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Originally posted by rgoldswo:

First of all William, we are arguing apples and oranges here. I do not dispute that there is profound beauty in the world. I do not dispute that apart from nature man has created profound beauty (in the form of architecture, technology, and a few blondes in Australia--quite a few perhaps, quite a few more as the more I drink--I digress, as I often do). Secondly, what I do dispute is that man is the top of the pyramid of life on this planet. Whales and dolphins, it could be argued, may be many times more intelligent than man, yet they have not devised anything like Aikido (that I know of).

In his book "Full House" Stephen Jay Gould continually points out that commonly accepted paradigm of the pyramid of life where viruses and bacteria are at the bottom followed by colonial organisms, then fish, birds, animals, and finally man at the pinnacle is wrong. If I may quote from his book on page 215:

"...Moreover, we have strong reason to suspect that the loss of most, and survival of just a few, occurred more through a distribution of lottery tickets than by victories for predictable cause based on higher levels of progress among winners. In the "pure" lottery model, "tickets" are distributed at random and few initial lineages received such blessing. Any replay distributes the tickets to another random set, and leads to a radically different group of survivors. Since our own lineage of vertebrates held tenuous position among these initial experiments...we must assume that most replays would not include the survival and flourishing of vertebrates. All of us--from sharks to rhinos to humans--would then have been excluded from the history of life..."

He then goes on to say on page 216:

"...If one small and odd lineage of fishes had not evolved fins capable of bearing weight on land (though evolved for different reasons in lakes and seas), terrestrial vertebrates would never have arisen. If a large extraterrestrial object--the ultimate random bolt from the blue--had not triggered the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago, mammals would still be small creatures, confined to nooks and crannies of a dinosaur

Personally, I find that pre-destination a bit depressing whereas the odds of something totally unexpected for our future a bit exciting.

I do not mean to belittle the human race. My personal opinion is that we should try as best we can to live honestly and treat each other fairly. How we treat each other is very important. Constant self-examination and striving for improvement, making our lives better for ourselves and those around us is very noble. But, are we that insecure that we have to order living things in some cardinal fashion and place humans at the top to make ourselves feel good.

I see nothing wrong with humbling ourselves as human beings, to see the value of all living things, viruses, bacteria, insects, plants, etc.

--Robert Goldsworthy

Perhaps you have misconstrued my words?

As to coincidences, yes, I agree they are inevitable. But how many of them should I accept? In the midst of entropy?

Course, like I said, maybe its just my lack of imagination.

Ron (we can discuss my personal beliefs further offline if you desire...)

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Originally posted by Ron Tisdale:
I see nothing in my post that points to pre-destination...or not being humble, or not valuing other creatures/things, or "order[ing] living things in some cardinal fashion and place[ing] humans at the top to make ourselves feel good" ...

Perhaps you have misconstrued my words?...

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I did not see any of those things in your words per se. I have no doubts about you being a humble person (and just a fine human being all around); however, a lot of humanity is not--humble that is.

I guess my argument is this, humans do tend to place themselves at the top of all biology on earth--along with their human constructs (i.e., Aikido)--in a cardinal fashion as though evolution would invetiably lead to that point. Often times paradigms like this are so taken for granted that the premise is not even mentioned, it is simply assumed true. I just don't agree with this nor do I think it would happen on another planet (or even on this one if circumstances were different at any point in earth's history).

Too often philisophical discussions end up being a lot of mental masturbation (the way I see it).

--Robert Goldsworthy

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If a large extraterrestrial object--the ultimate random bolt from the blue--had not triggered the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago, mammals would still be small creatures, confined to nooks and crannies of a dinosaur

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If there is a "madman" answer that is not a rhetorical question or a caustic comment, what is it?

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If you don't like the answer, repeating the question won't help.

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Originally posted by madman:

If you don't like the answer, repeating the question won't help.

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Yeah, I have noticed that replying to Madman in echo or mirror fashion doesn't seem to get through to him, maybe his alter ego of Mike will do better, eh?

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Originally posted by madman:

The dinosaurs aren't extinct

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Originally posted by Joe Suburi:
...Even if humanity is not the apex of biological evolution, do we think that aikido is as "universal" as O Sensei often stated it is?

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I don't believe everything that anybody says (i.e., O'Sensie, Gould, Saotome, Einstein). It's about as universal as math or music I suppose. I think there is a "which came first, the chicken or the egg" dilemma here. I think Aikido uses "universal" principles but not unlike Kung Fu, Boxing, or wrestling, they are probably founded on good old Archimedian (sp?) concepts, "give me a place to stand and a lever long enough and I could move the world" that have been around forever, long before Aikido.

--Robert Goldsworthy

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Originally posted by madman:

The dinosaurs aren't extinct

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Originally posted by madman:
What makes you think that either one would put up with BS?

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Maybe it was something about the way Aikido makes us better people ..... but there are exceptions to every rule, isn't there.

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Maybe it was something about the way Aikido makes us better people

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Who fed you this load of dung?

Thank-you.