[Avodah] sun and moon

[Zev Sero]

On 25/08/2011 11:10 PM, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
>>>  Trees also remain in one predictable place forever. But "chai
>>>  nosay es atzmo" - only someone in the animal kingdom (or above)
>>>  can pick himself up and move elsewhere.

> and RSZ asked:
>>>  And yet a turkey is not noticeably more intelligent than a tree.
>>>  So self-directed motion is not a test of intelligence.

> You never noticed a turkey looking at something, and then look
> elsewhere? It will stand there gobbling away, and then walk a few feet
> and gobble some more. The most a tree will do is to turn its leaves
> towards the sun, and move those leaves over the course of the day,
> keeping them directed towards the sun. Totally predictable.

Yes, that's my point: turkeys, unlike trees, have self-directed motion,
and yet they don't seem any more intelligent.  So the two traits are
unrelated.  Turkeys move because they have feet, not because they have
brains.

> I'll grant you that compared to humans, turkeys are pretty stupid. But
> compared to trees, well, they're absolute geniuses!!!

I wonder what makes you reach that conclusion.  It seems to me that
they're of roughly equal intelligence, and the mere fact that a turkey
directs its own motion and a tree does not merely shows that this trait
doesn't relate to intelligence.


On 26/08/2011 9:50 AM, Hankman wrote:
> If however, the moon was constituted of hydrogen as is our sun today
> and the source of its own light from nuclear energy, then the
> description of becoming smaller is problematic as the entire substance
> of the moon was changed to its present non-hydrogen (and smaller)
> composition which really amounts to the recreation of a new and different
> moon and not the mere diminution of the moon.

When a prince transforms into a frog, is he not the same prince afterwards?


On 26/08/2011 10:07 AM, Eli Turkel wrote:

> According to modern science the moon is a big rock no different from many asteroids floating in space.

And therefore? The Rambam says that *all* the tzeva hashamayim are
intelligent, and only the earth is dumb. Rashi disagrees, and holds
that even the earth is intelligent. Now you will surely agree that Rashi
knew the earth's composition; he could see that it was made up of rocks,
soil, water, etc. So why would the fact that the celestial bodies have
a similar composition change anything?

-- 
Zev Sero
zev at sero.name