Re: [ontolog-forum] Car attitudes

[Kathryn Blackmond Laskey <klaskey@xxxxxxx>]

John,    (01)

>The assumption that agency somehow springs into existence with the
>advent of human beings or even with the advent of life postulates
>a fundamental discontinuity in nature.  Such a discontinuity would
>truly be a "miracle".    (02)

Not necessarily any more than a phase transition is a "miracle."    (03)

>...continuity is the default assumption,    (04)

Not in catastrophe theory.  Not in systems that exhibit phase transitions.    (05)

We don't yet have a theory of what makes for life.  Till we do, I'm 
an agnostic on the matter of the fundamental discontinuity.    (06)

Kathy    (07)

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