From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!psinntp!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw Tue Jan 21 09:27:01 EST 1992
Article 2873 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Virtual Person?
Summary: segregation of facts and consequences
Message-ID: <4095@sheol.UUCP>
Date: 18 Jan 92 17:33:30 GMT
References: <1992Jan16.194359.1160@cs.yale.edu> <1992Jan16.204346.903@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <60287@aurs01.UUCP> <1992Jan17.215950.23479@psych.toronto.edu>

> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
>>        but consider also multiple personality disorder.  The
>>claim can be made that MPD sufferers "really" have one mind, but this
>>is certainly not obvious, and there is (as I understand it) even
>>physical evidence (involving PET scans of brain function) that
>>supports the genuine multiple-mind position.

> I would be *very* wary of such an interpretation of MPD.  

Agreed.  My claim here is modest, merely that MPD is suggestive if
looked at from the "proper" perspective.  Perhaps I loaded my phrasing,
what with the "claim can be made" for the one-mind view, and "evidence
that supports" the multi-mind view.  But my intent was merely to point
out that the virtual person viewpoint is not ruled out, and might even
be thought of as "plausible".  Certainly "precedented", anyway. 

> Second, if we were to take *seriously* the possibility that such people
> *do* have "multiple minds", then an enormous number of philosophical
> problems arise, not the least of which is the ethical status of the 
> various "minds".  

Again agreed.  But none of the problems mentioned are contradictions,
they are "merely" incongruities.  They don't bear on the question of
whether multiple minds can be supported in one brain any more than the
legal and ethical difficulties of in-vitro fertilization (eg, liability
for abnormality, question of parentage, who has custody of frozen
zygotes and their legal status, etc) affects the question of whether the
resulting child is human. 

( Um...  let me disclaim here that I think the cases are totally
  parallel.  In the in-vitro fertilization issue, there are reasonable
  criteria established and well-agreed upon that say the child is human. 
  There is no parallel consensus in establishing "mindedness" of something
  or somebody.  I'm merely claiming that the ethical tangles that result
  do not affect the facts of the matter. )

( I also don't suppose Michael disagrees with the above
  segregation of facts and consequences.  The above was an attempt
  at clarification, not contradiction.  )
--
Wayne Throop  ...!mcnc!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw


