Re: is information the bottom line?

Tim Bates (tbates@karri.bhs.mq.edu.au)
Sat, 13 Feb 1999 22:27:05 +1100

hi all and Paul,

I wrote
>> Unless you have evidence that time is something other than
>> the motion of matter, you must accept that just as it cannot be
>> destroyed, it cannot be created.

and Paul said
>To accept any limit simply because we don't know of a way around it, entirely
>circumvents the tranhumanist spirit of inquiry and exploration.

I am sensitive to some elements of the spirit behind this claim. But I disagree with it. It is simply not up to us what limits there are. They either are or are not. And that was really my point.

What i responded to in Eric's initial mail was the idea that not only is everything we "know" wrong (I am confident that it is), but that it could be wrong in a way which invalidated all of our efforts to understand the universe.

That it could be wrong in a Cartesian fashion: with the whole universe in fact put into play by a creator who has left no trace of himself. Accepting this, to me, makes a mockery of being human. Frankly, if for one moment I conceived that this was possible, I would exercise the only free choice left to me: I would excuse myself from this joke at my expense.

cheerio chaps,
tim