If I still had any faith, a priest could answer these questions easily, unless I asked which clone received the soul, though I suppose clones are probably an abomination of some sort and mostly hypothetical anyhow.
What makes us human? Our brain; our bodies; the “soul?” Are we just meat robots, or is there more? How many parts can you remove before you become something less than human?
If you had to have something taken out to save your life, but you became a fundamentally different person afterwards, would you still do it? What if that part affected how you felt about your spouse, your kids, yourself? Made you less creative? Changed your entire self-image? Would you still be you, or someone different now? What if it made things better; made you a success and people really liked you? Is that a good thing considering you had to kill the old you to do it?
Is it better to breathe your last breath as the person you know? Is it “cheating” to have to take something every day for the rest of your life to replace what they remove from you? Is it worth it to live a “slightly less active” lifestyle?
What makes you who you are? If they removed your brain and placed it in a jar of electrolytic fluid, would your brain be you? Would it still “love” without the chemicals that drive us, or simply remember love as an abstract concept?
People have organs removed / replaced all the time now. They seem normal, they go on living, and the old organs are discarded. Technically, you could go on living without quite a large number of organs, though it certainly wouldn’t be pleasant. Worth it to cling desperately to “life?”
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I'm not sure if my answer will be satisfactory, but here it is:
In my opinion, who you are is a function of your memories and perceptions. It's that intangible sense of self within you that remains no matter how your body changes. If, say, I got a tattoo, I would still be David Michael Mallon. I would still be David Michael Mallon even if my consciousness was siphoned into a mi-go brain jar. To me, it's not the combination of body and soul that make the entity. It's the soul alone.
I mean, I know I shouldn't be preaching--I'm just a twenty-one-year-old screw-up. This is just my opinion. However, I'm hoping that you'll listen to everyone in turn, and take whatever they have to say.
Cheers.
Strokes and other brain tramas can change people more than you'd think. Memories and experiences make up a substantial portion of who we are, but biochemical processes also play a significant part.
If I still had any faith, a priest could answer these questions easily, unless I asked which clone received the soul, though I suppose clones are probably an abomination of some sort and mostly hypothetical anyhow.
What makes us human? Our brain; our bodies; the “soul?” Are we just meat robots, or is there more? How many parts can you remove before you become something less than human?
If you had to have something taken out to save your life, but you became a fundamentally different person afterwards, would you still do it? What if that part affected how you felt about your spouse, your kids, yourself? Made you less creative? Changed your entire self-image? Would you still be you, or someone different now? What if it made things better; made you a success and people really liked you? Is that a good thing considering you had to kill the old you to do it?
Is it better to breathe your last breath as the person you know? Is it “cheating” to have to take something every day for the rest of your life to replace what they remove from you? Is it worth it to live a “slightly less active” lifestyle?
What makes you who you are? If they removed your brain and placed it in a jar of electrolytic fluid, would your brain be you? Would it still “love” without the chemicals that drive us, or simply remember love as an abstract concept?
People have organs removed / replaced all the time now. They seem normal, they go on living, and the old organs are discarded. Technically, you could go on living without quite a large number of organs, though it certainly wouldn’t be pleasant. Worth it to cling desperately to “life?”
There's a lot here to cover. Here's my take.
Human cloning is possible or nearly so. While a clone would have all of your genetic material if done properly, the clone wouldn't necessarily behave identically to you without your experiences. Identical twins come to mind.
What makes us human? Genes, says the biologist. Psychologists might disagree. What makes us human, at least in my opinion, is self-awareness. Animals (with few exceptions) don't think of terms of "I", "we", or "them" or "you".
The removal of something to save your life that makes you different forever after is similar to the use of drugs to treat various mental disorders. Many relevant points on that are in another thread elsewhere: Mr. Shiny and I posted over there IIRC. You still are "you" if you can identify with yourself. Not well stated, I know. Humans change as we go along and never notice. Once in a while, you have one of those life-altering events and make an active attempt to change. If you have something pulled out of you to make you live longer but change in personality, you're still you-but the you is different. Still the sum of past experiences, now with a new result. Success is another point you mention. I'm in the "who cares?" camp on that. Success is ephemeral. Few who live leave such a mark on the world that we are known by many; those people end up in the history books. You can't take it with you, regardless of what comes after. And as for the relationships, you'd have to ask your friends, family, and loved ones how they felt.
