X-Message-Number: 12559 From: "Pierre Le Bert" <> Subject: unicity of the self, location of the feelings, location of our ideas Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 00:39:36 +0200 SELF: When speaking about the preservation of bodies, one may think of "star trek". As you know it, Cap. Kurk has no problem using the teleporting machine. But the problem is quite a big one. We can imagine that one day there will be some big scanner able to figure out the exact position of every component of the body at the time you want to be teleported (especially if you are frozen, for the atoms that compose your body won't be moving that fast and will have quite no more movement at a low temperature). Then you are desintegrated on board the ship and the machine uses some matter at the destination place to "rebuild" you a body at its exact shape. Defrost, animate and TADAAA : here you are, you are back to the world... But imagine that some guy comes to you on board the teleporter's ship and tells you that there has been some disfunction : your body has been correctly scanned, rebuilt on the planet, but the original has not been desintegrated (for you are still onboard) ! I suppose you would not accept to be desintegrated at this time !!! We may conclude that the only continuity between you onboard and you on the planet is a continuity of belief. In the first case you are sure that you are being teleported on the planet, and in the second case you are sure that some guy is going to kill you. On the other hand, as you are reading those words, your body is travelling in space at a very high velocity. At every moment, there is some kind of teleportation, for your body is transported from a place to another, and the matter that does compose it is being replaced by new matter (through digestion !). But you still feel the same, don't you ? And it is not a question of speed of process for in every case you are not conscious of those phenomenon This is what we may call the "star trek paradox" !!! FEELINGS: Some people deny that there is something that does exist and that is not material. So where is the color "green" ? On the other hand, some people say that the electrical signal "is" the color you are feeling. Sorry, but you may explain as long as you want to a blind man the nature of this signal, he will never be able to feel, to experience what is green. On the other hand, what is the link between this subjective world of feelings and the world of matter we are all living in ? How does feelings "emerge" from this world of matter ? IDEAS Platon is well known for his objective, non material and eternal world of ideas. He pretends that there is something, some place that is the location of "our" ideas. Moreover, those ideas does exist by themselves (so they are not "our" ideas, but just "ideas"). for exemple, E=mc2, was just waiting for Einstein to discover it (in the same way as an explorer). There may be something right in this theory, for i can never be sure that you feel the taste of an apple the same way as I do, but if I tell you 1+1=2, I'm sure that you have understood it for it does appear clearly in your mind, and we can share this experience of the "1+1=2". How do we access to this world of perfection ? Through the process that is called "evolution", it seems to me quite difficult to achieve something perfect. PLB Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12559