Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84; site mhuxt.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!js2j From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: More Atheistic Wishful Thinking Message-ID: <1115@mhuxt.UUCP> Date: Mon, 2-Sep-85 15:57:52 EDT Article-I.D.: mhuxt.1115 Posted: Mon Sep 2 15:57:52 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 3-Sep-85 01:42:48 EDT References: <1379@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1598@pyuxd.UUCP> <1432@umcp-cs.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Lines: 51 Charley Wingate writes: > A brain-dead human doesn't > think, does it? A dog is obviously unlike a human isn't it? To say that > men are "just chemicals" is nothing more than a cop-out. Whether or not > transmission of minds around is possible is quite irrelevant; the fact that > people will talk about it, even in the realm of fiction, indicates that it > can be conceptualized. If we're just chemicals, then obviously a dead > person is qualitatively identical to the same person alive. By this argument, a battery must be more than 'just chemicals', since there *is* a qualitative difference between dead ones and live ones. > After all, we > can just ignore all that organization, those memories and thoughts, the > consciousness, the emotions-- none of them are chemicals, so they must not > matter. Who said that the organization wasn't important? We are just *organized* chemicals, ok? (although *I'm* usually *not* very organized.) > > >> 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. > > Obviously Rich is the only person in America who doesn't view the phrase > "just a " as a pejorative statement. No, not the only one ... there's David Lee Roth (or however it's spelled.) "I'm just a gigalo..." Kidding aside, Charley, the *true* meaning behind the statement: "Man is just a bunch of chemicals." seems to me to be a denial of the existance of souls. A person who believes in a soul could never believe the idea that men are made up chemicals ('dust'?) and nothing else. > > >> 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. > I'll buy that. Not the bit about 'the fact that people can talk about it means it's so', but that the essential nature of a person is information. That information is encoded in a material form. A bunch of chemicals. Why does this bother you? > > Charley Wingate -- Jeff Sonntag ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j "Roads? Where we're going, we won't need any roads!"