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To: "Wilkerson, Mark FCLDA" MWilkerson@fugro.com From: Scott Sinnock ssinnock@netzero.com 6:15pm, September 7, 2012 Subject: RE: OK, here's one, actually 2 Animals? Souls? Yes of course, if you can tell me what a soul is. Dogs, cats, birds all have a sense of humor, I am pretty sure. Snakes don't nor do spiders that guard all the entrances to my castle; but they are aware, perhaps, probably not "self" aware, but certainly aware. A soul? I'm not sure about that one, I'm not sure I have one. No, I haven't encountered Amit Goswami, but I have encountered Buddha, Judy Grabiner, Susie, and you. Judy is MY latest informant. "The Great Courses" is a commercial DVD lecture series which serves as the discussion basis of most old-folk's "classes" I take at the local junior college. I occasionally order a "course" or two myself, including, most recently, Judy's "Mathematics, Philosophy, and the "Real World"" (her title's quotes). I am basically at the point where mathematics seems to be all that's left that provides any hope of consensus in disputes, and Judy eloquently hoists that shibboleth on the petard of Euclid's fifth postulate, the "parallel" postulate. Thirty-six lectures on that limited subject and, of course, its implications for science, art, philosophy, culture, and just about everything else we do or think. She ranges from Plato's creation of ideals as more real and perfect than mere corrupted "reality" (read God's perfection and man's sin) to modern societies "inalienable" truths about human rights, and modern art's claim to have unique special talents and skills that allow only "artists" to "see" the "truth" of "freedom" exemplified by non-Euclidian geometry, all from Euclid's fifth postulate; heavy stuff. |