dimreepr

My original position saw telepathy as the only viable way for this to work, but having thought this through I see the idea has more legs. Most of what influences our daily decisions is unknown to us at the conscious level. The way our culture is all pervading in the way we think and interact with the world. The way our food and, everyday drugs, changes the chemical balance of our body and how that changes our decision making. Plants change their chemical composition when attacked and communicates this to the local, similar, plants. Who’s to say this isn’t also a global communication, and if so how this might influence us.

I have a feeling I’m going to regret this, but I’m genuinely interested in your answer. Would you care to provide some evidence to back up your assertion?

In fairness the gaia hypothesis is much more likely than your invisible cloud talking fire hazard.

I knew I shouldn’t respond to posts after my fourth glass of wine, your reply isn’t, in the cold light of day, quite so twisted, my apologies. Whilst morals have a lot to do with emotion and subjectivity, logic does have its part to play. In the scenario of the OP this statement “You wouldn't ever attack something because there's some logic that says it should die.” is false, if the negative consequences are known. I doubt anyone could logically or emotionally argue in the mosquitoes defence; we humans are the ones dying after all.

That is quite twisted logic; if something attacks you then emotion is much more likely to inform your response than any objective reasoning.

Pure gainsay isn’t very conducive to a reasonable discussion. Pure or objective logic has little to do with ethics, as ethics is based upon a moral stance and morals has more to do with emotion and subjectivity than it has to do with logic.

The reason I think its wrong is the unknown consequences outweigh the potential good. When weighing an ethical question one has to consider the consequences both positive and negative and balance the good verses the bad. This is fundamentally true of any ethical question. The lack of either negates the question, as there is nothing to balance. Ethics is a human construct; ethical questions are raised by humans and evaluated by humans. If the human race had a threat, such as you describe in post #29. The question then becomes instinctive and one of self preservation, anyone in that situation trying to advocate we not defend ourselves in the manner you suggest, would be shot or dragged away by the men in white coats. In a kill or be killed situation and you’re the innocent party there is no ethical question to answer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event Between 5 and 20 mass extinction events has occurred in the planets history, none of which resulted in the total extinction of all species. edit/ sorry cross posted

I’m not surprised this sentence "It cannot happen therefore if we did it, it would be ethically wrong" makes no sense to you (me either) for a start it’s an oxymoron. No, I’m not saying that and I’m really not sure how you can come to this conclusion from my post #26. I alluded to our inability to completely eradicate mosquitoes in post #7 but even then I didn’t, actually, state it couldn’t be done. I tried to take the ambiguity out of the OP and answer it and your post #25 as directly as I could, as previously stated a rephrasing of the original question is in order. There is no ethical question to be answered if the choice is based on the survival of the human race. As to why malaria deserves being killed off, zapatos answers this quite succinctly in post #5. Greg no correction is necessary.

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Swarm_intelligence#Taxonomy_of_Swarm_Intelligence Wildebeest as well as naked mole rats fall into this definition. In the wiki link you provide the term eusocial is used to describe the naked mole rat. The same term is also used for ants, termites bees and wasps. "Stigmergy is a form of self-organization. It produces complex, seemingly intelligent structures, without need for any planning, control, or even direct communication between the agents. As such it supports efficient collaboration between extremely simple agents, who lack any memory, intelligence or even individual awareness of each other." /edit quote from wikipedia I see no reason why humans would be; perhaps you could provide some evidence. That is pheromones produced by non human entities.

OK, if we assume no negative consequences then of course killing the species of mosquito responsible for carrying malaria can only be good for the human race. The question of an ethical choice is somewhat moot as I doubt, if proof of no negative consequences were available, anyone could reasonably argue against it. However as so often pointed out in this thread there is no way of ascertaining what the consequences would be and given this basic fact I can only conclude that, ethically, it’s wrong.

