Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site umcp-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!umcp-cs!mangoe From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: More Atheistic Wishful Thinking Message-ID: <1473@umcp-cs.UUCP> Date: Wed, 4-Sep-85 01:35:00 EDT Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1473 Posted: Wed Sep 4 01:35:00 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 6-Sep-85 04:05:30 EDT References: <1115@mhuxt.UUCP> Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD Lines: 70 In article <1115@mhuxt.UUCP> js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag) 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. >> 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.) Well, maybe we are, and maybe we aren't. (Mustn't forget all those electrical impulses, after all.) I think it's quite reasonable to suggest that we are organizations which "just" happen to be expressed in neural chemistry and impulses. >> >> 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. > 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. So what? I don't believe in souls, in the supernatural sense which everone in this groups seems determined to use. >> >> 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? I was objecting the persistent refusal to admit to the possibility that the physical representation of the person may in fact be unimportant to their identity. I don't care to argue that the mind and body can be conceived of in analogy to a program in a computer ( in fact, I doubt the truth of the assertion); the point was that such a system can be conceptualized, and therefore is a candidate hypothesis until it is disproven experimentally. I brought this up in the first place because Rich and Padraig were rather too dead-set on the physical body being the "identity". If the Mind is the identity, then one can obviously (at least in concept) execute it on some other "machine", or copy, store it on tape, selectively alter it without altering the body, and perhaps other transformations-- all this, and no souls either. SInce this hypothesis is quite viable, although unproven, the statement that "Man is just a bunch of chemicals" can only be taken as a statment of religious faith, unless it is recognized for the hypothesis that it is (and not fact at all). Charley Wingate