Re: Identity, and then sneaking in some geopolitics (Re: New Creationist Ploy)
Ronn! Blankenship wrote: At 04:48 PM Monday 10/27/2008, Claes Wallin wrote: [snip] Modern version (and possibly a digression): (1) If a country's government is forced out of the capital and loses control of most of the country, is the area controlled by that government still the original country, only with a drastically diminished territory? (2) If the opposition of a country's government forces the government out of the capital and announces a new constitution, is the entity ruled by the new constitution simply the same country, only with a new constitution? In 1949-1972 the governments of the world seem to have felt that the answer to (1) was yes and the answer to (2) was no. In 1972 the position was reversed. So which is true? Which specific country[ies] are you thinking of which changed in 1949 and 1972? The Chinese Nationalist Party of the Republic of China were driven to Taiwan by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, and the People's Republic of China was founded in Beijing. The world still considered the ROC to be the real China and the PRC had no official diplomatic relations and was not recognized as a country. In 1972 the countries of the world changed their mind and recognized the PRC as a country. The ROC lost its acknowledged countryhood and official diplomatic relations and the PRC received the China chair in the UN. According to the Mereological Theory of Identity (MTI), that the scavenger's ship or the disassembled+assembled ship would be the original ship of Theseus, the PRC is the natural successor of the pre-Civil War China. The PRC government rules over most of the Chinese cultural/geographical area and the most of the Chinese population. According to the Spatio-Temporal Continuity (STC) theory, that the ship Theseus is on and the parts of which were gradually replaced, the ROC is the natural successor of the pre-Civil War China. Indeed, the name The Republic of China was the name of the country founded in 1912, and which encompassed most of the Chinese cultural/geographical area and most of the Chinese population. When founded, it did not include Taiwan, but the planks of Taiwan were added at the end of World War II and Mainland China was removed in 1949. To be sure, China is not the only interesting country in this aspect. See East and West Germany, Czechia and Slovakia, the former Yugoslavian countries, the North and the South in the American Civil War etc. But China is more interesting, because it is still ambiguous today -- both governments call themselves the real China. /c ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Identity, and then sneaking in some geopolitics (Re: New Creationist Ploy)
On Oct 28, 2008, at 1:47 AM, Claes Wallin wrote: To be sure, China is not the only interesting country in this aspect. See East and West Germany, Czechia and Slovakia, the former Yugoslavian countries, the North and the South in the American Civil War etc. But China is more interesting, because it is still ambiguous today -- both governments call themselves the real China. Slovakia is a somewhat more interesting case, as (if I remember correctly) it is almost entirely made up of land that used to be part of Hungary, which (like most of the countries bordering on Hungary) took control of Hungarian territory when Hungary entirely disbanded its armed forces after WWI. (Hungary is the only country I know of which borders entirely on land that used to belong to it. Before WWI and the union with Austria, its borders extended to the edges of the Carpathian Basin and included Slovakia, Transylvania, and parts of former Yugoslavia (including the Adriatic coast around Split, I think), Austria, and the Czech Republic. Esztergom, which used to be one of the major central cities, is now on the border.) Transylvania in particular is still very bilingual and bicultural, and many of the church liturgies are almost exclusively Hungarian, despite fairly strong pressure from the Romanian government (particularly during the Ceaucescu regime) to assimilate into Romania. So, returning to the original subject, is it Hungary, Romania, or something else all its own? :) (My vote goes to #3.) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Identity, and then sneaking in some geopolitics (Re: New Creationist Ploy)
Bruce Bostwick wrote: Hungary is the only country I know of which borders entirely on land that used to belong to it. Austria, Mexico, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Italy, Peru ... Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Identity, and then sneaking in some geopolitics (Re: New Creationist Ploy)
At 01:47 AM Tuesday 10/28/2008, Claes Wallin wrote: Ronn! Blankenship wrote: [snip] Which specific country[ies] are you thinking of which changed in 1949 and 1972? The Chinese Nationalist Party of the Republic of China were driven to Taiwan by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, and the People's Republic of China was founded in Beijing. The world still considered the ROC to be the real China and the PRC had no official diplomatic relations and was not recognized as a country. In 1972 the countries of the world changed their mind and recognized the PRC as a country. The ROC lost its acknowledged countryhood and official diplomatic relations and the PRC received the China chair in the UN. Thanks! . . . ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: New Creationist Ploy
