> I think we can understand ourselves independent of the nature of
> fundamental scientific laws.
>
> I guess another way to put it is, when we try to describe
> the physical world, we often use the same words that we use to
> describe human behavior. Atoms have *affinities* for electrons,

I guess my point is that human behavior IS the physical world. It's a manifestation of the same rules that govern what we consider to be human-behavior-unrelated events: electronics, the code in computer applications.

I agree that we use similar language to describe these events merely for convenience, but when I consider the basic elements and universal origin of both the mind that created your word processor and the electronics that actually work it, I have to see a link, if not direct. I'm also led to consider a more direct link when I remember that the electronics in the computer to a certain extent match the communicative structure of your brain and that, moreover, so does the logic of the program you're using.

This may be because we've created all of the above and need to model upon structures we already know, but it appears that, whether we model our constructions on natural orders we see or invent orders for ourselves, they seem to eventually envelop a tight similarity to a natural system we either did not see earlier or neglected to recognize as the model for this work.

This, I agree with you, Eric, about gravity "attracting" masses and people "attracting" each other -- of course, these are different forces and events represented by the same terminology, but every time I look more deeply into a matter like this, two seemingly unrelated phenomena, I see as a core, always, the basic rules that shape all. This fills me with glee rather than fear (I'm not suggesting it fills you with fear), because it makes so much more sense to see that your construction of the roadway will match the contour of the land for the same reason that the river's bed will --it's easier than fighting gravity -- because you and the river are related and play in the same system than to think that you independently came up with the road design and it matches the river's "thinking" merely by coincidence. This awareness of non-coincidence increases when you realize that the rules that made the river made you, in fact, quite within the river many years ago. And your body likewise strives for ease and convenience within itself.

I don't know. It's difficult for me to see that we think and reason independently of the way natural events function. I see us as just a complex, and sometimes unfortunately aware, form of these events and nothing more. This does not make us trivial or unimportant, but not any more so than other events, I guess. I don't see how we can claim independence, in thought or any other function, when we were wrought of this electrical, gravitational and whatever other force-field mess is spinning around out there.

Thanks for you comments.
maya

Oh, I would also disagree with you about the claim below. I do think human interactions can be described through mathematics. The science is just not advanced enough yet to deal with all the variables that our emotions and brain can manipulate, but math is just a language, and a very succinct language in with to describe natural occurrences. Yes, including your need to vacation and hug your daughter. It is one of my philosophical claims that psychological analysis and literary analysis, in which critics describe the behavior of people and theorize on its origins is merely a "spread out" kind of math. We use expanded language, our words, to describe what one day will be much more clearly described in a different language. This will not make human psychology less intriguing; it will only make our awe crisper as we see relationships represented without the confusion that now envelops our every doomed sentence.

Sorry so glum.
maya

> the end, the physical world is really obeying those equations,
> as best as we can tell. And I think we'd all agree that human
> interactions can't be contained in mathematical equations! At
> least, I hope that's true.