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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: More Atheistic Wishful Thinking
Message-ID: <1598@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Aug-85 11:47:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1598
Posted: Tue Aug 27 11:47:41 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Aug-85 09:00:58 EDT
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>>I note that an interesting consequence of Charley's view is that man is
>>nothing more than an assemblage of chemicals. (Maybe some good has come
>>from Rosen's and my postings!) As an analogy one could consider a stack
>>of coins, say, and have some klutz knock them over. The stack is rebuilt,
>>but the question is whether or not it is the "same" stack, in the same
>>sense as that for a similar one that existed all the while.

> Wishful thinking: it's like saying that a robot chess player is "just a bunch
> of ICs".  The huge volume of stories concerning the transmission of minds
> from one body to another indicates that people do not really believe that a
> mind is a bunch of chemicals any more than they believe that a chess program
> is a bunch of ICs (or take the reduction to an even more absurd level, a
> bunch of electrical charges).

I wasn't aware that science fiction stories of varying quality can now
join the Bible on the list of "books that tell the truth about the universe".
What people do or do not want to "really believe" is irrelevant.  This
huge volume of stories is fictional, Charles.  But you've missed the whole
point.  Most people I know DO think a chess playing program is "just a
bunch of circuits", and thus unable to "think" (or whatever), while on
the other hand claiming "But WE aren't just a bunch of chemicals and stuff;
We're human!!!  We're different!!!"  Do you know what hexasyllabical word
describes that?  (Hint:  it's not "hexasyllabical", and it begins with
"anthropo-" and ends with "-centrism" ...)

> The pejorative phrasing clearly indicates that
> Padraig would rather have us overlook the absolute importance of the 
> ORGANIZATION of those chemicals.

I didn't see any pejorative that intimated that at all.  On the contrary.

> The fact that people can talk seriously
> about transferring people's minds (and one assumes, the essential person)
> into computers indicates that, not only can in fact say that a person is
> NOT just chemicals, but even that the essential nature of a person is
> immaterial-- since it is information, and not matter or energy.

Seriously?  Oh, I agree that many of those stories are serious in the sense
that they are speculatively scientific and not wishful thinking fantasy,
but they are far from "serious" in the sense of being thought of as a
serious implementation possibility based on what happens in the story.
Furthermore, most of the stories I've come across are NOT serious, but
merely a wishywashy fantasy with little bearing on reality and even less
rigorous basis behind the modeling in the story.  It makes for fun reading
(if you're into it), but not a viable description of reality.

>>I have no idea why he
>>opts for denying the existence of a soul since it presents a simple
>>and "natural" explanation for his scenario, and is just as credible.

> Newtonian physics is also simple, and natural, and wrong.  The point is not
> whether or not I "accept" an explanation.  The point is that Padraig is
> demanding that this explanation be accpeted, AND NO OTHER.  Since he has
> absolutely no objective evidence to work from, he has no basis to either
> assert or deny ANY hypothesis about "life after death", especially since the
> root idea comes out of a religious domain where we readily admit that we use
> the term without any precise notion of what we mean by it.  I choose not to
> believe in souls, but on rather different grounds, which Padraig has already
> stated his lack of interest in.

Padraig is saying that your non-belief in souls is self-contradictory,
in that you need a point of connection between the two "lives" that makes
the earlier life the same "person" (?) as the later life.  I realize you
are saying that you are saying that god reincarnates/resurrects/rebuilds
us at some later point in time without need for a referential soul.  But
what makes this rebuilt person the same person as you?  For that to be
true, there must be some connecting factor between the two.
-- 
"to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day
 to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human
 being can fight and never stop fighting."  - e. e. cummings
	Rich Rosen	ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr