A Johnny-Come-Lately Approach to Vegetarian Ethics

This is weeks late, and it is probably a less-than-logical appeal to history, but I ripped it from the pages of Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.

Argument: Animals eat meat so humans, being animals, have no intrinsic responsibility to not eat meat.

Rebuttal: Citing the dawn of the agricultural revolution as a catalyst, humans have separated themselves from nature by way totalitarian farming methods. No longer basing their existence on the migratory habits of game, or the availability of an edible plant in their area, humans became masters of their own destiny, growing food for themselves in a regimented, controlled, more or less invariable environment--this being even more true in modern day. Because of this, there has been more or less a steady source of grain, vegetables, fruits and legumes readily available for our consumption.

Living in a modern society where these aforementioned products are available to us, it is reasonable to presume that animal protein is no more necessary to us than it is to the animals we have been eating, since most nutrients we absorb through that meat are, again, available to us from industrialized farming.

Ergo, in order to fulfill a creed which I hold to be ethically important, "Minimize pain" the eating of non-human animals is unnecessary and therefore unethical because it produces unnecessary pain is beings capable of feeling it.

*I flew away from my first point, when humans developed totalitarian agriculture and domestication, we effectively removed ourselves from the natural world of "survival of the fittest" because we were no longer competition for resources, the other animals developed as such, free from the sapien predators they once had. This is very convoluted.

my understanding of multiverse theory...

comes directly from a webcomic

Well not entirely, but i think the diagram is a good one.

from what i understand, and i like this understanding because it allows for time travel, there are an infinite number of universes each reflecting a certain effect of actions taken in this one. i flip a coin, in another universe the coin falls heads, in mine, it falls tails. A series of universes where every action that may potentially has happened happen. These universes exist independently of each other and by the manipulation of time-space, one can be sent into an alternate past (the past would have to be alternate for, as Kim states in the comic, our past has no record of time-travelers, so our future must not contain any. )

So mr. time traveler gets in his ship in the future, pushes the button and is sent to 2008, he is actually opening an alternate universe (this also reconciles the grandfather clause, because as an impartial observer of this universe, he has no effect on the future of his own universe and thereby can not effectively kill his grandfather or hitler's grandfather, or anyone, and have it effect his own timeline.)

Also, for your reading pleasure i submit Robert Heinlein's "All You Zombies" not multiverse theory but a great story about time travel.

War of Mind vs. Brain

This is late, but Wednesday we discussed the difference between the mind and brain. One person remarked that she believed it could proceed with the soul after life is passed. This is obviously one train of thinking, as an atheist, I do not believe the same, but I am not going to pretend I have the gall to say either one is definitively wrong or right.

It is my opinion that the mind and soul are one single, immaterial construct of the mind. One commonly known as the self.

Now, as I am not a neuroscientist, I can not attest to my theory that the human soul is of human, not divine design. With the evolutionary development of the neocortex, and the ability to process complex, abstract ideas such as time and philosophy. Once they grasped the concept of their mortality, they were imbued with soul. Not an eternal soul that will live on in the great thereafter, but one conscious for this world where it develops and reacts and adapt to what is presented to it, perhaps, the mind affects reality as much as reality affects the mind.

A Brief Introduction

For those who do not yet know me, I'm Ryan. I'm an English/Comm major, concentrating in journalism, with a planned minor in math or general science.

The title of my blog is a reference to Kurt Vonnegut.

I have been attempting to reconcile my personal ethics with a particular school of philosophy. Having been drawn to the meaningless charm of nihilism.

I like feeling trains pass by my window.

I'm not very good at blogging, so I will probably end up writing a paper.

I'm a vegetarian for ethical reasons that I don't mind discussing rationally.