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Article 4804 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: embodiment, ideas, and the atom named 'Joe'
Message-ID: <1992Mar29.140305.10429@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 29 Mar 92 19:03:04 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Mar29.140305.10429
References: <ktaik2INNbmu@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Organization: Dept. of Math, Harvard Univ.
Lines: 54
Nntp-Posting-Host: zariski.harvard.edu

In article <ktaik2INNbmu@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> 
silber@orfeo.Eng.Sun.COM (Eric Silber) writes:

ES:
> On the macro scale, the macro-biotic scale, where PEOPLE stuff themselves,
> purge themselves, and live on day to day, as their cells die, some being
> replaced by COPIES,  on this scale, you have the same problem as you
> attribute to the 'lower particules'.  

Not at all: living beings, paradigmatic examples of Aristotelian
substances, are identifiable by their persistent structure.  

Strike one for vitalism!

ES:
>					Ultimately, though, it is a
> particular local aggregate which gives rise to identity.  

Conversely, the lack of identity of the parts is inherited by the whole.

ES:
>							    Furthermore,
> my ideas depend on ME, my ideas would not have existed without ME.

Doubtful.  I think "you" just came across them, and stole them from their
proprietor (nothing original there).  Anyways, it's not the corporeal being
who perpetrated this petty larceny, but its noumenal self, not necessarily
bound to the phenomenal host.

ES:
> They may persist through all the cellular replacements of my life until
> not one natal cell is left.  I'm still me and my ideas are still mine.

Unfortunately for "you", the ideas get replaced even faster than the cells.
"You" are still but a pulsating lump of unnamable protoplasm, or an
uncircumscribable bundle of banal thoughts, depending.

ES:
> HOWEVER, for "real mathematical objects", who is the generating subject,
> the objective nexus which gives rise to them ?????

Everybody knows the answer to this one.

`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'
: Qu'est-ce qui est bien?  Qu'est-ce qui est laid?         Harvard   :
: Qu'est-ce qui est grand, fort, faible...                 doesn't   :
: Connais pas! Connais pas!                                 think    :
:                                                             so     :
: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
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'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`


