X-Message-Number: 8123
From: (Ken Stone)
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 11:35:02 GMT
I know Dr. Ettinger hasn't always behaved like a saint on this forum, but
he's made a legitimate point, over and over again: we don't know *for sure*
what the requirements are for consciousness. I think he ought to just give
it up at this point, or at least take a breather until some people are willing
to chill out and listen to what he's saying instead of only to what they can
hear him saying. This isn't an argument about logic, it's an argument about
religious axioms and the nature of reality. Perhaps the hard-core info people
need to be reminded that their atheism is only a faith, and that their
_reductio_ad_absurdum_ arguments don't hold up well when they set out to
prove only what they've already assumed- that there is no independent
'soul' or 'vital force' or 'organic residue' or anything else required
for consciousness.
What many seem to have missed is that Dr. Ettinger hasn't even claimed
*anything*-- except that there are things about the nature of conscious
reality that we don't (and can't) know, from our current vantage
point. Nobody (that I know of-- I can't be sure) can say for certain that
the Heaven's Gate people weren't right on the money about the 'container'
bit -- or that our world isn't under the absolute and immediate control
of a semi-sadistic God with a twisted sense of humor. In the face of
things like the Copenhagen interpretation of QM, is it really so bizarre
to accept that perhaps some crucial element of consciousness *might*
exist partially outside of the physical universe that we are consciously
aware of?
-Ken
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We look at each other wondering what the other is thinking.
But we never say a thing. And these crimes between us grow deeper. Take these
chances.
Place them in a box until a quieter time. Lights down, you up and die.
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