I try to avoid placing value on my life based on society's current standards or the values of others, but we are all influenced by these things regardless of what we might desire. To me, I'm alive, I'm going to do the things I want to do and have to do based on meeting the necessities of life. I'm not here to compare myself to others, though I'm a judgmental cuss according to Myers-Briggs testing. I'm not perfect and never will be. But I am here and will one day be gone. I've seen too many friends and family members pass on to worry about death. When the Grim Reaper gets someone I know, I see her go by, bow in respect, and remind her that one day my time will come and I'll be happy to see her then. Till that day, I've got to get things done.
A person also has to consider quality of life, as you are. To me, the critical problem, the event that would make me wonder about how much I value life, would be quadrapalegia/parapalegia. If I couldn't walk, that would be bad. No use of my arms would be just as bad. I need my mind to survive, but I'm independently minded. I couldn't stand the idea of someone taking care of me. Everyone has to decide where that cut-off is. I've always felt people were too selfish about life. Families try to keep people in comas alive, hoping for a miracle, not letting their suffering kin pass on. But for whose benefit?
Here, let me apologize if I offend anyone on this topic. Also let it be known that I have social-Darwinist leanings.
Now, what's at the bottom of all this? Is this just idle philosophy, or is there something more to this tied to your own life?
A lot of life seems to be living in the place between the hammer and the anvil. I've lost track of the number of things I have had to leave behind. I might be too much of a pragmatist to be much help in this. I feel mostly like "I" am the person I carry around with me. I guess it's the result of the me's I was falling behind when I had to admit they weren't going to be able to keep me alive in this world. This is the me that was able to keep moving.
As for the value of moving forward, I guess the brain in a jar existence wouldn't be enough for me. A life without any senses would seem empty. But it's a sliding scale. Would I hold on without use of my legs? Probably. I have seen examples of people with far less still able to find meaning in life, some of them much more meaning than my clouded sensibilities have picked up on yet. So I'm afraid that all looks like personal choice to me.
Circling back around to the death of the old me, there are so many passings like that, I think. And the spirits do come back to puzzle me again.
I think Shiny's suggestion of listening to what everyone has to say is better put than anything I can come up with. Good luck.
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There are several intertwining questions in the original post.
In essence though, the question is - what makes a man himself. Flesh and blood get us only so far and then they fail. Is there more afterwards? This is the great question of religion. The answer of those with faith is probably given best by Job…
For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God, Whom I shall see for myself, And my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!
Philosophically, it is easy to see that we are indeed more than the sum of our parts. Lose a leg and you remain yourself. Same with an eye, a lung, even a heart (which we have seen can be replaced). Some suggest that it is the brain that is irreplaceable and it is true that brain chemistry greatly effects personality and yet… I have to think that there is a personality within me subject to no other will save my own and that it shall endure even when this flesh fails.
Those without faith can scoff but I take great solace in the thought that this world is not the real one… that it is only a reflection of that which will endure forever. There is a bit of the eternal inside of each man and it behooves us to treat it well.
I'm just a twenty-one-year-old screw-up. This is just my opinion.
Possibly, but you also get mad props for the mi-go brain jar reference. ;)
I find the concept of the human (only) soul difficult to reconcile at times, only because of the following:
Do ants have souls? No.
Why not? Because then we’d have to feel guilty for crushing them.
It is true that life is all about change too. I know I’m not the same person I was fifteen years ago, though I’m certainly a derivative of those experiences.
I don't buy Cartesian dualism. By my reckoning we are meat and soul. My idea of soul is so abstract, as it is with others I'm sure, that I may at one time argue that we can lose it, or part of it, yet at others argue that we can never do so. Soul means many of the unquantifiables, the abstractions, which characterize us. And I furthermore believe that humans do not have a monopoly on soul. I have never killed anything for no reason. I don't poison bugs and I catch spiders to let them out, including ants. The two exceptions to this are house flies and mosquitoes. Why? The later bites me and I am retaliating, and the former is unsanitary and I am keeping my living space clean.
Also, I believe we are discrete beings yet in many ways we also extend well beyond our skin in both the physical and abstract sense. I hesitate to elaborate on this because it will lead to an explanation which I have no time to write.
And lastly, I no longer have any interest in the speculation about actual existence after life, none of it has ever done anything to comfort me and the solid answers proffered by the world's religions are nothing more than the speculations of people who are incapable of accepting the staggering mystery of existence, speculations created by people who NEED concrete facts.
That's just my opinion.
solid answers proffered by the world's religions are nothing more than the speculations of people who are incapable of accepting the staggering mystery of existence, speculations created by people who NEED concrete facts.
