[...] >I don't see the distinction, frankly. You act because you were programmed >that way by your genes, your environment, or some complex interaction >between them. The degree to which genes, environment, or their interaction >prevails affects social planning but without free will we're robots and >there are bad robots (Grr! Arggh!) but not criticizable ones. I think that we're talking past one another, a bit. When I suggested that scandal couldn't exist if all Dragaeran characteristics were inborn, I meant that the very concept of law and social censur would have no function because Dragaerans, quite literally, couldn't act in any way but the way that they do, no matter what their environment. Laws and social customs work precisely because they act as environmental factors used to modify behaviors. In this case, the distinction between nurture and nature is cogent and important, whether or not one wants to consider us robots. [1] To use Dennett's terminology: are Dragaerans sphexish? If a given Dragaeran encounters a given circumstance, will that given Dragaerans behavior always be a given result, regardless of its experiences, or will it be able to act in a way that could not be predicted simply knowing its nature? Clearly Dragaerans aren't utterly sphexish, but are they more sphexish than humans? I think that they are a *bit* more... enough that you actually can justifiably apply broad stereotypes to them that aren't simply the results of racist bigotry, but not *much* more so. I think that environment is sufficiently influential and unpredictable that the members of a given House will display a wide range of characteristics that can't be easily explained as simply being manifestations of their House Nature. Nor, to return to the original point, safely derive an aspect of a House's nature by observing the behavior of a single member of the house. Hence, I don't think that the fact that Khaavren became melancholy can be used as a good basis to presume that Tiassa are, thus, prone to melancholy. [...] >These are all good points in my view - Why, thank you! >what I was getting at was that the >House character can combine polarities - so there's the nurturing dragon >mother along with the fierce one, as _PG_ and several (I believe) Vlad >novels put it. I can see Tiassas being known for >both cat-like curiosity >and for cat-like withdrawal. I think that one can certainly make that speculation, but, again, I don't think that one can do so on the *basis* of one character's withdrawal. I would also note that not all cats (think tigers) are known for displaying withdrawal. Since Tiassa are described as being like panthers with batlike (!) wings, I hesitate to suppose that they're much like house cats. This isn't, of course, to say that you're wrong. For all I know, maybe this really is a general trait of the Tiassa. I just don't think that we have nearly enough evidence to suggest that it is. Well... I've certainly used up a lot of words, today. :) -- Andrew Lias [1] On the topic of robots: if one wants to suppose that a lack of free will makes us robots, I would suggest that this doesn't diminish us but, rather, vastly enhances the concept of a robot since the concept must now include beings of immense subtlety and intelligence, much in the same way that noting that life is a chemical process says something wonderful about chemistry rather than something denigrating about life. _________________________________________________________________ Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail