peguy@ratex.UUCP (Peguy) (04/27/85)
A great philosophy is not one which is never defeated. But a petty
philosophy is always one which will not fight. A great philosophy is not a
philosophy without reproach; it is a philosophy without fear.
Charles Pierre Peguydaemon@mit-hermes.ARPA (The devil himself) (07/29/85)
From ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@Berkeley Sun Jul 28 18:40:18 1985
Received: from UCB-VAX.ARPA (ucb-vax.arpa.ARPA) by MIT-HERMES.ARPA (4.12/4.8)
id AA21966; Sun, 28 Jul 85 18:40:18 edt
Received: from ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (ucbjade.ARPA) by UCB-VAX.ARPA (4.24/5.3)
id AA07122; Sun, 28 Jul 85 15:33:54 pdt
Received: from UCBVAX.ARPA
by ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (4.19/4.36.1)
id AA04832; Sun, 28 Jul 85 15:38:53 pdt
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 85 15:38:51 pdt
From: ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@Berkeley
Message-Id: <8507282238.AA04832@ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA>
Apparently-To: <net-philosophy-post@mit-hermes.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Indeterminism
References: <1213@sjuvax.UUCP>
Hurrah for some real light on this whole free-unfree will debate. It should
have been clear from the start that the more vehement participants of this
exchange haven't been addressing each others' issues at all. Could I suggest
to the "free willers" that if they want to defuse Rich Rosen's opposition, they
should just follow his demands and use different terminology? Calling
the object of inquiry "uncoerced choice" instead of "free will" would not give
Rich any reason to drag out his dictionary definitions.
-
Chris Roberson <robchrj@yalevmx.BITNET>
Calhoun College, Yale Universitydaemon@mit-hermes.ARPA (The devil himself) (07/29/85)
From ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@Berkeley Mon Jul 29 11:17:32 1985 Received: from UCB-VAX.ARPA (ucb-vax.arpa.ARPA) by MIT-HERMES.ARPA (4.12/4.8) id AA27753; Mon, 29 Jul 85 11:17:32 edt Received: from ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (ucbjade.ARPA) by UCB-VAX.ARPA (4.24/5.3) id AA20268; Mon, 29 Jul 85 08:11:04 pdt Received: from UCBVAX.ARPA by ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (4.19/4.36.1) id AA18494; Mon, 29 Jul 85 08:15:59 pdt Date: Mon, 29 Jul 85 08:15:57 pdt From: ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@Berkeley Message-Id: <8507291515.AA18494@ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> Apparently-To: <net-philosophy-post@mit-hermes.ARPA> Subject: Re: Puritan morality (legal drinking age) References: <524@gargoyle.UUCP> > One possible reason colleges are banning alcohol is that alcohol abuse is now > a very widespread problem among students, and the colleges don't want to > foster the problem in any way. This seems sensible enough, considering that they're only obeying the law. I would be hard pressed to come up with a viable excuse for colleges to allow their students to *break* the law with impunity. - > To those of you who object to the 21 drinking age: If you can't enjoy your > college years and the company of your friends without alcohol or other > drugs, you are setting yourself up for serious problems later on. If you > think it's tough being 20 and dry, wait till you're 40 and alcoholic. This, on the other hand, is a very good example of the "puritan" (as opposed to Puritan) morality that we're talking about. Ignoring the political questions the law raises (why can I own all the guns I want at 18 but not have a glass of wine with dinner until 21?), we should ask: does the use of alcohol or other drugs lead inexorably to addiction/alcoholism/serious problems? Does the desire to use alcohol/marijuana/Valium imply that one can't be happy at all without them? Does that desire imply weakness of will or moral turpitude? Is the use of alcohol/drugs evil, or merely unwise, or both, or neither? I, for one, intend to be neither dry now nor alcoholic later. Chris Roberson <robchrj@yalevmx.BITNET> Calhoun College, Yale University "What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?"
rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (07/31/85)
> Could I suggest to the > "free willers" that if they want to defuse Rich Rosen's opposition, they > should just follow his demands and use different terminology? Calling > the object of inquiry "uncoerced choice" instead of "free will" would not > give Rich any reason to drag out his dictionary definitions. > - > Chris Roberson <robchrj@yalevmx.BITNET> > Calhoun College, Yale University I must be a horrible person for trying to ensure that when two people use a term in a conversation, they are both talking about the same thing. Bad, bad Rich! No more dragging out definitions, instead I'll talk about free will (using, not the meaning I've understood which seems to be a meaning shared with dictionary definitions and philosophical systems, but my own meaning, "hot fudge sauce"), and Paul (or someone else) can talk about free will (using their definition that describes something entirely different), and we can both "agree" that free will exists. Then, they can use their definition of god (a supreme being which created the universe) and I can use mine (a shoebox with a bright red stripe along the side), and we can again both "agree" that god exists. Next, I can apply the word "unicorn" to apply to ALL horses, and "prove" that unicorns exist... No wonder philosophers can't agree on anything. They have no idea what the next philosopher is talking about. Perhaps they could learn a little something about rigorous definition before engagin in discussion or analysis. Two people can't analyze a phenomenon and come to conclusions if they're both operating on different notions of what the phenomenon is. -- Anything's possible, but only a few things actually happen. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr
daemon@mit-hermes.ARPA (The devil himself) (08/01/85)
From ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@Berkeley Thu Aug 1 16:42:29 1985 Received: from UCB-VAX.ARPA (ucb-vax.arpa.ARPA) by MIT-HERMES.ARPA (4.12/4.8) id AA08351; Thu, 1 Aug 85 16:42:29 edt Received: from ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (ucbjade.ARPA) by UCB-VAX.ARPA (4.24/5.3) id AA00381; Thu, 1 Aug 85 13:41:12 pdt Received: from UCBVAX.ARPA by ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (4.19/4.36.1) id AA00152; Thu, 1 Aug 85 12:46:21 pdt Date: Thu, 1 Aug 85 12:46:19 pdt From: ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@Berkeley Message-Id: <8508011946.AA00152@ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> Apparently-To: <net-philosophy-post@mit-hermes.ARPA> Hi--are you all receiving my memos? I'm sending to the net through an ARPA mailing forwarder and I want to be sure that I'm getting through. Thank you, C. J. Roberson Bleakness. . . desolation. . . plastic forks. . .
daemon@mit-hermes.ARPA (The devil himself) (08/02/85)
From ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@Berkeley Thu Aug 1 17:15:25 1985 Received: from UCB-VAX.ARPA (ucb-vax.arpa.ARPA) by MIT-HERMES.ARPA (4.12/4.8) id AA08579; Thu, 1 Aug 85 17:15:25 edt Received: from ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (ucbjade.ARPA) by UCB-VAX.ARPA (4.24/5.3) id AA02892; Thu, 1 Aug 85 12:16:03 pdt Received: from UCBVAX.ARPA by ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (4.19/4.36.1) id AA29315; Thu, 1 Aug 85 12:05:01 pdt Date: Thu, 1 Aug 85 12:04:55 pdt From: ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@Berkeley Message-Id: <8508011905.AA29315@ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> Apparently-To: <net-philosophy-post@mit-hermes.ARPA> Subject: Re: an "irrelevant lie" References: <1213@jsuvax.UUCP>, <243@frog.UUCP> >> The libertarian assents to claim (2) -- and so is also an 'incompatibilist' >> -- but rejects claim (1) in favor of an acausal will, or something of the >> sort. [MOODY] > Please stick to claims that are relevant and that you can suport. Perhaps > some libertarians fit your claim, but I don't, and having met many > libertarians I still can say I haven't met one who does. I did not observe > anyone who brought up libertarians or libertarianism during the argument - > on free will. Whatever your purpose was, it could not have been honorable, > or anything or the sort. The rest of your posting did not deserve your > drivel. [HUDSON] Forgive me for stating the obvious, but Moody was not discussing libertarians of the political variety. He was using the word 'libertarian' to refer to people who believe in free will--that is, liberty. Considering the context of the discussion, his usage was not entirely improper; but evidently people should avoid it in the future, as it may lead to confusion again. My advice to David Hudson: think first, insult later. If you had paid more attention, it would have been clear that Moody did not intend to say anything about you or your political allies. Chris Roberson <robchrj@yalevmx.BITNET> Calhoun College, Yale University If our behavior is strict, we do not need fun.
