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From: gary@hpfelg.HP.COM (Gary Jackoway)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Thinking about the reduction of entropy.
Message-ID: <550002@hpfelg.HP.COM>
Date: 20 Mar 89 18:53:23 GMT
References: <46385@linus.UUCP>
Organization: HP Elec. Design Div. -FtCollins
Lines: 22

> In article <1339@hub.ucsb.edu> silber@sbphy.ucsb.edu asks:

>  > Why SHOULD matter think?

> So that it may impede the heat death of the Universe by working
> against the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

> --Barry Kort
----------

Hmm, can we actually impede the natural process of the Second Law?
Sure, we can move water uphill, but it takes us more energy to do
that, creating more heat loss in the long run.  We are a PART of
nature; we cannot work against nature.  Western philosophy has so
stressed the human-nature dichotomy that we think of ourselves as
separate, much as we think our minds are separate from our bodies.
Eastern philosophies (and here I generalize a bit) recognize the
close relationship between human and nature.  Humankind is much
more intricately tied to nature than we have been trained to believe.

Alive in Colorado,
Gary Jackoway