Sounds similar to my “the afterlife is a crutch” theory, though I’m willing to entertain the idea due to the law of conservation of energy, and I almost never rule anything out (heaven is a chocolate choochoo train with a monkey conductor? Umm, well, probably not, but I can't disprove you, so...).
heaven is a chocolate choochoo train with a monkey conductor?
As written in the sacred texts, the Conductor is clearly a hippo who wears a pith helmet. I would advise all who think otherwise to cease this blasphemy if you do not wish to be banished to the infernal caboose with the marmosets for all eternity.
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My uneducated thoughts on...
Clones--
DNA describes us, but experience defines us ( I heard that on CSI, though I think someone else really smart probably said it first); or, a clone of me would initially be me, as a member of the species, but the moment after, even if my clone and I were metaphorically joined at the hip, we would develop into two distinct individuals--experience + individual interpretation of the experience = personality = me.
Cybernetic enhancement/replacement--
I'm a cyborg right now, at least in terms of parts of me are manufactured and not 'natural' or 'original'; most of you reading this are probably cyborgs, too--welcome to the collective. My right hand was injured in an IED detonation, and now the extensor tendon--which allows me to control my middle finger, and subsequently, if the middle finger cannot be controlled, the entire fingers set cannot be controlled; it's kind of important like that--that extensor tendon is artificial: it's made of all synthetic elements, including Kevlar, and a 'bridge' literally grown (but not organic) which allows nerve impulses to pass along the muscles so my brain can tell my hand to move. Interestingly, my hand is much stronger now. I also have several filings in my teeth, I wear glasses, and part of my left knee was manufactured by DuPont (it's also much better than the original, and better than my 100% organic right knee).
The brain as the house of the soul v. the entire body--
While the serial killer's hand in the movie Body Parts caused the protagonist to commit murder following transplant (no, as far as I know, you can't yet get someone else's hand sewn on to your arm and expect it to work), presumably because the killer's spirit/soul was somehow in the hand, I'd argue that, religious arguments aside, the individual is stored in the brain. I defend that assertion by reminding everyone of REM sleep and the act of dreaming. Who's never awoke from a dream or nightmare and said, "Wow!! that was sooooo real! It's like I was really, really there!" Our dreams are, at least partially, colored by our daily, physical and interactive experiences, which are transported by our senses and interpreted by our--wait for it; you guessed it--by our brains! I'd argue, if the brain is there and working, we will continue to develop, because our brains are designed to reflect, self-inspect, and connect interactions both internal and external--we are constantly building, nuking, reinforcing and rerouting neurons and synaptic bridges based on this idea (backed up by the awesome science of brain function scanning technology) that the brain, no matter how smart you are or aren't, is constantly trying to get better at doing its job. QED, whether or not the brain's in a jar or downloaded into a computer network, so long as it is able to do (or be fooled into doing) its job, it will continue to evolve and develop; and we will continue to be.
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I don't buy Cartesian dualism. By my reckoning we are meat and soul. My idea of soul is so abstract, as it is with others I'm sure, that I may at one time argue that we can lose it, or part of it, yet at others argue that we can never do so. Soul means many of the unquantifiables, the abstractions, which characterize us. And I furthermore believe that humans do not have a monopoly on soul. I have never killed anything for no reason. I don't poison bugs and I catch spiders to let them out, including ants. The two exceptions to this are house flies and mosquitoes. Why? The later bites me and I am retaliating, and the former is unsanitary and I am keeping my living space clean.
Also, I believe we are discrete beings yet in many ways we also extend well beyond our skin in both the physical and abstract sense. I hesitate to elaborate on this because it will lead to an explanation which I have no time to write.
And lastly, I no longer have any interest in the speculation about actual existence after life, none of it has ever done anything to comfort me and the solid answers proffered by the world's religions are nothing more than the speculations of people who are incapable of accepting the staggering mystery of existence, speculations created by people who NEED concrete facts.
That's just my opinion.
Very nice; and I'm with you (though I tend to step on very ugly spiders--it's a problem, especially with my Korean family, who view spiders as good and lucky for the house).
