From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Wed Aug 15 2001 - 08:26:42 MDT
Helen Fowle wrote:
>
> Hi all,
> I was hoping somebody could help clear something up for me. I've just
> been looking at Max More's Phd thesis on self ownership, which I take
> is largley part of the extropian philosophy. He says that the
> mind/body dualsim should be usurped in favour of seeinng them as a
> whole, i.e. what effects the mind also effects the body. But a lot of
> you on the list want to finally upload your minds - in effect becoming
> disembodied. How do you work this contradition out? Anders, Natasha
> and More all seem to be suggesting the importance of the body to the
> self - but there are a majority of you who want to forget the body
> altogehther and upload. I'm confused.
There is no contradiction. Max's thesis does not demand that the body be
necessarily a *human* (i.e. homo sapiens) body, or that the word 'body'
be limited solely to a biological system.
We recognise that much of the human race defines itself by its physical
appearance, but only because sight is such a dominant sense (at least
for males), with one's 'feelings' being a close second (but dominant in
women). Both are assumed by the public to be absent from a mind that is
removed from its original human body, especially if its body is replaced
with an artifical construct, and are assumed to be impossible to attain
for an artificial intelligence. We don't assume these things.
We generally think that you are you, no matter what body you are in.
Your sense of self will still be highly dependent upon you sight and/or
feelings, rather than your thoughts, which is what your true self is.
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