Hello Rhiannon - good to see you here again. I appreciate the point that you, Shaker and others have made, that since we are part of the order of nature, then it is absurd and pointless to see ourselves as having some ultimate value as individuals (I wonder, though, just how close you and Shaker are on this matter - you believing in some sort of 'spiritual' order and all).
But doesn't Dicky Dawkins take a stand against this sort of idea? Namely, that though we are nothing but the result of natural selection and the promptings of the 'selfish' gene, we can - since we have become conscious and potentially sensitive beings - act as if we had the ability to override our genetic inheritance?
Then, of course, along comes John Gray (Straw Dogs etc) and says: nope, whatever you do, you're still only part of the order of nature, so it's no point thinking that you can 'improve' things at all?
But even Gray thinks modern dentistry is a good thing 
. Perhaps getting away from the main theme....
Hi, Dicky, good to see you too.
You know I'm a pantheist I think, and to me that means we're all part of one big neutral whole. Not entirely sure what order I'm supposed to believe in.
I've never wasted my retina on Dawkins, but as you say we are also conscious (although we aren't alone in that) and we have these complicated things called emotions, and they can make us do what appear to be selfless things. But are they really? The obvious example is buying a very special gift - we spend hours pondering the right thing, go to huge effort to source it, wrap it lovingly, give it to the recipient - and they look mildly indifferent to it. Whose reaction to the present matters most to us in that moment?
Aside from that we have in varying degrees - those with personality disorders aside - a need to do the right thing. I think this accounts for so much heroism, self sacrifice and so on, as well as etc small acts of kindness and loving that happen every day, apart from the fact that we like to feel good about ourselves. But the thing about not doing the right thing is that it's like wearing a shoe with a pebble in it - it's uncomfortable, it hurts after a bit, and if you don't deal with it you end up with a hell of a mess.
And there's this love thing. My kids aren't neutral parts of the whole, they are the most precious creatures on the planet and I will go to all kinds of lengths to make sure they are ok because them not being ok hurts them but it also hurts me more than anything ever. And so this involves hurting other parts of the whole - hence the car, the washing machine, medicines, food.