I slogged all the way through Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre a few years ago and I still have the scars to prove it. But I also think there's a lot of truth in it, with very few leaps of logic or b!@$!@!~. So, my answer is: you (in the global sense) and I (just me) are self-defining, choosing beings. If I lose my arm and get it replaced with an ape's arm (one can only hope), I can choose to see myself as James as I always have or I can see myself as a freak with an ape's arm and start dressing and acting like the Phantom of the Opera. Regardless of what anyone else may think, it's my decision in the end. Even if others want to see the James in this fantasy scenario as God's Cruelest Mistake or something like that, I'm free to retain an only slightly different definition for myself. Your past only has as much hold on you as you allow it to have and I've found it to be true that it's your decision how you define yourself.
There was a Japanese filmmaker in the 60s that made some of the strangest and most in-your-face documentaries I've ever heard of. There was one guy he followed that had multiple schlorosis or a similar disease that left him pitied by those around him as an invalid; so this guy would go out to the street and sit naked in traffic, demanding that people look at him. He wanted to make people see him as a human, with all the same parts and everything that went with them.
I personally don't think any part of me is eternal. Whether my decisions, loves, feelings, etc. are a product of hormones or whatever is open for debate, but I personally hope that they die with me. I just think it's too good to be true to think that after you die you get to keep going and even if it doesn't cost me anything to think that maybe that's true, I prefer to think that I've only got so much time left to me and that the most living in that time is the best living. I don't judge anyone with a different point of view, I just think my life as it is now is more valuable to me if I know I've only got one shot.
At the end of the day, as far as having something removed to save that life, I would probably take a look at quality of life after the procedure. If I could have a relatively normal life afterwards, even if I need to be medicated, I would certainly do that. If it would be so severe a difference that I would only be a brain sitting in an immobile husk of a body (like in the movie/book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)...I would have to think about it longer and harder. It would still be me, of course, but would it be a life I would want to live? I don't know.
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...If it would be so severe a difference that I would only be a brain sitting in an immobile husk of a body (like in the movie/book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)...I would have to think about it longer and harder. It would still be me, of course, but would it be a life I would want to live? I don't know.
What if you would only actually be a living brain in an otherwise immobile body (or a jar, for argument's sake), but through technology you could be fooled (willingly, we'll assume; or willingly at a time in your life before, say, an accident) to believe it were otherwise, ala Vanilla Sky without the programming glitches, or The Matrix without the nefarious, world-conquering Architect?
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I take a biologically redctive view - we are all meat. Personality - what makes you "You" - is a function of the interplay of physiological systems, particularly the nervous and endocrine, which regulate your behaviour. I simply don't believe in the existence of a soul, afterlife or what-have-you.
So if you lose a bit - say, for instance, a thyroid gland - would it change "You"? Well, it would likely change your personality to some extent, greater or lesser. My brother has been having over-active thyroid problems lately and, before they were diagnosed, he was acting pretty strange - beside the physical symptoms, he was pretty paranoid, and at one point while on holiday with his wife was convinced she had been kidnapped while in the supermarket. Now, this was a fairly discrete, physiological problem - too much thyroxin - having fairly profound behavioural effects. Similarly, people who suffer major spinal injuries - parapleigia (sp?) and so on - experience anger differently - a colder feeling, rather than boiling rage - because they do not experience the same amount of biofeedback from their bodies that triggers and feeds emotion.
But did my brother's health problems make him less, or more, than "my brother"? It is worth pointing out that we, as people, undergo profound changes in our physiologies anyway - puberty and menopause, for example - and more subtle tailings-off as we get older. Sure, we change as people, and we expect that to happen up to adulthood. But it carries on after that - I'm not the same person I was, say, ten years ago. How much of this is "experience" (whatever the hell that is) and how much is my testosterone declining as I get older is moot.
But I guess my mian point is that "You" is a movable feast - it changes all the time. There is no ineffable essence of Aubrey - pure, distilled and unchanging - against which to compre me against. What we get is a continuum of biological processes interacting and changing as we get older. What we think we are now is simply a point along the way - a snapshot in time, not a definitive description.
That said, the potential impact of chemical changes in the body are not necessarily to be waved away with a biologically reductionist wave of the hand - but the issue is more for loved ones than for yourself, as such. How would they react to a changed personality? that I can't answer. (That assumes, of course, that I really answered the first question, of course.)
What makes us human? Our brain; our bodies; the “soul?” Are we just meat robots, or is there more? How many parts can you remove before you become...
Yes, we are just "meat robots."
I'm not being glib; The brain is the seat of conciousness...anything that affects the brain chemically or physcially can therefore damage identity and individuality. The rest of your questions are quite subjective...whether it is worth living under certain circumstances or not, etc.
