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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17308