bjanz@watarts.UUCP (Bruce Janz) (08/02/85)
In article <1364@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes: >No wonder philosophers can't agree on anything. They have no idea what >the next philosopher is talking about. Perhaps they could learn a little >something about rigorous definition before engagin in discussion or analysis. >Two people can't analyze a phenomenon and come to conclusions if they're >both operating on different notions of what the phenomenon is. Actually, according to Quine and his doctrine of ontological relativity, we will be hard pressed to agree on anything anyway, dictionary or not, because of the double relativity involved. . . .the ontological import of a theory can be determined only relative to some further theory or language (itself taken at face value) and relative to some choice of how to translate or interpret the former in terms of the latter. [G. Romanos, _Quine_and_Analytic_Philosophy_, p. 43] (this is quite a good summary of Quine's thought) In normal life this doesn't matter much, but for philosophers it does. Quine's example is of trying to discover a native's word for rabbit. You point at a rabbit, and he says "gavagai", and you assume that there is a one-to-one correspondance between rabbit and gavagai. However, you really don't know whether the native is referring to the rabbit, an undetached rabbit part, or a rabbit stage, because you don't know his ontology. In fact, we will always run into Aristotle's third man problem, since there is never something to which we can objectively appeal for our definition -- it always relies on some prior agreement on language. Thus, you can talk all you want about agreeing on definitions for free will, but if Quine is correct (and I think he is), it will still only be a provisional agreement, based on some prior agreement on language, which is based on an agreement before that (and so on, and so on . . .). Quine talks about this in several essays in _From_A_Logical_Point_of_View_ (like "On What There Is" and "Two Dogmas of Empiricism"), and especially in the essay "Ontological Relativity", in _Ontological_Relativity_And_Other _Essays_. Sorry to break into your debate on free will, but I thought something new needed to be added to this group. -- Reality is for those who have no imagination. . . watmath!watarts!bjanz OR watmath!watdcs!bbjanz
ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (08/03/85)
>I must be a horrible person for trying to ensure that when two people use >a term in a conversation, they are both talking about the same thing. >Bad, bad Rich! But your definition of `free' is so strange! I most certainly agree with you that nobody can be TOTALLY free of ALL INFLUENCE, except for perhaps the most anarchic mystics and wild residents of the bozone. No argument whatsover. But `relatively free' IS a meaningful term, unlike `relatively pregnant'. Freedom is NOT an on/off situation. Even physicists speak of `degrees of freedom'. SMASH CAUSALITY!!! Strikes at the source of daily confusion Eliminates ignorant fantasy Scrubbing your senses free of illusion Enjoy the taste of reality Reality Calypso Benjamin Bunny Faces Reality -- Randy Hann -michael
daemon@mit-hermes.ARPA (The devil himself) (08/05/85)
From ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@Berkeley Sun Aug 4 18:28:26 1985 Received: from UCB-VAX.ARPA (ucb-vax.arpa.ARPA) by MIT-HERMES.ARPA (4.12/4.8) id AA09618; Sun, 4 Aug 85 18:28:26 edt Received: from ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (ucbjade.ARPA) by UCB-VAX.ARPA (4.24/5.3) id AA16164; Sun, 4 Aug 85 15:26:52 pdt Received: from UCBVAX.ARPA by ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (4.19/4.36.2) id AA03993; Sun, 4 Aug 85 15:26:37 pdt Date: Sun, 4 Aug 85 15:26:36 pdt From: ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@Berkeley Message-Id: <8508042226.AA03993@ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> Apparently-To: <net-philosophy-post@mit-hermes.ARPA> Hi everybody--are you receiving my postings? I can't tell. C. J. Roberson
daemon@mit-hermes.ARPA (The devil himself) (08/06/85)
From ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@Berkeley Tue Aug 6 15:49:11 1985 Received: from UCB-VAX.ARPA (ucb-vax.arpa.ARPA) by MIT-HERMES.ARPA (4.12/4.8) id AA26583; Tue, 6 Aug 85 15:49:11 edt Received: from ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (ucbjade.ARPA) by UCB-VAX.ARPA (4.24/5.3) id AA03505; Tue, 6 Aug 85 12:47:49 pdt Received: from UCBVAX.ARPA by ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (4.19/4.36.2) id AA14407; Tue, 6 Aug 85 12:47:30 pdt Date: Tue, 6 Aug 85 12:47:28 pdt From: ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@Berkeley Message-Id: <8508061947.AA14407@ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> Apparently-To: <net-philosophy-post@mit-hermes.ARPA> References: <1364@pyuxd.UUCP> > I must be a horrible person for trying to ensure that when two people use a > term in a conversation, they are both talking about the same thing. Bad, > bad Rich! No more dragging out definitions. . . Obviously, I've been misunderstood. My point was that we've all understood Rich's objections to the concept of absolute free will for quite some time. It is clear that Rich and Paul Torek and others are not discussing the same thing. It might be helpful to terminate this endless debate by conceding a victory - (of sorts) to Rich by abandoning the terminology he objects to. That's all... Chris Roberson <robchrj@yalevmx.BITNET> Calhoun College, Yale University ---- Vienne la nuit Sonne l'heure Les jours s'en vont Je demeure
mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) (08/07/85)
> Sorry to break into your debate on free will, but I thought something new > needed to be added to this group. > > > -- > > > watmath!watarts!bjanz OR watmath!watdcs!bbjanz > > Hear hear! Anyone else for shoving that argument into net.philosophy.freewill and leaving this parent newsgroup open for other things? -- -- Mitch Marks @ UChicago ...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar
daemon@mit-hermes.ARPA (The devil himself) (08/07/85)
From ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@Berkeley Wed Aug 7 15:14:26 1985 Received: from UCB-VAX.ARPA (ucb-vax.arpa.ARPA) by MIT-HERMES.ARPA (4.12/4.8) id AA05062; Wed, 7 Aug 85 15:14:26 edt Received: from ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (ucbjade.ARPA) by UCB-VAX.ARPA (4.24/5.3) id AA00809; Wed, 7 Aug 85 12:12:15 pdt Received: from UCBVAX.ARPA by ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (4.19/4.36.2) id AA08290; Wed, 7 Aug 85 11:41:53 pdt Date: Wed, 7 Aug 85 11:41:49 pdt From: ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@Berkeley Message-Id: <8508071841.AA08290@ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> Apparently-To: <net-philosophy-post@mit-hermes.ARPA> References: <3484@decwrl.UUCP> > What I was trying to demonstrate is how an unmeasurable influence can affect > your behaviour. This is a good example of a decision that has a high degree > of freedom. It's a very good example, because it pinpoints exactly where Rich Rosen and his opponents have been clashing. Rich would have us believe that there is no such thing as "free" will because the brain, like anything else, is part of the system of cause and effect; hence our decisions are caused, not free. This- is not really true, since our brains operate on a scale that can be affected by random quantum events. This probably isn't much consolation to the people (whether or not they are represented on the net) who would like to believe in absolute autonomy of the will, a will neither caused nor random. It remains to be shown that the absence of determinism means anything other than the presence of randomness. Chris Roberson <robchrj@yalevmx.BITNET> Calhoun College, Yale University ---- They collapsed....like nuns in the street....they had no teen appeal!
daemon@mit-hermes.ARPA (The devil himself) (08/17/85)
From ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@UCB-VAX.BERKELEY.EDU Fri Aug 16 18:12:30 1985 Received: from UCB-VAX.BERKELEY.EDU (ucb-vax.arpa.ARPA) by MIT-HERMES.ARPA (4.12/4.8) id AA02259; Fri, 16 Aug 85 18:12:30 edt Received: from ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (JADE.BERKELEY.EDU) by UCB-VAX.BERKELEY.EDU (5.5/1.2) id AA13033; Fri, 16 Aug 85 15:10:14 PDT Received: from UCBVAX.ARPA by ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (4.19/4.36.2) id AA01860; Fri, 16 Aug 85 15:09:46 pdt Date: Fri, 16 Aug 85 15:09:45 pdt From: ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@UCB-VAX.BERKELEY.EDU Message-Id: <8508162209.AA01860@ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> Apparently-To: <net-philosophy-post@mit-hermes.ARPA> Subject: Re: A cross-posting request References: <258@frog.UUCP>, <1063@ihlpg.UUCP> >> 2) Faith (an idiotic part) is the essence of >> religion. (Faith is the practice of claiming >> truth without evidence. I am not concerned >> with other meanings of the word, like "trust".) > By your definition, then, Christianity is not a religion. > (I'm using Christianity for the sake of sticking to what I know.) Evidence > for my assertion internal to the system: in I Corinthians, Paul talks about - > the resurrection of Jesus, because some people were going into the church > and claiming that there was no resurrection of the dead, and not even Jesus > rose from the dead. > Paul didn't say, believe because I said so. He didn't say, > it's written on the sky, and if you can't read it, it's because you don't > have enough of this mythical 'faith.' He gave what, in your definition, is a > completely NON-religious answer: "There are nearly 500 living witnesses to > the public death and equally public post-resurrection appearances of Jesus; > go and ask *them* what *they* saw!" The first time I encountered this argument was in a book by someone (I forget the name) who appears to be in charge of Apologetics for the Campus Crusade for Christ. He phrased the argument in very much the same way, and also gave an analogy to courtroom method. Here are twelve people who along with many others saw Jesus executed in a public place; and yet they claim that they have seen him alive. Other people have seen him alive too. Are we going to claim that