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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wild Gazebo" data-source="post: 2160753" data-attributes="member: 24413">Celebrim, I was afraid you would say that.  The problem is you are taking the term 'intellect' as a functioning of the brain in reference to 'instict' or 'evolutionary memory'.  While most people, I beleive, consider intellect a metaphysical condition resultant from an obvious biological birth.  Every action we take has a biological purpose or motivation--simply because we are biological entites.  Therefore, biological argument is largely discarded as being constant--not always...John liked his patch-work brain example that I cringed at.  We cannot escape the obvious connection...our brain is the command centre and really cannot be discounted, but I beleive this is a trap logically as the same can be said of physical conditioning, survival, ...all things...so how relevant is an argument that relates the same source over and over?  Not very unless it is a new thought for the basis of a new assumption.  I think most people here would agree with you in a strictly biological sense...but, as I said, many people discount that as obvious or irrelevant to a topic that has been a metaphysical argument for centuries.  Intellect as a separate experience devoid of biological motivation--like a lab experiment if you will--coupled with alignment (for lack of a better word) may be examined.  Perhaps you don't want to do this or feel it is counter-intuitive or just plain short-sited, but that is why I feel your arguments aren't mixing well with the others.  At first I thought it was a matter of execution of action deriving a moral set...as many of your examples relate to after-the-fact demonstrations of morality.  And that the conflict was a matter of perspective concerning where intellect and alignment meet...but that is why I asked my question.  I don't think I could ever give you a convincing argument if you are going to structure you idea of intellect and alignment through biology as that filter will continue to couple them through any argument.Storyteller01, yeah, I know...but I was looking for a good discussion that didn't contain a conflict of assumptions.  And it seemed you were happy to play devil's advocate.  Your argument was clear.</blockquote>

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