Seraphim

"By trying to "lure" the females in, what does it imply ? To the female of the species, its a truly master piece which caught their eye. Is it not ? Didn't artistic pieces acts the same way to you ?"

My reply : The shiny things that bird collect are made into a nest and THAT is what catches the female birds' eyes. They come, get screwed, laid eggs and raise their young. NOTHING artistic about that.

Same way as some of you pick a girl/guy/kids/whatever up from a bar (no offence, just plain sarcasm), you wear your best clothes, flash a big car, some gold/platinum cards and walk around like you own the damn joint. Any artistic quality in that? Nothing but ANIMAL instincts.

"As I've said before, its just for idle musing. We have alot of spare time now due to the progress we made by specialising in the cranium matter. Do you know that animals kept in the zoo are noted to behave differently then when they are in the wild ? Why is that so ? Does it have something to do with the fact that they now have more time to relax ? "

My reply : So animals (including humans) make Arts because they are bored to death? Sounds reasonable to me.

"Why should they consider painting to be aesthetic ? Have you ever try painting in the ocean ? Do you know that whales don't just product sounds to communicate ? They have their "songs" which they made for purposes that until now no human can deduce the use for. Mayhaps these are what they consider as aesthetic ?"

My reply : Like you said, we do not know what the purpose of whale songs are ... it sounds like Song of the Fayth to me (FFX, for Final Fantasy fans). But it is a good example, so I will take that Whale are creatures next to men who makes something artistic for purpose unknown (till the reason for it had been found). Any other creatures?

"Every day sufferings ? To the eye of the beholder, its either sufferings or bliss. Sufferings are sufferings only to the ones thinking they are sufferings. The Buddha teaches about sufferings. To be able to perceive these sufferings one must think like the Buddha & when that happens, one finds that these so call sufferings are actually nothing but illusions. "

My reply : Very good.
To make long explaination short, we suffer by hugging into illusions.

Corgan Sow

There are species which have characteristics that cannot be imitated by other species. How come only spiders can cast webs? How come only parrots can imitate human speech and not other animals? Why apparently only lemmings commit suicide for no apparent reason? You made judgement of homo sapiens superiority yet you claimed also we yet do not understand fully the working minds of other animals. Animals like dolphins probably have their own aesthetic qualities, and we may never find out totally what it is."

My reply : That is one of the LAMEST excuse I ever heard. You are applying that the reason why animals don't behave like humans is because they don't have physical similarities such as humans?

Physical similarities? I didn't implied that, read again.

In everything an animal does, there is a purpose to it, which usually either to survive, find food or sexual advantage over other creature of it's own species. Take a dog for example, you can teach it to do tricks and it will do it as long as you give it something to eat. To a dog, doing tricks is a way of obtaining food.

You assert again. Give me some articles to read, for Chrissakes.

There is nothing special about it. As for humans, Why do they create Art if they don't get anything except maybe satisfaction (some, not ALL) from looking at it?

You can yap it as evidence if we have capability to fully understand an animal's working minds. Till then, please do not assume.


"Homo sapiens cannot appreciate other animals aesthetic qualities. Can you expect monkey to groove to Bach? No? Can a fly stare at painting of Mona Lisa for even a few minutes? No. What is "cheap" to you about aesthetic qualities of animals like beaver dams are actually meaningful to beaver themselves. You only assume, that is not fact. "

My reply : Monkey don't groove over Bach (his music at least) simply because the monkey don't get anything out of it, but studies did indicate that monkeys do attend to listen to music.
Fly don't fly over Mona lisa because Mona Lisa not edible.
Beavers don't know the word or meaning of "cheap" because they don't have anything that has value to keep and refer.

You silly, silly fool... <img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" /> Of course each species's aesthetic qualities are alien to each other in the matter of taste!

Come back with an argument next time. Thank you.

I'm afraid all your arguments so far failed to link anything to God...I don't need to come back for a second helping...

kctan

Originally posted by Seraphim:

The thing here is that it catches the females eyes. Why did the female chose this particular nest out of so many others ? Why did a piece of drawing catches your eyes out of so many others ? Why did that cocky gal/guy/kid capture your eyes out of so many others ? Its not just animal instincts I'm afraid. As I've said before what you considered 'artistic' is not what others or animals will consider as 'artistic'.