I do get this and have, to my mind, answered the OP in post #7 all subsequent posts on my part have been directly answering your statements or questions. As you are the originator of this thread I didn’t feel I was moving the thread off topic by answering you. In post #11 I directly answer both your post #10 and the OP with this statement “trying to play god in this way is, ethically, wrong.” At this point I think a re-phrasing of the OP may be in order, if you want the discussion to continue.

Any point? You may be right, but without the ability to predict the future it’s impossible to knowing which species that is.

The ant/termite colony uses, as you say, chemical messages and pheromones to co-ordinate responses to external stimuli. Group or herd intelligence is a well known phenomenon and depends on the individuals, within the herd/colony being essentially, stupid; the individual has a limited capability of deciding a response for itself. This however doesn't translate to animals with a higher consciousness; the groups therein rely on co-operation rather than chemically induced or automatic reactions. For your idea to work, without telepathy, would require the flora and fauna of the planet to communicate directly in some way, I would at some level be influenced by, let's say, ants in my decision process. Instead what we have is a kind of balance in that each organism has found a way to live in the environment in which they find themselves. Even inorganic material can display emergent qualities that can appear to have a consciousness.

He's one of my favourite authors, the foundation series is, IMO, a must read.

This idea was explored by Isaac Asimov in his book “foundation and earth” he takes the idea a stage further in that the planetary consciousness, Gaia, was aware and was shared via telepathy to every living entity on the planet. For this reason I’ve always opposed the idea, as telepathy would be the only viable way the idea could work, whether or not the consciousness was aware.

If you want the thread to follow the OP more closely, please ask more relevant questions. My first reply contains my thoughts on the subject, I realise the OP asks a specific question “Assuming we can wipe out mosquitoes and have no consequences, should we do it?” I couldn’t properly answer the question as it’s based on a false premise (in reality “no consequences” is improbable in the extreme) and I felt I had to point this out because, if the action is truly without consequences then it would render the question moot.

Why do you need to believe in god, (to play god) to exterminate a species? Our physical brains may not change or evolve but I would like to think our attitudes, towards nature, will.

I’ve highlighted the salient point. Things may average out but that doesn’t make two things with a similar average, the same. The average you describe may make them appear equal, but appearances, in this context, are deceptive.

"but it's my hope that we will have developed sufficiently to not want to wield such power." By this I mean I hope the human race will evolve, at least morally, to the point that we realize trying to play god in this way is, ethically, wrong.

The last sentence of my post address' this point.

How does this argue my point? If anything it further articulates what I’m saying.

There are reasons for life but no point to it and we have precious little time in terms of human life span. Life is what you make of it, we all have the choice to, either enjoy it or to be miserable, whatever your personal circumstance. The choice is yours nobody can decide for you, expect nothing, and accept everything you can’t change.

The natural world is so complex and diverse that trying to eradicate one species, even malaria, almost certainly will have consequences, an emergent quality that can’t be predicted. Wiping out humans would certainly help nature re-adjust, in terms of the havoc we continue to visit on the planet. However we are part of the diversity of nature, just one more evolutionary pressure for our fellow creatures. As Cnut the great tired to point out with his attempt at stopping the tides, we might think we have dominion over nature, but as of now we simply don’t. Maybe in future we might, but it’s my hope that we will have developed sufficiently to not want to wield such power.

For me it’s an extension of the phrase “you can’t cross the same river twice” it’s merely extrapolation of my observations of the natural world, a bit of a leap, I admit. The predator prey struggle is, in most animals, finely balanced and only when the prey animal is weakened through injury age or disease are the scales tipped in favour of the predator, but it doesn’t make these animals equal. Nature is in constant flux and very few animals remain unchanged by the survival pressures that result. Even the animals that have so far remained unchanged by this process, the horse shoe crab for instance, will, given enough time be changed. My statement was meant only to highlight that we, humans, aren’t equal. Even identical twins, with time, diverge in abilities and motivation.