Bryan,
My comments are below.
---Bryan Hyden <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Thus, I made the assumption that you were
> >assigning some sort of human characteristics to the planet.
>
> bad assumption... can we only be altruistic to humans?
Then why did you pose the question about being altruistic to the planet?
> >Humans are covered with countless micro-organisms.
> >The Earth is covered with countless micro-organisms, therefore the
> >planet has some form of human characteristics.
> >
> >It is still a false analogy.
>
> is the analogy that you have just created misrepresentative of what
i had
> written?
>
> yes.... it is still quite skewed, though not quite as badly as
the first
> time....
No its not, it is what you put forward.
it wasn't even me who started the organism argument... bissell
> proposed that the earth is not an 'individual' due to its condition
of being
> covered by (other) individuals.... at that point, i simply pointed
out the
> inconsistency in that logic when one considers a human to be an
individual
> though he or she is also covered with (other) individuals/organisms...
As I am pointing out the illogic of concluding that the planet is
itself an individual in the sense discribed above simply because it
shares a similar trait with humans. This is a perfect example of a
false analogy. As I pointed out, if you want to consider the planet
an individual in the sense that it is a single unit (much like we can
talk about specific rocks, i.e. individual rocks) then fine, swell,
wonderful, but don't try to ascribe some sort of human trait to it
with out a more substantial arguement.
> i
> wasn't saying that the earth is human.... i was saying that the
earth may
> be seen as an individual, just as humans are... the state of being
> considered an individual is shared across many classifications of
life, not
> just with humans....
Yes, but you don't treat individual rocks like you treat individual
humans. That is the point I was making (and Steven was as well--I
think).
Steve
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