Not bored to death, just having more time to relax.

What I'm trying to show here is that what you said by 'creating artistic thingies' as a proof of humans uniqueness is not a proof at all as what we considered as 'artistic' is not what animals would consider as 'artistic' at all & so far no humans can tell what are thingies that animals will consider to be 'artistic' too. Until proven otherwise, we evolved normally just the same as all the other animals.

So my advice for you is to stop hugging onto this illusion & move on.

The Buddha said "follow the Dharma not me". What matter is the Dharma not the karma or having a soul or not.

BTW From what I've studied & 'researched' the buddha is most likely a freethinker & he is 100% human & not a god.

himynameisPwn

Seraphim, so, you say many animals other than humans can have a soul because of NDE's. So, all dogs go to heaven? If all these animals and humans can have a soul, then humans aren't special anyway.

Of course, NDE's in particular prove nothing, because we know so little about it. Just because we don't know how time works in particular, does that mean its some supernatural occurance making time flow correctly, and slower in some places than others? A supernatural explanation(souls must exist because we can't explain NDE's, even though we can infer its just pre death brain activity), doesn't fit, ever. how do you know its a soul and not magical pixies whispering into your ear? Theres no evidence for eithe claim.

Seraphim

"Physical similarities? I didn't implied that, read again. "

My reply : OK then, what are you implying? That animals have their own qualities and we shouldn't put our standard on them?

"You assert again. Give me some articles to read, for Chrissakes. "

My reply : No need to articles. Give any action where an animal does something and I will tell you why it is doing it - for survival, food or sexual advantage.

"You can yap it as evidence if we have capability to fully understand an animal's working minds. Till then, please do not assume."

My reply : HAHAHAHAHA.
That's smart, so your statement is "We don't understand them, Don't link them with us". The funny thing is, IF Darwin thought like that, we couldn't have Darwin's theory.

"You silly, silly fool... Of course each species's aesthetic qualities are alien to each other in the matter of taste!"

My reply : Yeah, but at least scientists could show us some example where animals keeps something not so valueable for sake of keeping it. So far, nothing.

"I'm afraid all your arguments so far failed to link anything to God...I don't need to come back for a second helping... "

My reply : I told everyone that I'm doing it in stages - 1st stage - proving there is a Soul, 2nd stage - Essense of heaven and hell and 3rd stage - God.

Seraphim

"The thing here is that it catches the females eyes. Why did the female chose this particular nest out of so many others ? Why did a piece of drawing catches your eyes out of so many others ? Why did that cocky gal/guy/kid capture your eyes out of so many others ? Its not just animal instincts I'm afraid. As I've said before what you considered 'artistic' is not what others or animals will consider as 'artistic'."

My reply : Why females likes this particular nest out of so many? Logical choice will be it is taken some time to make. The female have to choose a strong nest to laid eggs and the one that burst to a million pieces as soon as a egg drop onto it IS not exactly something to consider strong. Maybe (my assumption) this way, it will encourage the male to work harder to make better nest so females could mate with them.

Further more, if a male works hard to build a strong nest, I assume that they will work just as hard to bring food for the younglings when they hatch. At least, this is my assumptions.

As for the cocky guy, gal, whatever catching your eyes, there is nothing that even resembles love, only hormone and emotions. There is no such thing as True Love (other than in the movie).

"Not bored to death, just having more time to relax."

My reply : If this applies to modern men, I can understand and accept, however, it doesn't apply to prehistoric men because they have quite a schedule to keep. It is not easy to hunt and fish(men) or gather food (women) with all those dangerous creatures running around, you know. So I don't think they had too much free time to sit and admire the scenery in those days (my assumption).

"What I'm trying to show here is that what you said by 'creating artistic thingies' as a proof of humans uniqueness is not a proof at all as what we considered as 'artistic' is not what animals would consider as 'artistic' at all & so far no humans can tell what are thingies that animals will consider to be 'artistic' too. Until proven otherwise, we evolved normally just the same as all the other animals."

