X-Message-Number: 4159
From: 
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 1995 13:02:40 -0400
Subject: SCI. CRYONICS self/soul

Peter Merel (#4154) and John Clark (#4156) both say the "Self Circuit"
concept is similar to that of "soul." This (especially at this stage of the
game) almost makes me tear my hair out. Surely, surely I have made the
difference clear....but to some people obviously I haven't, so one more time,
briefly:

We KNOW we are conscious and have feeling or subjectivity. If we are
materialists, we are virtually certain that this capacity must be grounded in
some portion(s) or aspect(s) of the brain or its functions. Without
subjectivity there is no life as we know it, so the capacity for feeling is
the ground of being.

 Whatever the nature of this ground of being--which we KNOW exists--I choose
to call it the "self circuit."  

One might disparage this on the basis that the name is ill chosen. One might
also say it doesn't really tell us anything new--it is just a label. However,
I think it does help to focus attention on what is the most important of all
scientific questions--the anatomy/physiology of the self circuit. This
opinion is reinforced by the reluctance of some even to acknowledge that such
a thing exists, in spite of it being virtually a truism.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute


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