X-Message-Number: 17270
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 23:20:50 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: God and Others

Louis Epstein, #17260:
>... I know at
>least one vice president is now [neuro] suspended...if
>Jerry Leaf ... was also VP that makes two).

Jerry is actually whole-body.
-------
> > Message #17253 Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 20:59:08 -0700
> > From: Mike Perry <>
> >...
> > I don't have the original atoms I had ten years ago, and you don't have
> > yours either.
>
>But our current sets of atoms are the organic
>successors to the ones we had then.Not at all
>the same thing as discarding a former body for
>a new one and calling the new body the same
>person as the old.

"Organic successors." So it makes a difference *how* the atoms were changed 
as to whether you would grant "sameness" to the new construct. This is not 
how I see it; the properly functioning structure is all that counts. (For 
the case people like to bring up of more than one copy of the person being 
created, I allow that one person may fission into more than one who share a 
common past.) But at least you allow that sometimes the atoms are changed 
without changing to a new person.
...
> > If some question a certain course of action that need not preclude others
> > from taking it--unless you are contemplating totalitarianism.
>
>See the studies of Dutch euthanasia...
>legalization has led to railroading of
>those who would not choose it themselves.
>"It's perfectly legal for him to die,and
>rationally I think he should..."
>
>Its not being legal is protection.
In the U.S. at least a laissez-faire tradition has some respect, and I hope 
it will continue and strengthen. The trouble with totalitarian approaches 
is they *could* be wrong, in which case everybody loses. Moreover, they 
stifle the creative process that is needed to find the best answers.

 >> The absence of deep free will far from implies that we have no reason.

>I think not.It reveals our reason as an
>illusion,and particularly the idea that
>we make decisions is discredited completely.
>If we have no choices,we have no choices.

To me it doesn't cause a problem if on some deep level my actions are 
predetermined. (Actually it's comforting, for I don't have to worry about 
uncaused effects or the possibility that unseen, animistic forces are 
pulling the strings.) I would consider even a deterministic (entirely 
predictable) computer program to have reasoning power if it can prove math 
theorems and the like.

>... it
>is necessary for a God to exist for us to
>exist.

Well, you could define God as "all that exists" as a pantheist might, and 
then be quite right--but only because something must exist for us to exist.

>...
> > To me, sentience requires embedding in time--I see no way around it. A God
> > outside of time would not square with traditional theism as is offered, for
> > example, in various scriptures such as the Bible, where God speaks, hears
> > and answers prayers, and the like.
>
>Transcendence is transcendence.
>God is beyond our concepts of sentience,
>not beneath them.That God is eternal does
>not insulate him from communication with
>the bound-by-time.Time is *within* God,
>not an external measure of God...nothing
>is external to God.

But one must keep in mind what is (or should be) meant by "sentience" and 
respect the property of logical consistency. It's tempting to wax 
enthusiastic and imagine a being with all good and wonderful attributes. 
But can they all fit? Can a being be "outside of time"? Can a being 
"transcend sentience" and not simply become an abstraction, like 
mathematics, and sacrifice being-hood? And what evidence do we have that 
there *must be* a vast being behind all that is? I don't see it, but it 
doesn't worry me, because it seems the world must have its usual pluses and 
minuses, whether there is a God or not. Actually, I feel some comfort 
thinking there *isn't* a God because then it's easier to account for the 
minuses, and I also feel more confident in such matters as the scientific 
quest for immortality.

Mike Perry

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