From: fudley (fuddley@fastmail.fm)
Date: Wed Nov 02 2005 - 02:21:24 MST
On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 "Olie Lamb" <olie@vaporate.com>
> Sorry, Mr Clark, but there are a helluvalotta well
> respected atheists and disbelievers in the "soul"
> who hold a concept of "mind" or
"consciousness" as being non physical;
It’s not the non physical part that is bullshit, numbers, ideas, colors,
and many adverbs and adjectives are all non physical but perfectly
respectable because they are still amenable to the scientific method;
the soul is not.
> philosophers from Kant, Hegel and Berkely to those
> such as Heidegger or even (I suspect) Chalmers.
Just as some people are willing to abandon the word “God” but not the
idea of God (I believe in a higher force blah blah blah) others would
rather eat ground glass than use the word “soul”, so they invent
euphemisms.
> However, there is one Fuckload (that's a nonSI measure for a lot)
> of things that can't be measured by scientific method that are
> commonly regarded as true. How accurately can you measure Pi
> empirically? Maybe 8 sig. figures?
Are you trying to tell me with a straight face that the soul and Pi have
an equal amount of scientific fact behind them. Please please tell me
you’re not saying that!
> Mathematical explorations aren't scientific.
Mathematical ideas can be proven wrong, Looney soul theories like I’ve
read on this list never can be.
> How do you test the concept of "Zero?"
The concept of Zero is useful, you couldn’t build a bridge or fly an
airplane without it; the concept of the soul on the other hand isn’t
worth a damn to anyone except theologians who do get a paycheck out of
it which they then examine to see if enough zeros are printed on it.
> A Css has memories of other, earlier Csses, which give
> rise to the illusion of continuity.
An illusion? Who cares if it’s an illusion? We’re talking about
consciousness here and subjectivity is the name of the game. I like
illusions, I want the illusion to continue just as it has.
> I have serious doubts about the continuity of
> Css across things like sleep. I'm pretty much
> undecided about whether there is an absolute
> "personal identity".
I believe the above contains absolutely no meaning; you are just playing
with words.
John K Clark
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