My reply : That's stretching a bit far, no? Human make Arts (no apparent reason), start Cultivating the land by slash and burn method (which other creatures in Earth history ever did), record history (NO creature ever did this) and finally came out with religion (definately no creature ever did this either). And you still think we evolved normally?

"So my advice for you is to stop hugging onto this illusion & move on.

The Buddha said "follow the Dharma not me". What matter is the Dharma not the karma or having a soul or not.

BTW From what I've studied & 'researched' the buddha is most likely a freethinker & he is 100% human & not a god. "

My reply : Thanks for the advice but do you know which is Dharma (Which means Truth, same as Satyam) and which is not?

And Buddha is thought as "God" only by the Hindus simply because in Bhagavad Gita, Krishna mentioned that He will come and put His followers in the right track whenever they need His guidance, so when Gautama appeared as Buddha, Hindus accepted him as (or at least part of) Vishnu and his words as part of Gita.

Seraphim

"Seraphim, so, you say many animals other than humans can have a soul because of NDE's. So, all dogs go to heaven? If all these animals and humans can have a soul, then humans aren't special anyway."

My reply : What is heaven and hell will be explained later. For now, your statement that humans aren't very different is interesting one.

Animals has souls, so do plants and human. So why human special? The answer is - They are not. To see a difference between the three is SAME as seeing the different between a PC with Pentium 1 processor, another PC with Pentium 2 Processor and a Pentium 4 Processor. You can fit an hard disk to any of this PCs and they will all read from the same hard disk, but the processing speed will be different between one another.

In same context, the soul can fit all animals and humans, but it is the BRAIN which depends on how much it can get out of the Soul (remember - I did state that the Soul does the Questioning part for the Brain).

"Of course, NDE's in particular prove nothing, because we know so little about it. Just because we don't know how time works in particular, does that mean its some supernatural occurance making time flow correctly, and slower in some places than others? A supernatural explanation(souls must exist because we can't explain NDE's, even though we can infer its just pre death brain activity), doesn't fit, ever. how do you know its a soul and not magical pixies whispering into your ear? Theres no evidence for eithe claim. "

My reply : Like you said, we don't know much about NDE for now, but drug such as Ketamine will be useful in the future in such studies.
As for magic pixies? You think such things exist? The brain may (MAY) play tricks on you, but at least it doesn't make you into a loony.

Corgan Sow

My reply : I told everyone that I'm doing it in stages - 1st stage - proving there is a Soul, 2nd stage - Essense of heaven and hell and 3rd stage - God.

I'm afraid you can't cover that with your problems of ego confronting everyone in this topic and that...energy topic. My advice: grow up.

And Buddha is thought as "God" only by the Hindus simply because in Bhagavad Gita, Krishna mentioned that He will come and put His followers in the right track whenever they need His guidance, so when Gautama appeared as Buddha, Hindus accepted him as (or at least part of) Vishnu and his words as part of Gita.

Now I know Mr Sephiroth, Seraphim as...a Hindu. Thanks for prothelysezing, but no thanks.

As for others, I'll be surprised if anyone agrees with you on those statements.

Seraphim

"I'm afraid you can't cover that with your problems of ego confronting everyone in this topic and that...energy topic. My advice: grow up."

My reply : Look who is talking about Ego. You can't answer quarter of the question I ask and all the defence you have is your grudge against Christianity to fuel your hatred. I know how far I will fly, Boy, I don't need your advice.

"Now I know Mr Sephiroth, Seraphim as...a Hindu. Thanks for prothelysezing, but no thanks."

My reply : Whatever ... not in mood to entertain stupid remarks. As for my statements, it is for those who is wondering why Hindus treat Buddha as a God while he was just another man.

"As for others, I'll be surprised if anyone agrees with you on those statements. "

My reply : I never asked anyone to agree with anything I say, they ask, I answer, they choose whether to accept the answer or not, either case, it's none of your business.

Grizzly

Corgan Sow and Seraphim,

Please refrain from attacking each other and stick to attacking each others IDEAS (if you wish to continue). Calling someone a fool or egotistical does not normally aid in the discussion.

Grizzly
Moderator