On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 11:06 PM, Olin Elliott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Surely the I that perceives is something. Just because it can't exist outside a brain, doesn't mean it isn't real. Its real in the same way that a whirlpool is real -- it has a form and appears to be a thing even though the matter in it changes every second. It's a temporary pattern with no fixed or permanent substance. I shed skin cells all the time, and they are replaced by new cells. The skin I had 20 years ago is literally not the same skin I have now. Does that mean my skin doesn't exist, or is only as real in the same way a whirlpool is real? And I'm not asking this rhetorically; I really am interested in your take on this. -- Mauro Diotallevi The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: New Creationist Ploy
Wayne Eddy wrote: From: Olin Elliott [EMAIL PROTECTED] The I that perceives is not anything -- its an illusion, a trick of perception and memory. It doesn't exist -- there is not fixed self. Buddha knews that 2500 years ago, ?and modern science is showing him right. Surely the I that perceives is something. Just because it can't exist outside a brain, doesn't mean it isn't real. If matter couldn't exist outside this universe, would that mean that matter is an illusion? Software can't run outside a computer, does that mean it's not real? What exactly does real mean? My mind is real, in the same way that a language is real, or a computer program, and in the same way that Islam, Christianity and Buddhism are real. Abstract, but real, because it is meaningful to reason about as real, and because it has real consequences. There exists such a thing as mathematics. It is an abstract construct, a concept, and it only exists in our minds, but if one person says it does not exist, and the next person goes on to use that which does not exist to predict astronomical events, what is then the meaning of exist? That which exists is real, right? /c ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Identity, and then sneaking in some geopolitics (Re: New Creationist Ploy)
Mauro Diotallevi wrote: I shed skin cells all the time, and they are replaced by new cells. The skin I had 20 years ago is literally not the same skin I have now. Does that mean my skin doesn't exist, or is only as real in the same way a whirlpool is real? I am firmly of the opinion that your skin is real. You may say that it is real in the same way that a whirlpool is real, or the Great Red Spot of Jupiter. If your skin is more real than the whirlpool, simply because its constituent matter is replaced at a slower pace ... assume that the Spot, or something else of similar characteristics, has a replacement cycle longer than that of your skin. Is then that Spot more real than your skin? I find the above not a very interesting discussion. More interesting is the question of identity. Since I have stated that your skin exists, I can also ask if your skin now is the same as your skin 20 years ago. In the case of myself, my intuition tells me that I am the same person occupying the same body that I was and occupied twenty years ago. Mostly because this is a useful and intuitive definition of identity. I have changed a lot, but I am the same person. There are cases where the intuitive definition is less obvious. This is the classical problem of identity and the ship of Theseus. Good summary available here: http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/theseus.html Summary of the summary: - If Theseus has a ship and replaces a plank in the ship, is it still the same ship? - If he subsequently has replaced all the planks and other parts of the ship, is it still the same ship? - If a scavenger took each part as Theseus threw it away and built those into a replica of his ship, which ship is the original? The one Theseus is on, or the one the scavenger built, which consists of all the parts of the original? - If we put Theseus's ship in dry dock, disassembled it and again assembled it, is our intuition as to the identity of the newly assembled ship still the same as in the case of the scavenger? Modern version (and possibly a digression): (1) If a country's government is forced out of the capital and loses control of most of the country, is the area controlled by that government still the original country, only with a drastically diminished territory? (2) If the opposition of a country's government forces the government out of the capital and announces a new constitution, is the entity ruled by the new constitution simply the same country, only with a new constitution? In 1949-1972 the governments of the world seem to have felt that the answer to (1) was yes and the answer to (2) was no. In 1972 the position was reversed. So which is true? I believe that both propositions are true and that people should just get along, decide on some functional-enough terminology on the two countries and move on to find something more useful on which to spend their energy... /c ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: New Creationist Ploy
