X-Message-Number: 17308
From: "George Smith" <>
References: <>
Subject: Dr. Spot answers Mike Perry
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 22:40:47 -0700

Mike Perry wrote in Message #17297:

"Why fight with "six guns
blazing" if you--and others--are not seen as something worth fighting for?
It seems clear enough that a sense of self-worth *could* be a trap but
lacking it could so easily be one too, and perhaps a greater one. A better
stance would, I think, recognize that there are appropriate and
inappropriate ways of thinking about and valuing oneself and others. One
should search for what is right and best rather than summarily rejecting
any idea that the self has worth."

Mike, you don't have to know what you are worth in order to want to blow
away someone trying to kill you or people you love.

Again, I have turned to my cat and professional associate, Dr. Spot, and
asked him if indeed before he would fight with some rather ugly thing (a
dog) if he first had to cognitively determine (1) HIS self worth and then
(2) the comparative worth of the ugly thing.

Dr. Spot asked me why it is that I keep making all of these valuations in
the first place.

He basically holds that the problem lies in the assumption widely held by
monkeys that this is somehow a fundamental aspect of reality when, indeed,
it is merely an unnecessary cognitive trap.

"But what do you expect from talking monkeys?"  he said.

George Smith
CI member and totally worthless

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