X-Message-Number: 4156
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 1995 21:29:29 -0700
From: John K Clark <>
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Godel

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 Wrote: 

		>As to Peter's question about the statement "Every person
		>contains a self circuit that cannot be uploaded into a          
		>computer"--yes, I am sure it is meaningful, although of 
		>uncertain truth. 
		 
How would you go about proving that the self circuit even exists, 
much less that it can't be uploaded into a computer, especially 
if you can't use behavior? I don't think you can,even in theory, 
so  the statement is meaningless according to your definition.

		>As to the statement "Every person posseses an immortal soul
		>that survives  after death"--the meaningfulness of this is      
		>problematic, depending on  agreement on the meaning of "soul." 
		  
I see little difference between your "self circuit" idea and the traditional 
Christian concept of the soul. Both are meaningful and both are untrue.
	    
		>Requiring in-principle verifiability does NOT result in the
		>possibility of a proposition that is true but not meaningful. 
		
If the Goldbach Conjecture is undecidable then it's true and you
will never find a counterexample but you will never find a proof 
so you can never verify it thus  according to your definition
its meaningless yet true. I don't know if the Goldbach Conjecture 
is true or not but I know what it means, I think. 
All this tells me that your definition of meaning is not very good.
    

Usually people only comment on posts when they disagree with
them but I'll break tradition and say that  Message # 4146 by
Mike Perry was excellent, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and your correct, 
this issue is relevant to Cryonics.


			       John K Clark             

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