Does that mean my skin doesn't exist, or is only as real in the same way a whirlpool is real? It means that seeing your skin as some kind of permanent continuous thing is a fallacy. The skin you had twenty years ago was real and the skin you have now is real, but they are not the same thing. It is only a linguistic convention and function of memory in the brain that make them seem that way. What is not real is the idea that there is something called my skin which is continuous through time despite constantly changing. The same thing with conciousness. Brain cells are a little less transitory (on the time scale of a human life) than skin cells, and the patterns laid down in our brains as memory endure (although anyone who has ever discussed their childhood with a sibling or parent, or even re-read an old diary, should know how changeable our memories really are -- they are constantly revised), but conciousness is a process, not a thing. Imagine if I said, my heart was beating twenty years ago and my heart is beating now, therefore there must be some thing calle d a heat-beat that is continuous through time. But of course a heart-beat is not a thing, it's the ongoing working of the heart, in the same way conciousness is the ongoing working of the brain. If the heart stops working, the heartbeat is gone. If the brain stops working -- and I'm as sure of this as I am of anything in the world -- conciousness stops. I see no reason why it should be any different than any other biological process. Over a long enough time span, everything is like the whirlpool -- a temporary form with no fixed, permanent substance. Buddha called it the coming into being and passing away of all things. Olin - Original Message - From: Mauro Diotallevimailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussionmailto:brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 12:08 PM Subject: Re: New Creationist Ploy On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 11:06 PM, Olin Elliott [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Surely the I that perceives is something. Just because it can't exist outside a brain, doesn't mean it isn't real. Its real in the same way that a whirlpool is real -- it has a form and appears to be a thing even though the matter in it changes every second. It's a temporary pattern with no fixed or permanent substance. I shed skin cells all the time, and they are replaced by new cells. The skin I had 20 years ago is literally not the same skin I have now. Does that mean my skin doesn't exist, or is only as real in the same way a whirlpool is real? And I'm not asking this rhetorically; I really am interested in your take on this. -- Mauro Diotallevi The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-lhttp://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Identity, and then sneaking in some geopolitics (Re: New Creationist Ploy)
At 04:48 PM Monday 10/27/2008, Claes Wallin wrote: [snip] Modern version (and possibly a digression): (1) If a country's government is forced out of the capital and loses control of most of the country, is the area controlled by that government still the original country, only with a drastically diminished territory? (2) If the opposition of a country's government forces the government out of the capital and announces a new constitution, is the entity ruled by the new constitution simply the same country, only with a new constitution? In 1949-1972 the governments of the world seem to have felt that the answer to (1) was yes and the answer to (2) was no. In 1972 the position was reversed. So which is true? Which specific country[ies] are you thinking of which changed in 1949 and 1972? . . . ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: New Creationist Ploy
On Oct 25, 2008, at 1:25 PM, William T Goodall wrote: http://tinyurl.com/6o9w33 Creationists declare war over the brain • 22 October 2008 • From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues. • Amanda Gefter YOU cannot overestimate, thundered psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz, how threatened the scientific establishment is by the fact that it now looks like the materialist paradigm is genuinely breaking down. You're gonna hear a lot in the next calendar year about... how Darwin's explanation of how human intelligence arose is the only scientific way of doing it... I'm asking us as a world community to go out there and tell the scientific establishment, enough is enough! Materialism needs to start fading away and non-materialist causation needs to be understood as part of natural reality. His enthusiasm was met with much applause from the audience gathered at the UN's east Manhattan conference hall on 11 September for an international symposium called Beyond the Mind-Body Problem: New Paradigms in the Science of Consciousness. Earlier Mario Beauregard, a researcher in neuroscience at the University of Montreal, Canada, and co-author of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul, told the audience that the battle