Interesting thought. I’ve thought of that possibility too (though I don’t yet “believe” in it… I’ve just “thought of it as a possibility” at this point.)

Also, I don’t understand the “slow connectivity” comment. It is WiFi enabled and for extra you can buy a 3G enabled iPad to connect to AT&T. There’s been no comment about its capability whenever 4G networks go online. Its connectivity should be as good as the WiFi or AT&T service is for any other device.

The iPad may not be the best option if you’re looking strictly for an e-reader but I think its much greater capabilities outweigh its slightly greater cost compared to the other e-readers. Of course, its not out yet, so its a little premature to say for sure. But I’m looking forward to checking it out and hopefully getting one eventually.

Aren’t there important differences between natural and artificial selection? One being the speed at which it happens. Another being what kinds of traits are being selected (helpful in the nature environment or not?).

One also wonders what points in our evolutionary history (or is that too anthropocentric?) God intervened? When, or if He stopped intervening, wouldn’t we simply evolve back to what nature had been selecting, sort of like dogs returned to the wild?

Although the idea of God’s creating us by “shepherding” our ancestors is fascinating.

My experience with Mormons is limited, having only be exposed to the religion through a sizeable portion of my extended family on my father’s side that’s Mormon, Adam, and a number of students that I’ve had over the years. My first real exposure was about seven years ago when my Aunt, who was Mormon, died of cancer. What I found really amazing was how the whole community got involved. And by this, I don’t just mean that they attended the service and funeral, but rather they were involved with the family at a very ground floor level, involving themselves in every aspect of the mourning and support for the family. It was then that I discovered that, at least in their particular sect, each of them would meet weekly with a partner to discuss moral and spiritual issues. I was extremely impressed with this level of involvement or community building.

Later on, when I met Adam and talked about these things more, he told me about how the church hierarchy is structured and how people basically rotate through various positions in the church, one year serving as treasurer, another teaching school (Adam’s a hoot and teaches the Jesus of the Gospels as a sort of Lacanian analyst), another conducting services, etc. The Negri and Hardt enthusiast of “multitudes” in me, coupled with the Badiousian/Sartrean enthusiast of subject-groups and truth procedures, is impressed by this sort of immanent, “flat”, “democratic” or egalitarian sort of organization. I have a similar fascination with the early Baptist church, prior to it becoming so dogmatic and hierchialized, where you had the congregation of the lay. And at the risk of making offensive generalizations, proposition 8 in California aside, all of the Mormons I’ve ever met have struck me as extremely happy, tolerant, generous people so something must be working here. Adam is one of the most free wheeling and adventurous metaphysicians I’ve ever encountered, and I seldom find anything he says objectionable, often finding him even more secular than myself in a way that is jarring next to his deep religious convictions. Perhaps this is his Derridean background, requiring as it does a post-ontotheological conception of God and theology, paradoxically enough, that might be described as an “a-theology”.

So I guess what I’m saying is that at the level of community building and activity, it seems to me that these sorts of practices make uneasy bedfellows with the deontological moral theory of Kant or the consequentialism of utilitarianism. Levinas I can see a bit, but it doesn’t seem to me that these practices are done simply out of a command of reason or a duty, nor that they are quite a matter of calculative utilitarian thought. But like I said, my experience is limited here.

Adam kindly gave me a copy of his book last year. I’ve discussed it with him a lot over on LDS-Herm. I didn’t realize you guys were colleagues. I think I nearly convinced him of the Derridean position against his critique but maybe he’d disagree with that characterization. I do agree with Adam (and I think everyone on LDS-Herm would agree) that true religiosity requires something “beyond” economy. I think this is one reason why so many LDS thinkers have adopted a more Levinasian view where responsibility is more important than economic based forms of Ethics. (Roughly both the Kantian and Utilitarian broad approaches) Of course there are plenty of Mormon Kantians and Utilitarians so I don’t want to paint with too broad a brush.

What you are saying is pretty much just that the brain is primarily organized around embodied actions. (Which I agree) Without that processing then objects couldn’t “be” anything. But Heidegger would completely agree. Heidegger’s point is that we see objects as theoretical objects only when our practices break down. This isn’t the cognitive apparatus of being able to process practices at a low level. Rather it’s when an object doesn’t behave as expected. Effectively when we lose mastery of it.

The best example of this is our normal experience of driving where we often don’t notice the car at all versus when the car isn’t functioning properly (say when there is slop in the steering so it doesn’t respond to our directions) At that point we recognize that the car is more than our practices and can treat it as a theoretical entity with properties in its own right.

Now the counter argument agains this would be that we have cognitive apparatus for processing entities as theoretical. But this ends up being a bit trickier argument to make than it first appears. (IMO) That’s because it gets into the issue of language as well as the details of how the brain processes theoretical entities. (When they aren’t being processed in the manner you outline)

So short story, you’re actually making an argument for Heidegger’s view, not against it.