Subject: Re: virus: Technology (was manifest science) Date sent: Mon, 7 Jun 1999 08:52:45 -0400 From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "Church of Virus" <virus@lucifer.com> Send reply to: virus@lucifer.com
> On 6/7/99 08:25, James Veverka said this-
>
> >Wade, I dont see "body parts", I see a "whole" which
> >creates!.................jim
>
> Well, I'm glad you're so holistic, (although I hope I see that lump in
> your cheek), and I do see your point, but we are not solid things with no
> variated surface. We can, and do, use our various parts as 'tools'. I've
> used my hand as a hammer, as a wedge, as a shovel, etc. I've used my leg
> as a battering ram, a step, a bridge, etc..
>
Wrong; that's putting the horse after the cart. We originally refined
such tools to mimic and extend capacities for effectual action
inherent in the human form. To highlight the distinction, what part
of your body have you used as a wheel lately? None - that was an
invention extrapolated from rolling rocks rather than straining
sinews and leveraged bones.
>
> Yes, we are 'creating' uses for these parts which match the utility of
> simple machines (i.e. tools, although our body parts _have_ these
> qualities and may well have evolved because of that), and as such, part
> of the 'creation' is seeing them _as_ parts and not some whole. The act
> of creation requires this separation, this division of qualities.
>
> Of course, seeing the body as a 'whole' is, well, partly unmemetic of
> you, really....
>
> But I like to think we have adopted 'not-a-body-part' definition of
> 'tool'. It is sufficient to see the utility of body parts.
>
That is the reasonable one.
>
> And, one of the Virian lessons should be the physics of simple machines.
>
> - Wade
>