On May 6, 12:47 pm, Jesse Mazer <[email protected]> wrote: > > Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 11:33:52 -0700 > > Subject: Re: Temporary Reality > > From: [email protected] > > To: [email protected] > > > On May 4, 6:13 am, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> wrote: > >> 2009/5/4 <[email protected]>: > > >>> I agree that religion, and a lot of other stuff, produces a lot of > >>> fake certainty. Not good. So that implies that atheism is the way to > >>> go? > > >>> But doesn't it make sense that if God were personal, and a human > >>> person like us could relate to him/her as a person, then that would > >>> result in expanding our consciousness? > > >> Perhaps. But saying that something would be nice doesn't have any any > >> bearing whatsoever on whether it is so. > > >> -- > >> Stathis Papaioannou > > > The purpose of my questions was to question the suggested advantage of > > using atheism as the [preferred] fixed point from which to view the > > universe [by a person]. As part of the process of calling Kim's > > suggestion into question, I'm suggesting the the consideration of the > > possibility that the fact that we are persons is more profound than > > simply being inescapable, but is fundamental. > > What do you mean when you say that *we* are "persons", though?
I think that knowing what a person is is sort of like knowing what consciousness is. We just have to go right ahead and be a person and relate to other persons, in faith. Rather like relating to my wife. I've given up trying to figure her out, draw up a theory on who she is and why, and based on that theory algorithmically (is that word allowed in here?) come up with what therefore I should do in each situation. I have to just be me and it seems to usually work out, thankfully. Sorry I can't be more precise. > The word can carry different hidden connotations for different people. Would > you say that a deterministic A.I. computer program could be a "person" or > does the word suggest free will or a soul? Does the word suggest we have some > sort of essential self that remains unchanged over time, in contrast to the > view of the self as an ever-changing dynamical process that's suggested by > modern neuroscience (and perhaps also by Buddhism)? Do "persons" have natural > boundaries or can there be something subjective about where one person ends > and another begins--for example, would it be wrong in any absolute sense to > view my left and right brain as two separate persons cooperating and sharing > information by a high-bandwidth channel? If technology allowed different > human brains to share information in the same way, a la the "Borg" in Star > Trek, could the resulting collective mind be seen as a single person? Some > mystical/idealist philosophies might say that our minds are already all > connected on a sort of subconscious or implicit level, and that "God" is a > name for this sort of collective self shared by all of us...I sometimes think > that something like this could be true in some sort of transhumanist "Omega > Point" theory in which intelligence is destined to expand towards infinite > complexity, with every "smaller" mind existing both as an entity in itself > but also recreated within "larger" minds further in the future (I offered > some speculations about this in the context of reconciling the ASSA with > quantum immortality > athttp://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/msg/988c1148d589747d)- Hide > quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