between maverick scientists like himself and those who believe the mind is what the brain does is a cultural war. Schwartz and Beauregard are part of a growing non-material neuroscience movement. They are attempting to resurrect Cartesian dualism - the idea that brain and mind are two fundamentally different kinds of things, material and immaterial - in the hope that it will make room in science both for supernatural forces and for a soul. The two have signed the Scientific dissent from Darwinism petition, spearheaded by the Seattle-basedDiscovery Institute, headquarters of the intelligent design movement. ID argues that biological life is too complex to have arisen through evolution. Old hats Maru Kind of a non-issue for me on the creation/evolution debate (to the extent that the creationists believe there is a debate :D ) since to me, the existence or non-existence of a soul does not by itself prove or disprove the entire remainder of the creationist assertion that all life was directly created by their God-image. Personally, I find it hard to believe that the I that perceives is a purely physical phenomenon, and I'm much more convinced that there is indeed some form of mind/body duality and something analogous to a soul. Awareness and cognition seem to me to argue in favor of that interpretation. What that soul consists of, and how it functions, and whether it survives after physical death, etc. etc. are mostly in the realm of religion, but to me, mind/body duality seems to be less firmly decided (or at least the significance of awareness and cognition seem to me to be grossly underestimated in the debate) than other aspects of human biology -- it's often discounted as fringe science and denigrated as a back door to creationism, but to me it seems to deserve taking a bit more seriously. Strictly my $.02, and admittedly, not really a scientific position as it is non- disprovable and irreproducible on some levels, but I don't consider it entirely ruled out. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: New Creationist Ploy
On Sat, 25 Oct 2008, William T Goodall wrote: http://tinyurl.com/6o9w33 Creationists declare war over the brain • 22 October 2008 • From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues. Sweet. I've used the universal wishlist button to add this to my amazon wishlist, maybe someone will see fit to give it to me. (At least my husband will be aware that I want it.) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: New Creationist Ploy
Personally, I find it hard to believe that the I that perceives is a purely physical phenomenon, and I'm much more convinced that there is indeed some form of mind/body duality and something analogous to a soul. The I that perceives is not anything -- its an illusion, a trick of perception and memory. It doesn't exist -- there is not fixed self. Buddha knews that 2500 years ago, and modern science is showing him right. Olin - Original Message - From: Bruce Bostwickmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussionmailto:brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2008 12:04 PM Subject: Re: New Creationist Ploy On Oct 25, 2008, at 1:25 PM, William T Goodall wrote: http://tinyurl.com/6o9w33http://tinyurl.com/6o9w33 Creationists declare war over the brain • 22 October 2008 • From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues. • Amanda Gefter YOU cannot overestimate, thundered psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz, how threatened the scientific establishment is by the fact that it now looks like the materialist paradigm is genuinely breaking down. You're gonna hear a lot in the next calendar year about... how Darwin's explanation of how human intelligence arose is the only scientific way of doing it... I'm asking us as a world community to go out there and tell the scientific establishment, enough is enough! Materialism needs to start fading away and non-materialist causation needs to be understood as part of natural reality. His enthusiasm was met with much applause from the audience gathered at the UN's east Manhattan conference hall on 11 September for an international symposium called Beyond the Mind-Body Problem: New Paradigms in the Science of Consciousness. Earlier Mario Beauregard, a researcher in neuroscience at the University of Montreal, Canada, and co-author of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul, told the audience that the battle between maverick scientists like himself and those who believe the mind is what the brain does is a cultural war. Schwartz and Beauregard are part of a growing non-material neuroscience movement. They are attempting to resurrect Cartesian dualism - the idea that brain and mind are two fundamentally different kinds of things, material and immaterial - in the hope that it will make room in science both for supernatural forces and for a soul. The two have signed the Scientific dissent from Darwinism petition, spearheaded by the Seattle-basedDiscovery Institute, headquarters of the intelligent design movement. ID argues that biological life is too complex to have arisen through evolution. Old hats Maru Kind of a non-issue for me on the creation/evolution debate (to the extent