wrote in message
...
On Mon, 17 Oct 2005 23:46:05 GMT, "Alt-Ctrl-Del"
AltCtrlDel@äää.òÕÿÿÿÿÞ wrote:


"Marcio" wrote in message
. ..
"Alt-Ctrl-Del" AltCtrlDel@äää.òÕÿÿÿÿÞ wrote:

But you see, for the other type of people, the question never arises
in
the mind, they act instinctively without regard to their own life
because
they have not developed in the same way you have. Compassion rules
our
lives and not cold decision making skills. We act on impulse not
reason.
Does that make your point for you, myself saying we act on impulse and
not
reason? It makes my point for me too. That is two different kinds of
minds functioning in different ways. Which one is more advanced? Of
course you will consider yourself to be because you think that way, I
don't think you hold a candle to us.

He/she would not be alone. It's a widely held view that what
separates humans from animals is the ability to rationalize and make
intelligent or dumb decisions instead of purely instictive ones.
Animals act on instinct alone. Humans do not. And even wild animals
would not sacrifice their own lives to save another animal's offspring
as that would go against their instinct.

But frankly, I don't think what you describe is acting on impulse and
instinct. According to your view, if you see a child climbing a
balcony of a 20th floor apartment, and the child loses his balance and
falls, you would jump out the building on impulse out of love,
forgetting that you don't know how to fly. That's just your stupid
mind overriding your natural instincts. Even animals would not do
something that dumb.

Marcio, you are talking degrees of difference here. Of course a person
would not try to fly out of a building to save a falling child. That
would be certain and undeniable death. Comparing a person that does not
know how to swim with one who does not know how to fly is just a
philosophical argument that you have proposed to attempt to make your
point.

One this planet, and in the real world, not just in the world of the
mind
and little scenarios that you can cook up to try to validate your point
of
view, many people that can't swim have saved individuals from drowning.
It has happened time and time over and again and again. I don't think
you
could tell me of one person that has grew wings and flew to save someone
falling out of a building.


Actually, I will wager that damn few if any non-swimmers have rescued
someone from a "rain-swollen" river by jumping in. You are invited to
supply citations to the contrary.

Even military rescue swimmers don't just jump in unless there is no
other way to get someone out of the water.

Every, and I mean every life-saving course you will attend will tell
you that even for highly-trained swimmners, jumping in is the absolute
last resort.

Non-swimmers don't stand a chance. I used to hold an advanced swmming
and beginning water life-saving and intermediate first-aid
certificates, I have some reason to know whereof I speak.

And don't *ever* assume that just because someone is not a parent that
they might niot have risked their life to save a stranger..don't you
*ever* say that again. I have done so before and I will do so again
if the need is there but I will not throw my own life away if there is
no hope of my being able to effect the rescue.

I have an obligation to be alive to care for my wife and will not
throw it away on a fool's chance. To paraphrase Robert Heinlein
slightly: It is both my honor and my duty to die saving my wife and
family if need be. And I for one will not stop to count the cost to
myself in that extreme but one's moral duty to one's family is always
stronger than the duty owed a stranger, I don't even think there's a
religion that teaches otherwise.

I doubt very much I would risk my life to pull a drunk driver out of a
burning wreck in an accident they caused provided I knw for sure they
caused it. To give one possibility, not all lives are worth saving.




Well Jim, what if that drunk driver had been forced at gun point to drink
a pint of whiskey in 25 minutes? Then what if that same drunk was forced
at the end of a gun barrel to drive that car Jim. Would his or her life
then be worth saving if that person were in a burning wreck Jim? Huh,
would it Jim?

Alt