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


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