Looking in the mirror.
Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2011 11:30 pm
I look in the mirror and in a reflective mood I ask why I look like I do. I see a nose, teeth, eyes. I wiggle my fingers and take note of my thumb, my fingernails. I see some veins in my arms and some hair.
Why this shape, this form.
Consider two stories :
1) The proximal reason I look like I do is because my parents look like they do and have passed on to me the genes necessary for building a my body and brain. I not only look human but I look somehow like my parents in many details.
The more distal and perhaps ultimate reason that I look like this is because of a long chain of evolutionary adaptations to a very contingient history of enviromental challenges my ancestors faced. I am this way because of a history of interactions with earthly environments. My teeth for chewing plants and tearing flesh. My eyebrows to keep rain from my eyes, and my flat feet for manuevering on the ground. My fingernails for scratching unwanted things from my body etc.
My legs for evading and pursuing.
2) The reason I look like I do is because my physical body looks like my spirit body. My spirit body was procreated in some way by male and female Gods who have the form of primates and this somehow accounts for the form of my spirit body. What accounts for the form of these God's bodies? Well, they must have had Godlike parents too and apprently there was always this human form around (primate shaped Gods all the way back into eternity). The human form doesn't find an origin and I search in vein to answer the question "why this shape?". It just is and always was. Gods were always in human form before evolution was supposed to have happened. No ultimate explanation of the human form as such is found. (I wonder if the Gods checw animals, if there have to occasionally get stuff out of thier nostrils etc)
Now try to make both of these true at the same time. Good luck.
Why this shape, this form.
Consider two stories :
1) The proximal reason I look like I do is because my parents look like they do and have passed on to me the genes necessary for building a my body and brain. I not only look human but I look somehow like my parents in many details.
The more distal and perhaps ultimate reason that I look like this is because of a long chain of evolutionary adaptations to a very contingient history of enviromental challenges my ancestors faced. I am this way because of a history of interactions with earthly environments. My teeth for chewing plants and tearing flesh. My eyebrows to keep rain from my eyes, and my flat feet for manuevering on the ground. My fingernails for scratching unwanted things from my body etc.
My legs for evading and pursuing.
2) The reason I look like I do is because my physical body looks like my spirit body. My spirit body was procreated in some way by male and female Gods who have the form of primates and this somehow accounts for the form of my spirit body. What accounts for the form of these God's bodies? Well, they must have had Godlike parents too and apprently there was always this human form around (primate shaped Gods all the way back into eternity). The human form doesn't find an origin and I search in vein to answer the question "why this shape?". It just is and always was. Gods were always in human form before evolution was supposed to have happened. No ultimate explanation of the human form as such is found. (I wonder if the Gods checw animals, if there have to occasionally get stuff out of thier nostrils etc)
Now try to make both of these true at the same time. Good luck.