On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 15:56:48 +0000, J C <greyw01f at hotmail.com> wrote: > Gah. If there's one thing that gets me going, it's humans insisting to > various degrees (you actually aren't so bad) that they are separate from > nature. > > Man's conflict with "himself" is the SAME THING as man's conflict with > nature. > > Sorry. Guess you hit a button there or something. > > Nature is the one thing that we all belief we're separate from, or > "above". But guess what, we're not. We act according to human NATURE. > We cannot avoid acting according to human NATURE. Ironically enough, > part of that human NATURE is a tendency to be arrogant and elitist. > > Anyway... > > Jon Sure. But "nature" is also used sort of like "gentile", meaning everything that isn't "man". As "animal" is sometimes used to mean "all animals except man", or "ape" as "all apes except man". These are useful definitions, as long as we're clear on their meanings. The study of "nature", is pretty much the study of everything. That's meaningless. A naturalist isn't interested in humans except for our impact on the rest of nature. Going off on a bit of a tangent are a couple of similar observations: A woman says "Why do all men act like boys instead of men?". Obviously that's how men act. Mr. Spock is always astonished when humans act like humans. I'm rational enough to not be astonished when dogs act like dogs. Why isn't he rational enough to expect the obvious? I haven't seen Dragons be surprised when Dzur act like Dzur. But that can be misleading. A member of a more devious race might be better at disguising his behavior - and the races might not be as homogenious as they think. I bet Dragaerans are subject to being fooled by stereotypes more even than we are. -- Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/