Philosophy; Was: Re: Draft Spec mark 2

Kevin Thiele kevin.thiele at PI.CSIRO.AU
Sat Sep 2 08:01:52 CEST 2000


| Bob Morris
|
| p.s. After about a year of hanging out with a variety of biologists,
| I've come to think of the taxonomists as the of grammarians
| and etymologists (not /entomologists/) of Life:

Another way of looking at it: It's quite possible that the ability to
construct (determine?) the etymology of Life is the best definer for the
human condition - tool-using is no good, language is no good, even logic is
no good, because animals do all these things. But there's no indication that
a chimpanzee in a forest has a TAXONOMY of the forest (though they may have
representations and tags in their minds for things that are good to eat,
something quite different). If this is correct, then perhaps taxonomists are
the highest form of organic life.

|Taxonomists, God bless 'em. You can't live with 'em and you can't
|live without 'em.




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