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Article 7459 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (lincoln carr)
Subject: Re: Simulated Brains
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In article <747@ckgp.UUCP> thomas@ckgp.UUCP (Mike Thomas) writes:

>The point I was raising was that the "I" or "self" that the person has
>(that you and I have) does not change. I guess what I am saying is that
>a person does not lose a perspective of self. Your brain has millions of
>neurons which do not reproduce after about the age of 2 1/2 years of age.
>so the point become, when your friend was hit by the car, areas of his
>frontal cortex were distroyed forever. The wire-ing has not changed
>regions of his brain are lost; these regions are for personality and not
>for the mind (or soul). What I am talking about is this focus of thought
>which we perceive as "self." When I say "I" I do not mean 100 trillion
>neurons (even if that is all I am?) I am refering to that single thing
>we call "I", or mind. 
>  My arguement is that if we (as humans) require all of these 100 trillion
>cells to produce this person we refer to as "I" then why when regions of
>this brain lose hundreds of millions of cells (via stroke, accident, etc)
>do we not lose our mind (so to speak) and become a void create which just
>stares off into space? Many people would respond with the findings 
>(what was his name?) that say that we only use 10% of our brain.

Just to put my two cents worth in, the philsopher Kant thought that
the "I" to which you are referring was a fundamental, regulative
precursor to human experience.  So, if he is correct, no trauma after
which we can still build experience would destroy the "I."  For those
whom are interested, this is all expounded in "The Critique of Pure
Reason," or, if you don't have a year of your life to set aside to a
book, "Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics."

-- 
Lincoln R. Carr, Computer Scientist-Philosopher    lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
"Treat all rational autonomous moral agents, whether in the form of yourself
or another, never as means solely, but always as ends in themselves."
                  Immanuel Kant, from "Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals"