that the creationists believe there is a debate :D ) since to me, the existence or non-existence of a soul does not by itself prove or disprove the entire remainder of the creationist assertion that all life was directly created by their God-image. Personally, I find it hard to believe that the I that perceives is a purely physical phenomenon, and I'm much more convinced that there is indeed some form of mind/body duality and something analogous to a soul. Awareness and cognition seem to me to argue in favor of that interpretation. What that soul consists of, and how it functions, and whether it survives after physical death, etc. etc. are mostly in the realm of religion, but to me, mind/body duality seems to be less firmly decided (or at least the significance of awareness and cognition seem to me to be grossly underestimated in the debate) than other aspects of human biology -- it's often discounted as fringe science and denigrated as a back door to creationism, but to me it seems to deserve taking a bit more seriously. Strictly my $.02, and admittedly, not really a scientific position as it is non- disprovable and irreproducible on some levels, but I don't consider it entirely ruled out. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-lhttp://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: New Creationist Ploy
- Original Message - From: Olin Elliott [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2008 10:54 AM Subject: Re: New Creationist Ploy The I that perceives is not anything -- its an illusion, a trick of perception and memory. It doesn't exist -- there is not fixed self. Buddha knews that 2500 years ago, ?and modern science is showing him right. Hi Olin, Surely the I that perceives is something. Just because it can't exist outside a brain, doesn't mean it isn't real. If matter couldn't exist outside this universe, would that mean that matter is an illusion? Software can't run outside a computer, does that mean it's not real? What exactly does real mean? Regards, Wayne. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: New Creationist Ploy
Surely the I that perceives is something. Just because it can't exist outside a brain, doesn't mean it isn't real. Its real in the same way that a whirlpool is real -- it has a form and appears to be a thing even though the matter in it changes every second. It's a temporary pattern with no fixed or permanent substance. It's probably the result of a feedback loop -- all creatures, even single celled ones, can to some extent recognise patterns in their environment. At some level of development sufficiently complex creatures begin to turn that pattern recognition ability on themselves -- they can recognize patterns in their own behavior. Its what makes higher learning possible. But that also means that you're feeding the output of the system back into the system. That, I think, is a very simple description of what we call conciousness. It doesn't require anyting mystical or immaterial to explain it. To re-introduce those things is simply to try to hang on to some illusion that there is something special about us -- that we are somehow transcendet of the material universe. We're no t. We're matter arranged in very compelx patterns that were themselves the product of evolution. Real, in the context of science, means that it has consequences. If you posit the existence of some immaterial thing -- call it soul or whatever -- then you have to say, these are the consequences we can expect if this thing exists and this is how -- at least in principle -- we can test those consequence. A real scientific theory has to be falsifiable. There has to be some evidence that, if it were found, would disprove the idea. And the problem with non-material, invisible, undetectable soul stuff is that no matter what we find out about the brain, the believer will just say that we haven't learned to detect it yet. But the real clincher is that we don't need it. It's not necessary to explain conciousness or anthying else about humans -- its only necessary to make us feel special, like believing we were the center of the universe made us feel special. - Original Message - From: Wayne Eddymailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussionmailto:brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2008 8:07 PM Subject: Re: New Creationist Ploy - Original Message - From: Olin Elliott [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.commailto:brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2008 10:54 AM Subject: Re: New Creationist Ploy The I that perceives is not anything -- its an illusion, a trick of perception and memory. It doesn't exist -- there is not fixed self. Buddha knews that 2500 years ago, ?and modern science is showing him right. Hi Olin, Surely the I that perceives is something. Just because it can't exist outside a brain, doesn't mean it isn't real. If matter couldn't exist outside this universe, would that mean that matter is an illusion? Software can't run outside a computer, does that mean it's not real? What exactly does real mean? Regards, Wayne. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-lhttp://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