Further discussion seems likely to flirt with religous debate, which is unlikely to be productive, almost certainly not appreciated on Paizo's boards, and frankly not that interesting to me in any event.
This is a really fascinating discussion. Count me in among those not very convinced of the existence of a soul or an afterlife. The consequence of that is that to me it is, generally speaking, better to be alive. Yes, quality of life is a valid concern, but in almost all cases, being alive is still better, because the only quality of death is being dead. That being said, if your quality of life is only distinguishable from being dead because you breath and digest (especially with manditory assistance from machines), I don't think that's much of a life, and I don't think anyone is done any favors by forcing them to remain in that state.
In between those two extremes (perfect health -- vegetative state) I'd say there's gray area, and whether any given quality of life is sufficient for continued living is, to me, a matter of personal choice.
I think I have more thoughts on this subject, but they're a swirly mess right now, so this is all I've got for the moment.
I'm in the "meat robot" camp.
Yes, having a organ removed or added will to some degree change who you are. But your personality is also affected everyday by the food you eat and the environment you live in. Losing a gland might affect someone a lot less than losing a loved one. People are neither simple nor static.
As part of my ongoing issue, I noticed last night I’ve gone silver (haired).
Is this what this is really about? ;-) ;-)
As part of my ongoing issue, I noticed last night I’ve gone silver (haired).Is this what this is really about? ;-) ;-)
No, I think it's about something a bit more serious.
S+@%. Oh. Sorry.
You want to sell your kidney?
I'd say that depends on how you're broken down and who you're sold to. I promise you that healthy, transplantable organs are worth considerably more than $4.18.
To respond the original post:
Every moment changes you. Continuity is an illusion of varying validity. I know I'm not the same person I was 5 years ago. But at what point did I cease to be that person? There was no point. At any two consecutive moments, I was the same person, but the sum total of those changes was a new person, albiet one with the memories of the former.
It's a sticky question. Why do we call a river by the same name on different days? Its path must have changed some through erosion, but it's not even the same water it was the previous day!
Greek philosphers debated this point to death. Zeno (of the paradox) argued that there was no thing as change, because then continuity would be impossible.
Sudden, large changes upset the illusion of continuity. This is both why life-changing events are upsetting, and why when meeting someone after a long absence they seem so different. If something is strongly different than our last reference, we consider it different, even if there should be continuity.
Personally, I think the mind, the brain and its memories and specific chemistries, is the closest we can come to identifying a unique human being. An organ transplant, or the loss of an organ, does not change who a person is. Even in the case of brain damage, or a stroke, memories are usually largely intact, even if personality changes. It is the same person still, just having been changed by a traumatic event, no different than change over time experienced all at once.
As for the clone thing, there is no issue at all. My mother and my aunt are identical twins. Genetically speaking, they are clones. Artifical clones would suffer no worse than twins. They still would have separate minds and memories, therefore being separate people.
(I think that in the most literal level, that is, with the illusions of continuity and causality stripped away, we are just moist robots. But you can't live by those terms, so I accept the comforting illusions.)
Ross convinced me -- I am a brain in a jar, and all of you are all part of my sensory deprivation hallucination.
Yes, I realize that was probably not what he was trying to convince anyone of, let alone me, but this is the effect his post had on me.
Being my hallucination, you should all be nicer to me, put me in charge of everything, and shower me with riches and women.
.....
.....
.....
Still waiting.....
Ross convinced me -- I am a brain in a jar, and all of you are all part of my sensory deprivation hallucination.
Yes, I realize that was probably not what he was trying to convince anyone of, let alone me, but this is the effect his post had on me.
Being my hallucination, you should all be nicer to me, put me in charge of everything, and shower me with riches and women.
.....
.....
.....
Still waiting.....
I'm sorry, your call has been forwarded to your self-loathing's voice messaging system.
Being showered with wealth and women sounds like it would hurt.
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to answer the question in the title (but doesn't necessarily answer the post itself) if we broke down our bodies into the elements they are comprised of we would be worth about $18 and some change. so is a person worth more than $18Huh. I thought it was worth $4.18.
$42 USD and a herring...
...
...
...get it?
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Ross convinced me -- I am a brain in a jar, and all of you are all part of my sensory deprivation hallucination.
Yes, I realize that was probably not what he was trying to convince anyone of, let alone me, but this is the effect his post had on me.
Being my hallucination, you should all be nicer to me, put me in charge of everything, and shower me with riches and women.
.....
.....
.....
Still waiting.....
Hey, maybe we tried that, but your mind couldn't take it...
Don’t worry, by the way. Before I asked the question, I already had my answer. I just wanted to know how everyone else arrived at his or hers.
heaven is a chocolate choochoo train with a monkey conductor
It is? Where do I sign up?
None of you are real.
Don’t worry, by the way. Before I asked the question, I already had my answer. I just wanted to know how everyone else arrived at his or hers.
Empiricism and analysis; how else would you arrive at an answer?
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I think we're all constantly being reinvented by our circumstances - be they emotional or physical. We try to retain or change our identity in the face of a rapidly changing reality - based on our opinions of ourselves. I know I am not the person I was ten years ago. Not necessarily better or worse. Probably both.
The craziest thing I ever saw, and the thing that sealed the deal for me, was watching my grandmother go through advanced alzheimer's. By the end, she was not the woman I wanted to remember as my grandmother. Seeing that kind of thing really changes a person. It changed my own conception of self. Since then, I can honestly say that I have battled to make my own memories of her be the person I knew when I was 15, and not the person I knew when I was 25.
But I guess really her identity spans all the people she was over the course of her life. I have a very hard time placing any faith in the notion that one of those vestiges is smiling down on me from the pearly gates today. Particularly the 50+ year old vestige I most want to remember. I bet if she were asked, that's not the form she would choose for herself in an afterlife. She'd probably choose someone I never even knew.
So I guess that places me in the meat robot camp. It doesn't (at least in my mind) preclude belief in something larger than ourselves, but it certainly shoots the christian notion of soul (as I understand it) right in the ass.
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Ross convinced me -- I am a brain in a jar, and all of you are all part of my sensory deprivation hallucination.
Yes, I realize that was probably not what he was trying to convince anyone of, let alone me, but this is the effect his post had on me.
Being my hallucination, you should all be nicer to me, put me in charge of everything, and shower me with riches and women.
.....
.....
.....
Still waiting.....
Hey, maybe we tried that, but your mind couldn't take it...
** spoiler omitted **
"The Eyes are magic cusps," stated the older of the fishermen in a grudging voice. "They afford a view of the Overworld; why should not the owners behave as lords? So will I when Radkuth Vomin dies, for I inherit his eyes!"
"Indeed!" exclaimed Cugel, marvelling. "Can these magic cusps be detached at will and transferred as the owner sees fit?""They can, but who would exchange the Overworld for this?" The fisherman swung his arm around the dreary landscape. "I have toiled long and at last it is my turn to taste the delights of the Overworld. After this there is nothing and the only peril is death through a surfeit of bliss."
- Jack Vance, The Eyes of the Overworld
The Op presents a lot of questions that seem to be thematically linked to what the philosophy kids refer to as “the personal identity” problem. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ( http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/ ) is a good place to start looking at the more famous answers to these sets of problems. My personal take is that a lot of these questions resolve when one realizes that personal identity is not a static object, but rather a process. The individual is continually changing and adjusting based on experiential data in conjunction with genetic predispositions. Even with behavioral patterns there exists some slight shifting in even the most habitual individuals. Much like winter comes every year though each one is different.
Chris Sanders
(Warehouse Monkey)
This question is taken up in a very intriguing and readable manner by Hans Moravec .
The idea of taking a human, and then replacing each part with a machine (as technology allows) to see if there is a point at which we cannot go beyond is fascinating.
Check out his books on Amazon, and then go check them out of your library and read them.
(rolls in, bounces, does a spin, and rolls out)
(rolls in, bounces, does a spin, and rolls out)
I know Cosmo has sekrit parts he keeps hidden in a box.
Now, we just need to find the box..
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This question is taken up in a very intriguing and readable manner by Hans Moravec .
The idea of taking a human, and then replacing each part with a machine (as technology allows) to see if there is a point at which we cannot go beyond is fascinating.
Check out his books on Amazon, and then go check them out of your library and read them.
Roadmarks by Roger Zelazney. Same Idea. Just done very interestingly. At least I think it was Roadmarks. Might have been Lord of Light. Anyway this guy when he needs to fight creates a borg body with a single bit of flesh on it for DNA to reconstruct his body when he is done fighting.
Meat robot here. Our consciousnesses are nothing more than brain function.
We spent as few thousand years looking for some magic stuff of life, but we found neurology instead.
Pretty cool for stellar effluvia, really.
You Prime humanoids are so darn odd. Meat or soul? Meh, we outsiders are all one in the same.