From: gts (gts@optexinc.com)
Date: Thu Sep 19 2002 - 22:50:34 MDT
Lee Corbin wrote:
> "Part of what makes me a person is a deep-seated drive
> to avoid the pain should my organs be deprived of oxygen."
>
> (I had to write that just to focus; on each of three consecutive
> prior readings your paragraph, I kept getting opposite answers!)
>
> I agree with my paraphrase, at least.
Well good then. That's progress, almost. (Unfortunately, looking below,
I see that it is not much progress after all, as you continue to split
hairs in an apparent effort to dispute and deny the obvious).
> But it's not *me* when it's unconscious.
But it *is* you who breathes unconsciously, Lee. It is absurd that you
should continue to deny that your personality is comprised of these
kinds of unconscious motivations and drives in addition to the more
familiar conscious motivations and drives.
> That's a reflex that
> I may choose to edit out of myself when I reach a time of good
> technology.
Yes, and so? You might also edit out your conscious preference for
tootie-fruitie flavored ice-cream. Your ability to do so does not mean
your preference for that flavor is not part of your present personality.
>> My main thrust in this argument, which you seem to want to avoid, is
>> that internal behaviors like breathing and the beating of
>> the heart are controlled by primitive drives or motivations
>> (whichever word you prefer), and that these basic drives or
motivations
>> are part of YOU. They are not of some other.
>
> I say that they are *not* part of me. Now fending off pain
> is a part of me, but *not* these "internal behaviors", I claim.
Yes, so you claim. But you offer little in the way of argument. If these
primitive drives of which I speak are not "of you," then you need to
explain "of what" they actually are. Are you saying that your drive to
breathe is "of God"? Historically, that is the only competing claim of
which I am aware.
> > To me the above is an obvious truth of human nature. I find myself
> > wondering why it should even be a topic of debate.
>
> I sense some exasperation on your part, which is quite
> understandable.
I'm glad you understand it. Quite frankly I am beginning to suspect you
are merely a master of sophistry. You have managed for countless
messages now to engage me in a dispute that no two intelligent people
should ever find themselves, namely that of whether basic human drives
such as the drive to breathe are a part of the person who breathes.
-gts
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