X-Message-Number: 32513
References: <>
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:44:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: 2Arcturus <>
Subject: Identity and Value

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We may perceive ourselves as a thing, an object, like a rock, whose molecules 
persist across time statically. Yet we know enough now to know our bodies are 
not static objects like that - by inhaling and exhaling and eating and 
excreting, our bodies are dynamic patterns, perpetually being made and unmade 
and made again. We look at a cloud and we may think, that is a persistent 
object, but its water molecules are condensing and evaporating and there is no 
persistence in shape or position as it arises and dissipates from its 
environment.


Our gut instincts evolved, just like our bodies and all the rest of us. Never 
before in the history of life on earth has an animal been able to transfer 
itself from one body to another. So it is natural our instincts evolved to tell 
us that our survival depends on the survival of our bodies, the continuity of 
our particular bodies. But in this case, we have a right to question our 
instincts based on new information. We can understand why it is natural to be 
troubled by the idea of a discontinuity of body, but we can't let this troubled 
feeling be the last word. Is the continuity we want the continuity of a 
particular sequence of biochemical reactions? Or is the continuity we want the 
continuity of our _selves_ - our personhood, our memories, our personality, our 
unique way of existing in the world, our 'souls'?



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