Re: Mind/Body dualism What's the deal?

From: Loree Thomas (loreetg@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Aug 15 2001 - 15:07:58 MDT


Arg... html. geez.
--- Helen Fowle <helenfowle@hotmail.com> wrote:
<DIV>There is quite a good book on this very topic
written by Wendy Seymour,

<DIV> modifying our bodies will obviously have a
profound effect on our sense of self,

I agree it will have an effect, but NOT on whether we
perceive ourselves as still ourselves or not.

Words are tricky here.. when somebody says "I'm not
the person I was" we understand them to mean that they
have changed in some significant way... but we don't
understand them to mean that they are a new entity,
separate and distinct from their previous self, like a
child is from a parent.

BTW, I'm not the man I once was. ö¿ö

Still... I am me.

And that is my take on what will happen if and when we
are able to move our minds from one physical body to
another (whether that be biological,
electromechanical, some combination of the two or
something completely new that has no current
analogue)... we will still perceive ourselves as "us".

The real interesting part comes when and if we can
make copies... multiple instantiations of a single
individual.

I lean towards the idea they will all equally be me...
 If there is a soul, it will have to be divided up
between them, I guess. I wonder if that means each of
me will be less able to play the blues as each will
have less soul. ö¿ö

Loree

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger
http://phonecard.yahoo.com/



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:09 MDT