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Article 7505 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: lcarr@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (lincoln carr)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Simulated Brain
Message-ID: <Bx769M.HuB@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
Date: 4 Nov 92 15:12:58 GMT
References: <burt.720426490@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> <m94oTB1w165w@CODEWKS.nacjack.gen.nz>
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In article <m94oTB1w165w@CODEWKS.nacjack.gen.nz> system@CODEWKS.nacjack.gen.nz (Wayne McDougall) writes:
>burt@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Burt Voorhees) writes:
>
>> I would say that this persistent sense of identity across
>> multiple states of being, and even across multiple
>> personalities, could be explained easily in terms
>> of an assumed a priori consciousness which has the
>> capacity of intentional identification with structures
>> in an individuals mind.
>> bv
>
>
>Just me being annoying again. How do you know there is a persistent 
>state of identity? You have no contact with these other states of 
>being. You only have historical knowledge, and you would need to make 
>all sorts of assumptions about the reliability of that knowledge.
>It may be an inevitable consequence of the wiring in the human brain 
>that we falsely perceive continutity of identity in ourselves, when in 
>fact no such continuity exists.
>

The "I," being an a priori precursor to human experience, "exists" in
the same way that numbers "exist."  When I say that the number "2"
exists, I don't mean, like Plato is thought to have believed, that
there is a big marble TWO somewhere.  It is merely a logical entity.
What would you want the "I" to be?  A noumenal soul?  Even if it were,
we could never have any knowledge of the fact, so, what's the point?  




-- 
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"


