Are Persons Just an Illusion? - Neuroscience and philosophy clash.

Reason ^ | April 27, 2007 | Ronald Bailey

[bill1952]

"knowing that one part of our biological system for identifying persons is automatically entrained and subject to error should make us more cognizant of its operation and more skeptical of its output as we engage in the countless moral decisions we make each day."

LOL! Yeah, right.

[BallyBill]

Uh, What?

[Bigg Red]

Dang! I remember getting into stupid conversations like this when I was 19 and in college. It’s hard to believe that people actually make a career out of such stuff.

[AnAmericanMother]

As dear Doctor Johnson said many years ago in response to Bishop Berkeley's similar thesis (there is nothing new under the sun) . . . "I refute it thus!" and kicked a stone.

I would pay to see a free-for-all between this raft of idiots and Dr. Sam. He could demolish them without even breaking a sweat, in between bites of his supper at the "Mitre".

[xp38]

It is the extraordinary circumstances that modern medicine engenders -- embryos in Petri dishes, severe Alzheimer's patients, anencephalic newborns, early fetuses, and patients in persistent vegetative state - that are problematic for many people.

Um...those would the anti life people whose basic solution is kill them.

[em2vn]

“Are Persons Just an Illusion? - Neuroscience and philosophy clash.”
Isn’t the plural of person, people?

[Just another Joe]

Philosophy ping?

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Dictionary Johnson has long been one of my heros...

[Socratic]

Every night when I go to sleep I become a non-person. I guess that would be the ethical time to kill me.

[AnAmericanMother]

I just finished re-reading Boswell's great Biography for the second time. What a splendid book! You really feel as though you are living in 18th century London and rubbing shoulders with the good Doctor and all his friends.

I imagine he was a little difficult to get along with, but worth the trouble.

[AnAmericanMother]

But if you're dreaming, aren't you still a person?

And how would the observer know when it was "ethical" to strike the blow?

[irish guard]

I think I am, therefore I am.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

I suspect he was at times very difficult for the thin skinned to get along with!

I discovered Boswell’s Life of Johnson when I was 17. Made a big impression on me.

[xmission]

Harry Reid, Pelosi etc., are all just nightmares

[Fitzcarraldo]

We will most likely conclude that personhood is a continuum, not an all or nothing property.

Sounds like another way for an elite to calculate their own superiority.

[AnAmericanMother]

I think he must have had de la Tourette's (and OCD as well), plus with the gout and all the effects of chronic tuberculosis, as well as his near-blindness and intermittent depression, he certainly had reason to be a bit testy.

I admire him very much because he overcame his obvious physical disabilities and his poverty by sheer force of intellectual power, yet remained withal a moral and charitable man. And he was kind as well. I would have liked to meet him, just to give him a courtesy and thank him for his Dictionary!

[wentali]

Are Persons Just an Illusion?

No, it's real.
A 70kg body would have 7 x 10^27 atoms, 'frozen out' and assembled from the Particle Continuum of the Universe. To become the most powerful Force there ever was, a true Master of the Universe.

[NonValueAdded]

Bomb#20: In the beginning, there was darkness. And the darkness was without form, and void.

Boiler: What the hell is he talking about?

Bomb#20: And in addition to the darkness there was also me. And I moved upon the face of the darkness. And I saw that I was alone. Let there be light.

[TASMANIANRED]

You can get the same quality of discussion after eating a couple of bowls of chili.

Lotta hot air, very little of value.