Hi Mario

I didn't mean that to sound bitter, it was just an allusion to the main character in Dostoevsky's most famous novel, Crime and Punishment. Dostoevsky, who was a genius and suffered from a form of epilepsy which caused him to have visions of God, makes an excellent point on how it's ultimately inhuman to be too rational, that without taking some things on faith we might as well just kill each other to guarantee that the smartest amongst us thrive and the ignorant perish.

You see, there's more to life than reason alone, if you don't have feelings, emotions, passions, love, a desire for some kind of cosmic feeling, then you are not fully human, no matter how much math you know. Of course being rational is also part of being human, but in my opinion you should never allow one aspect of being human override the other, even when they are inconsistent. Instead of science OR religion why not reason AND feeling? If they don't get along well, leave each to its own.

I do get the feeling that Alex thinks that understanding nature from a mathematical point of view is all there is to life. I'd rather see the earth explode in an atomic holocaust than be surrounded by six billion biological robots. But hey, that's just me.

Warm regards

• Rationality doesn't neccesarily make you a biological robot - stormcrow - August 3, 2001 - 15:58 UTC
  • If there is a higher self - yanniru - August 3, 2001 - 18:00 UTC
• Couldn't be said better - harvey1 - August 3, 2001 - 16:37 UTC
  • I'm sure it could - aurino - August 3, 2001 - 17:32 UTC
    • and English is not your first language (!) nt - harvey1 - August 3, 2001 - 18:02 UTC
      • I did that on purpose :) (nt) - aurino - August 3, 2001 - 18:23 UTC
        • Maths is a way of explaining ... - perseus - August 5, 2001 - 11:16 UTC