>
> In a message dated 5/10/2000 8:06:07 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
> pentacle@enternet.com.au (Emlyn) writes:
>
> > No matter how maliciously we choose to wield our growing power over
> > nature, we can never begin to approach in capriciousness and sheer
> > mind-boggling indifference the actions displayed by nature herself.
>
> I like to think of nature as doing all it can to eventually
> eliminate death, become compassionate to every living being..., given
> what it has to work with. Like a proud parent, I think of it has
> being happy that it has finally successfully created beings
> intelligent and powerful enough to start making a difference in all
> this.
>
This is such an important point! We are nature. We are as much a part of the
universe as anything else is. The processes of selection that gave us form
also gave us the ability to change the world around us, even violating those
existing processes of (biological) selection which produced us. That we
affect the universe has no moral implication, except where it impacts other
beings.
Ethics, and morality, can only exist in an environment of beings. We have
duties to behave ethically to each other, to less intelligent species, to
intelligences we create, and to ETs if they are out there. There is no
ethical duty between humanity and the universe. None. It is a mindless
machine, ours to do with as we will. Before it does unto us.
Emlyn
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