On Oct 14, 2008, at 4:39 AM, Chris Doss wrote:
> ...the earth doesn't have problems. We have problems, and other
> living beings may have problems. Not only, barring some extreme
> science-fiction or religious scenario, is the earth going to outlast
> us by quite some time, it's a rock...
I think we should remember that the word "earth" has more than one meaning. When we talk about "Earth" (always to be capitalized) we are talking about astronomy/cosmology, referring to a particular concentration of matter among a near-infinite quantity of other such concentrations embedded in an unbounded plasma permeated with electrical circuits of immeasureable power. When we talk about "the earth" we are talking from an anthropocentric point of view, referring to the general complex of natural systems ("nature") from which we derive and within which we maintain our peculiar species-existence.
Since the difference in sense is always contextually clear, playing on
it is silly.
>
> ...the earth/nature/nonhuman stuff (+ human stuff) is not a
> harmonious system. It is a system in flux that has periods of
> relative stability that look harmonious from the standpoint of short
> human lives.
That is a ludicrous conception of "harmony" that has no place for dissonance, no need to bend the bow or tune the lyre. Herakleitos: "Things taken together are whole and not whole, something which is being brought together and brought apart, which is in tune and out of tune; out of all things there comes a unity, and out of a unity all things" (fr. 10)
Shane Mage
>
> "This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos