At 3:51:32 AM on Friday, November 21, 2008, Arnaud Fournet
wrote:
[...]
> Ok
> then let us rephrase the situation this way :
> They had two words "mortal" (for themselves) and
> "immortal" (for gods)
> They lived very short lifes
On average they lived shorter lives than we do, even after
allowing for their much greater infant mortality, but the
maximum lifespan wasn't much different.
But the details really don't matter, because 'short life' is
meaningless except by comparison with some longer span of
time; their average lifespan may look short to us, but it
was the only one that they knew. And if the comparison is
with those who do not die at all, then their actual lifespan
is irrelevant: the same argument would apply equally to
creatures whose average lifespan was a century or two.
> for that reason the word "life" could not become
> "eternity" because "eternity" is precisely an attribute of
> the gods, who they were not.
> Is that clearer this way ?
It was clear all along; the problem is that it's also
clearly at odds with the evidence, which plainly shows that
just such a development is not only possible but apparently
not even particularly unusual. You are letting a foregone
(or if you prefer, a priori) conclusion blind you to the
evidence.
Brian