--- Santosh Helekar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Perhaps, the surprise is because of a > misunderstanding. Please explain clearly as to what > you are trying to say? What variables? What have I > extrapolated into the future? > ------------------------------------------
Alright Santosh, Let me try this one more time. Your initial argument no. 1 in your own words: "The point is that there are objective scientific facts that indicate that terms such as mind, soul, self, etc are most likely particular configurations of the electrical activity of the brain." Hence, an entity such as the self and soul cannot exist independent of the mind/body. You further went on to state that this is no longer an opinion but that some evidence will soon come to light which will conclusively prove it to be so. Now, I respect your scientific perspective on this, but your assertion that the philosophical concept of self and consciousness is to be totally disregarded is a bit premature. After all, we are now not talking about an organised religion's view of the "soul". Organised religion has been so easy to discredit, especially post 9/11 having come in for so much flak, but we are now talking about centuries of philosophers and schools of latter-day writers, among which include such luminaries as Jung, M Scot Peck, Gibran and Paulo Coelho, who speak eloquently and passionately about consciousness. Two from the standpoint of clinical psychologists with years of experience in the human Psyche and the other two from the standpoint of poetic writers and free thinkers. After we've lined up all the theologians and disposed off them for spewing nonsense for centuries (which I agree a lot of them have been doing), I guess next in line are those half-baked philosophers, poets, free-thinkers and anyone else out there looking for answers outside of the petri-dish. So let's look at this from another point. Science is very quick to prove that the regression theory of God (for lack of a better word) is nonsense, simply because there is no evidence to regress evolution back to a supernatural Deity. Now we can talk about Big bangs and black holes till kingdom come but the fact of the matter is nothing has adequately explained how matter and energy sparked off life. To which the answer from scientific quarters is, that evidence will present itself. I'm sure lots of evidence will present itself in the next billion years to come, but it is simply impossible for us to extrapolate at this point where that evidence will lead us and for you to make an assertion one way or another, just seems to me to be as dogmatic as the religious viewpoint. That's my two cents and I've got no more spare change. selma ____________________________________________________________________________________ Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get online. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting