X-Message-Number: 25423
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 12:48:13 -0800
Subject: Survival Not Possible? (To Brook)
From: <>

Dear Brook:

You wrote:

"Agreed. Not surviving, in any meaningful way, is the logical 
alternative. I would encourage those who closely follow this 
survival thread to seriously consider that survival is not the only 
logical reality. We don't insist that a grain of sand or a beach 
survives, only that they change over time."

It is meaningless to talk about matter or energy as surviving. Of 
course, all matter and energy 'survives'---you can neither create 
nor destroy energy, you can only change its form.

When we talk of the survival of 'nouns', we are referring to the 
survival of the set of properties associated therewith. 

You wrote:

"What makes a person intrinsically any different from any other 
physical object? Why insist that one survives while the other 
doesn't? 'Kirk, yield to the logic of the situation.'"

If I put a gun to your head and blow your brains out, do you think 
that you have survived? If so, why not let me do it? 

You wrote:

"All physical entities progress through time and change. That is 
the whole proposition. No need to add the complexity of an appeal 
to survival."

Survival only refers to survival of a set of properties. I want to 
retain the ability to experience qualia. This is why I won't let 
you put a gun to my head---and more generally, why I try to take 
good care of myself.

You wrote:

"It is certainly INTUITIVE that we survive day to day in the 
ordinary course of events, but I have found very satisfactory 
explanations for the state of our existence, by expanding upon the 
basic premise of existence without survival."

What you have found is a way to comfort yourself.

But you never would have searched and discovered this way of self-
medication, if your survival had not been important to you. It 
still is important to you now, you just like to pretend it is not 
to ease your pain.

I find it is more useful to deal with my pain directly.

Best Regards,

Richard B. R.

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