Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!teknowledge-vaxc!sri-unix!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free Will & Self-Awareness
Message-ID: <929@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Date: 5 May 88 07:09:37 GMT
References: <1484@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <2070013@otter.hple.hp.com>
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 8

In article <2070013@otter.hple.hp.com>, cwp@otter.hple.hp.com (Chris Preist) writes:
> O.S. writes...
> Did my value system exist before my conception? I doubt it.
This is rather like asking whether some specific number existed before
anyone calculated.  Numbers and value systems are symbolic/abstract
things, not material objects.  I have often wondered what philosophy
would have been like if it had arisen in a Polynesian community rather
than an Indo-European one (in Polynesian languages, numbers are _verbs_).