they are all crazy, or lying? Is this not good, incontrovertible evidence for the actual resurrection of Jesus? This doesn't require 'faith': it's eyewitness evidence, just like the eyewitness evidence that is used to determine the truth every day in courts of law. I'll confess I was dumbfounded for a couple of days after this. It's one thing to say that the Bible, like any text, can be mistaken; but it's another to say that hundreds of people who claim that they'd seen a miracle like this could be lying or mistaken. After all, as he said, we believe a lot of stranger things on the basis of one eyewitness, or just because some scientist published it in a journal. I thought for a while that I'd just been logically forced to join the Campus Crusade for Christ until it occurred to me exactly what sort of eyewitness we were talking about. Jesus and his disciples lived in Israel under the Roman occupation. This is well known, but people don't always understand what it implies. Israel at the time was seething with rebellion. Jewish nationalist movements and conspiracies were everywhere. And self-proclaimed messiahs were everywhere. Less than fifty years after Jesus died, one such messiah, Manahem, led a rebellion that eventually led to the destruction of the Temple and the mass suicide at Masada. And in 132, Bar Kochva (Son of a Star) managed to revolt and set up an independent Jewish state that lasted for three years until the Romans crushed it and instituted the Diaspora. To sum up: the Jews at that time were primed and ready for a messiah to appear. They thought that John the Baptist was the Messiah (remember how the crowds kept asking if Jesus was actually John?), they thought that Jesus was the Messiah; there were at least five other messiahs executed by Rome between 40 B.C. and 73 A.D. In such a time of tumult, fanaticism, and social unrest, perhaps it would be wise to take "eyewitness reports" with a grain of salt. To take a modern example: do any of you know members of the Unification Church? If you do, can you imagine how many of them would be willing to swear to miracles that they had seen performed before their very eyes? Or perhaps you remember that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a famous and well-respected psychologist, went on record as saying that she had had sexual intercourse with spirits from another plane of existence. I don't mean to equate these with Christian teachings; I just want to point out that people have seen and said some pretty strange things in the past. It's hard to say that we should believe Paul and the others without asking why we shouldn't also pay attention to the many miracles and auguries of, say, pagan times. And to complete the analogy to legal procedure: I can think of few courts of law that would rule that someone had been raised from the dead, even with the testimony of five hundred witnesses. (Especially if those witnesses all had strong religious and political motives to have seen what they claimed to see.) Incidentally, on the question of faith: even if we grant that Jesus said and did what the gospels say, and that he was raised from the dead, there is still the question of what it all means. Consider the following hypothesis: there is an all-powerful Evil Deity who created us so he could watch us suffer. He resurrected Jesus and gave his word such veracity so that Christians would go into the next world all hopeful and be even more remorseful when they discovered that they had been wrong all along. Christianity is just something to make us more miserable in the long run. Of course I don't believe this, but it is logically consistent with the facts. And I feel compelled to point out that even though both Christianity and the Evil Deity are possible, no one wants to believe in the Evil Deity. In fact, I don't know of any religion that proclaims that we will pass through this vale of tears in order to get to a worse place. Chris Roberson <robchrj@yalevmx.BITNET> Calhoun College, Yale University ---- ..in a grip-like vise...
daemon@mit-hermes.ARPA (The devil himself) (08/17/85)
From ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@UCB-VAX.BERKELEY.EDU Fri Aug 16 18:18:01 1985 Received: from UCB-VAX.BERKELEY.EDU (ucb-vax.arpa.ARPA) by MIT-HERMES.ARPA (4.12/4.8) id AA02340; Fri, 16 Aug 85 18:18:01 edt Received: from ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (JADE.BERKELEY.EDU) by UCB-VAX.BERKELEY.EDU (5.5/1.2) id AA12889; Fri, 16 Aug 85 15:03:55 PDT Received: from UCBVAX.ARPA by ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (4.19/4.36.2) id AA01667; Fri, 16 Aug 85 15:03:29 pdt Date: Fri, 16 Aug 85 15:03:27 pdt From: ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@UCB-VAX.BERKELEY.EDU Message-Id: <8508162203.AA01667@ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> Apparently-To: <net-philosophy-post@mit-hermes.ARPA> Subject: Occam (?) I've seen a lot of references to Occam, Occam's razor, etc., lately. Shouldn't that be 'Ockham,' as in William of Ockham? Christopher Roberson Calhoun College, Yale University ---- Osmonds! You are all Osmonds! Throwing up on a freeway at dawn!
