting the train and killing one person instead? What
do you think? Such examples of "competing interests" are not my subject
here.

Just because we might acknowledge that bacteria have intrinsic value doesn't
mean that anti-bacterial soap is a moral no-no. Think of war; think of
capitol punishment. Just because humans are acknowledged to have intrinsic
value doesn't mean we think it's always morally wrong that they be killed.

>[snip]
>>On what specific grounds does one say moral judgement is unique to humans? I
>>would say this is categorically untrue, and am willing to elaborate here.
>
>Fine, I'd love to hear it.  Obviously you are not talking about barnacles
>(exercising moral judgment, that is) here--but what nonhuman animal(s) ARE
>you talking about here?  Just one example would be fine for starters.

Just one (familiar) example: dogs. You can honestly sit there and tell me
that you've never seen a dog exercise moral judgement? I just can't believe
that. If such is the case (that you've never seen it), then we must be
equivocating on the word "judgement." Just because a being doesn't create
legal systems and many various branches of moral philosophy doesn't mean
moral judgement isn't a part of their every day lives; this is a question
again, I think, of your deciding that there is some degree of advancement
(in morally judging) that begets intrinsic value. I don't buy it.

>>This is sheer equivocation on the word "dominion."
>
>Why?  Why is this "equivocation"?  Contrary to your conjectures about the
>moral capacities of all animals (except barnacles of course), humans seem
>to be the only ones out there who morally weigh the consequences of their
>actions.  I don't think beavers file environmental impact statements.  I
>don't think birds of prey set up charitable non-profit organizations to
>further their philanthropic impulses once their appetites for raw meat are
>satiated.  I'm pretty sure that even the Great Apes don't have a Great Ape
>equivalent to Dear Abby when one Great Ape wants to break up with another
>Great Ape, but can't figure out the tactful and least hurtful Great Ape way
>of doing it. . . .

What I mean by "equivocation" is that the author is playing around obviously
with different definitions of "dominion" and using them all as equivalents.
The biblical notion of dominion is very different from the dictatorial
spirit with which global capitalists govern their "domains."

Again, your examples of of moral judgement--EISs, non-profits, Dear
Abby--are all matters of degrees not of absolutes. None of these prove to me
that animals don't ever exercise moral judgement; rather, they show some of
the ways we humans have devised to exercise ours. Those ways, furthermore,
don't show me that humans are intrinsically more valuable than any other
animal.

>>It is exactly for this reason that I am not saying simply that energy flows
>>are important, but that they are sacred.
>
>Hmmm. . .  well, okay--but saying that something is so, doesn't make it so.
>Why are energy flows sacred?

I hope I have touched on that above. The unidirectional entropic flow is the
physical essence of life, of time, of existence, of consciousness, for all
living things. Again, with the inanimate (the non-living) there is merely a
random shuffling of matter-energy, not a purposeful quest in the form of
low-entropy sorting. That quest, being unique to the living, is the physical
basis on which our intimations of the sacred rest.

Adam



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