daemon@mit-hermes.ARPA (The devil himself) (08/17/85)
From ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@UCB-VAX.BERKELEY.EDU Fri Aug 16 18:46:06 1985 Received: from UCB-VAX.BERKELEY.EDU (ucb-vax.arpa.ARPA) by MIT-HERMES.ARPA (4.12/4.8) id AA02469; Fri, 16 Aug 85 18:46:06 edt Received: from ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (JADE.BERKELEY.EDU) by UCB-VAX.BERKELEY.EDU (5.5/1.2) id AA12924; Fri, 16 Aug 85 15:05:02 PDT Received: from UCBVAX.ARPA by ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (4.19/4.36.2) id AA01702; Fri, 16 Aug 85 15:04:34 pdt Date: Fri, 16 Aug 85 15:04:32 pdt From: ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@UCB-VAX.BERKELEY.EDU Message-Id: <8508162204.AA01702@ucbjade.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> Apparently-To: <net-philosophy-post@mit-hermes.ARPA> Subject: Re: Souls References: <1220@umcp-cs.UUCP> > Wrong, wrong, wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How about NOTHING survives???? How about > we die completely? Why is there this need for continuity? That's precisely > the point! It's YOUR assumption that life after death implies survival of > death. On what metaphysical basis do you intend to prove this? > > Charley Wingate I don't have any problem with 'nothing survives'; I don't even have a problem with a Christian proclaiming that 'nothing survives' (see Charles Hartshorne for a Christian view of mortality -- incidentally, are you a Unitarian, Charley? Just curious); but I do wonder what 'life after death' means if it doesn't mean that we survive death. Could you please explain further? Christopher Roberson Calhoun College, Yale University ---- ..it's the death that's worse than fate...
daemon@mit-hermes.ARPA (The devil himself) (08/26/85)
From ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@Berkeley Sun Aug 25 19:54:35 1985 Received: from UCB-VAX.ARPA (ucb-vax.arpa.ARPA) by MIT-HERMES.ARPA (4.12/4.8) id AA16755; Sun, 25 Aug 85 19:54:35 edt Received: from ucbjade.Berkeley.Edu (ucbjade.ARPA) by UCB-VAX.ARPA (4.24/5.3) id AA13486; Sun, 25 Aug 85 16:49:15 pdt Received: from UCBVAX.ARPA by ucbjade.Berkeley.Edu (4.19/4.38.1) id AA06261; Sun, 25 Aug 85 16:51:40 pdt Date: Sun, 25 Aug 85 16:51:38 pdt From: ROBCHRJ%YALEVMX.BITNET@Berkeley Message-Id: <8508252351.AA06261@ucbjade.Berkeley.Edu> Apparently-To: <net-philosophy-post@mit-hermes.ARPA> Subject: Continuity of life and the afterlife References: <588@utastro.UUCP> <1357@umcp-cs.UUCP> <592@utastro.UUCP> <483@spar.UUCP> <599@utastro.UUCP> [Houlihan] >> 1) Let A be life before death, and B life after death, >> 2) we have X at A where X is the 'we' in 'we are resurrected' >> 3) we have X at B where X is the 'we' in 'we are resurrected' >> >>These assumptions are implicit in the resurrection claim. These are not >>being challenged here. Now X forms an uninterrupted succession, therefore >>it is continuous. As has been pointed out several times, this is not so. Let me put this in terms perhaps a bit more appropriate to the discussion of life after death: Assume that there is a supernatural being ("God") capable of a lot of things that are at present deemed impossible (reversing entropy, etc.). Assume that Jane Doe is dying. If at the moment of her death, God memorizes the positions of every atom in her body, he can (we assume) recreate that same body at some point in the future. If in the year 80,000, God does so, and prevents her from dying this time, restores health, youth, etc. without destroying her memory, is she the same Jane Doe? If we agree that this is in fact Jane Doe, then her life is not continuous, and the only thing that is continuous between her death and her rebirth is the *information* about her bodily makeup that is in God's mind. Hence we do not need to assume that there is any such thing as a soul, unless you want to call that information Jane's soul. Of course, the assumptions made in the argument are (at least) in need of substantiation. But I think it can be granted that resurrection of this sort would not require any such entity as the soul to take place. Christopher Roberson Calhoun College, Yale University ---- YOW!!